And Jester had done the only thing he could. Run.
He had been running back to the apartment, hoping he could keep them off his back long enough to reach Vin and Sari. Hoping that he could lose them in the streets... and then he had realised that he was leading them straight to Vin, too. That was enough to stop him right where he was.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see people being jostled, shoved, pushed aside as the Fallen came for him. They had surrounded him, and he hadn’t even known it. He had taken a deep breath... and then there had been a soft thud and the sound of feathers behind him, and he had looked over his shoulder to see an angel he immediately knew to be Zadkiel, and who had simply told him to close his eyes. So he had.
“And then, I’m here.” Jester held out his hands to illustrate his point.
“Let me get this straight.” Mallory said. “They came for you. In Hong Kong.”
“Yes.”
“And Zak brought you here. He rescued you.”
“Yes.”
“Fuck.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“It’s you. They want you.” Mallory’s eyes opened, and both his guns were in his hands. “They want you, and we’ve brought them straight in. Fuck!” He kicked the wall.
“They want me? What for?”
“I don’t know, and right now, I don’t care. All I care about is getting you back to the nearest Archangel. So let’s do that.”
The temperature suddenly dropped. Alice, who was watching Jester, saw him tense.
The voice came from the other end of the corridor.
“Or – here’s an idea – let’s not.”
Xaphan.
MALLORY’S FIRST BULLET went wide, smashing into the stone to the right of Xaphan’s head as he limped towards them – and there wasn’t a chance for another shot, as Xaph pulled Florence out from behind him, using her as a shield.
“Don’t think I won’t shoot her, Xaph,” said Mallory from behind his gun.
“Oh, I know you would. But I doubt he’ll let you.” Xaphan’s grin was wider than it should have been as he nodded towards Vin. The scar tissue covering one side of his face crinkled as he smiled.
“Get them out of here, Mallory.” Vin’s voice was barely louder than a whisper. He was rolling up his sleeves again, curling and uncurling his fingers.
Mallory shook his head. “Not likely.”
“Get them both out. The Fallen want him? They can’t have him.”
“We’re not leaving you.”
Xaphan was watching them with amusement. Another three Fallen had appeared from the depths of the corridor and had arranged themselves into a loose line, blocking the way back.
Vin stepped in front of Mallory. It was almost casual, the way he moved, and somehow, he had got between them and the Fallen. “I’ll buy you as much time as I can.”
“Vhnori...”
“My mess. My fault. I said go.”
MALLORY STARED AT Vin’s back as he calmly walked towards Xaphan. Jester shouted something Alice didn’t quite catch. The Fallen behind Xaphan and Florence lunged forward, only to be driven back as Mallory fired into them... and Vin walked on, with the bullets screaming past his head.
“Go!” Mallory shouted, and she felt him pull on her sleeve as she started to run.
They were leaving him.
Or perhaps it was the other way around...
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Thirty Bullets
VIN LISTENED TO their footsteps fading. He was alone with the Fallen.
A voice danced on the edge of his memory: a voice and a shadow, which asked him if he knew what he was getting into.
There was one way to find out.
He balled his hands into fists, squeezing them until his knuckles turned white and his nails bit into his palms. Blood seeped from between his fingers, dripping onto the floor – and still the Fallen waited. They were smiling. They thought this was going to be easy.
Like hell it was.
Vin snapped his fingers open, and braced himself as they charged him.
THE CORRIDOR SLOPED down, curving in a long spiral. Alice had no idea where they were. She couldn’t hear anything from behind them, and it frightened her. What had happened to Vin? Flames sprang to life around her wrists, glowing gently as she ran. Mallory was just ahead of her, but spent more time checking back over his shoulder than he did looking where he was going. Jester ran alongside him, his face frozen.
Alice could tell what Mallory was thinking, even before he slammed into the wall and stopped running.
“I’m going back.”
“But...”
“Don’t argue with me, Alice. He’s not following, and they aren’t screaming, which means Vin’s in trouble. Get Jester to one of the Archangels: Zadkiel, if you can. Take this.” He thrust one of his guns at her, and she took it like it might bite her, holding it as far away from her body as possible. “You really do have a strange attitude to guns.”
“Just because you like them doesn’t mean I have to.”
“You will when they save your life.” He held her gaze. “Go.”
He turned to run back up the corridor, just as the first of the gas grenades landed at their feet.
VIN SNAPPED HIS fingers open, and braced himself as they charged.
The air in front of him shook; everything went grey.
Through the mist, he saw Xaphan haul Florence off her feet, spinning back into a doorway... and nothing else. There was nothing else there. Just the empty corridor, filled with dust that swirled around him, settling on the floor, on his shoulders. The air tasted oily, somehow...
He lifted his hands; stared at them. “Wh –?”
He was so busy staring at his fingers in shock that he didn’t hear the footsteps behind him in time, and didn’t stand a chance of avoiding the metal bar that smashed into the back of his head.
As he crumpled to the floor, Xaphan dropped the bar with a clatter. “That’s quite enough of that,” he said, dusting off his hands.
GAS AND SMOKE filled the corridor: thick, greenish-white. Alice’s eyes streamed and she stumbled forward into Mallory, who caught her and set her back on her feet. “Change of plan,” he shouted into her ear over the hiss of the smoke, taking back the gun he had handed her. “Where’s Jester?”
There was no sign of him; not that they could have made him out amid the smoke clogging the passageway.
“Jester?” Mallory called his name, but there was no answer. “Jester!”
Still no response.
Alice could barely breathe, and she clung to Mallory, gasping for air. The gas scorched her throat, her eyes, her lungs.
“We have to get out of here...” Even Mallory was choking, his eyes red. “Stay with me.”
They staggered away from the wall. A soft thwomp from somewhere in the smoke was followed by the clatter and hiss of another grenade, and the gas drowning them thickened. Alice felt the world spin and leaned into Mallory’s side, hoping he wouldn’t let her fall.
The haze thinned, further ahead. It was still hard to see, was still hard to breathe, but it was better, and Alice could at least make out the point where the walls ended and the floor began.
A red door stood out in the murky air and Mallory threw himself at it. It gave with little resistance, opening not onto a sheer cliff, but into a small, mostly empty room. A room filled with clean air. They lay on their backs on the floor, gulping air into their aching lungs, and Alice thought that was it: they had made it. But Mallory was already pulling himself to his feet, shaking his head to clear it as the wall of smoke and gas headed their way. “Come on. We’ve got to go, Alice. Get up. Get up!”