Blue Angel

by Phil Williams

“It’s not enough. These are humans that took our tech – they killed our –”

  “They didn’t kill shit!” Letty shouted. “I’m right here, no one killed me!”

  Arnold stalled, logic failing. “They’re still human. Still scum. Better off dead.”

  “These humans can help us, you dense pillock.”

  “No,” Arnold said, mind settling. “This is how it’s gonna work – how it’s gotta work. Without bodies to pin on Val, it’s your word against hers. The Citizen has to die.”

  “Smoking geese,” Letty muttered. It was no use. “You’re even thicker than you look. You and the whole damned FTC. You’ve got the chance to fly away, right now. Take it.”

  “You know what Lightgate would do to us?” Arnold said.

  “Fly fast, then.”

  “Sorry, Letty.” He sounded like he meant it. “We got no choice.”

  “Then neither do I.” Letty took aim with Rolarn’s shotgun.

  Five flights of stairs (or ten? They doubled up, didn’t they?), and Pax was having an unpleasant time breathing. When they burst out of the fire exit into a walled courtyard with a single, narrow exit, she couldn’t speak. Sam Ward was blocking the exit, but she didn’t look particularly great herself, her frightened skin the colour of porridge.

  The sounds inside hadn’t stopped, with things continuing to break apart and collapse, people shouting and screaming, the turnbold shrieking. It had slowed down and wasn’t getting any closer, though. Maybe still stuck in the lift shaft.

  “Step aside,” Casaria said, facing Ward with his jacket pushed back over his hands on his hips. A mock cop pose. It looked forced, but Ward took a concerned step back.

  “Why?” Ward said. Her pleading eyes found Pax. “How could you?”

  Pax said nothing. She didn’t have the breath.

  “You still don’t get it?” Casaria snarled. “There’s more going on here than you can begin to comprehend. There’s enemies you don’t even understand.”

  It was a fine summary, Pax supposed, especially as she was sure it applied to the man saying it. Good to see his enthusiasm reapplied, either way.

  Rufaizu shifted at Pax’s shoulder, apparently pumped enough to be standing straight. He said, “Enemies underground, who made them come up, huh?”

  “That thing...” Ward said.

  “This was the fucking Fae!” Casaria pointed into the building. “The Ministry should’ve seen it coming. Should’ve purged the lot of them a long –”

  “Stop.” Pax held up a hand. The courtyard seemed to dance before her eyes, all a bit whiter than it should’ve been. Oh, to be fit and healthy for times like this. “Wait.” They did. This weird situation again, with everyone looking at her like she would speak their troubles away. “Not the Fae. Not that simple.”

  “Have you any idea the damage you’ve done?” Ward asked, genuinely.

  “Yeah,” Pax sighed. “But...” She took another deep breath, rolled her eyes up, unsure if she was seeing thick white cloud or her vision was failing. “I didn’t do it. The Fae...” She flapped a hand Casaria’s way. “This is them – but not all of them.” Lightgate had been turned down by the other Fae. It might have been a lone madman that left Lightgate the note with those codes; a conspiracy of two. Without the energy to get all that out, Pax huffed, “Most said no.”

  “You’re wasting what little breath you’ve got,” Casaria said. “She’s a company man.”

  “I am not!” Ward protested, then repeated it in what she clearly hoped was a more reasonable tone. “I am not. I’ve been trying to trace where the energy goes.”

  A siren whined nearby. Emergency vehicles rapidly approaching. Pax couldn’t help feeling she needed to get used to these sounds.

  “We can’t stay here,” said Casaria, stating the obvious.

  “You can’t leave,” Ward said. “Our people will surround this area.” Another birdlike shrill came from the building. “Thankfully.”

  “Okay.” Pax took a step forward. “You can’t stop us.”

  “I won’t –”

  Casaria moved towards her too, and Ward jumped back into the wall. His fists were clenched, perhaps intending to do more than scare her. She had both hands up, frightened. Pax growled, “She’s not the enemy, either, for Christ’s sake!”

  He looked back at her, confused.

  Pax advanced and Rufaizu jumped to her side to help, taking her arm. He, fresh from his hospital bed doping, offering her support. She let him. Taking a few more breaths, Pax said to Ward, “Think before you retaliate. There’s a bigger picture – the Blue Angel. Not the Fae.”

  “The grugulochs?” Ward uttered back. In agreement?

  Pax paused. “Yeah. That, too.”

  “What is it?”

  “You tell me. You’ve got the technology.”

  “Is it the praelucente itself?” Ward said, almost hopeful. That would be simple, wouldn’t it?

  “No,” Pax replied. “Whatever’s behind the praelucente. Whatever’s moving that energy around. Manipulating everyone. You track that energy, you’ll find where that word comes from.”

  Sam started shaking her head. “It’ll take time –”

  “Your people are gonna want to hang the Fae,” Pax warned, then paused for another breath. She cleared her throat and said, “The Fae won’t take it lightly. I don’t know...the Blue Angel, or your grugulochs, made this happen here. Even if the Fae pulled the trigger, the Angel is to blame.”

  The sirens were getting closer.

  “We need to go.”

  Ward pushed off from the wall, desperately. “Where? Where are you going?”

  Pax walked past her, not looking back, not answering because she didn’t know.

  10

  Letty sheltered behind a metal strut. It was a minor miracle she’d fought her way out of the cover-free shop into the steel rafters of the plaza’s loft space. But pretty clear why Lightgate chose Rolarn as a guard over Arnold and his Trawlers. They were amateurs, soft from picking on humans and never tussling with real Fae. She’d left three dead on the shop floor, filling the place with gunfire as she flew for the ceiling. That left another three, by her counting, and they weren’t happy following her up here.

  “On me, you bastards!” Arnold shouted. “Use your heads!”

  Letty leant around the steel support to watch their shapes flitting between the beams. None of them was racing her way. A good chance they hadn’t seen where she’d ended up. One movement a few tiers above, another in the opposite direction. Arnold’s voice had come from somewhere in between. That put all of them more or less in her line of sight.

  She ducked as a bullet sparked off the adjacent beam. The muzzle flash was about two feet back. Had to be Arnold.

  “Still time to fly away, Arnold!” Letty shouted.

  “You shot my men!” he snarled furiously.

  “Like you gave me a choice? No one ever told you I eat street thugs like you for breakfast?”

  “Better a street thug than a human-lover!” the one to the left shouted. Pinpointing his position, thank you. A movement to the right indicated the third one, dashing to another beam, trying to flank her.

  Letty jammed her pistol in the holster and hefted up the shotgun. Still a couple shots left, there. She kept goading: “I already did for Mix and Fresko. And Rolarn? He must’ve been worth your whole crew. You got nothing on any of them, Arnold. Fly away.”

  The flanking Fae dashed for another beam and Letty opened fire. A pistol shot would’ve been impossible, but the guy couldn’t fly through a cloud of buckshot. She unloaded both barrels and he spun in the air like a fly in a tornado – one more down. Throwing the gun away and whipping out her pistol, she spun back and fired at the one on the left as he moved to another position. The bullet thunked into the ceiling far behind him, but the message was sent. She heard the goon’s heavy breathing. Freaking out. There was a reason he was the only one left, she guessed. Letty threw a comment his way: “Go now or when Arnold d
ies, you’re a free man either way.”

  The pair of them were quiet, except for the minion’s worried breathing.

  “Like hell,” Arnold snarled, finally. “Let’s finish this.”

  She cursed at the sound of his fluttering wings and ducked to see his approach. He moved fast, springing from one strut to another; she fired and missed by a mile. The next shot glanced him but he took it. Two beams away, a foot between them.

  “Now!” Arnold shouted, coming into the open firing. The shots sparked against Letty’s cover, making her take shelter, and she turned in the other direction to take on his companion. He didn’t materialise, and Arnold started screaming, “Shoot her!”

  Nothing.

  She spun around to the other side of the beam, into Arnold’s confused face. He was coming too quickly to react; she got her free hand on his wrist and twisted his gun away as she turned hers on him. Fired two shots into his wing as his other arm came up to punch her. She fired a third shot into his chest. His own single shot slapped uselessly into the floor. His eyes met Letty’s with shock, asking why. She returned a grim look. Didn’t need to be this way. His wings slowed as blood spread across his chest. She let go and he dropped like a sack of nuts.

  Something fluttered behind Letty and she spun. The last Trawler was speeding between the beams towards the ceiling. The only one of them with any damned sense.

  “Idiots,” Letty muttered, thick with regret. “I don’t know.”

  “Hey,” a voice said above.

  Letty half-raised her pistol before freezing.

  Lightgate was perched one beam up, a shining silver pistol, with a host of gadgets, held in a limp hand, loosely aimed at Letty’s head. “Those idiots got us here, at least.”

  “Where’s here, bitchsticks?” Letty growled. “The humans are gone. Your boys are dead. What’ve you got?”

  “My health,” Lightgate said. She stood, drunkenly teetering. Letty knew better than to believe it. The barrel of Lightgate’s gun didn’t stray from her forehead.

  “How’d you ever convince the FTC you’re not nuts...”

  Lightgate rolled her arms, gun pivoting to point at Letty like it was tied to her by string. “No mystery. I have great ideas, and I know how to work with people.”

  “You’re shitting me,” Letty snarled. “You never could’ve got close to the humans without me –”

  “Yes. Thanks for that. You are useful, Letty.”

  “I’ll give you fucking thanks!” Letty tensed but didn’t move. Lightgate’s lazy-looking eyes were way too ready.

  “Letty. We’ve done good today. Someone’s on your side, for once. I took advantage of opportunities you couldn’t, that’s all.”

  “Opportunities for what?”

  “To make a better world, what else?” Lightgate said. “Breaking down old walls, destroying the Ministry, destroying the FTC. Destroying whatever plagues the Sunken City.” She’d started laughing, taken by her own words. “Change, Letty. We have opportunities for change. Have fun with it!”

  “You’re nuts,” Letty snarled; even without Lightgate’s flippant tone, she would’ve known the fairy cared about none of that. “You were nuts before, you’re only more nuts now, and you used these boys who believed in better, all for what? To stoke violence?”

  “Is that a bad thing? No one wanted to lift a finger against the Ministry or Val. I came up with genius ideas – blame the turnbold on Barton, frame Val for human deaths, all sorts. The best I got was a coward’s note.” Lightgate delved a free hand into her jacket, searching pockets. In a brief flurry of irritation, betraying her instability, she pulled a crumpled piece of paper out and tossed it towards Letty. It came nowhere near. Letty watched it fall as Lightgate railed on, “The FTC are too scared to even talk to me face-to-face! You meet Edwing? He’s the only one I got more than a phone call from, and he’s got all the gumption of a fucking lamp. They’ve been scared forever. They need this.”

  “A catastrophic monster attack? The murder of innocents?”

  “An attack necessary to take back the Dispenser. To prove Val’s been lying. An attack we could blame on the humans, at that – they’re known enemies of the Ministry. Except, uh-oh, Val’s people kill them? Double-trouble for her!”

  “Except they’re gone. And where’s the fucking Dispenser?”

  Lightgate shrugged, “Details.”

  “The Ministry are gonna go apeshit! Val’s gonna hunt you down! Aren’t you –”

  “Looking forward to it?” Lightgate grinned. “You have your love affair with the Sunken City, Letty. My dreams are simpler. And clearly more appealing, considering our respective social circles.”

  Letty stared, aghast. Why did anyone follow Lightgate? Edwing had known better, so who had she convinced to do something as daft as set off those turnbold charges? Would any Fae be mad enough to put the FTC at risk like that? Letty’s eyes scanned down to that scrunched up ball of paper. No, probably not. “You got a secretive note? Anonymous help?”

  Lightgate didn’t reply, amused face not seeming to follow.

  Letty knew it, deep down, already. Lightgate had brought her own brand of crazy into this and the Blue Angel had seized the opportunity. Active, somehow, in the FTC, wielding the same influence Pax suggested it had over the MEE. “We were getting close – getting both sides talking – trying to figure out the truth of this. The Blue Angel’s scared of that, and you’ve just given it a fucking golden platter of chaos to revive the Fae-human rift. You’re insane.”

  “No,” Lightgate said, eyes moving wistfully up, “I am creative. We haven’t fought for our place in this world in ten years, Letty. Don’t you miss the conflict? The excitement of battle? Your human friend might step on some toes, but we can do so much more. We damaged the MEE, how are you not impressed?”

  “Because we didn’t do it! You don’t even know who set off the charges! That note,” she gestured to the paper, “is it written in ink or just scratched into the fucking paper?”

  “What?” Lightgate frowned.

  “This is what it does!” Letty shouted. “The Blue Angel is playing you!”

  “This Blue Angel again,” Lightgate sighed. “Aren’t you tired of that paranoid talk? Whoever was behind those charges, good for them. If they’re playing, I’m game. If the Ministry comes, it’s open season. The FTC can crumble, if they’re not ready – but I’m ready. We’ve sown seeds. You sowed seeds. Let’s reap.”

  “I’m no fucking farmer. You’re talking about setting the world on fire.”

  Lightgate leant in closer, face wicked. “You can’t deny it’s gonna be pretty.”

  Letty screwed her eyes shut. With hope finally creeping in, so came the psychos and warmongers and chaos. “Why don’t you put me out of my fucking misery?”

  “Oh no,” Lightgate said. “You’re a good soldier. You’re going to fight with me.”

  “Why not imagine my answer?”

  “Because I’ve got a gun on you and you’re a survivor. Do we really need to discuss how you’re going to survive?”

  11

  “Are you gonna throw up again?” Casaria asked.

  “Fuck off,” Pax answered, hands on her knees. “How far have we gone?”

  The streets at either end of the alley were busy with pedestrians and fast-moving cars. The mindless bustle of Central, oblivious to the panic a few blocks away.

  “We’re near the river,” Casaria said. “A few streets from Planter Bridge.”

  “And the Underground?” Pax said.

  “On the south bank, sure – but with him? Looking like that?” He nodded to Rufaizu’s hospital gown. Pax hardly looked well herself, after the tussle with the turnbold. Her new trousers had a tear down the right calf and her face felt sticky in places she didn’t dare touch, worried about smearing the blood of mutilated men. It was nothing compared to the carnage of Casaria’s suit, though.

  Pax said, “You’re the one that looks like an adult abortion.”

  Casar
ia scoffed. “These people can’t see past a suit. They’re locked in their own pointless heads, witness only to their daylight expectations.”

  Pax stared, unsure whether to be alarmed by his contradictory comments or impressed that he understood the same phenomenon that Letty said kept the Fae hidden.

  Another siren wailed as a police car shot past. The pedestrians barely reacted.

  Patting her pockets to check for a phone, it took Pax a moment to recall they’d ditched Rimes’ phone after Chaucer Crescent. She should’ve taken Letty’s advice to get another one. But they could get to a payphone once they were out of the open.

  She gave Rufaizu a look. He pumped his eyebrows playfully, energy redoubling minute by minute. As though he hadn’t just escaped government abduction. Admirable, but perhaps indicative of something wrong with him. She said, “Up for a walk?”

  “My lady,” he said, stepping away from the wall and giving a graceful curtsey. He stumbled on his own feet and had to steady himself. “Yes. Yes I am.”

  “Okay, the bridge is this way? We’ll make like it’s no big deal.” She led by example, moving into the bustle. Casaria dogged her heels. When he met a businesswoman’s eyes, she buried her face in her phone.

  “Where are we going?” Casaria said. “The Underground, then where?”

  “Broadplain,” Pax said. “To get the others out of there, if it’s not already too late.”

  “Broadplain,” Casaria scoffed. “I told you, never trust those insects, now you’ve seen the results.”

  “Result of bad men playing bad games,” Rufaizu disagreed.

  “Shut up or I’ll shut you up,” Casaria replied.

  “That’s what got us here to begin with,” Pax said, stopping at a traffic light. “You and your bloody efforts to keep innocent people quiet.”

  Casaria stopped, slotting into the waiting crowd. One man glanced at Pax’s face and sidestepped around a woman and child to stand further away. Pax smiled at the little girl, who stared back, noncommittal.

  The lights beeped for them to cross. Rufaizu sprang off the pavement with sudden inspiration. “Barfly! You bust through and showed them who was boss.”