by Rebecca Lim
‘It’s the one thing I can’t do, Ryan: stay.’
He shakes his head violently and I whisper, ‘Hear me out, please.
‘I never took Luc’s side in his rebellion against God. I was exiled before I could be forced to choose. So now — call it luck, call it chance, call it accident, because I will never call it fate — I remain elohim. Not demon. I still have a choice. And there’s a way to keep Luc in Hell forever; a way that will mean placing duty before desire the way the Eight always have, and always will. I have to leave, don’t you see? It’s something that part of me yearns for. I’ve been stumbling towards the light for the longest time, and now? I might actually return. I might actually be able to go home. If Luc can’t find me, he’ll always be contained here.’
Ryan releases me, shocked. ‘You’d just abandon us to him? Aren’t we worth saving?’
Such a tiny word, us, conveying so many things. ‘But Luc would be trapped forever,’ I say pleadingly. ‘He’d never be able to leave, never be able to turn everything beyond your world —’
‘Into a wasteland,’ Ryan says fiercely, ‘the way he’d do here if he ever discovered you were gone.’
‘This place is already a wasteland,’ I murmur. ‘One law for the lion and the ox is oppression. That’s just the way it is. How things were laid down.’
The words slip out before I realise I’ve uttered them.
Ryan reels back from me as if I’ve punched him in the throat.
‘So just go,’ he chokes. ‘Throw us to the lions, or whatever. Save yourself, your home. Just forget I laid myself on the line. Forget I spoke, that I pleaded with you on behalf of my entire species.’
‘You don’t understand,’ I say quietly.
‘Oh, I understand very well,’ he replies. ‘The greatest good for the greatest number, right? They hammered that one home in sociology one year. We humans are … what, just one rung above the animals? But when Luc takes out his vengeance on all of us because you slipped through his fingers, just remember what you sacrificed, Mercy, because it will all be your doing. Having more than a little personal experience of sacrifice, I’m guessing you won’t want that on your conscience. It’s a coward’s way out. And you’re no coward,’ he spits. ‘Or do I have that wrong?’
Every word hits me like a blow, and I’m hardly surprised when we are rocked by another blast wave of heat and energy that knocks us both off our feet.
Sprawled where I am on the ground, I only have enough time to raise my head before the Archangel Nuriel steps out of a vortex that seems to have opened upon the stairs just above us.
She’s so beautiful.
Her long, dark, wavy hair snakes out around her shoulders as if she’s a living Medusa. Her dark eyes are wide and unseeing, and she seems made of lightning; so bright in outline I can barely discern her form, the sleeveless garment she wears. She’s weaponless, and there’s an expression on her face that looks almost … vulnerable. All of the joy I’ve always associated with her, is missing.
Ryan’s face is tilted up towards her, enraptured, and I know the same look is upon my face.
‘Soror,’ Nuriel pleads. ‘Salva me.’
Sister, she’s saying. Save me.
Though I kneel up and reach out to her, she does not meet my eyes as she drifts, weightless, above the stone. And I realise that this is a vision of some kind. She’s a projection, she’s not really here. Luc showed me that such a thing could be possible.
I rise and approach the vision cautiously, passing my fingers through the edges of Nuriel’s constantly shifting, fraying outline. I feel nothing. She could be a hologram.
‘Festina,’ the vision whispers, ‘ne delear ut K’el deletus est.’ Come quickly. Or I will be destroyed, as K’el was destroyed.
I close my eyes briefly in renewed horror at the mention of K’el’s name.
‘What is she saying?’ Ryan says, getting up cautiously.
But I’m torn by the memory of Nuriel siding with Michael, with all the others, against me. And I do not reply.
‘Salva me, soror.’ Nuriel’s voice is eerie and emotionless. ‘Salva me.’
Then there’s a jump-cut moment — like a break in transmission — where I imagine for a moment that Nuriel’s outline wavers, rippling outwards. Then she winks out of being, leaving Ryan and me circling the space between us warily.
‘You could hear her,’ I say bluntly. ‘See her.’
Ryan nods, still puzzled. ‘But she could have been speaking backwards. What did she say?’
‘She was speaking in Latin. She wants me to save her.’
Ryan’s face is, instantly, transparent with hope. ‘So you’ll stay long enough to free her?’
‘It’s a trap, Ryan,’ I say flatly, and his face falls. ‘The last time I “saw” Nuriel, Luc was chasing her down, above the waters of Lake Como. Luc’s got her, I heard him say it. This vision is an elaborate kind of bait. Some measure of coercion was used. Torture.’
‘But she’s a friend of yours, right?’ Ryan’s voice is almost pleading. ‘And she’s in trouble?’
‘Yes,’ I say tightly, realising where this is heading.
Ryan challenges me with his eyes. ‘So do it — if not for me, then for her. Stick it to Luc one last time. Defy him. I know you want to. If you’re not going to hang around to defend us, at least leave us someone who can.’
I’m stung by his words. ‘It doesn’t change the fact that it’s a set-up! You don’t “get” what we are, what we’re about. We’re not in it for you. Anyway, Luc’s not going to just let me walk in and take her. Even if I did decide to help her, I forbid you from going anywhere with me, so don’t even think about it, it’s non-negotiable.’
‘So you’ll do it?’ Ryan says eagerly.
‘I didn’t say that,’ I growl. ‘I’m still thinking about it. You could die.’
In that string of non sequiturs is all my unspoken fear for him.
‘It wouldn’t matter what you said,’ Ryan argues. ‘I’d just follow you anyway. You can’t stop me. I’ve had years of practice. You picked the wrong guy to mess with.’
‘You have no idea what I’m capable of!’ Worry sharpens my voice to a keen edge. ‘And don’t be ridiculous, you wouldn’t know where to go. You couldn’t do what I do, you’d never find me.’
‘I’d just follow the trail of destruction,’ Ryan says triumphantly. ‘You’ve made a mess of things so far, all of you. It’d be a piece of cake. I’d just follow the trail of burning buildings.’
Or burning humans. I recall, with horror, those images of a fiery, melting world that Gia Basso and I had watched, side by side.
‘Luc would squash you like a bug,’ I growl to hide my fear. ‘You’d be completely unprotected, trailing around after me with demons on the loose.’
‘So let me go with you then,’ Ryan says guilelessly. ‘I could stand behind you when things get nasty.’ He grins. ‘Got no problem with that.’
‘The sensible option would be to leave and never come back. Right now. You know it.’
‘But where would the fun be in that?’ he murmurs. ‘And we’re both due a little fun.’
‘Fun?’ My reply is incredulous. ‘Walking into an obvious trap set by a bunch of first-order demons isn’t defiance, it’s not even fun. It’s just stupid.’
‘But we’re a stupid and obstinate species.’ Ryan grins wider at my expression. ‘Argumentative. Tenacious. Just go for it. You’ve got to love that about us.’
‘It’s not “love” I’m feeling right now! You could die,’ I say again.
‘But I’d be less likely to die if I was with you,’ Ryan wheedles. ‘Because you’d do everything in your power to keep me alive. I know you would.’
‘You’d just get in my way,’ I bluster. ‘The way you got in mine?’ he shoots back. ‘And see what happened? You found Lauren. You saved her life. Good things happen when we’re together.’
He moves forward, taking my hands in his. ‘So you’ll let me turn the
tables on you? Let me tag along this time? One last joint mission before you leave me forever?’
I stare up into his face, troubled, seeing demon fire that resists water; that turns flesh to an ash so fine it can be borne away on the wind.
‘With one condition,’ I murmur. ‘If we do this, if we try to go after Nuriel together — you’re free to leave at any time. You don’t have to stay to see how it pans out. You have my permission to run when you feel like running. I won’t hold you to anything.’
‘Free to bail,’ Ryan agrees solemnly. ‘No strings.’
Though there are. We can feel the ties that bind us together, even if we can’t see them. Our words are at once empty of meaning, and brimming with it.
He folds his arms around me and places his lips against my forehead, tentatively, half-expecting me to scatter into a formless cloud of light, before looking down into my eyes with a crooked grin.
‘You know I’ll just keep chipping away at those defences,’ he murmurs, ‘working up your tolerance levels, taking you outside your comfort zone. Consider yourself forewarned.’
He feels me shiver in answer, and gives a low and sexy laugh. Is about to say more, maybe even kiss me again, when the night is shattered by a chorus of nightmare: a score of voices shrieking wordlessly, converging from many directions at once, speaking no language ever devised by the elohim.
Ryan and I clutch each other in mounting horror as light begins to punch through the windows of the tower in a staccato, scattergun motion. Searing light, with a sickly grey tinge at its heart, like a cancer. Demonlight. Time seems to speed up and slow down all at once as the metal window frames ripple and flex, then fly inwards, propelled by some unimaginable force, their glass exploding a second later, shredded into a powder so fine it fills the atmosphere.
Ryan turns his head away sharply, coughing, as the glittering, granular powder disperses through the air and the warped window frames hit the stone with a sound like gunshot.
The light streaming in through the windows, the high-pitched shrieking, grow and grow until they are almost unbearable and I know that he’s out there, Luc’s out there.
Ryan stumbles away from me suddenly, up the stairs, tripping and cursing as he rounds the corner, out of sight. And I fall to my knees, my arms wrapped around my head in agony, wondering if the noise has driven him out of his mind the way it’s invading mine.
Through the monstrous screaming, I seem to hear Luc whisper in my ear, almost as if he’s standing over me. I’m coming for you. If not now, then soon. I am wolf to your hart, hound to your hare, and I will bring you down. Believe it.
An incredible surface pressure suddenly builds, as if the atmosphere is somehow twisting and condensing, pushing down upon me. It’s as if the air around me is becoming molten. I feel an indescribable rage, a terrible malice. Luc cannot physically touch me, but he’s manipulating the air itself into a kind of weapon, the embodiment of his anger. It pushes at me from all directions, reaching in through the paneless windows as if it would kill me where I lie.
‘Ryan!’ I cry out, fearful it will crush his mortal frame.
The light outside, the heat, the screaming, all build and build. There’s a crack, a sonic boom so vast I wonder that it does not level the city, this cathedral.
An instant of light, so searing it’s like being at the heart of an atomic cloud, and then darkness returns. The pressure begins to recede rapidly, like the tide turning. The air grows cool and thin, the way air should be. And I know with absolute clarity that Luc is gone, for now, taking his demons with him.
I spring upright, screaming, ‘Ryan!’
I am the only visible thing left in this place. The darkness inside the tower is absolute. The cold air streaming in from the open windows is like needles against my skin, though the night is still and silent now. There’s no snow, no sleet, no wind. The storm that has been raging all night, the storm to end all storms, it’s over. Gone with Luc.
I feel Ryan before I see him: his familiar energy, the hum of him growing stronger to my senses. His boots strike the stone stairs with a clumsy sound, then a crunch and slide upon powdered glass as he turns the corner. He collapses beside me on the landing, breathing heavily.
‘I headed higher up,’ he gasps, ‘thinking the view would be better, but all the windows are so high and narrow. I couldn’t grab on to any of the window ledges — they’re cut so that they slope down.’ He grasps my arm, his gaze and words feverish. ‘I had to jump to see out properly. And I’d just left the freakin’ ground when something gripped me hard, like a fist, holding me there. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. I saw all these streams of light twisting together like a rope that got sucked back into the hole in the roof of that Galleria place.’
I feel his thoughts running hot beneath his skin; let myself see how it was through his eyes.
‘They were … demons, right?’ He swallows, still unable to grasp the physical existence of such creatures. ‘How could something so beautiful be so … evil?’
Again I get that disorienting flash of Luc — superimposed over the features of the young man before me. I shiver, whispering, ‘Take it from me, it’s possible.’
Still shaking, I head up several steps to the window above our landing, needing to see for myself. The narrow aperture lies just beyond reach, uncovered now against the night air, the glitter of pulverised glass beneath it. Ryan described it accurately: the window is set in deeply, and impossible to keep a grip on. But I tell myself fiercely: You can do it, you can do anything. Then I leap lightly into thin air … and I’m floating. My feet aren’t touching the ground.
Will it and it is done. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
Yet, I am vertigo. I am panic. I am nausea. It feels too much like flight for comfort. I wonder if it will ever feel natural again: leaving the earth behind me.
As I drift there, unsupported, I glimpse black smoke still pouring from the ruined roofline of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele; the steady pulsing of the lights of the emergency vehicles parked haphazardly behind hastily erected crash barriers on the Piazza; tiny figures getting slowly back onto their feet, gesticulating at the sky in fear and wonder.
My view is truncated by the decorative angles of the Duomo, but at the horizon I see the faintest lightening. Daybreak is coming at last.
I land as lightly as I left the ground, though I stumble as my feet reconnect with the stone. Ryan stares at me in silence, his eyes reproachful at the reminder of the chasm that lies between us.
I voice the thought I’ve been carrying around inside me. ‘We can’t stay here. I make everything around me a target; enough has been done to this city, to its people. The demons are gone for now. Michael, Gabriel and the others must have drawn them away somehow, long enough for us to leave here. So if you really want to do this, if you want to try and carve out some time for us, pull off one last “joint mission”? We’ve got to get ready to go. It’s almost light.’
‘How?’ he asks. ‘We can’t just walk out of here. They’ll see us. There’s nowhere safe in the world when they can destroy something without even touching it.’
He shudders. I take his face in my hands, letting the warmth bleed from my skin into his, hoping he will mistake it for confidence.
‘We can,’ I whisper. ‘We have an advantage they do not possess. We have the ability to think like mortals and act like mortals in this mortal world. It’s something none of them — angel or demon — has ever really “stooped” to do; at least not in the way I’ve been forced to. They persist in treating you like unthinking cattle when you’ve demonstrated, over and over, that you are capable of rationalising the mind of God. You are miraculous.’
I lean my forehead against his and he closes his eyes at the warming touch.
‘When it grows light and the tourists begin to spill out into the streets,’ I murmur, ‘we’ll move. Everyone loves a catastrophe. The Piazza is already crawling with people. And more will come. A tide of humanity is going
to flow up this staircase today. The Galleria has become a tomb for the dead still inside, and this roof provides the best view of it. The reporters and thrill-seekers and ghouls will flock here. When the first sightseers begin to leave, we’ll leave, too, hidden among them.’
Ryan pulls away from me, his laughter disbelieving. ‘And I’m asking you again, how?’ He backs away up several more stairs so that he’s staring down on me from above. ‘Have you looked at yourself lately? You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. You’re electric. And you’ve got as much chance of slipping out of here unnoticed as, as …’
I see his eyes grow round, see him fall backwards in genuine fear, as I do what K’el, what Nuriel, what even Gudrun reminded me was possible.
I shape-shift.
Permutations, combinations — they should flow seamlessly, one from another. But I’m rusty, still fighting the feeling I could fly apart at any second. So it seems to take a lifetime to finetune and discard, add and subtract, borrow and enhance, drawing on shattered memories, old abilities, forgotten powers, until I’m satisfied with the eyes, the nose, face shape, hair colour, height, the works.
And while I do all of it, Ryan’s face reflects his own fascination, and nausea.
When I’m finally done, I’m an equation, I suppose. A strange amalgam.
I look sixteen, maybe seventeen at most, because it’s the way I’m feeling inside: so strangely confused and vulnerable and unformed.
What I remember distinctly? Is being young, and so in love with Luc that I couldn’t see beyond that. Then whole human years, whole human lives, must have intervened between the creature I was then — the creature who fell — and the thing I am now. But all I can clearly remember out of all that lost time — years that could have happened to someone else — are recent memories. Like waking as a battered wife called Ezra, with blood caking my face, a hairline fracture in one eye socket.
So in honour of Ezra, I’ve given myself her sun-kissed skin. And I have gifted myself Lucy’s green eyes because I’d look every morning into the cracked mirror in her stinking apartment and wish I was somewhere else. I have Susannah’s dusting of freckles across the bridge of her long, narrow nose. And I have her dimples, one beneath the apple of each cheek so that when I smile, I appear open-faced, uncomplicated and friendly, the exact opposite of Susannah’s nightmare of a mother, who made her life a kind of hell. I have Carmen’s wild, black, curly hair and I’m wearing it bound back in the kind of low ponytail that her nemesis, Tiffany, used to favour. I have Lela’s fine bones, elegant wrists and ankles. But I have Irina’s heart-shaped face and long, tapered fingers, her long limbs and her height, because I would miss seeing the world from her vantage point, miss being able to place my head on Ryan’s shoulder without having to strain to do it.