Midnight's Angels - 03 (19 page)

Most of what we could see, after that, was restricted to the tight circle of light cast out by the motorbike. And there was nothing sensible that we could do except head back.

The town lay in murky silhouette around us, only the stars providing any light. The moon had been covered by a dense blanket of cloud. It looked as if a black tarpaulin had been thrown across the entire Landing. I wasn’t sure how Cassie felt, but I was really sick at heart.

We were passing streets where people relaxed after a day’s work, enjoyed the company of family and friends. A place where homework was attended to, meals were cooked and children played. But now it was all gone.

The outer suburbs were completely dead. Tomb dead, nothing on the move. Suck the light from a place, and you drain the life from it as well. I’d never seen that demonstrated quite so thoroughly.

We rounded a corner, and my spirits lifted just a touch. Up ahead, there was a brilliant orange glow. A shifting one, which danced across the rooftops off in that direction. It was being cast by the bonfires in Union Square, the blackout making it even more intense. And to my mind, that seemed to announce,
We’re still here, and we’re still human
. I didn’t quite manage a smile, but I was glad of that.

Cassie was heading back in far more slowly than before, the pitch darkness confounding her. She’d stop occasionally, propping one boot against a curbstone. Then she’d kick off again like a swimmer pushing away from a jetty, continuing inward. Maybe it wasn’t just the lack of light, it occurred to me. Maybe she was freaked out the same way I was.

The crowds parted for us as we reached the square. Startled faces gazed at us, their eyes full of questions. What exactly could we tell them? We’d be lucky to survive this night?

At least the angels hadn’t moved in any closer. They were hovering in mid-air some half a mile off, the fires keeping them away, Everything around us was swathed in shades of amber now the street lighting was gone.

Martha Howard-Brett came down the Town Hall steps. Then there was a blur beside her, which resolved into a solid shape. Willets again, back from the roof. His eyes saw much further than normal ones, so I didn’t need to tell him what had happened.

“At least some more of them are dead,” he commented. “Not nearly enough, though. And the rest are on their way back here.”

Martha nodded anxiously, confirming that. Even she could sense when there was danger coming.

“Can either of you fix the power station?”

“To do that,” the doc explained to me, “we’d have to understand how it worked in the first place. And I don’t think either of us are particularly technically minded.”

“If Gaspar were here, it might be different,” Martha put in. Then her face went very tired. “But he’s not.”

The fact that someone else was missing struck me forcibly at that point. I turned around on the spot, my eyes hunting for a familiar face. But it refused to show itself.

Where had Nick McLeish gotten to? The man was usually right there in the thick of things.

There were more questions than answers this particular evening. The main one being, what was going to befall us? I could see it on the faces all around me. Nobody knew that.

* * *

Everyone understood it by this juncture. Something bad was on the way. You didn’t have to be an adept to get that. The ground seemed to tremble under us, or maybe that was just our pulses.

Everyone was stiff. Their eyes were wide. And the few children who’d wandered out were being ushered back inside.

Cass had one of her larger weapons ready. She’d chosen the assault carbine over the shotgun, which made sense. The hominids, if they managed to get close, would try to overwhelm us with sheer weight of numbers. So a gun that fired bursts of ammunition was the better choice.

Cops were spread evenly through the crowd, mostly at its outer edges. I caught a glimpse of Ritchie Vallencourt off near the statue’s plinth. He had a radio speaker clamped to his mouth, and was directing operations.

Then I caught sight of another face I recognized. It was the man whose family we’d saved yesterday evening. The rest of them had to be indoors. But he’d gotten hold of a hunting rifle. And the look on his face spoke volumes. The terrors of the previous night were still fresh in his mind. But he wasn’t being scared off. This was very likely payback time.

I took out my Smith & Wesson. None of us wanted to start killing these creatures, not considering what they had been. But was there any slightest chance of them returning to us, standing up, becoming human?

Once again, there was no way to tell. We couldn’t take that chance.

We’d hear them coming, I was sure. An approaching clatter, just like at the power station. I could almost feel my ears prick, waiting for that sound.

Something sparked in the corner of my eye. My head jerked around, and it wasn’t the only one. A cold dead flickering brought our gazes to the west. And several people gasped.

The angels were on the move again. Still remaining clear of us, but swinging around toward Sycamore Hill, off beyond the far end of O’Connell. They stood out against its lightless bulk like a trio of unworldly fireflies. But why’d they changed position?

Cassie raised her carbine to her shoulder but they were too far away. She started moving, trying to push closer, so I grabbed her by the elbow. When she looked around, I shook my head. This was more of a waiting game.

Why had they bothered to show up anyway, simply to hover around like that? Maybe they had some kind of plan -- that wasn’t an idea I cared for.

I ought not have been able to make out their faces clearly from this distance. But something about their cold fierce glow -- it seemed to project them, making them crisper and more vivid than was natural. And I got a glimpse of what their mouths were doing.

“What the blazes?” Willets grunted.

Their lips were stretching as wide as they could, revealing that pure black again. The same way as one of their servants pulling out a human soul. But that did not seem, on this occasion, to be their intention.

Their wings were beating faster, a pallid blur in the surrounding night. Except the figures had stopped moving, so I wondered why that was happening.

When a sound finally washed across us, it was not a clatter but a low, purring whistle. And the air began to move around my face. Softly at first, but then with increasing force. It was coming from the west as well. The angels were doing this.

I thought I got what they were up to. They were exhaling in one long, continuous breath and stirring the air currents with their wings at the same time.

And it was turning into a full-blown gale.

There were several loud shrieks. The flames of the bonfires, which had been leaping vertically before, were dragged earthward. Some of the stacked wood in them collapsed, hot embers showering out.

I shielded my eyes and stared at the closest one. It had been turned into a frightening apparition. Flames were being dragged down almost horizontal by the wind. The people nearest it were backing off, yelling, pawing at their hair and clothes.

The air was filled with yellow sparks. Everyone was being forced to crouch. Several hot pinpricks struck my own face, making me curse angrily.

The wind grew even stronger, screeching. Made the fires dance unevenly. And then start going out.

Cassie -- out of all of us -- wasn’t prepared to stand around and take that passively. She might answer to a lot of descriptions, but not that. She started running west along O’Connell, taking potshots at the things. And she wasn’t achieving a whole lot -- she was still out of range. But she was right. Stand here and do nothing and these things would grind us down to pulp. If we managed to distract them then we might achieve something.

So I took a deep breath and started off after her. Willets and Martha did the same. We tucked our heads down and pushed against the howling wind. But it was far from easy.

The firelight around us had already dropped to a pale shade of its original intensity. Some of the bonfires had been extinguished completely, ungainly blackened ruins in the dark. And the rest looked like they were about to follow. That gave an added urgency to everything we did. The hominids hadn’t shown up yet, but they were on their way.

Willets raised a hand, still running. And a huge red flash came surging out. Martha followed suit, blazing gold rushing from her open palm in the form of a lightning bolt.

But the angels seemed to have gotten the measure of that kind of magic. They simply parted, drifting away sideways. The bolts of energy went by them harmlessly. And the same thing happened when the adepts tried again.

Cassie had gotten herself into proper firing range. She aimed swiftly and precisely, pumping rounds out at the glowing forms. But the angels didn’t even bother to evade them. Ordinary slugs, however powerful, were still useless against them.

Which was something my companion didn’t like one little bit. The air turned blue around her.

The rest of us staggered to a halt, frightened townsfolk milling around us, many of them shouting. I thanked God the kids were still inside. It doesn’t happen often, but a genuine feeling of defeat began closing its grip around me. The gale was blowing just as strongly as it had been. I’d been hoping -- if we could divert the beings’ attention, even for a short while -- it would at least weaken. But we had not managed that.

I reached Cass, who was out of breath.

“What now?” she gasped, doubling partly over.

And the only answer I could give her was another numb shake of my head. We still had no electric power, and only a couple of the bonfires were alight.

Staring at the closest woodpile, I could see the heart of it was smoldering. The core shone; a few thin orange strands snaked through the broken lumber. But they were no match for the surging wind. They reached the sides and top, but didn’t last a second before being spirited away.

The whole thing started dwindling before my troubled gaze. Winked, and then went out completely. The night settled back across us. And it felt like being buried under several tons of shadow.

The gale finally began to subside. You’d have thought that that would come as a relief, but it didn’t. Because the sound that I’d originally been expecting … it turned up at last.

A distant pattering at first. And then as it drew closer, a steady clatter, not broken up and fragmented but forming one continuous sound that swelled as it approached. It was coming from the west, from Sycamore Hill and the power station off beyond that. Forces had been joined.

I turned to our magicians. “Another barrier?” I suggested. “A much stronger one, this time?”

Willets’s head shook solemnly. “It took all of us to make the one round Tyburn. With only the two of us left ...”

He fixed his attention on the palely glowing figures, who were still hovering in front of the hill, staring down on us mere mortals with what looked like satisfaction.

“And those things went through the last one like butter. Why do you suppose it should be any different?”

Martha, normally a gentle, thoughtful soul, was holding herself rigid. Her fingers were quivering, but from adrenalin far more than terror.

“We have to fight back hard,” she said. “There is no other way.”

That mood appeared to spread throughout the crowd. We’d had to battle for our lives before. In a place like the Landing, it came with the territory.

Cops were pushing to the front again, many of them holding riot guns. Ritchie Vallencourt was in there with them, looking as if he was spoiling for a fight.

When the hominids came at us, I’d seen enough of them to understand they’d just come rushing in. And we’d be forced to gun them down. Might that include people I knew? That thought was put aside completely, because conscience had become a luxury that no one could afford.

We stood there, staring out and waiting. The fires might be gone, but a segment of the moon had reappeared. So I could still see the outlines of the frontages surrounding us. Sheets of plate glass, smooth as lakes, with striped awnings hung over them. Posters in some of the windows. Darkened shapes that had been neon signs.
Big Joe’s Bar
and
Poppa’s Pizza
. Normal things from everyday life. Now they were diminished in the darkness, almost gone.

The sound of the hominids became a low, insistent rumble. My pulse started to trip over rapidly, because I thought I saw the walls and rooftops move out there.

Hundreds and then thousands of crouched, loping shapes had begun scuttling across every surface they could find. And they were all headed in this direction.

There were some muffled curses and some sharp intakes of breath, but no one backed away.

“Hell, bring it on,” I heard someone mumble.

That was when the power lines directly over us began to crackle.

* * *

Which shouldn’t have been happening. The turbine was down -- we all knew that. How could there be juice up there when it was no longer being created?

But a hint of static sprang up in the dim air, tugging at my hair and clothes. And when I looked up, the lines were flickering. Tiny sparks were leaping from them. Blue-white flashes leapt across the road. Every face was raised, eyes reflecting the shimmering activity. Everyone was frozen with astonishment.

And that included Willets, who was right beside my shoulder.

“Are you doing this?” I asked, without looking around.

He shook his head. I only saw that in the corner of my eye. But Martha, next to him, did the same.

I began wondering if it might be the Little Girl, who I’d always associated with a bluish light. But even if she had come back, she’d never demonstrated a capacity for anything like this. Besides, my instincts told me otherwise.

Then I recalled those earlier incidents. The way that barrier had parted down on Greenwood Terrace without any seeming reason. The way a path had been formed between those flames outside Raine Manor. There was powerful sorcery at work here, but from which direction we could only guess.

The bulbs and neon tubes started to come back on around us. Not immediately. They flickered first. Then elements began to glow. A thin sheen of yellow light sprang up, laced with red and green. It was like being in some multicolored, lamp-lit fog. The faces of the people near me started to take on clearer definition.

There was a louder fizz from overhead. And then the cables began to actually hum. The bulbs went glowing white, shining so fiercely I was worried they might burst.

My gaze swiveled, peering down the side-roads. And I could see this wasn’t happening to the rest of town. It was still perfectly dark out there. But here on O’Connell and in Union Square, brightness was reclaiming everything.

Smiles appeared, and a few people began whooping. But who exactly ought they thank?

“Is this Raine?” I asked concernedly.

If it was, he might lose interest again in a matter of seconds. Willets closed his eyes and thought about it, and then shook his head a second time.

“No, this is a very single-minded form of witchcraft. And it tells me something that I’d never have believed before.”

He peered at me gravely, his vermilion pupils glinting.

“He’s shielding himself from me, evading my inner gaze. But there’s another adept in this town that no one ever knew about. And -- by the look of it -- an extremely strong one.”