Midnight's Angels - 03 (26 page)

Cass looked down at her own arms and saw the soft incandescence disappearing from them, the natural color of her flesh returning. She shuddered startledly, like someone who had been awoken from a dream. Tried to retreat again -- it did no good. The darkened strands simply extended further.

Then her hands went to one of the twin Glocks on her belt. She whipped it out, and began emptying its extended clip into the pale creature in front of her, clenching her teeth furiously as she did so.

It was no use either. I could have told her that. A final act of desperation. But it spurred me into action.

I burst out from cover, closing the gap between us rapidly. But I was forced to acknowledge …
this
was an act of desperation too. The larger the angel got, the more I felt my insides tensing up.

Maybe I yelled out. I’m not sure. Perhaps it simply heard me running. But it paused again, then inclined its head to study me with those soulless eyes.

Which suddenly gave a dark flash, a lightless burst of energy. An invisible force banged against me, stopping me short. One hand went to my forehead, which was smarting.

When the angel did the same thing a second time, the force that it flung out banged into my left fist, knocking the flashlight free of my grasp. I heard it hit the dirt, glass cracking as the lens broke.

And before I had time to take in what was going on, the same kind of force came slamming at my body, hard. Right in the solar plexus this time, practically lifting me off my feet. I went stumbling away, hitting the ground with an almighty bang.

It wasn’t only the pain searing through me. The strength had completely left my body, and I couldn’t seem to breathe. I could barely see straight. But I could still think, after a fashion. Something vaguely along the lines of,
what the crying hell was that?

This seemed to be a new gift that the angel had picked up. These things were just chock full of charming surprises, weren’t they? The creatures were getting ever more empowered, expanding the scope of their abilities. And there was no way of predicting what they might do next.

When I managed to get my head back off the ground, the creature seemed to have forgotten me. It had returned its full attention to Cassie, was drifting almost directly above her. And her skin had entirely lost its golden sheen. It had returned to normal.

Her gun was empty. There was nothing she could do to stop this. Any moment now, her attacker would close right in, press down on her, transform her.

And then a sudden rustling in the undergrowth told me that matters had got even worse. It wasn’t just a gentle sound. Leaves were being trampled underfoot, not in a single procession but continuously.

By the sound of it, a pack of hominids was headed up this way. To polish off, presumably, the scraps the angel left.

* * *

Cassie was obscured behind the glowing creature, the next instant. I could barely make her out beyond its slowly flapping wings. An awful hardness gripped my throat. I thought that I had lost her. Then she came staggering into view again, the tendrils still attached.

I had never seen her look so lost. She’s usually defiant in the face of danger, no matter how bad. But tonight, that was gone.

And I understood why that might be. She’d not had a great deal to lose before. Her life had been filled up with loss. But after two long, lonely years, she’d finally found someone who made life worth living.

So why was Quinn not helping her? I got it almost immediately. The only way to stop this creature was to attack it or form a barrier. And I’d already been informed that Maycott could do neither.

Damn it all to hell! I ground my teeth and tried to push myself up. But the body shot had still robbed every ounce of strength from me. I managed to sit halfway up, but that was the best I could manage.

Breath was seething through my skull. I could only watch -- as though from some great distance -- as the angel moved down over Cassie once again. It definitely looked like it was closing in for the kill. My whole frame was shaking.

Her mouth dropped open and her eyes went very wide. Her hands came up in front of her, but that was more reflex than realistic self-defense. The skin at her throat moved. She was trying to shout out, but the words seemed to be stuck.

She mouthed something all the same. A single word. A single syllable. Her lips formed a tiny circle, and then flattened out around what looked like an ‘n.’ And you didn’t need to be a genius to figure out what she was saying. The desperation in her eyes was made worse by a pleading look.

But there was no way he could save her, was there?

Then I got a brand-new shock.

* * *

Her skin began to glow again. But it was not a gentle gold, the way it had been earlier. No, this was something very different. Violent and intense.

A sudden pale flaring, like you see during a thunderstorm. The outline of her body coruscated. Grew so intensely dazzling that I could barely look. Her outline seared itself into my retinas like a sculpture of white fire.

The angel didn’t get it at first, kept descending on her. Then it took in the fact that things had changed dramatically and tried to rear away. Attempted to get out of the reach of the blinding glow. Except it couldn’t seem to figure out precisely what was happening. Its wings were churning. But it was circling rather than retreating.

And it remained attached to Cassie by those thin black strands. Either it was still attempting to control her, or it had forgotten to let go.

Cassie was standing completely rigid, an unreal figure on the darkened landscape. She was being used as a conduit for someone else’s magic, and I knew precisely how that felt.

Her whole body suddenly flashed, forcing me to shut my eyes.

And when I opened them again -- which I did a good deal faster than I really wanted to -- that powerful brightness was spreading up the dark strands like a power surge.

It reached the angel’s fingertips, then started moving up its arms. The creature’s jaws came open in a silent scream. Its wings turned to blurs, but it couldn’t get away at all. I watched it go soaring above the treetops, but the glow had already reached its shoulders and was spreading through its chest.

For a second, it was like an X-ray, the internal structure of the being revealed. There wasn’t much to see there, just a shallow tracery of sinews.

And then the light flooded right through it, making it flare as brightly as a comet.

And the visitor exploded into pieces.

I don’t think I moved for half a minute after that. My heart must have still been beating, but I don’t remember. What I’d just seen had pretty well turned me to stone. And Cassie wasn’t any different. She’d obviously not been expecting what had happened in the slightest.

The blinding brilliance left her, as soon as the angel was destroyed. The gentle golden glow came back. She fell to her knees as if the muscles in her legs had disappeared. Stayed in that position, her mouth hanging open.

There were no words to describe this. No sensible ones anyway. I finally pulled myself together. What exactly had I seen? I was pretty sure that Willets couldn’t pull a stunt like that. Which left either Woodard Raine …

Or his half-brother.

And she’d been mouthing his name directly before it happened. So maybe Quinn had found a way to break free of the Hallows Knot.

My strength was beginning to return, and I was struggling to my feet. When I remembered that we had another problem, one I wasn’t sure that we could easily resolve. There were still hominids coming this way, and I wasn’t sure how many. And they could not touch us with our golden skins, but if they started lobbing stuff at us again …

But then, I was forced to re-evaluate. The rustling out there in the undergrowth … it had seemed to have changed in nature. It had been a swiftly hurrying scuttle, when it had first reached my ears. But that had noticeably slowed down.

It was still coming in this direction, but was far more cautious, unsteady and almost stumbling. I swung around to face it.

Could only make out dim shapes in the murk between the tree trunks. Enough to take an aim, though. I held out my gun.

A bush a dozen yards ahead of me trembled. I sighted along my barrel, knowing how fast these things could move.

But when a shape finally came through, it was upright, on its hind legs. Not merely a hominid -- something that looked like a man -- but a real live human being.

* * *

A penlight came on. Cass had apparently tucked one in her jeans, as an additional measure. The small circle of light fell across a gray face, making it screw up. Then, as it adjusted, I recognized it. This was a guy called Aiden Varley. He’d been a teacher at my son, Pete’s, school, and I had met him several times at meetings of the PTA. I seemed to recall that he lived somewhere near Greenwood Terrace.

But I’d never seen him in a state like this. The man looked like he’d been dragged through a jungle backwards. His clothing was filthy and in disarray, a lot of the buttons pulled loose. There were cuts and grazes all over his hands. His pants legs were tattered around the cuffs, and one of his suede shoes was gone. But what got to me most was his expression.

I could not remember anybody looking quite so stunned. His face might have been fashioned out of old, colorless rubber. He was blinking like an owl, and staring at us like we were a pair of ghosts. Which puzzled me at first. But then I figured out the truth of the matter.

He didn’t know what had gone down recently on Union Square. And so he didn’t understand why we were glowing.

He had been a hominid until very recently, in other words. Most likely one of those that had attacked us in the mansion. He stared at me as if I were a total stranger, not seeming to recognize me. Then his head went from side to side with all the stiffness of a rusted hinge, trying to take in his surroundings. He was struggling to figure out exactly where he was and how he’d gotten here.

It dawned on me slowly what was really going on. The angel that had been destroyed must have been the one which had transformed this fellow in the first place. And, now that the creature was gone, its spell was broken. Its field of influence had collapsed. Aiden had returned to normal, the grasp of the Dweller slipping from him.

My next breath was an easier one. No one had been certain if the hominids could be changed back. But if I was right about this, there was genuine cause for hope.

More crunching and stamping came from the undergrowth, bringing my attention around. Another upright figure struggled into view, and then whole bunches of them. Men and women, young and old, they were all in the same ragged, battered state, and equally bewildered. I doubted they remembered what they’d been doing a short while back.

And I could see that most of them were not regular townsfolk. They were paler than was normal.  And some of them still had on the remnants of jet-black cloaks. These were people who’d been at a ceremony, as part of a coven. They were Tyburn folk. I was amazed by that.

Then a larger figure came stumbling out. Bald, and with a drooping moustache that shone off-white in Cassie’s beam.

Gapsar Vernon had returned to us as well. Which was a huge relief.

* * *

He looked as stunned as the rest of them, initially. But he’s a clever and pugnacious man. Awareness started coming back into his gaze. He peered at me, taking a few moments to remember who I was. And then his cheeks puffed out, he released a sigh. When he lifted his hand slightly, I could see that it was bleeding.

We’d never gotten on particularly well. Sitting right at the top of the social ladder as he did, Vernon usually expected the kind of deference that I was not prepared to give. But the normal order had been overturned -- we were all in the same leaky boat. So this was no time for acting high and mighty. And to give him credit, he could see that.

“Holy Hell, Devries!” he mumbled. “Is that luminous
paint
on your skin?” He rubbed at his eyes. “What the blue blazes is going on? Last thing I remember …”

Then he faltered, staring at his damaged hands. And seemed to realize what the truth might be. Most other people had known nothing of the hominids before that first attack. But he’d had prior knowledge.

“Oh Good Lord,” I heard him murmur.

The rest were staring at him, wondering what he was talking about. But there wasn’t time to draw them the big picture. Who knew what else might be on its way? I quickly outlined the general points. It was enough to get me very startled glances.

“We were like animals?” Varley asked.

He looked genuinely upset, and I recalled how cultured and high-minded he had always struck me.

“Did we
hurt
anyone?” one of the younger Tyburn women asked.

There was no way of telling, and it was beside the point. The real issue was they were back, but they had no protection. Their skin didn’t glow. There were two more angels out there somewhere, those and the rest of the hominids. They had to be gotten away from here, and fast.

I knew that my car was a couple hundred yards back up the road, lost in the gloom. I explained to Vernon that the battery was dead.

His manner became more composed. He asked me to point him in its precise direction.

The man raised his right hand and then murmured a brief spell. At first, I wasn’t sure that it would even work. But when he shoved his outstretched fingers forward, there was an almighty flash. A bolt of lightning shot out, ripping the night air asunder. You could see it dwindle off, and then it disappeared entirely.

Quinn had apparently been as good as his word. He had somehow woven his own magic through the darkness so the adepts’ spells would work out here. I noticed the delighted way that Cassie’s eyes gleamed.

“Should be fine now,” Vernon told me. But he’d reached out with his mind as well. “Except it isn’t big enough for all of us.”

He raised his hand again, this time above his head. A ball of greenish light appeared in his palm, illuminating the landscape around us for several dozen yards. Another driveway could be made out, off in the direction of Mill Street, the outline of a rustic house beyond it. And there was a vehicle parked halfway down, a solid-looking SUV.

We didn’t have any keys to the thing, but Gaspar didn’t need them. The doors swung open of their own accord. The headlamps came on too, the motor growling into life.

And so we split up into two groups, heading for the two separate vehicles. And within another minute, we were speeding back into the heart of town.

* * *

When the passengers in my car saw that everyone in town had the same golden glow, there were some pretty astonished gasps. No blaming them for that. Even I had to admit, it looked pretty incredible. Like the population of Raine’s Landing had been transformed into luminous phantoms. Some of them craned around as our vehicles approached.

When I finally parked on the edge of the square and let everybody out, several of my passengers were recognized. People started making their way across quickly. There were shouts of delight and welcoming hugs.

But then I saw Lehman Willets striding over. What I
really
noticed was the hard expression on his face.

He looked awful troubled. And he kept his gaze fixed sternly on me, not taking the slightest notice of anybody else.

“Who’re these?” he asked me, nodding without looking at the people I’d brought back.

I realized that he was avoiding Cassie’s gaze, and wondered why. But I answered his question all the same.

“That’s extremely good news,” he breathed. “A genuine cause for hope, at last.”

But his words didn’t match his appearance. And I still didn’t know what he was looking so damned grim about.

“What else has been going on?” I asked him, sheer impatience overtaking me.

His red pupils dropped toward the flagstones, and his voice went very stiff.

“It’s Quinn Maycott, ” he told me quietly. “And nothing in the least bit good has happened, I’m afraid.”