Fury (24 page)

I clap again, and the spirit-creatures let forth a wordless howl that makes me clutch at my head in pain. I realise that what I’m hearing is that horrific, wordless language I’d first heard in Milan: the common language of the
daemonium
.

The woman is still frozen in her seat, weeping and terrified.

‘
Go!
’ I growl at her. ‘Move!’

She nods tightly before dropping off her chair to the floor and crawling away rapidly, still whimpering. She leaps to her feet some distance away and runs from the room, taking the other woman with her.

Ryan’s horrified gaze meets mine through the vaporous outline of the creature standing between us.

‘Run, my love,’ I say quietly. ‘Live a long, full life. You’ve endured enough.’

I see him hesitate, then take one step backwards as if he would flee. As he moves, the monster between us turns and lifts one of its vaguely arm-like appendages and pierces Ryan through the shoulder with it. He screams in agony as the thing pulls him close, shrieking into his face in cold fury. Then it wrenches its claw free, throws him over its shoulder and bounds away.

For a moment, I’m so shocked, I can’t move.

The other creature gazes at me through the scanning portal with its eyeless face, as if taunting me, before turning and leaping after the other.

They sweep furniture, machinery, cordons out of their way with their long, shapeless limbs as they cross the immigration zone, back towards the empty, silent lounges that would usually be full of passengers disembarking from planes. I sprint after them, hurdling fallen chairs and plastic trays, rubbish bins and metal signs, my eyes fixed on Ryan, who’s hanging like a rag doll over the shoulder of the demon in front, struggling wildly.

A siren starts to wail somewhere overhead, but I keep running: past cringing maintenance workers, past uniformed men who appear out of nowhere, pulling their weapons, screaming in Japanese that they will shoot. But we leave them all in our wake as we pelt at inhuman speed towards the deserted passenger lounge at the far end of the building. The demons don’t hesitate at the sight of the locked double doors near the silent ticket-processing machine — they just wrench them off their hinges and leap out into empty space. I hear Ryan yelling as the monsters fall through the air soundlessly.

I teeter in the doorway for a moment, looking down. There’s no ramp there, there’s nothing. Just a huge drop to the tarmac.

The creatures land on their feet, look up at me. The one holding Ryan lifts him high off the ground by the back of his leather jacket and gives him a shake. As if to say:
If you want him, come and get him
.

Shots are fired from behind. I feel one pass right through me, without effect. I don’t look back, I just leap out through the doorway, landing on my feet before the demons of cloud and venom, my eyes on Ryan. He’s shaking from pain and shock, and his lips are tinged with blue.

‘It doesn’t matter what happens to me,’ he hisses. ‘Get away from here. I’m bait, they’re using me as bait.’

‘I know,’ I say softly. ‘They’re not as dumb as they look, these two. They’ve worked out that my weakness is
you
and always will be.’

As if it understands me perfectly, the empty-handed demon bends and screeches its defiance in my face. The monster that has Ryan in its grip puts its other vaguely claw-like arm straight through Ryan’s other shoulder, his good shoulder, and leaves it there. Ryan gives a howl of mortal agony, twisting in anguish at the end of the creature’s bladelike arm.

I snarl, ‘Let him go! I’ll do what you want, go where you want. You have my word. Just let him go.’

I step forward, and as I do the demon holding Ryan tosses him out of the way as if he weighs nothing, as if he
is
nothing. Ryan gives a cry and lies still upon the tarmac.

The two creatures move forward, wreathing me in mist, and take hold of me. Cold moves instantly through me, paralysing me like an anaesthetist’s drug. The demons tower over me, drawing me closer, and I seem to see the first blush of morning rising within them, or through them. The stars in the sky seem to go out, one by one, as I feel myself begin to shiver into pieces. They mean to draw me down, down into Hell. I have made my pact with them — my life for Ryan’s; a bargain I would make again and again — and there seems no way out.

But there’s a flash of something else, something barely glimpsed. A coming together, a coalescence, a rising. Not the sun, but something that seems even brighter. I bow my head, using the last of my energy to wrench myself sideways as Uriel takes form behind my captors, his giant wings unfurling soundlessly, his broadsword in his hand.

He swings it in one smooth arc and I hear the sizzle of the blade as it connects with the demons’ energy. He cuts them both down and they vanish mid-shriek, the wind bearing the last shreds of their dead energy away.

‘You are a great magnet for trouble,’ Uriel roars over my kneeling figure.

Then he looks up suddenly as he catches rapid movement above and behind me. I turn sluggishly to see men in full riot gear on the ledge above us, weapons drawn. Some stupid order is given, loudly, to
fire
.

But faster than the men can let loose a volley of shots, Uriel has already knotted one of his great fists into Ryan’s leather jacket, the other into the stuff of me, and leapt off the surface of the world.

By the time the bullets hit the space where we were standing, turning the air blue with lead and smoke, we’ve already left Narita International — all of Tokyo — far behind us.

I struggle to pull free of Uriel’s mighty grip. As if proving a point, he lets go of me only when he’s ready to, hoisting Ryan more securely into his arms. Ryan’s still unconscious — head hanging down, limbs slack, backpack still looped over his broad shoulders.

Uriel is silent for a long time as we rise and rise and rise. We’re spearing straight into the sky side by side, so far above the surface of the earth that the air is soon choppy and frigid. The blush of a new dawn seems to be following in our wake, as if we are drawing a veil of light across the world, as if we are its sun.

We’re so far up now, that I seem to see the world curving beneath us, hear the vast sound of it turning. Like a giant, slowly grinding wheel.

‘We’re too high,’ I say sharply to Uriel.

He flies on in silence, his long, dark hair slipstreaming out behind him. His form is massive in comparison to mine, still winged, still deadly. He’s a thing of such singular, gleaming beauty, built along such mythical lines, that I can hardly look away.

‘It will kill Ryan, to be this high,’ I insist harshly. ‘He hasn’t moved, he might be dead. We need to take him down. Give him to me.’

Uriel glances at me with an unfathomable expression in his dark eyes, before refocusing upon the horizon, still holding Ryan out of my reach.

‘Every moment he’s with you puts him at mortal risk,’ he says finally. ‘Let him sleep until wakefulness is required; it will be less hard on him. He’ll do well enough with me.’

I realise then that Uriel is doing this deliberately, keeping Ryan under, keeping him away from me, as if he fears I’ll be tempted to do something bold, something stupid, like escape with Ryan; the two of us fugitives forever from all that dwell above and below. And I’m seriously tempted to try, but nowhere on earth would ever be safe again, and no matter how much I love him and ache to be with him, Ryan never signed up for that.

‘You still don’t trust me,’ I say bitterly, almost to myself. ‘And why would you?’

Uriel doesn’t reply, he just picks up speed, streaking away through the lightening sky. I find myself fighting to keep up, still feeling the effects of the cloud giants’ icy, paralysing touch in my system.

‘They were
nephilim
,’ Uriel calls out suddenly over his shoulder, as if responding to a question I’ve just asked. ‘And you were lucky. Ryan drew them to him first, but you, I think, were unexpected. They were uncertain about you, and it made them slow to act. They are usually fatal to the unwary.’

I draw abreast of him, only because he’s letting me.

‘Lucky you were there,’ I say.

‘I had nothing to sacrifice, nothing to lose, unlike you.’ His voice is very quiet. ‘You’ve changed so much,’ he considers my human disguise wryly, ‘both inside and out, that I hardly recognise you.’

‘The creature you used to know is separated from the being I am now by an unfordable river. Everything that has happened to me has made me who I am,’ I reply.

Without warning, Uriel’s luminous wings shred into nothingness, as if we have left some zone of immediate danger.

‘We’re safe enough, for now,’ he says, glancing sideways at me. ‘No demon could trouble us for long at this elevation. Though they crave the sun, they have no hope ever of reaching it. If he were not with us,’ he looks briefly at Ryan, silent in his arms, ‘I would already be in the skies above Huayna Picchu, scouring the great ruins below for any sign of Gabriel. When we reach Cusco, we three must part ways. Ryan will be safer amongst his own kind.’

‘At least let us help you find Gabriel,’ I plead.

Uriel’s gaze is shrewd. ‘And buy you both more time together? I think not, sister.’

‘I have agreed to nothing; neither has Ryan,’ I say fiercely. ‘Nothing has been decided.’

Uriel shakes his head. ‘But
I
am decided.’ His voice is steely, ringing. ‘We part at Cusco.’

Without looking at me again, he surges away through the skies, knowing I am forced to follow while he holds my love captive in his arms.

We are silent for leagues, eating up the distance without need of rest — hundreds of miles passing in the blink of an eye. Tiny pinpoints of rock begin to appear in the ocean far below, and I feel Uriel turn us to the south. We fly over a small atoll of islands, scattered like random beads across the ocean. The air beneath us grows grey-dappled, then progressively more impenetrable the further south we move. The skies are thick with a stinking grey haze, a vast plume that is redolent of sulphur, ash and grit.

‘Laysan Island, the Gardner Pinnacles, Ni’ihau, Kaua’i, O’ahu,’ Uriel says suddenly, taking us down.

We scream through the atmosphere at thousands of feet per second, falling out of the sky like missiles, and I begin to see the red glow of fire deep within the grey. Suddenly I see the cause of the haze: a giant island alive with fire — lava, cinders, ash spewing forth from a multitude of summits and vents and fissures, rocks falling into the sea as if hurled by unruly giants. The name of the place comes to me unbidden: Hawai’i.

‘One by one, they come to life,’ Uriel calls over his shoulder. ‘Every one destructive, a tragedy on its own, but together …’

He climbs again above the gritty smog and we rapidly leave the long, dirty plume behind, the grey stain stretching away from us to the north and the west.

‘Why don’t you stop them?’ I shout accusingly as I try in vain to chase him down. ‘If you’re so powerful, so close to
Him
, why let these disasters, these tragedies, even happen? You’re the ones with all the answers.
Do something
.’

Uriel flows to a sudden stop, blazing with anger, Ryan still held fast in his arms. I stop, too, suddenly very afraid of what he will do.

‘These are the conditions of this world,’ he thunders. ‘Conditions that Luc now exploits for his own ends. Despite everything that happens here, life continues to flourish; and that is the continuing miracle — that life
persists
. Do you think that we
rejoice
when any life is lost in unnatural circumstances? Well, do you?’

I shake my head, stunned to see the vehemence and repudiation in his expressive face, the great sorrow brimming in his dark, wide-set eyes.

‘You’re not the only one among the
elohim
that actually
feels
,’ he says bitingly. ‘There are simply not enough of us to guard against everything, to save everyone. So some are spared while others perish, and there seems no fairness in anything, no system, no order. But we do what we can, and we can do no more.

‘Life in this world is already dark, already messy enough, without the active interference of the Devil and his legions. The vast majority of Luc’s
daemonium
will never be as powerful as a single
elohim
, for most did not fall as Luc did, they were created out of the leavings of this world. But what the
daemonium
lack in grace, in speed, in power, they make up for in ferocity and sheer numbers. While our kind can only ever dwindle over time, the
daemonium
can and always will be replenished while Luc lives.

‘You have accused us before of being merely “watchers” — but how, in truth, is the life of one man to be balanced against another? Every action has a consequence; and we see each one stretch out before us endlessly even before we act. We fight a battle that has many fronts, and these fronts open and shift and change constantly. Some have “natural” causes, others do not. It is our burden and our rationale, and we accept it.’

His voice is suddenly gentler. ‘And that, Mercy, is why you must leave. Life will persist here regardless of what you do. Ryan’s people are tenacious — they have weathered so much. But Luc cannot be allowed to export the terror and the evil he deals in beyond this place. It is the time for selflessness, Mercy, for letting go. To rage against the conditions we face — that way lies insanity and paralysis.’

Then he turns and flows away, Ryan held as gently and carefully in his arms as a small child. And I think that this is the closest I have ever come to the mystery that lies at the heart of the Eight, and I am momentarily ashamed to have added to their cares and their sorrows. My love seems so small in comparison to theirs, but it is the very centre of my world now, of who
I
am.

And that is the paradox: I see what I must do, but it would tear me apart to do it.

The sun is high overhead as we cross the equator, and dark clouds gather above us as Uriel begins to take us down. As we cross the seas towards the mainland, he calls, ‘The Nazca Plate lies directly beneath us, the Volcán Llaima to the south. See what Luc has wrought in my absence, in mere
days
.’

The coastline we are crossing is obscured by a creeping grey fog. There’s nothing but dark above our heads, and a growing darkness before us as Uriel indicates peak after peak to the south spewing forth ash and grit and lava for miles along the coastline.

‘Some have been dead for centuries,’ he tells me. ‘But now Luc brings the Ring of Fire to life on every side; from here to the isles of Japan. It is only the beginning.’

Rain begins to fall as we angle northward along the coast, and develops into squalling winds and a heavy wet-season downpour that obliterates all light. Uriel does his best to shield Ryan from the worst of the storm, which touches neither of us. Lightning cuts through the sky repeatedly, briefly illuminating our approach towards a sprawling river-valley township ringed by immense mountains. The low, white-walled, red-roofed buildings are centred around a great square that gleams a lighter grey in the general greyness and is divided by patches of greenery, electric lampposts, footpaths, flowerbeds, a fountain, green benches. Two towering, Baroque-style stone churches, each in possession of two grand belltowers, face directly onto the square, as do several graceful stone arcades punctuated by archways. There is no one upon the surrounding streets or in the square.

As we approach the square from above at great speed, Uriel says inside my head,
The Plaza de Armas, Square of the Warrior. It is only fitting that this is where we should part. For you have been braver and truer than you know
.

We descend through day that has become night, through howling wind and stinging rain, towards a patch of greenery in the shadow of one of the great churches. We’re still about three hundred feet off the ground when Uriel mutters a single word into Ryan’s closed eyes: a word of command, of waking. I am above and behind Uriel as we descend, shielded from sight by him, and I alone catch the instant that Ryan’s eyes flash open to take in Uriel’s stern countenance over his. Uriel’s eyes are focused on the distant ground beneath us, and not upon the human he bears.

I see Ryan’s emotions chase each other across his face. For he’s often gazed upon that simple pencil sketch he keeps of me, I know, meditated upon it, matched it up against reality. Now, I literally see him thinking:
Like Mercy. Not Mercy. Demon
.

All this takes only seconds.

Then Ryan does the bravest, most misguided, stupidest thing I’ve ever seen him do. He closes his eyes, his lips moving silently in prayer, or farewell, and he dives backwards out of Uriel’s arms.

He’s falling like a stone through the sky, the rain soaking him instantly, making his heavy, mortal body even heavier, second by second. His eyes are closed and he’s as graceful, as accepting, as a diver. There’s no messy struggle; the lines of his body are tight and clean, arms outstretched. He makes no sound as he falls, still wearing that stupid backpack across his shoulders. He’d rather be dead, because he thinks that I must be. For he saw me surrender to the demons in Tokyo, and then woke to find himself in the grasp of a being of fire that looked like me but was not me and must therefore be some fiend, some shape-shifter demon.

I am all reaction, no thought, as I pull myself instantly into a tight downward spiral and try to catch him on the way down, catch him before he hits the granite walkways that bisect the Plaza de Armas.

Uriel’s so shocked, so unable to credit what Ryan has done, that he’s seconds behind me as I catch hold of Ryan by the hands. The force of our coming together threatens to rip his arms from their sockets. His eyes fly open as my fingers tighten convulsively around his. We’ve formed an imperfect circle, an ellipse, with our joined hands, and we’re spinning and spiralling through the air as centrifugal forces, gravity, take us over.

There’s no time to do anything but accept the ground rushing up to meet us, and I curve myself protectively around Ryan’s body the way I did when we collided with the great glass and steel roof of the Galleria in Milan, using every fibre of my being to cushion the impact of the blow when we hit the ground. Entwined and entangled together, we tumble across the rain-slick grass, skid over the cobbled surface of the Plaza, before coming to rest hard up against the base of a lamppost.

I lie there, shocked into immobility by the fall; a fall that has stirred up echoes in me of that other time. But this time, I am not burnt, blackened or near death. I am whole and very much alive.