Blood and Feathers (17 page)

“Let’s take a walk, then.”

They stepped through the security gate and turned down the road. Alice waited for him to speak. There was clearly something on his mind, but she knew better than to try and prise it out of him. If she did, he would either clam up or, worse, disappear again. They had gone at least half a mile before he spoke, and turned to look at her.

“How’re you holding up?”

“I miss my dad. It’s like I’m fine, and everything’s normal, and then someone comes and punches me in the stomach, over and over again, and there’s just this...
space
where he ought to be.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t blame
you
, you know.”

“You blame Gwyn.”

“Of course I blame Gwyn! I was... he...”

“Don’t.” Mallory cleared his throat. “Other than that?”

“Other than that? Well, I miss my life. My job. Home.”

“Missing home? I can understand that,” he said with a wry smile. “It’s hard. I know.”

“I’m trying not to think about it. Not unless someone pokes at me with a load of questions.”

“Class-A denial. Fair enough. If it’s working for you.”

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“Embrace it.”

“I don’t even know what
it
is! Quite apart from you dropping into my living room, nothing’s exactly clear, is it? It’s all half-whispers: rumours, hints and veiled comments dropped to me by fallen bloody angels. And cryptic messages from other angels who catch fire and then bugger off again. So maybe – just maybe – if you want me to embrace anything, someone’s going to have to tell me what the hell’s going on!” She stopped, seeing Mallory looking at her with a mixture of amusement and bafflement. “What?” she asked. He shook his head.

“You’re so like her. You really are.”

“My mother.”

“Your mother.”

“You said, when I met you – when you came to the house – that you knew her. You knew her better than you’ve let me think, didn’t you?”

“We were friends. Same choir. It’s inevitable.”

“You weren’t just friends, though, were you?”

Mallory didn’t answer the question. Instead, he stared at the pavement and started walking again. When he spoke, his voice was artificially cheery. “I’m a little jealous, you know. Michael sent A’albiel for you. That’s a big deal.”

“You know him?”

“Know him? No – I told you before, I’ve never even
met
one of Michael’s choir. There aren’t many of them, and they’re the big guns. They stick together, but you knew that already, what with the sign and all.”

“Mallory?”

“Yep?”

“Who, exactly, are you jealous of. Me, or him?”

“Ain’t that the question. I’ll let you know when I work that one out myself.” He suddenly changed course, and walked through a narrow gap in a row of metal railings.

“When was the last time you sat on a swing?” he called back to her.

She shrugged. “When I was a kid. You know, before I grew out of it!”

But he either didn’t hear her or pretended not to. He was jogging now, heading towards a small playground full of rusty equipment. By the time she caught up with him, he was already sitting on a swing, his feet stretched out in front of him. The chain creaked a little too loudly as he rocked backwards and forwards on his heels.

“Where were you?”

“Somewhere else.”

“I needed you.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“You
are
jealous.”

“I had somewhere I needed to be, Alice. Let it go.”

“Where?”

“You really want to know? Really? Fine. I was at Council, justifying the fact that I’m still here. Defending every last thing I’ve said and done since the last time I had to do it. Which, if you ask me, is far too often. Hoping that Gwyn wouldn’t shaft me and that Gabriel doesn’t pick today to decide he’s had enough of me and take my wings once and for all.” He glared at his feet. “That good enough for you?”

“Like a parole hearing?”

“But worse. Much worse.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“You said I could trust you.”

“You can.”

“Prove it. You owe me answers.”

“I don’t owe you a thing.”

“You know what, Mallory? You’re right. Maybe you don’t. But you know something else? I’m willing to bet that if I shout loudly enough, there’ll be someone out there who will give me answers. I can’t seem to throw a rock in the air without it coming down on one of the Fallen, and they’re all telling me more than you are, so...”

“No.” There was a clatter of metal, and Mallory was on his feet, the swing now lying several feet away from its frame. “You think you’ll get answers from them? All you’ll get is a messy death, stretched over forever. They’ll smile with their faces while they slit your throat with their nails. And don’t forget: they’re everywhere. Even the Twelve are watching – and don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because you’ve not seen much of them, they aren’t a threat. So you promise me here and now that whatever happens, you
will not
go to the Fallen. Promise me, Alice.”

“Then start talking.”

She was shocked by the force of his reaction. Surely he knew she wasn’t serious? To be fair, she
had
forgotten about the Twelve. After so much talk, they didn’t seem to be causing the trouble she had expected. In fact, she was rather beginning to hope they might simply have gone away. Clearly not.

“Three years ago, a woman named Iris Roberts woke up one morning and found a hellmouth in her garden. She and her family were taken. They were the first. Since then, thousands have been stolen away. All by the Fallen.”

“Excuse me, but what? A hellmouth?”

“You saw one in that garage: the water that opened for the Fallen to escape? And in the graveyard too. Hellmouths are any way into hell, except a few of these have been a bit more literal. The one that swallowed Iris and her family had teeth.”

“Eww.”

“It’s a little more than ‘Eww.’ The balance is starting to tip.”

“Wait.” She held up a hand. “I’ve heard that, somewhere.” She frowned, trying to remember. It had been almost the exact same phrase... a chill ran down her spine. “Lucifer.”

“What?” Mallory’s eyes opened wide.

“The night you left: when we were attacked in the churchyard, and the Fallen did some weird possessed trance thing, and Lucifer said, ‘the balance is tipping.’ He asked Gwyn if I was supposed to be the one to save you... Him... Oh, you know.”

“Then there’s little point in trying to hide it any longer, is there?” Mallory sighed. “What’s the first word you think of when I say ‘angel’?”

“I don’t know. Guns.” She shrugged, and Mallory laughed and shook his head.

“That’s my girl. Alright, what’s the first word
most
people would think of when I say ‘angel’?”

“Guardian. Salvation. Heaven. God. Pick one...”

“Right. And wrong. Remember what I told you before: angels are soldiers. That’s all we do. Why would we care about human salvation?”

“Because... because... well, you’re angels. That’s what you
do
.”

“I told you what I do. Think, Alice.”

She screwed her eyes shut, picturing the room when he had told her. “You said the Fallen want to get out, and it’s your job to keep them down. By any means necessary.”

“That’s right. Angels aren’t here to save you, any of you. You have to do that all by yourselves. What we’re here for is to make sure you get a fair chance at that. The Fallen don’t play fair. All we do is level the playing field. They pop their heads out of the pit, we kick them right back down.”

“You kill them.”

“After everything you’ve seen, and everything we’ve told you, do you really think you can kill the Fallen? In theory, of course, it shouldn’t be that way, but theory rarely works in practice and they’ve found a loophole. Hell keeps them alive, whatever we do. So, in practical terms, they’re just as tough as we are. All we do is send them back to where they belong, and take the wind out of their sails.”

“But they can just come back... how’s that fair?”

“Bingo. It’s a fight we can’t win, and a war we’ve been fighting forever. We have to be lucky all the time – they only have to be lucky once.”

“Then how come they haven’t won? If the odds are that bad?”

“Because we’re good at it. Even the Earthbounds. Might not look like it, but we fight just as hard as the Descendeds. Harder, maybe, because there’s not a single one of us who doesn’t want to earn his wings back. Take Vin: you look at him and you see some guy with a quick mouth. But that’s not all he is. Whatever he says, whatever he does, he’s an angel before he’s anything else. He might be stuck down here and his wings might be clipped, but he’s one of us. We keep the balance, whatever the cost.”

“Then what’s all this about the balance tipping?”

“That’s the problem. Somehow the Fallen have found a way to weight things in their favour. I don’t know how, but I’ll wager anything Xaphan’s behind it, he usually is.” Mallory stared at his boots. “The thing is, these hellmouths – in the simplest of terms, they’re using them to kidnap people.”

“What’s the point of that?”

“Again, simply put? They’re taking them because faith is the same as hope – and there is no hope in hell.”

“Ouch. You should have warned me before you got all metaphysical.”

“Hey, you asked. The bottom line is that they’re suddenly edging ahead, and every living soul down there only makes it easier. The balance is tipping in their favour, and we need to tip it back. Which is where you come in.”

“See, this is the bit I don’t like.”

“Alice. You are a weapon. A perfect, perfect weapon. On the one hand, somehow – and no-one quite knows how – you’ve ended up with a gift that knocks all of ours into the shade. That fire? Once you get control of it...” He blew out a long breath. “And on the other, you’re an empath. Your power comes from pain. There’s plenty of that in hell. Who else could we send?”

V
IN WAS STILL
shouting at the twins when the hallway exploded.

The force of the blast threw all three of them to the floor of the kitchen, knocking Jester’s head against the tiles with a
crack
. Coughing, Vin pulled himself up, wiping plaster from his eyes and hair. The room was full of smoke and dust: fine, white, settling like snow. Florence was shaking her head to clear it, the sound of the explosion ringing in her ears as much as it was his. He waved for her to stay down.

Other than the high-pitched whine inside his head, there was no sound in the flat. Nothing. And that was... suspicious. He edged around the scattered furniture towards the door – what was left of it. A few splinters of wood clung to the hinges. The hallway was wrecked: the front door replaced by a gaping hole into the landing, the walls blackened, the doors leading off it reduced to matchsticks. There was no sign of Gwyn, nor Mallory and Alice. Was it too much to hope they were out? Sliding around the doorframe and into the hall, keeping his back pressed against the wall, he crept towards the door to the living room, and walked straight into a fist. The room slipped away and faded to nothing.

W
HEN HE WOKE
up, he was sitting on a chair in the living room. Actually, he discovered when he tried to move, he was
tied
to a chair. It was not a promising start. Nor was the black case lying open on the table in front of him, prominently displaying a wide selection of sharp objects in a dazzling array of shapes and sizes. There was no-one else in the room, but that case belonged to someone, and Vin was pretty sure it wasn’t him.

“Look, guys, I get that you’re trying to be all dramatic and everything, but seriously? That’s a bit bling, isn’t it? You pussies.”

“Meeow,” said the Fallen, sliding into the room.

Vin smiled coldly at him. “I’d shake your hand, but you know...” He spread his hands as well as he could under the ropes, but for once even Vin’s bravado was failing him. It wasn’t just any Fallen who had walked into the room: it was Purson.

“If you’re wondering where your precious little half-breeds are, you might as well stop. You won’t be seeing them again any time soon, so forget about them. I don’t want you distracted.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll be getting my full attention when I take you to pieces. Let’s see if you’re smiling then.” It was an empty threat, and he knew it. Worse, so did Purson. Of all the Fallen – of all the Twelve, even – why did it have to be him? Vin cursed silently, and wished that Barakiel’s luck was a little more literal sometimes. This was not good. Not good at all.

Purson sidled up to him and tugged on the ropes binding his hands. They didn’t give, and he nodded in satisfaction. “Don’t want you wriggling out and giving me one of your little party tricks now, do we? Jeqon and Goap send their regards, by the way.”

“They’re talking again? Already? I must be losing my touch.” And as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew he’d made a mistake. After the incident with Lilith, he wondered whether he actually
was
... He tried to shove the thought to the back of his mind, but it was too late.