“You didn’t say please.”
“I didn’t say please?”
“No.”
“Fine. Alice: would you please take care of this?”
“Seeing as you asked nicely...” She shrugged; out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Castor giving her a thumbs-up and Vin trying to hide a smile behind his hand. Even Mallory seemed to have succumbed to a mysterious coughing fit.
“Pollux? You might not want to be in the middle of the corridor. But, you know, up to you...” She waited for him to move back to the doorway with the others, and knelt down on the floor, placing her hands on the stone.
The paving was sticky, stained; scuffed and scraped by boots and smeared with blood. Closer to it, she could smell the Fallen – a thick, oily, greasy scent, mixed with burning feathers. It turned her stomach.
She was used to the Fallen. She’d faced them often enough: on the streets and in hell. She knew how they worked. And yet, there was something that felt wrong here. Something about the way they had come at her... then stopped. Something about the eyes of the man who had burned. Something didn’t add up.
But apparently it wasn’t her job to ask questions. She rolled her eyes, knowing Zadkiel couldn’t see her... and was alarmed when he cleared his throat loudly behind her.
“Don’t think that because I can’t see you, I don’t know what’s going on in your head. Just to make that clear. Now, can we...?”
“Angels.” Alice sighed, and she set the floor alight.
Fire snaked along the stone; the candles flared as their flames clung to the walls, spreading up and out and along until the whole of the corridor was an inferno.
The angels stepped back from the arched doorway, forced back by the heat. Even Mallory was driven back, although not for one second did he take his eyes off the flames.
When Alice walked out of the corridor, the fire closing like a curtain behind her, the first thing she saw was the look of relief on Mallory’s face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
This Aspect of Iron
IF ALICE THOUGHT the corridor was bad, the place Michael had called the ‘scriptorium’ was worse. And it was hot. Unbearably hot. Turning the corner into it was like walking straight into a hot metal wall. Vin felt it first, spinning back on his heel. “What the fuck...?”
The stone all around them was steaming. Clouds of vapour poured out of the round stone columns which ran in parallel rows down the centre of the room, supporting the vaulted roof. Sunlight streamed through broad arched windows tucked beneath the ceiling, and a huge stone fireplace dominated one end of the room, more than tall enough for an angel to stand in with his wings outstretched. Alice could be fairly confident of that, because she could see one doing just that. He was bringing his sword down onto something furry, something dark; something that writhed beneath him and then went limp as the blade struck home.
Fire clung to the stone ribs of the ceiling, making them glow a deep red. And beneath them, Michael’s choir moved between the columns, their breastplates shining white in the heat. In the midst of it all stood Michaeclass="underline" armoured, his sword raised and his eyes blazing. Flames curled from the tips of his wings and the ends of his hair and his eyes were white-hot with fire, and Alice wondered if that was how she looked. Surely not. She was just Alice, while he was an Archangel, and he moved this way and that – never stopping – his sword slicing through the air like silk. Behind him was another fireplace, the same size, but this one heaped with... piles of fur. They were charred. Alice looked away, but found her eyes drawn back to Michael.
One of the Fallen knelt before him, chin tilted up towards the roof, and Michael’s face as he looked down was completely calm. There was nothing there – no rage, no triumph. Nothing. Just Michael towering over the Fallen with his sword raised. Alice couldn’t move, couldn’t think: all she could do was watch as he whirled around the kneeling figure, a column of flame, stopping behind him and driving his sword, point-down and shining in the heat, into the spine of the defeated Fallen.
There was a sharp cracking sound from somewhere across the room and she whipped around. Mallory was right behind her, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead. “When we met, I told you that Gabriel would be the last of us. Do you see why?” He pointed to the far corner of the hall, which was alive with white light. Lightning arced from pillar to pillar and bounced back into the steam. There was a yelp, and then silence... and Gabriel strode out of the steam, wreathed in flickering sparks. Everything that was absent from Michael’s face was there, in his: rage, fury, pure loathing. And madness.
There were only angels left now: angels and what was left of the invaders, crumpled on the floor.
“Michael. The dogs. We need to discuss...” one of Michael’s choir, a Descended with burning wings, shouted.
Michael tossed his sword to another angel, who caught it, although it almost took his head off.
“I don’t see anything to discuss. They brought dogs. Why would that be unexpected?”
“But...”
“It means nothing. Forfax’s little pets. Nothing more than that.”
“Dogs?” asked Alice, raising an eyebrow at Mallory.
“Dogs.” He replied. “Forfax: one of the Twelve. He breeds them; feeds them on human flesh.” He paused as she shuddered. “I know, I know. We thought they had all burned with hell. Obviously we were wrong.”
“And that’s...” She waved in the direction of the fireplace and the furry thing. It now looked a little less furry and a little more gooey.
“Yep.”
“You know, just when I think I’ve got a handle on... all this, you somehow manage to raise the bar. Every time.”
“They’re just dogs, Alice. Bastard dogs with big fucking teeth...”
“...which eat people...”
“Which eat people, yes, but they’re still just dogs.” He rubbed his temple with the barrel of his gun, and pulled a face. “Although. Maybe you do have a point,” he conceded, as Michael came through the steam toward them.
Zadkiel stepped forward to meet him. “South corridor’s secure.”
“You contained them?”
“We did.”
“And you killed them?”
“Every last one.” Zadkiel leaned closer to Michael and murmured something to him, making him laugh. He raised an eyebrow, and moved around Zadkiel to Alice.
“So. I hear you can follow orders after all.”
“He asked me nicely.”
“Did he? Must be losing his touch.” Michael rubbed his hands together, pulled a small red cloth from beneath a wrist guard and wiped his fingers with it before tucking it back into his armour. “Gabriel!”
“Here,” he answered. Alice took an instinctive step backwards – although not as large a step as Vin.
Michael held his hand out towards the other angel, who took it and knelt. “I think it’s time.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ve earned it. And I’m told we need the numbers.” With his free hand, Michael traced a shape in the air above Gabriel’s head, twisting and looping his fingers around each other and leaving faint trails of fire in the clearing steam.
“You may want to take another step back,” said Zadkiel, who was suddenly about five paces behind them. Alice frowned.
“Wh...” She didn’t get to finish the sentence.
There was a deafening crack – and another, and another – and a wind howled through the hall, rushing between the columns and whistling as it went. But it was the lightning that sent Alice scrambling backwards, as two bolts smacked into the stone an inch in front of her feet.
“I did warn you,” said Zadkiel, his arms folded.