Angel Fire (16 page)

Because what no one could have foreseen was the Church of Angels: the fastest-growing religion in history. Though founded by humans, the angels had been quick to take advantage of the Church – particularly Raziel, who’d always chafed at the Twelve’s automatic reign thanks to their status as the First Formed. You could either spend eternity jockeying for position as one of their lackeys, or try to carve out a niche for yourself elsewhere. The angels’ mass presence in this new world had given Raziel the opportunity he’d been craving for millennia; it hadn’t taken him long to wrest control of the Church and rise to its head.

With him at its helm, the Church of Angels had soon become the most influential church in the world. Angels were now so firmly fixed in society’s consciousness that people who’d never even encountered one were embracing their predators wholeheartedly. In Mexico City, the historic Catedral Metropolitana had recently been converted to become a Church of Angels cathedral – an astounding coup, made all the more so by the relative lack of press attention; it was just seen as a natural course of events. Raziel planned to take over the running of this new cathedral himself in due course, dividing his time between the United States and Mexico. In London, there was talk of St Paul’s being similarly converted; in Paris, Notre Dame.

So far, talk was all it was – the angelic presence wasn’t as great in Europe yet – but Raziel had had little doubt that in the wake of the Second Wave, these plans would go ahead. By then, he’d expected to be in charge of most of the Americas and imagined setting himself up akin to the Pope, with ruling angels under him. Once the Council had finally settled in this world and seen what was going on, it would have meant all-out war for them to try to wrest control back from him – and by then he’d have had more than enough allies to take them on.

At the moment, the Church stood on the brink: it was poised to take over the world, and those angels who were on Raziel’s side could help him do it. And so any reports back to the Council had always carefully downplayed the importance of the Church of Angels, and Raziel’s growing power base.

Or at least, that’s what he had thought.

As he turned off the shower, it hit him suddenly: Mexico City. The half-angel was there – and she too was aware of the Council. The knowledge was as fleeting as a soap bubble, gone as quickly as it had arrived. Raziel was left frowning, water dripping in his eyes as he wondered whether he was going insane.
Forget the half-angel,
he thought. He could still hardly bear to use the word
daughter.
He had more important things to think about right now.

When he emerged again, Charmeine had moved to the sitting room. After putting on a pair of casually expensive grey trousers, Raziel went in and found her curled up, catlike, in his favourite armchair. He knew they’d made a striking pair, once – her with her delicate moonlight beauty, and him with his crisp black hair and poet’s features. If he was the sentimental type, this might have caused him to view her with less suspicion. Fortunately, he wasn’t.

“So what are you up to?” he demanded, buttoning a midnight-blue shirt. “Why are you tipping me off that there’s trouble?”

Charmeine looked amused. “Old time’s sake?” she suggested.

“How wonderfully altruistic of you,” replied Raziel, tucking his shirt in. “Please remember this is me you’re talking to, and how very, very well I know you. What’s your game?”

“No game,” said Charmeine. Her beautiful gamine face was impossible to read. She rose and came over to him, lazily circling one of his shirt buttons with a fingernail. “I just have a feeling you’re going to need a friend in this world soon, that’s all. And I think our mutual needs could work together very well.”

Raziel’s expression didn’t change as he looked down at her. “Does the Council know about you and me?” he asked sharply.

Her hand wandered up to the nape of his neck, playing with his hair. “Of course; they delved my mind and found everything I wanted them to see,” she said. “And so they know I hate you very, very much, and would do anything to get back at you.”

Raziel started to say something else, then stopped as they both felt it – a harsh tugging at their minds, as if they were a pair of fishes being reeled in by invisible fishermen. “Showtime,” murmured Charmeine, dropping her hand. “By the way, your cathedral is about to be used for something pretty disagreeable. Necessary, I suppose, but...disagreeable.”

The riddles were doubly annoying when the place under discussion was his own territory. Without answering, Raziel shifted into his angel form and flew from the room, gliding silently through the walls. Charmeine followed with a bright flash of wings. As they soared out into the main space of the cathedral, with its high, arching dome, Raziel saw the Twelve gathered in their human forms below, near the white-winged pulpit. And what fun; they’d brought an audience with them – there were around fifty angels seated in the pews nearby.

Raziel’s ethereal eyes narrowed as he saw the results of the half-angel’s attempt to destroy the gate: the buckled floorboards; the missing ceiling panels; the metal scaffolding that stood in place. Fury seared through him again that she’d even attempted such a thing – and that the damaged fruits of her work were now on gruesome display for the Council and their sycophants to view.
Mexico City. She’s there,
he thought again. And though he shoved the knowledge away for now, he dearly hoped it was true. Knowing the creature’s whereabouts would mean he was only a few steps away from having her and her assassin boyfriend destroyed.

He touched down in front of the Council and changed back to his human form; Charmeine followed suit. The Twelve looked nothing alike, yet there was a commonality between them, all the same – a similar bland expression, perhaps, or a certain way they all held themselves. Six males and six females who’d been leading the angels’ affairs for millennia, since long before anyone could remember. From what Raziel had heard, most of them loathed each other heartily, though they were far too entwined, both psychically and politically, to ever separate now.

“Welcome to my cathedral,” said Raziel, inclining his dark head.

He managed to keep the irony from his voice, but knew they’d pick up on it psychically; he wasn’t especially bothering to hide it. “Thank you,” said Isda, who was often the spokeswoman for the Twelve. “It’s a pleasure to be here.” She was tall and statuesque, with sculpted features; her grey eyes rested on Raziel with no visible emotion. “Shall we get the unpleasantness out of the way first?”

“By all means,” said Raziel smoothly, trying to bury his faint throb of alarm – what unpleasantness were they talking about, precisely? And now he saw that in addition to the expected hangers-on in the audience, all the First Wavers who’d been in psychic contact with the Council were here too. He could sense their deep tremor of worry; the expectation had been that Raziel would be firmly ensconced in power by the time their betrayal was found out.

“Good. You and Charmeine may take a seat,” said Isda, nodding at a nearby pew.

Being given permission to sit in his own cathedral grated; Raziel did so in moody silence. Charmeine perched beside him, looking straight ahead.

Isda and the rest of the Twelve stood in a row, their backs to the pews. The tall stained-glass windows in front of them glimmered in the sun; it was here, exactly, that the Second Wave had arrived, mere days ago. “Now, please,” called Isda in her low voice.

The stadium doors to the side opened and a long line of almost a hundred angels were led in – all in their human forms, with their hands cuffed behind them. Raziel sat up straight, his pulse quickening in surprise as he recognized the remainder of the traitors: the angels that he’d been using Kylar, the assassin, to do away with. Though a diverse group, the traitors all believed that angels didn’t have the right to use humans for their own purposes, and were committed to helping humanity, even if it meant the extinction of their own kind. Raziel had gotten their names by chance over a year ago, from a rogue who’d been captured and had then turned in the others to save himself. Raziel had had him killed anyway, of course, but it had been a very useful meeting all the same.

The nature of the “unpleasantness” was now only too clear. The Council had been aware of the rogues’ identities from the start; it had seemed politic to pass the information across. And they’d know that only a rogue – in this case, Nate – could have helped the half-angel with her near-disastrous attack on the gate. As a result, the traitors had escalated themselves out of being a matter that could be taken care of quietly, and into one that merited a public statement. The Council would have drawn the rogues to them easily enough; one of the most annoying things about the Twelve was how their psychic call tugged on you, like it or not.

Gazing at the traitors, Raziel wondered why they stayed imprisoned in their chained human forms – and then realized uneasily that the Council had something to do with that too. In a subtle undercurrent that he’d missed before, he could feel them working together to exert some kind of mental hold on the captured angels, preventing them from shifting.

The traitors stood motionless before the Council, awaiting their fate. The cathedral had fallen utterly silent; beside him, Charmeine sat unmoving. The Twelve didn’t speak, but a heavy energy was gathering, crackling with power. Gradually, Raziel sensed their mental hold on the prisoners reverse itself, so that now it forced them into their more vulnerable divine forms. Knowing what it meant, they were resisting with everything they had – faces grimacing, muscles straining. Raziel squirmed slightly. He didn’t mind watching the traitors’ deaths, but the Council’s display of power was...unsettling.

A dark-haired angel named Elijah was the first to succumb. His angel form appeared in a rush, its winged figure darting upwards as he tried to escape through the ceiling. A quick mental feint from the Council and Elijah shuddered to a halt mid-air, wings flapping feebly like an insect pinned to a card. His halo began glowing, brighter and brighter – too bright, it was throbbing, trembling under the pressure – and then it exploded into silent fragments. Elijah’s scream echoed through the cavernous building as he was torn to pieces...and then there was silence again as the remnants of his ethereal self drifted towards the ground.

Raziel winced – as Elijah died, it felt as if a small piece of himself had been torn away. The Twelve’s energy was even stronger now, pulsing through the cathedral like a heartbeat. With an anguished cry, several others lost the battle and erupted into their divine forms. The Council showed no strain in dealing with all of them at once. As their halo-hearts burst one after the other, the remainder of the prisoners followed in a helpless torrent, taking to the air amidst the shining shards that were now falling like snow. Screams echoed; angelic bodies writhed. Raziel gritted his teeth as the pain of death after death clawed at him. Beside him, Charmeine’s face was emotionless but pale.

When the last executed angel had faded from view, the Council shifted and lifted upwards. Their wings moved slowly as they hovered, turning to face their audience. Raziel just managed not to shield his eyes. The divine bodies of the First Formed were painfully bright, their features impossible to make out as they burned blue-white before their audience. A thought came like psychic thunder, twelve voices speaking at once:
This is how we deal with traitors. We are sure you all understand.

Raziel swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. It was typical of the Council: using a necessary execution such as this one as a helpful little aide-memoire as well. He didn’t have to look behind him to know how sick the expressions were of the First Wavers who had been on his side.

The Council stayed aloft for almost a minute, silently making their point. Finally they touched down again and rippled back to their human forms. Though they didn’t look at Raziel, he abruptly felt singled out, as pinned to his seat as the rogue angels had been in the air. Still speaking psychically, the many-toned voice that was both one and twelve rumbled through him:

Raziel, may we see you alone, please?

The meeting was short and to the point.

Half an hour later, Raziel sat alone in one of the cathedral’s downstairs conference rooms, staring at the gleaming wooden table; the tasteful decorations; the silver water pitcher that had an arched, graceful angel as the handle. He had done all of this; he had made it all happen – and apparently, if he was very, very good and did exactly as he was told, he might be allowed to keep it for a little while.

Or not.

Impotent anger clenched his fists. No. They weren’t going to get away with this – not after all his hard work; not after all he’d done in this world and still planned to do. He wouldn’t allow it. He
would not.

“Raziel?” Charmeine had appeared; she stood in the doorway.

“Shouldn’t you be off doing lackey work?” he said bitingly. He shoved his chair back and rose, striding for the door.

She shut it with a soft click and leaned against it. “If anyone goes checking psychically, that’s exactly what they’ll see,” she said. “For your information, I’m currently going through your email account upstairs, while the Twelve talk to some of your First Wave chums.”

He snorted. “Aren’t you noble? As if that’s not exactly what you
were
just doing.”

Charmeine gave a mild shrug. “It helps to have visual details in mind when you’re creating psychic decoys. And let me guess,” she went on. “They’ve told you about their plan to only recognize those angels in power who they’ve appointed themselves.”

“Good guess,” snapped Raziel. “And those they
don’t
recognize will be dealt with as traitors.” He swore and raked a hand through his hair. “Why couldn’t this have happened a few years from now? I’d have had enough of a power base by then to take them on, to constrain them in some way—” He stopped, aware that he was saying far too much.

He could feel Charmeine’s sincerity again; her anger at the Council. “I really am on your side, Raz,” she said softly. “You can trust me.”