Thief (15 page)

He hadn’t spotted her with a brush or comb either, yet her hair was always perfectly arranged in golden cascades down her shoulders. No more had he seen a toothbrush, but her teeth always sparkled with their alpine whiteness and her breath was fresh as a mountain spring.

Sherial also continued to do the impossible on a regular basis. She held court with the local wildlife daily, something he was almost getting used to. She’d even managed to persuade the crowd not to eat most of his garden. Though there at least she hadn’t been totally successful. They were fine when she was around, but every time she went away, they quickly forgot and started munching. But that at least was a comfort. Each time they ate his garden, he knew again there were limits to even her divine power. It might be a minor thing, but seeing their disobedience had given him some hope against her.

She often flew overhead, sometimes like a butterfly, sometimes like a jet, but always in a way that defied all the laws of gravity and aerodynamics. More, she flew in a way that turned what should be impossible into an exquisite aerial ballet. Sherial not only flew, she flew far more naturally than he breathed.

On a couple of occasions she’d been joined by others of her clan? / choir? He’d watched them flying around like birds playing far overhead, their aerial acrobatics an expression of joy that left him speechless. Never however, did those others come to visit. It wasn’t their place so she told him. Apparently he was still her specific responsibility and no one else’s.

Singing was another one of her many talents, though unlike a human one, he was sure she’d never worked at it. It was as natural for her, as was breathing for anyone else. He suspected she often sang almost unconsciously, the song simply bursting from her of its own will. Whether or not she might have one somewhere, Sherial didn’t need a harp. She was her own accompaniment. No orchestra could have done her justice.

Sometimes he’d turn on the stereo and blast a few of his favourites through the tranquil air, and often Sherial would join in. It didn’t matter the song, the tune, the style. Rock, heavy metal, classical and new age, she sang them all. Moreover she seemed to love them all, finding joy in the musical talents of every artist. It was unbelievably strange to watch her dancing to Fleetwood Mac and Chopin, singing Billy Idol and Carole King, positively revelling in The Corrs and ABBA, and even accompanying the Eagles.

Of course he realized, the words meant nothing to her, only the music. Her voice was the sound of a choir made of the entire forest, all the birds and beasts of the field one and all. Yet it always matched perfectly the tune he was playing, somehow adding to it, making it everything it could have been and more. Every record producer in the world would have committed mass murder to record even one afternoon’s worth of Sherial’s singing. They couldn’t have succeeded though. Sherial sang as and when the mood took her. No matter how he tried to explain the stereo to her, she wouldn’t use it by herself. Only when he was playing it would she join in.

Sherial continued to speak in the language of the beasts of every field and communicated in the way of the spirit, little of which he actually understood. But the more she did so, and the less he understood, perversely the more he seemed to learn. Somehow she taught him without ever fully communicating.

As always his failure to comprehend much of what she said had driven him to the edge of his sanity. He wanted to understand her. He should be able to. He was a bright guy, well versed in studying people and their actions. He spoke several languages fluently, and could muddle through many more with patience. It should have been easy. Instead it was impossible. What she told him, for the most part was simply impossible, or incomprehensible. What little he did pick up, he didn’t really need, and often didn’t remember her telling him about it. It answered none of his questions and yet told him more than he could accept.

In the end he’d been forced to accept his inability to understand her, or go mad with frustration. To commemorate his failure he’d found a quote by Lichtenburg and pasted it on the wall above one of his workshop benches.

“If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound like 2 times 2 equals 13.”

Now and then he looked at it as he worked, trying to accept its truth to his heart. Whatever she said, he was still only human and therefore unable to understand.

Above all else Sherial ensnared him in her web of desire. There was no doubt in his mind that she was a trap, one he simply couldn’t avoid. On his bad days he often felt as though she was really only reeling him in; he’d already taken the hook, and the outcome was certain. It was just a matter of time until he stopped wriggling. On his good days it was the same.

She dominated his attention whenever she was there, usually to the point where he couldn’t even think straight and had to flee or face losing all control. Yet her absence was worse.

At his very core he hated the very thought of being her pawn, of being in some way so dependant on her, and he rejected her charms with all his might. But the second she was gone her absence made the world seem empty and cold as it had never been. He felt something deep inside shriveling with her departure. What would he do when all this was over and she was gone? It was too horrible to think about, and yet it was his goal. It had to be if he was to survive this nightmare. If he was to have a life afterwards.

He was he realized, in some way becoming dependant on her, something he would never have considered possible. She was like a drug, clouding his mind, destroying his independence, and yet so infinitely sweet. So completely addictive. Something that was completely unacceptable. The very thought of relying on anybody else was an anathema to him. He shouldn’t need anyone. Ever. Yet without whips and chains she was still somehow enslaving him, no matter how he fought it.

In his worst moments he knew that it was an ongoing process, one he could only lose. For not only did Sherial overwhelm him, she destroyed his ability to defend himself against her. Against anyone. Many times as he practiced his mantras, as he trained his body and mind for conflict, he found a simple and yet terrifying question invading his thoughts, ‘Why?’ It was wrong to resist, wrong to fight her. Yet if he couldn’t fight, he was defenceless. Naked against his enemies, should they find him. That thought terrified him down to his toenails and he always suppressed it in seconds. But it was still always there, somewhere, hiding at the back of his mind.

At the moment Sherial was away, making his world a bleak miserable place and it took strength even to concentrate on the task at hand. Yet Sherial was only away for a few short hours doing whatever angel things angels did, and it was at his own request. Deep within he ached for her to return, and clamped down savagely again and again on those errant feelings, not entirely successfully. But at least in between his lapses he could concentrate on the task at hand. And he needed to concentrate.

Mikel carefully wound up the explosive heads on the grapplers, knowing that it was probably going to be the last step in his preparations. He always left this part till the very last. It made him edgy having hair trigger sensitive explosives around, no matter how useful. Even though this time it looked like there would be no buildings to scale, he still saw uses for the grapplers. In fact, judging from what Sherial had shown him, they should be extremely effective in biting the stone of the cavern ceilings and letting him swing unseen over the heads of the enemy. He hoped.

But that was the problem with the entire exercise. It was something he’d never tried before, and he was going against an enemy he’d never encountered. How could he possibly know what they had in store? What defences they kept? He knew from Sherial that they used technology as well as other knowledge, and so he prepared as best as he could.

Chief among his weapons was the suit he’d built. Woven in with every technological innovation he could think of it was designed to hide and conceal. It would allow no body heat to radiate, no light to reflect, not even sound in case of sonar. It was precisely neutral in terms of electric charge and completely non-magnetic and non-metallic. In theory, in the darkened cavern he should be as invisible as a ghost. In theory.

Uncertain of his ability to stay hidden, he had included more than just invisibility in his bag of tricks. In his back pack he had the closest thing he’d ever had to an arsenal in his life, just in case. He had hundreds of grenades for concussion, smoke, ultrasonics, tear gas, and simple detonation, all miniaturized to the size of the smallest joint of a thumb, and yet all far more powerful than their conventional equivalents. He had a vast range of paralysing and knock out gases, all matched to his nose plugs. To cut the bars he had everything from a hand laser to strips of thermite. Then there were the more usual things; lock picks, laser goggles, holo projectors, electrical jamming equipment, multiple tool kits. In short he was better prepared for this job than any thief in history.

So why had he gone to the extremes of sanity? Like the holy water carefully packed into little shell casings. Surely it would only work in movies. And yet when he’d thought of confronting demons in Hell it had been at the top of his list. Along with a cross, wooden of course, worn beneath his suit, a bible and recordings of the Lord’s prayer. It was insanity, and yet when he suggested it to Sherial she considered them among the best ideas he’d had. And how could he deny her knowledge? She was real, she was an angel and she knew something of what he was up against.

Still, if he was going to use these things, at least he’d made sure he was going to use them his way. Sherial had almost died laughing when he suggested putting the holy water into little plastic bullets, the better to spray into the demons. And using a recording of the Lord’s Prayer she’d thought was inspired. At least that’s how he interpreted what she thought.

He just hoped and prayed, literally, that he never had to use them. He had no faith in them at all. The sun flares however, were a different story. Brighter than the midday sun those flares should blind anybody or anything not wearing reflective lenses. Regardless of whether demons could stand the light of day, they should blind any enemy of any species. As long as they had eyes.

But now, as he had been for the last few days, he was constantly in the mode of wondering if there was anything else he could think of. If he had forgotten anything. It was a waste of time, his and the prisoners, and yet he found it almost impossible to declare himself ready. There was nothing else he could add to his kit, nothing else he could do to prepare himself, but still he wasn’t sure.

Needing a break from his inner turmoil, Mikel decided to take a walk down to the jetty. Walking was something he didn’t do enough of, concentrating as he always did on more extreme forms of exercise that left him drained.

The day was fine and sunny, as it nearly always was, the sky a perfect blue and the grass matching perfection in green. It was autumn, just past the intense heat of summer, and one of the best times of the year to be outside. Soon the specially imported grass would die back, preparing for the cool of winter, and the sea would become rough and cold. He didn’t get out often enough.

On the way to the jetty the pains in his legs started to ease off. They’d been cramped ever since the mornings weight session, and it was a relief to finally feel them relax. Of course that still left the pain in his arms, back, stomach and every other single milligram of flesh. It was the curse of constant, extreme exercise.

He’d lived with pain for decades now, almost welcoming it as a constant companion, yet he also knew that the pain was there for a reason. It told him he had a problem. His body was stressed, very stressed and not just occasionally. It was surely only a matter of time till it started to give way.

Sooner or later it had to call it a day and leave him unable to work. He’d known that since the very start, always wondering not if but when, his body would call it quits on him. It was his greatest fear, yet largely only because it would retire him. Cripples do not make good thieves. And he couldn’t imagine not being a thief.

Yet whenever he’d considered the alternatives, slowing down, taking off rest days, holidays and the like, he’d never been able to. Relaxation was something he simply couldn’t do. Not when there was always another villain to destroy, more money to steal, and more people to help. Not when there was always the danger of being caught if he slowed down even a little. An hour of relaxation was as much as he could stand.

Now, here he was, going into another risky venture, one so dangerous he couldn’t even believe his sanity in attempting it, and one that could put him out of action permanently. All to save perhaps a hundred souls. Logically, if he continued with his normal work, he had perhaps ten more years before his body forced him to retire. Ten more years could represent anything up to fifty billion dollars in charity, and many millions of saved lives. Was it worth the risk?