Vigil: Verity Fassbinder Book 1 (35 page)

‘Where is it?’ asked another, Emerald.

‘You’re going to have to be more specific. I’m looking for quite a few things at this point in time. How about a hint.’

‘The double-winged.’

I paused; that was a new one on me. ‘Yep, looking for a lot of things, me, but that’s not one of them.’

Again with the shaking, and this time I cried, ‘Honestly, I don’t know!’ Although I was beginning to have a suspicion; I just
wanted them to say it. ‘What
is
the double-winged? And use small words.’

‘The child. The child of an angel and a wingèd whore.’

‘That’s very judgemental.’ I lifted a finger to my minder. ‘And do
not
shake me again. It’s lost its appeal.’

‘They speak of you – the tribes here. They say you keep the peace, keep a vigil.’

Keep the peace seemed like a bit of a stretch, but my current lack of sleep could very well be translated into a vigil. ‘Sure,
why not?

‘They say you find lost things.’

‘Don’t believe everything you hear. Half the time I can’t find a matching pair of socks.’ I surveyed the wall of cold beauty
towering above me. They were near identical, and I didn’t imagine the Arch would want to look like one of the herd. ‘Where’s
your leader?’

‘The Archangel will not show himself to the likes of you,’ Amethyst boomed.

‘But he’s around.’ I smiled, trying to pick out a spot where the air shifted and broke a little, a sign of something standing
just on the other side of perception. ‘I bet he is, but he prefers to send his lackeys.’

‘The Archangel will not speak to you,’ said Topaz.

‘You are
beneath
us,’ said Amethyst.

‘Which one’s the local boy?’ I hoped fervently that they couldn’t smell Tobit on me. We’d been in the same house for more
than twenty-four hours and I wondered how much might have rubbed off. I had no idea how keen an angel’s sense of smell might
be.

The one who still held me lifted his chin in the slightest acknowledgement.

‘Shame on you,’ I said, ‘getting dazzled by these new kids. Turning on your city as if it hasn’t fed you, nurtured you, for
all these years.’

‘The Arch will bring us home,’ he said, but there was a faint blush on his marble-perfect cheek.

‘At what cost?’

And he turned away. He might feel guilty, but he was beyond caring; whatever loyalty he’d had to Brisneyland was gone. They
were all lonely and heartsick and lost without their parent; they
wanted to find him, no matter what. Everyone and anything else was just collateral damage.

On a hunch I said, ‘You’re planning to break the sky?’

To a man – to an
angel
– they looked shocked. They were so used to being the bringers of tidings that they hadn’t considered that others might know
what was going on. Not that I really did, but I was doing my best to work it out on the fly. Did Tobit know what they were
planning? Did he know more than he’d told me, or was he just afraid they were hunting his daughter to wipe her out? I had
him down for a wimp, but I didn’t think he was like these
things
.

‘The Arch will open the way and take us home. The double-winged is the doorway,’ said the Emerald angel, then corrected himself.
‘The key. We will bask in the glory of His face once more.’

I didn’t like the sound of that, even though I didn’t feel any more illuminated. ‘You killed the sirens because you’re looking
for your key? Which one of you did it?’

‘We all had that honour,’ said Ruby.

I felt ill at the idea of those large hands tearing at Teles and Raidne, ripping feathers and flesh and wings. I thought of
Serena, her heart stopped in her chest, then thrown off a building like so much rubbish, all because these guys were homesick.

‘Honour?’ I struggled, and the Brisbane angel let me go. I didn’t kid myself it was because of my strength, just that he’d
lost interest in hanging onto me. ‘Break the sky? What will that do to the world? You want to go back to the Mothership and
you don’t care what happens to the rest of Creation? How pleased do you think your Boss is going to be when He sees you’ve
let His goldfish die?’

‘There will be a Darkness,’ said Emerald, as if it was nothing to him.

‘We were created first and best,’ chimed Topaz. ‘He will rejoice to see us.’

‘Here’s a thought: if He was that fond of you, He wouldn’t have left you behind.’ In my imagination David was launching into
the ‘Why Baiting a Flock of Angels Is a Bad Idea’ lecture. ‘And what about Mrs Tinkler? Why kill her?’

They gave me blank looks until Emerald’s face cleared and he said, ‘The fat woman.’

She was an old bat, but she still didn’t deserve to be treated as though her death was inconsequential. And she certainly
didn’t deserve to be shredded. ‘Why her?’

‘She was unhelpful,’ said Amethyst. ‘She fought.’

And I could see that therein lay the sin: she’d
rebelled
. My rage blossomed and I clenched my fists, contemplating whether I was strong enough to actually break an angelic neck.
The increase in their number must have been stretching the city’s faith thin; none of these creatures would have had a decent
feed in a couple of weeks so they wouldn’t be at their best, their peak.

In my head, David’s voice said,
They’re freaking angels
. I swallowed my fury.

Sapphire frowned, mystified. ‘She fought so, yet she knew nothing.’

All those millennia watching humans, dealing with them, and it was apparent these creatures had not a clue about what made
us tick, how we would fight in the face of hopelessness, refuse to be pushed around, even if we had no information to give.
They didn’t know that many of us would refuse to beg; that not all of us would cower. I felt a headache coming on – or I thought
it was a headache, then I realised it was more like someone simultaneously drilling a hole in my skull and ransacking inside.

I glared at Ruby. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

Sapphire replied, ‘What you will not give, the Arch must take. If you have knowledge of the prophecy, we will have it.’

I screamed, trying to block the intrusion, trying to keep all my thoughts – all of
myself
– together, like someone juggling too many parcels. It felt . . . it felt as if my recollections were being randomly pulled
from the shelves like library books – as each came out, the memory flashed. Luckily, I didn’t know much. I mean, I knew a
lot, just not a lot that was connected or coherent. The lack of order was enough to cause whoever was paddling around in there
to hesitate, only for a moment, and that was enough: I pulled down the shades, imagined the intruder gone and my mind locked
up like Fort Knox.
Get out!
The effort left a dull thud in my brain and a trickle of blood from my nostrils, but no unwanted guest.

A deafening silence fell, then a voice came thrumming from the air with no discernable source. ‘She knows nothing of the double-winged.’

I fell, proud of myself for managing not to vomit, and lay curled on the grass until the worst of the pain had subsided. When
I opened my eyes I was alone. Though I might not have known anything about the double-winged, I knew where Tobit was, which
meant his brethren did too. They’d left me alive, and I could only imagine it was because, like the rest of my kind, they
thought me no threat. I also took it as hard-won proof that I wasn’t as annoying as others claimed.

Fumbling for my mobile, I stumbled up the street, wiping the scarlet from my nose and looking for a cab.

With its arteries unclogged by traffic, the city shrank at night, so we made good time. I fell out of the taxi and scraped
my wrist on the raised gutter, feeling bones grind unhappily against each other. The front door of my house was wide open,
though not kicked in – I figured angels probably didn’t need a key for
this
sort of B&E. All the lights were on. I moved through the rooms, heart in my mouth, hoping I’d called in time. There was no
sign of violence, no sign of struggle. Most importantly, there were no bodies.

It was obvious the angels had beaten me here, but with any luck they’d arrived after David, Lizzie and Tobit had fled. I started
shaking and couldn’t stop. Sitting on the couch and breathing deeply helped, as did swallowing until the lump in my throat
went away, though my head still ached and my nose was still blood-encrusted. When my heartbeat slowed and the tremors eased,
I carefully locked up, then sneaked down the rear stairs. Under the cover of darkness, I scrambled over the fence into Mel’s
yard, then crept to the back door.

I knocked hopefully, heard a nervous shuffling on the other side and whispered, ‘It’s me.’

David held me tight. He and Lizzie had been at the table in the dark kitchen, drinking hot chocolate and eating comfort biscuits.

Lizzie held onto my waist like a limpet. ‘We saw them,’ she said in a rush, eyes wide. ‘More angels.’

‘I know, honey. Remember, they’re not fluffy.’

She inclined her head sagely. ‘They looked so angry, not like ours.’ So she’d already adopted Tobit. So much for
not fluffy
.

‘I didn’t know how much time we had, so this was probably the safest place, the least likely place,’ said David as he microwaved
a cup of milk, then added enough chocolate powder to make the spoon stand up.

‘Where’s Tobit?’ I asked, accepting the warm mug, happy that my risk had paid off.

‘Gone. He said they’d know he was around if he stayed this close.’ He ran his hands over my shoulders. ‘Where did you go,
by the way?’

So much for my Post-it note of awesome. I told him about the cathedral adventure and how fruitless it had been, except for
the certainty of some kind of angel-induced apocalypse.

‘Double-winged,’ he mused. ‘If a child has two parents with wings, you might call her that.’

‘But I wasn’t. I was thinking of her as “Callie”, not as some object. I wonder if that’s why they thought I didn’t know anything?’

‘Obtuseness for the win,’ he said, and kissed me.

‘Do you reckon Tobit’s aware they wanted her for this prophecy deal? If he is, why wouldn’t he tell me?’

He thought for a second. ‘Maybe it’s because he doesn’t know you very well. Maybe he’s worried you’d give the baby up. Or
maybe he really didn’t know.’

‘Thaïs said the baby was still alive, and the angels obviously believe that too, or they wouldn’t be hanging about.’ I sipped
my hot chocolate. ‘I’m getting tired of vague hints. I’m pretty sure Thaïs wasn’t telling me everything and I’m damned sure
the Boatman’s got more to say.’

‘Don’t blame yourself. You can only get so much out of people
without thumbscrews. You want me to get Lizzie to school tomorrow . . . well, today?’

The little girl dozed, head on the pillow of her crossed arms. ‘No, I don’t think she’ll be up for much after this night’s
escapades. And maybe it’s best she stay home, which is a shame since I just got her back to school. You probably need to go
to work?’

‘I have a lot of leave. It’s okay.’

I smiled at him but didn’t say how wonderful he was. I didn’t say that I probably loved him in that moment. I didn’t say anything,
but I hoped he realised it all.

Then I had a thought. ‘Hey, was Rose Wilkes here when you arrived?’

‘Nah, the place was empty.’

‘I should have tied her to something,’ I sighed.

Although Lizzie slept in her own bed that night, we were all displaced in one way or another. In Mel’s guest room, David warm
beside me, I closed my eyes, but my mind kept whirring, shifting and shuffling pieces, trying to work out how to get what
I needed from people who weren’t willing to play ball, either because they didn’t appreciate the stakes, or because they were
just arseholes. It was hard to tell which, sometimes. And I wondered, oh how I wondered, how Rhonda McIntyre had known where
I might find the angels.

*

I’d spent a fruitless chunk of Sunday morning on the riverbanks, waiting for the mists to swirl and the thin dark boat to
appear, but I was out of luck. Either business was slow or the Boatman was just plain avoiding me.

Bela and I met briefly for mutual recriminations and an update on Mercado White, who’d been seen at the airport, boarding
a plane for
places unknown. Or rather, unknown-for-the-moment: it would only be a matter of time before networks were activated, contacts
tapped, favours reeled in. What happened then wasn’t my concern; the Council took care of its own sinners.

My boss’ reaction to the news that I’d attracted the attention of the angelic choir was to moan, ‘You’re in so much trouble.’

It was no comfort to hear Bela say that. ‘Tell me something I don’t already know,’ I muttered.

‘But you didn’t see the Archangel?’

‘
See
, no. Hear, yes.’

He’d blanched to a shade that I didn’t think had existed before. ‘What did they get?’

‘Where I live and the fact Tobit was there. That I don’t know where the baby is, or anything useful about their prophecy.
Lots of golem stuff, which will be irrelevant to them. But I think I shut him out before he learned about the Boatman.’ Bela
did a double-take, which I naturally interpreted as criticism. ‘It’s not an exact science, y’know. I’ve never had anything
like that in my head before.’