There were footsteps. Someone was coming after her. And it wasn’t Mallory.
Yet again, she ran.
The staircase turned and turned and turned, up and up and up, and suddenly, she was out in the open. She was on a small roof, surrounded by a low wall. A gust of wind threatened to sweep her feet out from under her as she looked for somewhere to go.
Other than the staircase she had just come up, there was nowhere.
The wind tore at her hair, blowing it in front of her face; into her eyes and her mouth... and the footsteps were getting louder. There were voices too: someone was most definitely coming up the stairs. They were chasing her.
Jester. Vin. Mallory.
Alice brushed her hair away from her face, holding it back against the wind. She took a deep breath, and fixed her eyes on the wall.
“One,” she whispered, “two...”
The footsteps were right behind her now. Another few turns of the spiral and they would be out on the roof.
“Three.” She let her hand drop and ran for the edge, her hair streaming behind her in the wind.
She heard them burst out of the staircase, heard them shout... but it was too late. She already had one foot on the wall.
Throwing her arms out wide, Alice jumped.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Leap of Faith
THE RUSH OF air tore at her skin, at her hair, at her clothing. The rocks below raced to meet her with unbelievable speed, and however hard she tried, she could not close her eyes; they were pinned open by the wind, giving her no choice but to look at the ground as it came up to meet her.
Still, she thought, at least this way I get a good look at my landing spot...
The air shimmered around her as she fell. More than shimmered; for an instant, she could have sworn it glowed.
An instant was all she had. No sooner had she thought it than the rocks were there, and everything went black.
ALICE GROANED.
Everything hurt.
Everything.
She wondered if that meant she was dead.
Should being dead hurt this much? Really?
She was lying down, she knew that much. Her head hurt – a lot – and her whole body was shaking. One of her shoulders throbbed hotly.
Wherever she was lying, it was cold. Cold and smooth.
So... not the rocks. She’d had plenty of time to get a good look at those and they had been big and jagged and spiky. Definitely spiky.
She tried to roll over onto her back. Something jangled, like pieces of metal moving over one another.
It sounded rather like...
She opened one eye.
Chains.
There were chains piled on the floor in front of her.
She was on a floor.
Definitely not on the rocks.
As she forced her eyes to look beyond the heap of links, she saw movement. A boot. Two boots. And legs above them.
Everything else was blurry, but there were definitely boots there.
A person.
Great.
But that didn’t explain the chains.
And then, behind the boots-and-legs, she caught a glimpse of white feathers, sweeping down to the floor.
Angel.
Angel. Floor.
Jumping.
She groaned again – but not, this time, because it hurt.
Angel. Floor. Chains.
There was no way this could be good.
“She’s coming round,” said a voice. It sounded as though it came both from somewhere a long way off and somewhere very close, and the words took longer than they should have to unscramble themselves in her head.
“I should think so,” said another voice. This one was crystal clear. It could only be Michael.
She groaned again, and peeled both eyes open, lifting her head and trying to clear it. The world was fuzzy, and sparkled around the edges. “Well, that was fun,” she croaked as she tried to pull herself into a sitting position. A hand gripped her arm, helping her, and the scent of cut grass and the sun on concrete overwhelmed her.
“Easy...” said Zadkiel. “You alright?”
“Probably.” She nodded, her eyes beginning to clear. There were three Archangels watching her. One looked concerned, one looked indifferent, and Alice could only describe the look on the other’s face as ‘spectacularly pissed off.’ She held up her wrists and rattled the chains around weakly. “Who do I have to thank for the jewellery?”
“It’s a reminder. And a precaution.” Michael’s voice was chilly, despite the heat which rolled off him.
‘Pissed off’ apparently didn’t quite cover it.
“A precaution against what, exactly?”
“Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but one of the most dangerous of the Fallen and his whore are loose in my fortress; a half-born we brought here to protect is gone, along with an Earthbound and one of the best soldiers I have in my army. Not to mention all the members of my choir who have been slaughtered in the process. And yet here you are, Alice, sitting in front of me. You, who brought them in. The chains are a precaution against you, and a reminder of who and what you are.”
“A precaution against me. Seriously?”
“You.”
“Yeah, right.” Alice rolled her eyes.
The blow to her face caught her by surprise. Michael had darted forward and slapped her cheek, hard, while Gabriel and Zadkiel stood by, impassive apart from the twitch at the side of Gabriel’s mouth, which could have been a smirk. It stayed there as he looked her up and down, then strode out of the room.
The fire around Alice’s wrists flared into life, coiling under and through and around the chains, making the metal shine as it grew hotter and hotter... but it did not melt. Michael stood back, watching her as she clambered to her feet; the weight of the chains dragged against her, but she resisted their pull and managed to keep upright. Michael scowled at her, and she scowled back at him.
Alice flinched as the flame rushed towards her, wrapping itself around the two of them and locking them inside a sphere of fire. There was nothing beyond it; the world outside simply disappeared. All that was left was Michael, searching her mind inside the inferno. She could feel him crawling over the surface of her thoughts, riffling through her memories. Everything he touched blazed, scorching her from the inside out... but still she held his gaze. Even as her knees began to buckle, she held his gaze. Even as he pulled at the memories she had tried to forget – memories of hell, memories of the cold, of the pain, of her mother – and dragged them out into the light and made them dance before her. Even as he did all this, she held his gaze and would not look away.
Michael pulled away from her and let the fire die. “Mallory and Vin are missing,” he said.
“Missing?”
“Gone. As is Jester. And, apparently, Xaphan and Florence. And all I have to show for it are a lot of dead angels.”
“And Fallen.”
“Those I don’t care about. They’re dead.”
“I thought this place was supposed to be all high-security. What happened?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” Michael snarled. “Well?” He raised an eyebrow at Alice.
“You were in my head. You know already.”
“Remind me.”
So she did. She told him how they had run into Jester in the corridor. How they had been ambushed by Xaphan; how Vin had stayed behind to buy them more time. How the smoke had come from nowhere, choking them and separating them from Jester. How Mallory had...