Fire flared around the window, pouring out of the stonework and along the floor, as Michael finally lost his temper. But Zadkiel was already gone – slipping out through the open window and opening his wings.
“ARE YOU QUITE finished?” Gabriel was still clutching a bundle of papers to his chest. Michael glared at him as the fire receded. He would deal with Zadkiel later.
“Fine,” he snapped, waving Gabriel across the room. The other angel dropped the papers on the table, on top of the ones already there.
“I might have found something. In the archives...”
Since their arrival – complete with Lucifer’s body and the majority of Michael’s choir – Gabriel had spent his time working in the archives. Not the priory’s archives, which were popular with scholars for their collection of early-medieval manuscripts (“pretty,” Gabriel scoffed, “but pointless”) but the other archives – the ones holding Michael’s library, the history of the angels. This was to be Gabriel’s punishment and his redemption: find the way to destroy Lucifer. “You wanted to be the one to end the war,” said Michael as he had unlocked the door to Gabriel’s cell. “Here’s your chance.”
Gabriel smoothed the roll of parchment out on the table, and pointed to a single line of looping text. “There.”
“Is that all?” Michael snorted, peering over this shoulder. “This is nothing.” The parchment began to blacken at the edges, curling up and in on itself. “Come and see me when you’ve uncovered something useful, Gabriel.” And with that, the Archangel swept out of the room, leaving Gabriel shaking with fury.
On the street below, a young man stopped to take a photograph of his pretty new wife as she stood in one of the priory gardens. She smiled, and posed for the picture – then, as usual, demanded to see it so she could decide whether or not to delete it. And while she decided her appearance was satisfactory, she frowned at the camera screen – because although the day was bright and warm, and the sky was a bright cloudless blue, the tower at the back of the shot had a peculiar blue halo... almost as though it had been struck by lightning.
SOME TIME LATER, a door on the lowest level of Mont Saint-Michel opened in the dark. Far below the rooms Michael kept for himself, or the main body of the priory, or the tourists, lay the oldest part of the stronghold: the chapel. Abandoned soon after the main priory church, with its soaring roof and bright-stained glass, was built (under Michael’s watchful eye, naturally), the chapel had been forgotten by all but the angels. Sea-water seeped through the masonry, and the only light came from candles scattered around the room. No-one ever lit them: should Michael walk in, they simply lit themselves and that was good enough for him. It didn’t ever occur to him that they might not do the same for everyone... or if it did, he didn’t really care. So when Gabriel crept into the chapel, it was dark – until he opened his arms. Electricity bounced across the walls and vaulted roof, arcing around him and filling the chamber with brilliant white light... which slowly collected itself around a single lightbulb left lying on a mildewed bench. The bulb glowed gently as Gabriel closed the door behind him.
“He thinks he can treat me like a child. Like a child!” White sparks spat from his hair as he paced the gloomy chapel. “I’ve been nothing but loyal – nothing. Haven’t I done everything he ever asked? Haven’t I done my utmost? Have...” He tailed off as he remembered that he was not alone.
In the corner, half-hidden from the light, stood a large block of ice. Sturdy-looking chains were wrapped around it, secured with a dozen padlocks the size of a man’s hand. They were more for show than anything else: the ice showed no sign of melting, but knowing the chains were there made Michael’s choir feel better. Because inside the ice, his eyes open and unseeing, his face set in a permanent sneer, was Lucifer.
CHAPTER FOUR
Controlled Drowning
THE DOOR WOULDN’T open, not even with a good kick. Not entirely surprised, Alice backed up a couple of steps and tried again, glad she had switched her work shoes for something a little more sensible. Still nothing. She sighed, and looked at the side of the building. There was a small window a little way down the alley, with a pile of rotten-looking crates underneath it, and shards of broken glass sticking out of the frame. It looked about the right size. She knocked the worst of the glass out of the frame and clambered through, dropping to the floor on the other side. A cloud of dust kicked up from beneath her feet as she landed, and somewhere a bird took off, startled by the intrusion, but other than that everything was still and quiet. It didn’t seem like anyone had heard...
Except, of course, for the angels.
Huddled around the walls, they straightened up as she climbed inside. Earthbounds and half-borns; all different ages, all different choirs, all coming together for one reason.
To fight the Fallen.
It was always the Earthbounds: never the Descendeds. Never the ones who could make it an easy fight. They were all so busy hunting the other Fallen, Lucifer’s generals – who were known as the Twelve to most, and as “a fucking nightmare” to Mallory – that these minor battles, these backyard skirmishes, always fell to the Earthbounds and whatever allies they could scrape together. Never mind that the small fights were the ones that did the most damage. Never mind that even the lowliest, weakest of the Fallen could do untold damage if they got the chance – and more importantly, would. Multiply it by a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand and the odds were not in the angels’ favour.
Alice was not the only one who had realised what was happening. With nowhere to retreat to, the Fallen had decided to go for broke and throw everything they had at the world. No retreat, no surrender... and no mercy. The bruises from her own battles had barely faded when the first Earthbound had found her, just as Mallory had said they would.
“They’ll come to you, and they’ll want you to lead them. And they’ll be right, because you’ll lead them like no-one else could – because you get it. You know what’s at stake, and you know the price. But this kind of thing... once you’re in, you’re in. No backing out.”
Alice had restrained herself from telling him that, actually, she’d been in since the day he’d turned up on her doorstep. Since before then, even: since the day she was born. She’d known that this would only set him off on one of his rambles on ‘choices,’ and she just didn’t have the energy.
Of course, he’d been right, and sure enough, the notes had started turning up at the Halfway, all of them exactly the same. A date, a time, a place and a fight. Yes, Mallory had been right. Like it or not, she was now so far in that she didn’t think she’d ever be able to get out again.
Which left her clutching a tatty bit of paper in a dirty warehouse with broken glass on the floor, and a bunch of dishevelled Earthbounds waiting for her... just as they had been the time before, and the time before that, and all the other times. Because they had come, and she had gone with them. She had gone because she was needed. Or because she needed to be needed. She hadn’t quite worked out which.
An Earthbound with untidy reddish-brown hair and a scattering of freckles across his nose, Zadkiel’s sigil just visible at the edge of his sleeve, nodded at her as she brushed dust and glass from her sleeves; stepping closer, he tucked his wings tightly behind him. “They came in about four o’clock. Went straight up and we’ve not seen them since.”