Fury (23 page)

‘Gabriel was always too soft-hearted where you were concerned,’ Uriel growls, releasing me as if I disgust him. ‘And now I must be similarly afflicted, because
this once
I will allow it — I will permit you to exchange your pretty farewells with your pretty human, and then you must go.’

‘But Gabriel …’ I plead.

‘But Gabriel
nothing
,’ Uri snarls. ‘I will get him out myself. I will fall upon the demons that hold him like the pestilence that once emptied that sacred city itself of life. But before I do, I will come with you to find this “Ryan”, and he and I will both watch you leave. This time, there is no escape.’

I look at Uriel and see all the power and arrogance and inflexibility that so defines our kind. ‘You’re a bully,’ I say bitterly.

His reply is sharp and instant. ‘I’m a pragmatist. It is the only choice, and you know I am right.’

I know he is, but it doesn’t make it any easier to bear.

I cover my face with my hands and weep then, weep tears of fire. They fall through my fingers onto the stone, each one glimmering for a moment, like a jewel, before dispersing into the chill night air.

‘Tears? And for a human?’ Uriel murmurs in amazement, making no move to comfort me because this is something I’ve so clearly brought upon myself. ‘What have you
become
?’

‘I am what you’ve made me,’ I sob. ‘You Eight. Luc, even. Deserving of neither love nor pity. And because I am a creature of my word, I will do my duty. I will do as you command. But if you’re coming with me,’ and now there’s disdain in my voice at the sight of him standing there so regal, so beautiful, the very essence of what it means to be exalted and all-powerful, ‘you’re going to have to do things my way. For a change.’

It’s not hard to find Narita International Airport from the air. Even at four in the morning, the flow of traffic towards it seems steady and endless, and there’s a snarl of taxis and hire cars waiting outside the arrivals hall, surrounded by a cloud of exhaust fumes, choking and white.

Inside, the building is blazing with light. As the sliding doors open to emit a rush of hot air, my eyes take in — almost at once — too many things: multiple TV screens filled with reams of flight numbers listed as
Delayed
or
Cancelled
; queues of people at ticket offices and telephone booths; people asleep on almost every available surface, some with luggage, some without. It’s a vast and toxic ocean of bodies, of colour, of noise, of smells, of energy. Uriel and I almost reel backwards in a kind of psychic shock.

I’d expected the place to be empty, but it’s teeming with people, and I know that Uriel is right. Luc has begun some terrible process that only
I
might be able to contain to this realm, this world. This is just one airport amongst thousands. Only Luc would be capable of setting the very earth upon a course of rebellion that affects so many places, so many people, at once.

I can’t see Ryan anywhere.

‘Multiply what you see by life
universal
,’ Uriel says acidly, ‘then tell me you have any other choice but to quit this sphere.’

‘Can you see him? Ryan?’ I ask despairingly, and Uriel shoots me a look of revulsion as he moves forward into that clamouring sea of people.

He looks awkward in the human form he’s assumed; like a smaller version of himself but with a floppy, college-boy haircut, thin steel-framed glasses, and wearing preppy clothes like those we saw on the giant advertising billboards we flew past to get here. It took him more than a few tries to get the look of his skin right, but there’s no telltale gleam now on the surface of his neck, face or hands. He’s getting more than a few glances because he looks too perfect, almost too neat, clean, handsome, but he definitely passes muster as some uptight, matchy-matchy rich kid on his way home from an overseas holiday. Beside him, I look incredibly dowdy in my usual human get-up of black down jacket, black sweater, grey jeans and boots, hair slung back in a messy ponytail.

‘I look ridiculous,’ Uri says through gritted teeth. ‘Remind me again what he looks like, this Ryan?’

His expression turns to shock as I say distractedly, ‘He looks like Luc … like Luc if he’d been born human, and kind, but with dark hair, dark eyes …’

My voice trails away as something catches my eye. It’s so small, so very faint, just one light among millions, but it’s moving in an erratic fashion, winding in and out of the screaming Christmas decorations and glowing airline insignias, moving up the sides of crazily lit-up vending machines and roving across the faces of the sleeping, as if it’s searching for something, or someone. But then it vanishes into a bank of flickering TV screens and doesn’t reappear. Maybe I imagined it. This place is lit up like an amusement park.

‘Let’s split up,’ I say, indicating the half of the room that I want Uri to take. ‘It’ll be faster.’

I’m already walking away before Uriel’s had a chance to answer me. I want to get to Ryan first, because I don’t want Uri to see me with him. There’s nothing I can truly call mine in this world except Ryan, and I’m about to let him go. What I have to say to him doesn’t require a witness who possesses perfect recall; recall eternal.

I concentrate on all the disparate energies in the room, trying to pick Ryan’s. But there’s so much noise in here, so much distraction, that I’m having trouble tuning it out. Every braying laugh, snore or angry conversation pulls my focus from place to place.

Uri’s well out of sight when that small, coin-sized gleam of light reappears at my feet like a puppy anxious to please. The
malakh
I first met on a street corner in Australia is so weak now, so dissipated, that I no longer feel any fear or uneasiness around it. It’s so near death now that if its last act in life is to seek me out, then who am I to deny it?

‘If you know where he is,’ I plead, ‘take me to him?’

The light seems to regard me steadily for a second, before oscillating, as if in response. It leads me without hesitation through a multitude of slumped or sleeping bodies towards a bank of empty luggage carousels, the steel conveyor belts silent and still. Rounding the edge of one, I see the familiar backpack first, then the tall young man leaning against it, playing with his mobile phone.

Ryan looks up and sees me, and the smile that lights his face stops me in my tracks.

‘Mercy!’ he cries gladly and leaps to his feet.

As he does, the
malakh
, as if startled into flight, darts up the face of the giant advertising poster on the wall and disappears.

Ryan pulls me to him, but then sees my expression. ‘What’s wrong?’ he says instantly, his smile dying, his arms tightening about me like a vice.

I lay my head against his shoulder and the feel of him — his familiar energy and clean, male smell — brings on another fall of tears. They spill onto the battered leather of his jacket, gleaming there momentarily like the embers of a dying fire.

‘I love you.’ I’m sobbing, hardly coherent. ‘I love you, and I’m so sorry.’

There, I’ve done it, I’ve finally said the words, and just like that, all the time we ever had together is gone, it’s over. We’re into overtime now, penalty time. Any moment, Uri will tap me on the shoulder and I will never see Ryan again in this life.

Ryan forces me to look at him, and his hands move to either side of my face. He smears the tears away with the pads of his thumbs as fast as they come.

‘Hey,’ he says, ‘
whoa
. I missed you, too. But I didn’t mind, it hasn’t been that long. I would have been happy to wait longer. I’m just glad you’re back.’

He pulls me into him again, breathing me in, kissing my hairline, breathing out all his anxiety, his tension.

‘I love you, too,’ he murmurs joyously, looking down into my eyes. ‘And there’s nothing to be sorry about. We got there in the end, right? It wasn’t so hard to say.’

‘You don’t understand,’ I wail softly. ‘Uriel is here, with me. He says this is it. It all ends now, for you and me. I came to say goodbye.
This is goodbye
.’

‘What?’ Ryan’s dark brows snap together as he scans the arrivals hall feverishly, before returning his gaze to me. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

I shake my head, and my fiery tears fall and fall as if they will never end. ‘Uriel’s here to make sure that I do it — that I leave. So I’m finally telling you now: that I love you, and that I’ll always miss you, and that I’m sorry.’

Ryan’s gone rigid in my arms. I can feel his horror in the way he’s suddenly stopped breathing, in the way he’s completely speechless.

‘Get yourself … home,’ I say haltingly, pulling back from him so I can see his face. ‘I’ll make Them watch over you, over Lauren, every single day. I’ll make sure Luc never has the opportunity to go after you. They have to do that much for me. They have to. You’ve been through enough.’

I give him a false, tremulous smile and say pleadingly, ‘Find a nice girl — you can do way better than me, better even than that Brenda. And have a great, great
life
.’ A sob rises again in my throat.

‘I’ll see you again,’ I insist through my tears. ‘
I’ll see you again
. It will seem like today has been … just a lengthy wait in an anonymous arrivals hall somewhere. But I’ll find you, one day, and maybe then we can be together for always.’

Ryan’s opening his mouth but no words are coming out, and he tips his head up for a moment, just gazing up at the ceiling. When he finally looks at me, his eyes are red-rimmed and his voice is harsh. ‘Mercy, I —’

But then a gloved hand grips his shoulder.

It’s such an unexpected thing that we both just stare at it for a moment before taking in the person that’s joined to it. It’s a man in a dark uniform — dark trousers, dark shoes, dark vest — and a white shirt. He’s pale-skinned, clean-shaven, bespectacled, unremarkable. There’s a cloth badge picked out in black and gold upon his shirt-sleeve, and a sprinkling of grey through his short, black hair.

He doesn’t say anything to us; just gives us a view of his partner standing behind him — younger, similarly turned out — and inclines his head sharply to indicate that he wants us to follow them. Both men are Japanese, of average height and build, and both are sweating heavily in this overheated room. I can see their perspiration gleaming beneath the lights. The energy they give out seems muted, but it’s indisputably human.

Still, it seems odd that they don’t try to talk to either Ryan or me, or even to each other, though both of them are staring intently at Ryan’s face, as if they’ve seen him somewhere before.

Ryan and I glance at each other edgily, and he picks up his backpack from the floor. The official grasps his shoulder more tightly in his gloved hand and begins to walk so that Ryan is forced to follow, our bag trailing from his fingers.

‘Uh, I’m sorry, but you must have me confused with someone else,’ he says. ‘I’m not boarding a flight or anything. Uh, excuse me, sir?
Sir?
’

The men don’t acknowledge me at all, so all I can do is follow behind as they take Ryan through a set of automatic doors that immediately cut us off from the overcrowded waiting area. We’re in some kind of processing area now, filled with machines that look like giant, shiny steel portals. It’s virtually empty.

A couple of middle-aged Japanese women in uniform are seated near the gleaming portals. They nod deferentially as the officials gesture curtly that they’re going to walk Ryan through one of them.

Ryan drops the bag at his feet in resignation. ‘You’re not going to find anything,’ he says under his breath.

One of the women beckons Ryan forward with her gloved hand, and the man pushes him through one of the metal portals with unnecessary force. A small square light on the side turns green. I’m standing just behind the woman’s shoulder and am startled to see a ghostly human outline appear on the electronic screen she’s positioned in front of. I realise that I’m looking at an image of Ryan, right down to the phone and papers in his pocket, the shape of his body beneath his clothes. The whole set-up is some kind of scanning device, and I lean forward, fascinated, as the woman taps at some keys.

Also fascinated is the official who propelled Ryan into the machine in the first place. He’s moved back around the front of the machine and is now leaning in to study the image on the screen over the woman’s shoulder.

She points out a couple of places in the image before shrugging and saying, in Japanese, ‘Nothing. No threat. Clean.’ She beckons to Ryan again, indicating he’s done.

Ryan gives the silent official standing beside me a steely, reproachful glare as he moves through the portal. He reaches around the machine to retrieve his pack, and hesitates for a moment before shrugging it back onto his shoulders, as if afraid it will be confiscated. But nobody seems interested in the bag.

I’m watching Ryan walk towards me, when the second official comes up from behind and propels me forcefully into the metal portal. There’s a strange noise as I stand there for an instant, before moving straight through it, outraged at being manhandled without warning.

Ryan turns towards me as the Japanese woman taps a few more keys, then looks at the man standing framed in the portal behind me and says apologetically, ‘The machine must be malfunctioning, sir.’ She turns to the other official, the older man, who’s still standing beside her and indicates her screen. ‘See, nothing here but clouds.’

Time seems to freeze at her words, before recommencing again.

Ryan shouts, almost in slow motion, ‘Mercy!
Behind you
.’ I turn to see the younger customs officer crumpling silently to the floor. Something vaporous and pale, at least eight feet tall, rises up out of his body, towering over me. It’s vaguely humanoid but it lacks any distinct features, and the energy it gives off now is less human, more monstrous, setting off a sick, gingery feeling in me. It’s swaying a little where it stands, as if testing the air, or getting ready to move.

I can’t identify what it is, but I know that it’s ancient and capable of possession. And it is cunning: it used its human host’s energy to disguise its own strangely part-human energy. This thing is family in some way, but so many times removed that my wariness is in overdrive.

Even before I turn and look at Ryan, I know what I’m going to see: a second creature of vapourrising up out of the motionless body of the other man now slumped at Ryan’s feet.

The female customs official gives a terrified whimper.

I startle everyone and everything in the room by raising my hands and clapping them loudly together in front of my face. Instantly, the two creatures of cloud and malice sway in my direction, their eyeless faces searching me out. As they shamble forward, the outline of each shredding and re-forming continuously, I say calmly and quietly in Japanese, ‘Madam, move away now. Do you hear me? While I have their attention.’