Angel Dust (8 page)

It was a lot.

One Hell of a lot.

‘Hey, Shanara,' trilled Larry. ‘You look far away. Sweet thing, what is it? Don't let this place get you down.'

I looked up at him and smiled, but not with the same warmth as before. He'd definitely said, ‘three weeks'. And it really wasn't OK.

‘I just wish I had a little longer,' I said.

‘You mean, you'll be needing an Extension on the Extension?' he joked.

I think it was a joke.

‘It'll cost ya,' he winked.

I didn't laugh. I glanced across at Joey. Another life prematurely snatched? Another person sent here to suffer for Marcus? My feathers curled at the thought.

Poor Joey. There were two dark shapes on either side of him now, dragging him away from the girls. One of the shapes whipped round and I saw its demonic face, red eyes, gaping mouth. As he was led away, Joey glanced over his shoulder at me. His face stricken. His eyes pleading. All his toughness gone.

Even as I watched, a blood-curdling scream broke from the far shores of Styx. There was a rush of smoke, and the stench of singed hair and burning flesh belched out across the river. Someone tried to make a run for it. Another soul who only a moment earlier had been waiting patiently joined in.

The scream came again, nightmarish in its pitch. And before you could say ‘Our Father' the whole centre portion of the queue went berserk and started running. Demons sprang from nowhere. They pounced on the souls trying to escape, sank claws and teeth into thin spirity bodies. They dragged them back, kicking, wailing, struggling.

I trembled. If I should fail? Could I leave Marcus here in less than two weeks? I remembered with a shudder all the stories I'd heard, told by candlelight, late at night, whispered under the arches of the quadrangles in the Cloisters. Stories of the things that demons did to souls in Hell: of how far a soul could be made to suffer; of the Devil, dark and squat, his horns, curved and sharp, chuckling over cauldrons of blood, of souls roasting in vats . . .

I looked again at Joey. His eyes still pleading, still begging.

Could I face that look from Marcus?

An idea struck me: I could ask Larry. Maybe he could recommend someone to mentor Marcus? After all he had said he was an Independent Celestial Advisor, and could broker all sorts of Heavenly deals. Surely saving a soul was the most important sort of Heavenly deal there was?

I turned to Larry. I outlined my idea: someone constantly at Marcus's side to keep him on the straight and narrow, talk sensibly to him about his choices, persuade him to consider repentance, maybe even show him visions of Styx (not of the girls in the queue obviously, but glimpses of the pits in Hell where the damned were roasted, echoes of the screaming), to hammer home the point?

‘Hmm,' said Larry. ‘Not impossible.'

It wasn't a very confident Yes, I Can Do It, but his eyes did light up at the suggestion. I held my breath. I needed all the help I could get
.

‘I think I might be able to conjure up something,' Larry said.

I heaved a great sigh of relief. ‘I'll pay, of course,' I said.

Another scream rent the air, another puff of stinking smoke spewed out across Styx.

‘Oh yes, you'll pay all right,' said Larry, tweaking my cheek.

I was so glad to leave the shores of Styx. I wanted to get as far away from it as possible: the fetid river, the wilting foliage, the awful knowledge of torture going on just over the water: the burning, the stretching, the slicing, the tearing of sinew, the breaking of bones. For even though the souls of the dead had left their corporeal bodies behind, they still had their ethereal bodies that could be made to suffer. My spirits drooped. The heat oppressed me. I felt miserable about Joey. I tried to banish the image of Marcus dragged here, abandoned to those demons. But as I winged my way back towards the mountains, towards Devil's Pass, a different terror overcame me.

A vision of
me
led here in human shape, a trembling girl, dark-eyed, pale-faced, horror-struck. A vision of ghouls laying hold on
my
spirit, leading
me
away to the river. I trembled. My wings faltered. I beat the air and plummeted ten metres. I landed, shaking, on a rocky promontory.

But try as I might I couldn't shake the image off. Yet how could it be? Was I human – to be divided from my soul by death? How could an angel
ever
be cast into the fires of Hell? Angels don't die.

But the thought didn't console me. Instead I clung shivering to the ledge. The vision was so clear. As in a nightmare, I saw my own eyes looking up at me, as two dark shapes pinned my arms and led me away.

And then a sad thought struck me: yes, angels can never be thrown into the fires of Hell. We don't fear death. We don't have to. Yet mortals such as Marcus must face that terror, must lie awake at night imagining it, must know beyond doubt that their lives will end and everything they love will be snatched away from them.

And this was God's creation?

Should I thank Heaven I wasn't mortal, then? But if I did, how could I ever hope to do God's work? How could I hope to save the souls of the damned when my immortality set me apart? Was I cursed to be an angel? Doomed never to understand the meaning of life?

For a split second I hated being immortal. On what authority did I judge those humans lining up by the ferry? If I were human who knows what choices I might have to make. I might be worse than the lowliest one of them.

I shuddered and curled my wings around me. What thoughts. Was I not blessed to be exempt from such a fate?

Did I say angels could never be thrown into the fires of Hell?

But wasn't that exactly what God had done to Lucifer?

For an instant I felt a terrible sympathy with the Devil.
To be thrown by the hand you love into that.
No wonder he wanted to inflict the same on mankind. No wonder he waged eternal war on Heaven.

But why by the stars above was I thinking all this? It must be the effect of these vile blasts from Hell.

I should get to Marcus quickly and wholly impress upon him the terrifying fate in store if he didn't do exactly as I said. And I must hurry.

Straight away I took to the air.

I was so preoccupied that I hardly noticed two shapes fall into flight beside me. When I looked up one of them dropped back out of view. The other was the Seraph I'd met on the road going down. I remembered her now. She was called Raquel.

She smiled at me and said, ‘How was your day? Mine was crazy. I was on Road Call. There were so many souls to take to every kind of destination, I nearly got mixed up.'

I bit my lip, swallowed my worries and said, ‘Well, next time, don't forget you can ask for an Extension, if you're really in a muddle.'

‘Extensions?' Raquel said. ‘What're they?' (Yes, I did remember her now. Genesis House. Cell 44. It hadn't been trumpet practice at all – it'd been the Thunderbolt Championships.)

I drew a deep breath and waved my feather tips vaguely. I decided to keep Marcus out of the conversation. I told her how a friend I'd known – aeons ago-ish – had met an angel, a Celestial Broker, on a business trip, and learned about Extensions.

‘Bit like having a credit card, I suppose,' said Raquel. ‘You know, buy now, pay later?'

‘I suppose so,' I said. (I imagined having a credit card. I'd like a gold one with a super-shiny little chip on it. And I'd have my very own PIN number too.)

‘What did you say your friend's name was?'

Had I mentioned a name? Well, I was going to have to now, wasn't I? ‘Harry,' I said.

‘Never heard of Extensions,' she said. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Yes,' I continued. ‘I'd never heard of them before either, but Harry said apparently loads of angels do them, so I guess it's normal. Do you think if you ever did one, you ought to report it to St Peter?'

Raquel looked at me and rolled her eyes. ‘Report it to St Peter!' she snorted. ‘Like, only if you're mental, unless you
adore
long lectures on obscure trivia that happened millennia ago, in Israel probably. You
know
what he's like. Anyway, you off duty now?'

We'd left the wilted plains behind and were winging back up towards the poppy fields.

‘Yes,' I said.

‘Want to come over to mine later? I'm hosting an amazing choir – you know, a proper ensemble and everything. Do say yes!'

‘Oh yes,' I said without thinking. Why had I said that? I was going to see Marcus. It might take ages for me to get back to Heaven. I didn't have time for garden parties.

‘Great,' said Raquel. ‘It'll get you out of those dreary Cloisters. I'll introduce you to everyone and you can bounce the idea of Extensions around and see what they think.' She paused. ‘I've never heard of any Harry, actually.' She laughed like it was totally funny for her not to know someone.

‘He's in business,' I said.

‘I know all the Senior Team, all the Archangels, everyone in the City, really . . .' She was obviously puzzled she couldn't place him.

‘He's got his own company,' I said, suddenly. ‘I remember now. Claim Souls Direct.'

‘Oh,' she said. ‘That kind of business.'

I left Raquel by the Twelfth Gate, promising to see her later, and hurried to Christ the King's Hospital. In a heartbeat, I flicked my wings and was inside Marcus's room. It was a lovely private room. I was so glad. I wanted the best of everything for him.

There he lay as beautiful as ever. His dark hair tousled on the starched pillow. His long eyelashes brushing his cheek. There were his sweet full lips. My heart stopped. I caught my breath. There was his hand curled into a loose fist, slung outstretched in his sleep, as if even in his dreams he were waging war on the universe.

In the chair opposite sat his mother, her face crumpled, eyes bleary, knuckles pressed into a clenched ball in her lap. She couldn't see me, and I didn't change that. Anyway, she wasn't looking at anything. She could barely see beyond her own misery.

I went over to her. I touched her on the hand and sent her the balm of oblivion, not permanently, of course, just so she could get some sleep.

Then I stood beside Marcus trying to decide how I should wake him. How I longed to smooth back his tangled hair, to run my finger down the sculpted lines of his cheek, to take his hand.

I tried to work out exactly what to say. How to broach the subject of Joey, for a start. Imagining how it could all go terribly wrong.

How was I going to tell him that? Not only was his friend dead, but it was all my fault and the reason he was still alive. I cringed. I really needed to think this through.

But should I wake him at all? He really didn't look very well. All around his bed, machines beeped. Above him a bag of blood dripped slowly through a tube into his arm. He wasn't going to be well enough to be told anything for ages.

Could I perform a miracle, then? I'd done Miracle Working as an Option at the Cloisters and got A* on the term paper. I could heal Marcus, I knew I could. It would be a textbook case. Nothing difficult or supernatural, not like turning water into wine, just hastening up healing time in normal tissue. But dare I?

I held my breath. If I was caught doing miracles, I'd probably have my wings stripped, be cast out of Heaven and sent to do five hundred years' Community Service in Purgatorium.

I didn't dare. Not a full miracle anyway, but I could do a Healing Hands Blessing. It would certainly speed up his recovery a bit.

I extended my hands over his heart and lightly touched his wounds. I let the power flow through me and whispered a full consecration. Immediately his breathing eased.

Then I just sat there perched on the end of his bed, nervously twiddling with a loose wing feather. He wasn't going to like the repentance thing. I knew it. I was going to have to be very careful. Timing was everything.

And right now was definitely not the right time.

I left the hospital. I'd got no idea what to do next. It was already late afternoon, and I'd been away from Heaven for nearly twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours. Now there were only nine days left till Halloween.

With a troubled heart, I set out for the long journey up to Heaven, for the Pearly Gates and home.

But the minute I'd climbed the Staircase and got through the last Pearly, I knew something was wrong. Very wrong.

Firstly a strange new scent wafted on the evening air. It was faint at first and hard to place, but as soon as I passed through the Jasper Arch and on to the Golden Promenade, I knew what it was: the odour of diesel engines, of boot polish and cold metal. The smell of God's Army.

Then I heard the sirens. They were coming from the three northern Gates. I stopped and listened. I sharpened my gaze. Something seared across the sky. Thunderbolts
.
God's Army are never allowed to use thunderbolts, unless we're under direct attack from Hell. Sirens and thunderbolts. Saints above, we must already be on Code Amber.

Quickly I looked around for a newspaper. Usually they're everywhere. But today no cherub flitted by with copies tucked under an arm. I threw a coin into a fountain by the huge pieta in the Virgin Mary Square, and I made a wish. But no paper plopped into my hand.

Where was everyone? The best I could get was a half-torn copy of the
Daily Trumpet
, a terrible publication produced by the Saved. The headlines read: GOD'S ARMY FIGHT BACK and WE'LL THRASH LUCY WITH CODE AMBER and SATAN'S CHALLENGE SPECIAL ISSUE – FULL STORY STRAIGHT FROM HELL.