The Book of Daniel (32 page)

Jack’s laughter was infectious, and I felt a grin spreading across my face. In spite of the weight on my mind, I briefly felt my mood lift. Not only was Jack’s cheerfulness therapeutic, but it was also inspiring to get another perspective on life in Purgatory, especially one so revelatory. I wondered what Harper would make of it. Come to think of it, Jack obviously held her in high regard; perhaps I could do a little matchmaking… but on the other hand, I wasn’t sure that Harper would be quite so enthusiastic. I’d already had to have one sword removed from my chest that day, and her track record of romantic engagements with surgeons wasn’t exactly encouraging.

What the hell, you only live once. Twice. Whatever.

“Say, Jack, how do you fancy a pint at the Last Chance? I could introduce you to my friend Harper—you know, the one you thought was my wife. I’m sure she’d love to hear your story too.”

Jack looked down, demurely. “You are kind, sir, but there’s only space for one woman in my life, and she commands loyalty and servitude to Adonai.” He held his sword aloft, gazing at it with unadulterated love. “My sweet bride,” he crooned. “Soon we will be about our business once again. I must just finish saying goodbye to our friend here first, though.”

Maybe it was for the best that he wasn’t interested in meeting Harper after all. “Well, perhaps some other time, then.” I held out my hand for Jack to shake, and after a moment, he clasped it in his own. “Thanks again for rescuing me. And for the advice, too.”

“You are welcome on both counts,” he said, reaching up and scraping a fresh cross into his cheek. “And do not forget: if you really want to see your wife again, keep focussing on your relationship with the Lord instead. Trust in Him to lead you to her!”

I could see that he was eager to get back out into the fight, but just as I was wondering how he would get through the closed city gates, he turned to a nearby group of angels and whistled. “Hey, Silvertops! Lift me over this accursed wall, one of you! My knife is nice and sharp, and I want to get to work!”

“See you around, Jack.”

“I’m sure you will. And I will keep an eye out for you, too. Jack the guardian angel, ha ha, that’s a good one!”

The angel who answered Jack’s summons grabbed the armour at the back of his neck and hoisted him into the air. I could still hear him laughing as he disappeared over the top of the wall, and I wondered if, as far as Jack was concerned, Purgatory wasn’t Purgatory at all, but Heaven itself. Me, I decided that I’d had enough for one day. Fighting to earn God’s favour was all very well, but after everything I’d just been through, I was far more interested in sitting down, trying to get my head together, and waiting for Harper to turn up so that I could share the day’s events with her. Besides all that, I really needed a drink.

I picked my way across the city, past the familiar landmarks—or whatever passed for landmarks amongst the blasted rubble. The dirty faces of those hiding in the ruins would peer up briefly at my passage, but only for long enough to determine that I wasn’t a threat.
There but for the grace of God go I
, I thought, although now that I had apparently exhausted that grace, perhaps this was another glimpse of what my own future held. I liked the sound of Jack’s alternative better, that I could choose to face my fears head-on, put my faith in God, and trust that He would reconsider my fate. All I needed to do was to somehow make the leap from theory to practice without having the conviction to back it up.

Yeah, that’s all I had to do. If I said it quickly enough, it didn’t sound so tough, but in my heart I knew I was still stuck. There was no way I wanted to end up in Hell forever and ever, amen, but if I followed Jack’s advice and things went wrong, that was exactly what would happen. At the same time, I knew that without taking that risk, there was no way I’d ever get to see Jo again, either. As I marched through the city, I tried my best to concentrate my mind on my relationship with God, to try to see if I could find a part of me that could bridge the gap—the
chasm
—that existed between us and avoid having to engage in Jack’s kamikaze plan. But every time I tried, it would always come back down to the simple fact that I missed my wife and her smile. I had never seen God’s smile, so how could I miss it?

By the time I neared the Last Chance, I was more discouraged than ever. However hard I tried, I simply couldn’t forget about Jo or put thoughts of God above thoughts of her. Every time I would try to address my standing with Him, I would instead remember a discussion I’d had with Jo on that particular aspect of faith instead, and the gracious way that she had never tried to force her opinion on me, only to share it. It was easy for me to see that I had been wrong and should have listened more closely to her, but much like Thomas, I had backed the losing horse and now had to deal with the consequences. As I stepped towards the pub’s door, I realised miserably that at that moment what I wanted to do more than ever was simply to talk to Jo and get her wisdom on my fucked-up situation.

I put my hand on the door and pushed it open, but the act of doing so stirred a vague feeling of inconsistency at the back of my mind. I furrowed my brow as I tried to pinpoint what it could be, and then suddenly it hit me: how exactly had Jack got me back into the city? The gates had been closed when we’d parted company, and as enthralled as I’d been with his story, I was sure I would have noticed the sound of their opening to let us in, and then closing behind us. Both Jack and I were fallen from grace, so no angel would have lifted us over the wall… so how had we come to be inside? For the third time, I wondered if Jack was something more than he appeared to be… but if he was an angel, then why would he deny it, or need another angel to lift him over the walls and return him to the battle?

My puzzlement was momentarily interrupted by the sound of a trumpet out on the battlefield, and then reignited when, only a few seconds later, it sounded again. I paused mid-stride on my way to the bar. I’d never known the blasts to be so close together before, and I wondered what could be happening to change the pattern now. Around me, even the inhabitants of the pub who usually pretended never to hear the ebb and flow of the curfew trumpets exchanged looks. The trumpet sounded a third time, although this time it was cut short. I forgot about getting a drink and hurried back to the door instead.

I stepped out of the pub just in time to witness the most spectacular and chilling sight I would ever behold. At first, all I could see were the windswept ruins of New Jerusalem. The only sign of life was a pair of women nearby, climbing on top of their ragtag shelter and craning their necks, searching for clues as to why the trumpets had sounded so many times. They soon got their answer: in the distance, the city gates suddenly exploded into a shower of splinters, with such force that bits of them were sent hurtling straight towards us, even though we were all the way over on the other side of the city. A piece not much smaller than the pub itself slammed down into the women’s shelter, flattening it and its former inhabitants with a sickening abruptness. As the last chunks of debris fell to the ground, a pair of huge tentacles quivered into view over the top of the wall next to where the gates had been. They snaked back and forth, carefully testing the ancient brickwork, and then with a sudden twitch they wrenched the top off of the fortifications, sending chunks of masonry cascading down onto the hapless buildings at the base of the wall. I felt the ground tremble beneath my feet as the rubble landed, throwing up huge, thick clouds of red dust that billowed outwards, swallowing up everything in their path.

The dust quickly thinned out, driven by winds that seemed even stronger than was usual in Purgatory. It was almost as if the air itself was trying to flee before the torrent of demons that was now pouring into the city through the hole in the walls. But how could they have breached the city’s defences? Why weren’t the angels stopping them? No sooner had the question crossed my mind than the answer stomped its way through the remains of the gate. I watched, transfixed, as one of the giant demons cast in Satan’s cloven-hooved image strode through the fog, stooped down to pick up something small and silvery in its grubby fist and held it up to the light. For a moment, I thought the demon was about to swallow the angel whole, but with a laugh almost as loud as the collapse of the wall, the demon instead rammed the weakly struggling form down onto a viciously curved hook slung at its side. Even from where I stood I could see the host of other angels already impaled there. I hoped that Thomas was not amongst them. But I had never seen even one angel fall before, so how the hell could so many of them suddenly be overpowered now? What the fuck was happening?

The horde was spreading through New Jerusalem as quickly as a cloud of black ink in a glass of clear water, and it was obvious that I needed to find somewhere safe to hide. But where? At that very moment, a lone voice somehow managed to make itself heard over the chaos, before being abruptly silenced: “Retreat! Back to the Temple! Sanctuary! Sanc—”

My feet didn’t need telling twice, especially because the voice—and therefore whatever had silenced it—hadn’t sounded very far away. I started to run, heading towards the Temple of Rebirth, which still towered serenely over the rest of the stricken city, so far untouched.

After a few steps, I reconsidered my actions and turned back again, thinking to rouse the patrons at the Last Chance from their now almost-certainly fatal stupor; but as I turned, one of the Fallen hurtled down from above, striking the pub dead-on and instantly obliterating it. The door I had been heading towards suddenly headed towards me instead, blown from its hinges with such power that it knocked me off my feet. Trapped under the door, I struggled to regain my breath, unable to see anything, but all the while assaulted with the horrible sounds of the demon feasting on those who had not been immediately killed by its impact. Eventually, I was able to breathe again, and with a great, painful gasp, I heaved the door away.

Luck was with me. The monster was too engrossed in picking through the ruins of the pub, looking for other survivors, to notice the one that had just popped up right behind it. From what little I could see around the sides of its bulk, it was hopeless to attempt any kind of a rescue. Parts of bodies were littered around the crater, and everything was splashed with blood. Across from where I had emerged, a legless Purgatorian—in the literal, rather than the alcoholic, sense—slowly dragged himself away from the carnage. But just as he thought he had reached safety and looked back with a nervous smile on his blood-streaked face, a claw lashed out and smashed him to a pulp. The demon began to lick its hand clean, savouring the meat, and I knew that any hope its victim had felt was merely an illusion.

I backed slowly away from the pit and its infernal inhabitant, aching to turn and sprint for safety, but wary of making too much noise by doing so. Step by step, I increased the distance between us, and then finally I rounded a corner and was shielded from its sight. As if the threat of its gaze had been a ball and chain that had been physically removed from my ankle, I suddenly found myself able to run again, and that’s exactly what I did.

I tried not to think about how much time I had lost in sneaking away from the demon, but it was clear that Satan’s army had had no difficulty working its way deeper into New Jerusalem all the while I had been held up. The city was descending into Hell around me—or Hell was rising up to engulf it, I couldn’t tell which. The Temple grew gradually closer, but increasingly, I was forced to take a more indirect route towards it to avoid falling victim to the horrors that raced, slithered or stalked through the streets. I offered up a quick prayer for Harper’s safety, and for Jack’s, but judging by the butchery going on around me, it would be a miracle if either of them managed to reach the Temple… assuming that the Temple even afforded any kind of sanctuary. Logically, it made sense for it to be a place of safety—I clearly remembered the way the Fallen had been deflected away from it on that first day in Purgatory, so long ago—but the way things were looking, I was beginning to wonder if even Heaven itself was not in danger of falling to the Enemy.

At last, I staggered onto the main street that lead to the Temple, and with a surge of fresh energy, I sprinted forward towards the plaza that sat at the base of its stairs. To either side, eyes of various hues and sizes glared at me as I passed, but none of the demons disengaged from the victims they were already chasing, tormenting or eating to come after me instead. Up ahead, I could see a couple of Purgatorians and a wounded angel making their way up the Temple steps, and a few refugees coming in from other entrances at the sides of the plaza, but that was all. Considering the total population of New Jerusalem, I shuddered to think just how many had already been killed.

Chapter 21

A
s I approached the steps, I noticed a man and a woman nearby. The woman was slumped down in the dust, her hair covering her face. The man leant over her, holding her arm and trying to help her to her feet. Fearing that she might be injured, I made my way over to them, calling out as I approached.

“Hey! Do you need some help?”

“Stay back!” the woman cried out.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you inside. You’ll be safe there. Here, let me—”

I never got to finish my sentence. I was only two steps away from them when suddenly the man spun around. I had just enough time to register the spikes across the knuckles of his gauntlet before they connected with my nose, shattering it and sending me sprawling to the ground. Too late, I understood the woman’s call: not to stay back because she was afraid of who I might be, but because her companion was not what he appeared.

“Keep away from me, you sinner!” he hissed. I looked up at him blearily, trying to remember how to speak so that I could protest my innocence. There was something familiar about his face, and as it swam into focus, I saw a reciprocal look of recognition dawning there too. His eyes narrowed as that dawn progressed to noon. “Dan? It
is
you, isn’t it? Well, isn’t this nice? I should have guessed that you would turn up when I found your little friend here scurrying around.” He shook the woman’s arm for emphasis, and she glared up at him with that fiery look I knew so well. Harper.