She saw the anger flash across his face before he could hide it, but she felt it all the same, boiling under her skin just as fiercely as it did under his. She had hurt him.
She felt his fingers slacken with horrible deliberation and pull away from hers. Adriel, framed in the doorway, watched but said nothing.
There was silence inside, rising chaos outside; shouting, the sound of running footsteps and the rhythmic beat of the police batons on shields.
Toby took a step back and looked her up and down. She felt his gaze travel every inch of her, and she hated it. He looked so coldly at her, this man who only a moment before had held her hand in his. Then he shook his head once and his lip curled into a half-sneer... and without another word he turned and was gone. The back door slammed behind him.
“Interesting approach,” said Adriel.
Alice swallowed the lump that was building in her throat. “Worked, didn’t it?”
“And you...?”
“I’m fine. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“On your own head be it, Alice.”
“I’m a big girl, thanks.”
SHE TURNED BACK to the window and looked out – and there, on the far side of the street, half-hidden behind a shattered bus shelter and watching her, was a man with black hair and dark-ringed eyes and a white brand around his wrist.
Rimmon.
ADRIEL OPENED THE door, and the sound of shouting and jeering grew louder. He sighed, and suddenly looked sad.
“You pushed Toby away to keep him safe,” he said. “But at what cost? What cost to you, and what cost to him?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters. All our choices... all your choices, they matter.”
“I lost enough people I care about to the Fallen. I don’t want to lose any more.”
“‘People you care about’?” The corner of Adriel’s mouth twitched.
“You didn’t hear me say that.”
“My lips are sealed.”
The sound of batons on shields was almost deafening now, and the street was suddenly full of people – running, walking, jumping – their faces covered with scarves and hoods. Adriel slipped out of the door.
A bottle smashed on the pavement outside: the burning rag stuffed into its mouth falling clear and smouldering harmlessly on the ground.
She had to go too, didn’t she? It was where she belonged, after all – so much more there than in an office. Her eyes fixed on the crowd, Alice followed Adriel through the door, leaving it open behind her.
As she passed, the rag on the pavement burst into bright orange flames.
AS SHE LOST herself among the bodies, the office’s back door opened and Toby ran in.
“I don’t care, alright. It’s mental out there and I’m not leaving y...” He tailed off, seeing the door swinging open, and Alice vanishing into the mob.
“Alice! Alice!” He ran to the front door, gripping the sides of the frame and screaming her name. She didn’t stop: in fact, he could barely see her – only a flash of her jacket here, the top of her head. His voice was just one among many.
She didn’t hear him. She didn’t want him.
But he couldn’t leave her.
Shaking his head and against his better judgement, Toby turned the collar of his jacket up and plunged into the riot after her.
A WAVE OF NOISE swallowed Toby whole. The road had become a corridor of bodies: colliding with one another; dancing around one another, arms aloft, faces hidden behind black and white patterned scarves. A woman with long blonde hair had climbed onto the ruins of a car and was waving a child’s doll, its blazing hair dripping molten plastic on the people below as its face twisted grotesquely. The woman laughed as she threw the burning doll into the crowd.
Someone nearby was screaming; as Toby staggered through the crush of bodies, he saw a man – a kid, really – lying on the ground. Blood was pouring out of a gash in his thigh, and his face was a pale shade of grey. There were dark hollows under his eyes. It was the young woman crouched beside him who was screaming, a brick in her hand.
Jeers from somewhere behind him made Toby look away. The crowd had parted around a man in a crumpled suit. He had a phone in his hand; he’d been filming the mob, and the mob had turned on him.
The first missile landed at the man’s feet and shattered: a glass bottle. The second clipped his knee, forcing him to step back. The third hit him in the side of his face.
As he fell, the baying crowd reared back before collapsing in on him like a pack of animals.
In his mind’s eye, Toby saw himself plunging through them, pulling them aside until he reached the poor bastard at the centre; hauling him to his feet and dragging him out... getting him to the police, to an ambulance, to safety, to anywhere but here.
But Toby didn’t move. He stood right where he was. He heard the soft, sickening sound of flesh on flesh; of bricks and bones, of the mob laughing as they broke their prey... and he didn’t move. He couldn’t.
It was the thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud of batons on shields that pulled him out of his stupor.
Turning his back on the horror in front of him, Toby began frantically scanning the crowd for Alice. Jostled from every direction by the bodies crammed around him, he looked in vain for her face. He fought to stay upright, to not be swept along by the mob.
He was still searching as the first canister of tear-gas sailed over his head in a graceful arc and landed twenty feet behind him with a clatter and a whoosh.
Still the heartbeat of the riot sounded above the screams and the shouts and the chants and the shattering of windows.
And beneath his feet, beneath the feet of the world, unseen and unheard and unfelt... the balance tipped.
For the first time in forever, the Fallen were in control.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ring of Steel
ALICE HAD PUSHED her way through the crowd early on – or rather, it had parted before her. Perhaps they looked at her and saw the faintest of heat-hazes about her shoulders. Perhaps they saw the tarmac of the road bubble beneath her feet, or the tiny sparks that spat from her fingertips.
Or perhaps they saw the look on her face and decided that it was best to get out of her way.
One – a teenage boy barely old enough to shave, scarf pulled up to his eyes – had tried to slow her down. He had held his ground and sniffed at her disdainfully, and pulled a knife out of his jacket pocket. He screamed as molten metal poured from between his fingers, and Alice moved on.
This wasn’t just a riot. It was angry and it was chaotic and it was cold – much colder than it should have been. The temperature had dropped by several degrees in the last hour, and that could mean only one thing.
This was them.
This was the Fallen. Rimmon she’d already seen – and that was most likely part of his plan, if he had one – but it wasn’t him she wanted. She was looking for Xaphan.
Memories flooded her mind, of a metal cage, a scarred face with a cruel smile, and a man strapped to a wheel, swallowed by hungry black fire. The leaves on a plane tree at the side of the road began to curl and shrivel.
“Get a grip,” she muttered to herself as a tall man in a black jacket and hood barged into her, almost knocking her sideways – but recoiling when he saw the scorch mark on his coat. He screamed and lunged at her, but it was so little effort to dodge him that she almost laughed as he tumbled into a heap beside her. She grabbed his shoulder, half-hauling him to his feet; he swung at her again and she ducked, popping back up to yank his hood down. “Go home!” she shouted, looking into his startled eyes. All she saw there was fear.