“I can’t...”
“You have to! Get up!” He looked around the room. There was very little of any use here: just a small wooden table and a long bench with a high back. A tapestry hung on one wall.
“Shit,” he muttered... and then he saw the tapestry move.
He was across the room before Alice could even register what he was doing, wrapping a hand around the tapestry and pulling. The fabric came away from the wall, bringing the rod that held it up.
Behind it was a staircase.
It wasn’t much: a tiny spiral stairway that looked like it had been cut out of the wall rather than built, and it only led up, but it was something.
“Alice!” Mallory pointed to the stairs, one eye on the door.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No more. No more running. Unless you’re coming with me, I’m done.”
“You’re not done. You’re not done because I say you’re not. Now get up.”
“No.” Even the word was an effort. She closed her eyes.
The faint clicking sound made her open them again.
She was looking straight into the barrel of Mallory’s gun. Behind it, his face was dark, his mouth grim.
“I’m not leaving you. We left Vin: I won’t leave you.”
“Yes, Alice, you will. Now get up.”
Alice got up, pressing herself back against the wall, edging around it towards the staircase as the barrel of Mallory’s Colt followed her. She knew he wouldn’t shoot – at least, she thought he wouldn’t – and she hesitated.
All he said was: “Go.”
She ducked into the stairway, her foot on the first stair, and froze. Mallory had turned away and was standing in the middle of the room, his back to her. His arms hung by his sides, a gun in each hand; his wings opened wide and shining as he watched the door.
Alice took one last look back at him, and she started running up the stairs.
THE SMOKE HUNG in the doorway, not moving one way or the other. Just sitting there, sullen. Mallory didn’t move. He was watching the door. And he had a horrible feeling he knew who was about to come through it.
It was a vague shadow at first, gradually taking shape inside the cloud, as shoes clicked closer and closer on the stone floor. There was a rapid crunching, grating noise and then the ping of something small hitting the floor and rolling. A shotgun cartridge rolled to a halt at Mallory’s feet. An extremely large shotgun cartridge. He glanced down at it, and raised his eyes just as the cloud of smoke cleared around the man striding into the room, the shotgun clasped to his chest and his red eyes shining.
Mallory had been expecting Lucifer. And given that Lucifer’s body was, at that moment, locked up several hundred feet below them both, Mallory had been expecting him to be ensconced in a Fallen angel’s body, but the sight still shocked him.
Blond hair and a smart suit, and what should have been cool blue eyes staring out of a narrow face.
Gwyn.
Mallory started shooting.
Not a single bullet found its mark: Lucifer simply waved them away like summer flies – annoying, but harmless. His eyes glittered as Mallory took a step back, still firing, and Lucifer took a step forward.
“Now, now, brother. Still using your fists and not your head, I see.”
Mallory had run out of bullets. He fumbled with the guns, dropping the empty magazines on the floor and groping for fresh ammunition from his pockets.
“It’s different, this time, isn’t it?” Lucifer said. “Now you don’t have the upper hand. Tell me: how does it feel, hmm?”
“How does it feel?” Mallory felt the click of the second magazine sliding into place. “It feels a little like this.” He brought his arm up, pulling the trigger as it came. The bullet spun out of the barrel, towards Lucifer... who caught it.
He held it up to his eye, peering at it. “How very metaphorical of you.” Without lowering his hand, he dropped the bullet. The ting of the metal bouncing on the stone echoed around the room. “Head, Mallory.” He tapped the side of his head, Gwyn’s head, and all Mallory could do was stare in horror. Alice’s face flashed through his mind, and he hoped she could make it to Michael. Michael was her only chance. Not Zak, and not Gabriel. Only Michael stood a chance against Lucifer now.
“Oh, one more thing!” Lucifer held up a finger. “I just want you to know, before I go, that this is all him.” He smiled, his grin splitting Gwyn’s face open, and then the red glow faded from his eyes, leaving Mallory alone with Gywn for the first time since hell.
“Gwyn.”
“Hello, Mallory.” Gwyn raised the barrel of the shotgun. “Goodbye, Mallory.” He pulled the trigger.
THE STAIRS SPIRALLED up and up and up, with barely room for Alice to turn along with them. The treads were so narrow that her heels hung off the edge of each step, her toes jammed up against the riser of the next. The only sound was that of her struggling for breath... and then gunfire. Mallory’s guns. Even with what must have been several storeys between them, the noise filled the stairwell. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped, followed by a single shot... and then a blast from something which sounded much, much bigger. Alice clamped her hands over her ears, her eyes wide.
Another blast, and another, and another.
Should she turn back?
What if Mallory...
Vin. Mallory. Jester. Castor. Pollux. Zadkiel. What had happened to them? Should she go back for them...?
MALLORY DUCKED, THE shot from Gwyn’s gun rattling overhead. There was that awful clunk again – the sound of a new cartridge entering the chamber – and another deafening blast. Mallory threw himself down and rolled.
The third blast hit him full in the chest, the buckshot ripping through him. He cried out as the metal bit into his flesh.
Gwyn was reloading.
Forcing himself to roll over, ignoring the pain in his chest, Mallory swung his arm around and opened fire – so desperate to make the most of the time that he didn’t even bother looking. He knew his target: all he could do was shoot and hope. There was a grunt as a bullet hit – the shoulder, Mallory thought.
He didn’t get another shot. There was another roar from the shotgun, and this time the blast hit him across his shoulders. A thousand needles jabbed into his spine as the shot tore through his wings. The next blast followed almost immediately behind it.
Mallory crawled along the floor; the world was blurring, fading out at the edges. There was another shot, but he could barely feel it this time; there was too much pain coursing through him already, and he had no hope of healing his wounds. He was too far gone.
A pair of black shoes, polished to a mirror shine, came into view, stopping an inch in front of his nose. It took all of his strength to roll himself onto his back and his broken wings. He looked up to see Gwyn leaning over him, his face upside-down and twisted into a cold smile. He blinked once or twice at Mallory, lying blood-spattered at his feet, then reached down, peeling Mallory’s fingers from around the grip of the gun clutched to his chest and kicking the other away. And then he smashed the butt of the gun down into Mallory’s face.
The world went dark.
THE SHOOTING HAD stopped. There had been a sound... a sound Alice knew could only have been Mallory. Barely able to breathe, she felt for him – felt for whatever it was he felt – and the wave of pain she found was so strong that it threatened to swallow her. She shut it out, knowing it would drown her. Even as she did so the fire burning at her wrists brightened. It was enough to light her way.