Angel of Ruin (40 page)

“Death, that’s an ugly church,” Mary said.

“Is it safe to go in?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then why are we not going in? We have but a few hours.”

Mary could feel Anne’s gaze on her face. A strong gust of wind blew up, sending flakes of burning ash rocketing across the sky. All around them, the city was turning to charcoal. It felt as though her very skin may be roasting. She felt in her placket for the little fire charm.

“Mary?”

Mary pulled the fire charm out and pressed it against her lips. With a mighty heave, she threw it hurtling through the smoke and ash, up towards Paul’s. The wind seemed to slip under it, almost as though it knew her intent and wished to assist. It spun up and up.

“What are you doing?”

“Burning the manuscript.”

“But —”

A loud pop cut her off. They both turned their faces towards the church. The roof had caught fire. Mary laughed. She felt a potent tide of excitement surge through her.

“Why did you do that?” Anne said, aghast.

“Because I could.” She grabbed Anne’s hand. “It shall make a pretty fire, Annie, you’ll see.”

They stood to watch. All around them, cries had started anew. “Paul’s is alight!” A crowd began to gather on the edge of the square. The wind roared up,
sending debris spinning across the churchyard. Mary could feel a smile broad on her face. As the minutes ticked by, the fire spread over the roof. The smoke was thick, but being blown away to the west. The city around Paul’s was lit up like daylight. It was as though a grand festival was taking place, and all had gathered to enjoy the spectacular show. Half an hour passed, and the roof started to creak; lead was running in rivulets on to the stone. The east window of the choir exploded, sending shards of glass scattering across the open ground. Mary was about to suggest that they leave, when a strong feeling came over her that she should look towards the north entrance. A compulsion impossible to resist.

She saw a tall feminine figure hurrying towards the door. Deborah.

“That little —”

“My God, Mary, did you see? ’Tis Deborah, she’s gone under the scaffold.”

“She thinks to save the manuscript.”

“She’ll be burned alive! She’ll be killed!”

Deborah. Killed. Mary felt as though she didn’t know who she was suddenly. She shook her head and turned to Anne.

“We have to save her.”

Deborah felt indestructible. She had passed through Cripplegate, where the fire post had disbanded due to the advance of the flames, between burning buildings only feet apart, and had not once felt the kiss of fire on her body or clothes. While the rest of the city fled in fear, she moved against the tide and down to Paul’s, which was burning fiercely along its roof. She raced towards the north entrance, up the six stairs to the big iron door, lifted the latch and entered. The roar of the flames was immense above her, and she warily kept to
the wall. The talisman protected her against flames, but burning beams may be another matter.

The transept was full of objects. Everyone in the near vicinity, it seemed, had attempted to store something in here, thinking to protect it from the fire: beds and chairs and cradles and desks, and piles of clothes and children’s toys and books, all junked together in indiscriminate piles, blocking her access to the choir. A violent creaking groaned above as she picked her way along the transept. Behind the choir was the entrance to St Faith’s, a subterranean church which she had visited with Father when she was a child. The wooden door was ajar, and she pulled it open and hurried down the stairs into the church.

In here, stacks of books and papers lay on every available surface, even along the pews and the altar. At the very top of the wall, a series of tiny windows revealed the street above. All she could see was the glow of the firelight. She glanced around her desperately. How would she find Father’s manuscript here?

She stood at the first pile and scanned it for the printer’s name. She didn’t recognise it. She kept scanning, moving up the rows, looking for Simmons’s name. A mighty crash from above in St Paul’s stopped her heart. The fire burned louder now, and a thunderous crack rang out so sharp around her, that she thought she may be deafened forever. Her heart raced and she frantically began to plough through the piles of paper. They had been stored here for safety, but it was like a tinderbox in Paul’s, and this paper would merely be fuel for the fire. The temperature had shot up, and smoke began to drift into the room. She coughed, held her kerchief over her face.

Here. Simmons.

She dived into the pile of papers, found a wrapped block about the size of Father’s manuscript. Anxious
fingers tore the corner of the paper. No, not her handwriting. She tossed it aside, began to despair.

Then saw it. Brown paper and
“Paradise Lost — Milton”
written across the front in Simmons’s hand. She snatched it up. Her lungs were aching. She ran back up the stairs and carefully peeked around the door.

Paul’s was aflame. The piles of objects which she had passed only moments before were blazing. Her route back along the transept was on fire. She frantically looked around her. Parts of the roof had fallen into the choir and cracked the floor. Smouldering rubble lay everywhere and the roof was still creaking. The air was so thick she could barely see, and she realised now, too late, that her talisman did not protect her from the choking pall of smoke.

Through the flames, then.

She wrapped the manuscript under her cloak, pressed her arms around it as passionately as she might clasp a lover, and ran for the door. The fire from the burning pile of rubbish licked at her clothes, but did not catch, thanks to the angel’s talisman. If she got out of this alive, perhaps she would have to assess her opinion of Lazodeus after all.

The door was in sight, the flames falling behind her. She coughed violently, head down. When she looked up, an unexpected sight greeted her.

Mary and Anne, standing on the top step beckoning her.

“Come, sister,” Anne cried.

“What are you …?” She pulled up just short of the door, confused.

“The roof is about to give,” Anne said.

Another mighty explosion sounded from the other side of the church. Deborah shrieked.

“The very stones in the walls are exploding from the
heat,” Mary said. “The south side of the church is ruined.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her heart beating wildly. Her sisters were the very reason she was out here, they were her enemies. “You were the ones who wanted Father’s manuscript destroyed.”

Mary reached out a hand to Deborah. “Sister, save yourself. The manuscript is doomed; you may as well save yourself.”

Without thinking, Deborah glanced down at the uneven shape poking from her cloak. In a fraction of a second, Mary’s hand was iron on her wrist.

“Dump it,” she hissed. “Burn it.”

“No. No, I have come to save it.”

“Deborah, please. Burn it,” Anne said, her eyes frantic. “We haven’t much time.”

Another stone exploded on the south side of the church. Its sharp echoes cracked in Deborah’s ears.

“I shall not burn it. It means all in the world to Father, and I shall not destroy it!” She had to shout to be heard over the flames.

Suddenly, Mary gave her a violent shove. “Then burn with it!” she shouted. Anne screamed. Deborah landed on her back, knocking over a burning chair which showered flames over her. When she looked up, the door was closed. She rose and tried to open it. Mary had dropped the latch. She kicked the latch on her side, but it wouldn’t budge. Her sisters had wedged it, perhaps with a piece of the burnt scaffold.

They had locked her in.

She thought she heard Anne scream again, but it was hard to tell over the roar of the flames. The roof creaked ominously, and the smoke grew thicker now it had no portal from which to escape. She cowered against the door, her arms pressed over the manuscript, and gazed around her wildly. The heat was unbearable,
the sound deafening, and her lungs were stinging from the effort of breathing.

But nothing hurt so much as the horrible realisation that her sisters intended to kill her.

Anne could not stop screaming. It seemed it was the only thing that would release the horror inside her. Mary tried to pull her down the stairs, but she would not move.

“Come, Anne, we have to get away. The roof will fall, we’ll be burned alive.”

“But our sister is in there!” she cried. Her voice was hoarse and sore. She felt herself to be a raw aching wound and nothing else.

“She had her chance!”

“She will die!”

“If she does not die, we will never see our angel again.”

Anne stared in horror at Mary, the awful impossibility of the choice sitting ragged in her abdomen. Mary’s face was streaked with tears. Another stone exploded, this time closer. It seemed to rock the very foundations of the staircase upon which they stood. Mary grabbed her and pulled her and she fell over, climbed to her feet, then started running.

This time she did not notice the route they took. Fires burned all around them, but these were in buildings which were already gutted, and had no more fuel to offer the ravenous flames. She felt her feet beneath her as if they were not her own, stumbling, running, burning on the embers which had long ago melted her shoes down to thin layers. Finally, she could see the river, reflecting the fire like an uneven mirror. Mary was taking her down to the docks. Hundreds of boats floated like black smudges upon the river, desperate folk with their possessions waiting it out on
the water. Anne’s feet skidded in the muddy banks. A man was loading a trunk on to a small skiff, and Mary grabbed his shoulder.

“Please, sir, help us. We flee the fire.”

“I don’t have room,” he said gruffly.

“We have no possessions, just ourselves. Please.”

“No, go away.”

Mary took a deep breath. “Come, sir, it shall be all your pleasure.”

Anne barely recognised her sister’s voice.

The man paused. “My pleasure?”

“Provided you do not touch my sister, here,” Mary said.

“But I may touch you?”

“All you want, sir. Until you bring us safely to shore.”

The man grinned. “Climb in.”

Anne was bewildered, but once again Mary dragged her along. They climbed into the boat, and the man left one of his trunks on the bank. They rowed out onto the river. An enormous crash drew their attention back to the bank. From here they could see St Paul’s ablaze.

“The roof,” Mary whispered.

“She is dead then,” Anne replied, numb.

“Now where is my payment?” the boatman said.

“Yes, yes,” Mary replied. “Anne, turn your back.”

“I —”

“Turn your back, look to the south bank, and do not turn around until I say you can.”

Anne was tired and in pain in her very soul. She did as her sister asked, watching the reflections of the fire on the water around her. She could barely hear the sounds of Mary debauching herself in the boat behind her, for the thumping and crashing of the fire. Her thoughts seemed too large, too unwieldy for her mind. Her attention was scattered everywhere, and every
impression her mind lit upon hurt her, hurt her deep, deep inside, hurt her head as if it would burst it open. From far away she heard an animal, grunting sound. Her sister?

No. It was herself.

Mary was calling to her. “Annie? Annie, what is it?”

But the grey closed down around her and she didn’t fight it. Better to turn it all off than to feel it any more. Better to descend into the dark.

Deborah lay herself out along the floor and tried to breathe under the crack in the door. It was no use. Her lungs would burst if she stayed in here any longer. She stood and tried the door again to no avail. Damn Lazodeus. He had set her up for this, she knew it. Why else send her down here? And damn herself, for not thinking of the smoke. For smoke killed as easily as flames. She kicked the door in frustration, sobbing and screaming.

“Help me!” she shouted. “Help me!”

Her throat was raw from shouting and from coughing. Was this what it had come to? Was she to die for her Father’s poem? How unbearable, to die not for her own achievements but for somebody else’s.

In a rage she dragged Lazodeus’s talisman from around her neck, was about to cast it into the flames behind her when she saw that the chain she held was not the talisman, but the demon key. She raced through the tables Amelia had taught her. There wasn’t a single door-opening demon among them.

And yet … Why did she have such a strong sense that there should be one?

She gazed at the key a moment, dangling on the end of its chain.

Of course! Lazodeus had named a demon to lock her in and let her free when the business with the
exorcist had got out of hand. Now, if she could only remember its name.

She held the key out in front of her, shaking. Violent spasmodic coughs racked her body as she tried to centre her mind. Its name was …

“Paratax,” she gasped. “I call upon you with this key as your commander. Open this door.”

The five notes were barely audible above the crashing of the fire, but the sweet feeling still rocked through her, seeming to fill her lungs with air. She breathed, the door opened, and she ran. Father’s manuscript pressed close against her body, she ran and ran. How she gathered her strength was a mystery, but she ran. Behind her, an immense crashing sound indicated that the roof had finally given. The exploding stones cracked and echoed around the city. She ran towards Cripplegate, through black smouldering ruins, then out of the city walls towards home. The fire had been controlled before it reached White Cross Street, and she knew that Father would be safe. But he didn’t know it, and the frightful sounds of the fire, of Paul’s going up, would have terrified him. She ran as though she would never need the energy to run again.

Gasping, up Artillery Walk.

Pushing the door open, calling, “Father!” breathlessly.

“Deborah?” A querulous voice. By the muted light of a sputtering candle, he cowered on the floor in the corner of his study, the little dog still clutched to his chest.