by Marie Browne
Belial and I looked at each other. ‘Carly,’ we said in unison.
‘Tall girl, long red hair?’ A voice sounded behind us.
We turned slowly to face a vast man that was currently angling his head to get through the door. His shaggy face, gentle eyes and happy smile were entirely at odds with his boiled leather armour and the enormous sword that hung from his belt.
He laughed at our silence – a deep booming sound that actually made your bones ache. ‘Don’t worry, we’re taking very good care of her.’
I’d like to think I was still under the influence of whatever drug Galgaliel had given me to make me act in such an ill-considered manner, or I could have just been overconfident from winning my previous fight but, for whatever reason, I decided that talking wasn’t going to accomplish anything. I drew my knife and went straight for the attack.
The huge man didn’t even flinch until I came within arm’s reach then, with one quick move, he merely reached out a hand and flicked my wrist, causing my knife to sail away into the shadows. Picking me up by the throat he pulled back his other hand and casually punched me in the face.
I saw stars (again), and my head exploded. Lifting me higher, the thug brought me eye to eye with him, smiled and hit me again. At least in this induced darkness I wasn’t suffering from a headache any more.
Unfortunately, my returning headache was the first sign of returning consciousness.
‘Hey, Belial!’ Graham’s voice sounded about a quarter inch away from my ear.
I groaned and tried very hard not to heave.
‘Sorry.’ He moderated his voice to a stage whisper and moved away from me. ‘It looks as though he’s waking up.’
‘No, I’m not,’ I croaked. ‘Leave me alone – I’m dead.’
‘You ought to be, you bloody stupid arse.’ Belial’s voice, beautifully modulated though it was, still sent shards of pain into the back of my skull. I heard footsteps then felt a gentle kick in the backside. ‘What on earth possessed you to attack a seven-foot barbarian with a butter knife?’
I cracked open an eye and winced as I noted Belial’s split cheek, swollen eyes and bloody lip. ‘Ouch,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t look like you did that well either.’
Belial shrugged and slid down the wall beside me. ‘We might have been all right if there hadn’t been another six outside.’
I coughed and dragged myself into a sitting position. ‘Where are we?’
‘Take a wild guess.’ He leant his head back and stared up at the ceiling.
I looked around. There wasn’t really that much to see: dirt floor, rock walls on three sides, metal bars on the fourth. He was right – it didn’t take that much imagination to work it all out.
A figure stepped out of the shadows. With his lank hair flat against his head, both eyes blackened and an obviously broken nose, poor Farr looked very unhappy.
‘I’m really sorry, Joe.’ He gingerly probed his broken nose and winced. ‘This is all my fault.’
I nodded, carefully. ‘Probably.’ I agreed.
He looked up at me with a hurt expression.
I laughed and reached out a hand for him to help me up. ‘It’s just nice that it’s not my fault for once – it’s wonderful to have someone else to blame.’ I staggered as I gained my feet; he reached out and steadied me. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I held onto his shoulder. ‘They would have got us anyway.’
Farr looked at me for a moment then, with a wry smile, nodded. I looked around the shadowy cell trying to find Carly.
‘Everybody?’ I peered hard into the gloom. ‘Is everyone all right?’
Belial nodded. ‘Carly, Parity and Una are in the next cell. We’re all here except Keril. Galgaliel screamed enough to convince the thugs that his injuries were so bad he’d die if he was left alone, so they left him alone and laughed about it.’ He sighed. ‘He should be OK.’
Footsteps echoing down the stone passage stopped the conversation.
A group dressed in dark clothing came to a halt outside the cell door. Several men and women stared through the bars at us. I felt like a monkey at the zoo.
The silence stretched on – nobody moved or spoke. Belial ignored the spectators and continued his conversation. ‘Carly’s a little upset though.’
I grinned. ‘I’ll tell her I’m fine.’
‘They shaved her head.’ Belial ignored those standing beyond the door. ‘I think she’s going to be very upset when she gets her hands on someone.’
‘Vermin.’ One of the women outside the cell door had a strong accent. She sounded Swiss or possibly Dutch. ‘Long hair breeds vermin in here and, if it’s full of fleas, I won’t be able to use it.’ She stretched her face into what could have been a smile. ‘I think I will have it made into a wig.’ She stared over at Galgaliel. ‘It’s just a shame we won’t have you around any more. You always made the best soaps.’
Galgaliel stepped forward with a gentle smile. ‘Let me out and I’ll make that wig for you.’ He ignored my yelp. ‘Then, I’ll strangle you with it.’
The woman looked shocked for just a moment. She snarled and stepped toward the bars. ‘It’s a shame you won’t get the chance,’ she said.
Carly’s hair had gone: I couldn’t believe it – those long red locks, the smell of her watermelon shampoo that always made me think of summer picnics. Hair that I always wanted to touch, to smell. Hair that created a halo around her head at sunset or at dawn.
While Galgaliel and the woman were trading insults I leant on the bars and drooped, coughing and shuddering. She studied me for a moment and then turned to the others.
‘Why are we bothering with this one?’ She bent down to sneer at me. ‘It’s nothing special and it’s obviously sick.’
I groaned and coughed again, letting a string of drool fall from my lips. She gazed at me with a slightly disgusted look. As she bent her head to study my pain, I reached through the bars and snatched a handful of her long dark hair. Twisting it around my hand, I braced a foot against the bars and heaved backward. There was a wet ripping sound and the woman screamed as her hair and a fair amount of scalp came away in my hand.
I threw the wet handful toward Galgaliel. ‘Here, you can use that.’ I laughed. The woman, still screaming, put her hand to her bleeding head and fled down the corridor.
A tall man shook his head. ‘You really are keeping low company, Belial,’ he said. ‘Oh how the mighty have fallen.’ A thick snake, banded in yellow and green, slithered across his shoulders. He stroked it gently as he glared at the sneering demon lord.
‘Andromalius.’ Belial dusted himself off and gazed blankly through the bars. ‘At least I actually fell and then had the courage to live with it. I didn’t need to turn myself off and sulk in a stone box for a thousand years.’ Studying his nails he leant on the bars then looked up at those standing on the other side. ‘What’s the matter? Did you get bored? Were you waiting for our father to come and get you – to forgive you?’
The tall being laughed and addressed the snake which flicked a long mauve tongue in and out as though tasting the air. ‘I realised that I wasn’t going to be forgiven.’ He pulled the hissing creature from his dark hair and turned it to face him. The reptile flicked its forked tongue across his lip. ‘There was nothing for me to do but make the best of the situation. I woke up some of the others and we decided that it was better to be big fish in a little pond than servants.’
Belial snorted. ‘And who did you choose to help you with this little endeavour?’ He nodded to a thin man who was dressed in green. He’d shaved his hair down the sides leaving only a single row of white blond dreadlocks that flopped like a broken picket fence across his bony scalp. Realising that Belial was addressing him, his odd golden eyes flicked back and forth seeking to avoid the other’s baleful glare. ‘Lerajie … Looks like your daughters finally managed to toss your depraved arse out of Faery then?’
Fiddling with a beautifully carved longbow the ex-angel ignored him, a slight tightening
of his lips the only indication that he had heard him at all.
‘Rahab, what a surprise …’ Belial sneered at a small, muscular angel that glared back at him from beneath eyebrows that were grey and bushy. ‘And here we have Caim and Zepar.’ Two angels that appeared in the form of teenage boys blushed and looked away.
Belial stared at them all for a moment. ‘I would rather be demon and lose my name than be allied with you pathetic lot.’
With a scream of rage, the one Belial had named as Rahab leapt toward the bars, sword in hand. Andromalius, quick to react, grabbed him by the arm and spun him about. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘We need them all in one piece.’ The tall man smiled at Belial and shrugged. His long silk shirt fluttered in the cold breeze that sashayed through the prison. ‘Say what you like.’ He stroked the snake which hissed gently and wrapped itself around his wrist. ‘When you’re gone, you can be sure your words will be taken to heart – they will probably cut us to the quick.’
Laughing, he turned and walked away. His companions followed him without a backward glance.
Graham walked over and picked up the lank handful of hair. ‘That is probably the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.’
Galgaliel was leaning with his head on the bars, shoulders shaking. For a moment I thought he was crying. Hurriedly taking the hair from Graham’s hands I threw it back through the bars and hurried over to him. ‘Sorry.’ I reached over to grasp his shoulder. ‘I just loved Carly’s hair so much. It made me so angry …’
Galgaliel raised his face. There were indeed tears on his hollow cheeks, but his big green eyes were alive with laughter. ‘You just pulled half of Gomory’s hair out,’ he spluttered.
I shrugged. ‘Who?’
The angel took a couple of moments to get his emotions back under control. ‘She’s very proud of her beauty.’ He took a long look at the hair lying like roadkill on the floor and began to laugh again. ‘Her biggest vanity was her hair. She pinned it up with jewels, she brushed it till it shone. She’s always coming to me to make her soap or conditioner.’ He paused for a moment. ‘We’re all going to die in agony but at least I’ll have the last laugh when I see her wearing a bloody hat!’
Belial shook his head. ‘What are they doing here?’
Galgaliel looked up at him. ‘Making a little empire it seems.’ He put a hand on Belial’s shoulder, ‘You turning up will have thrown a huge spanner in the works. However calm they appear I’m fairly sure they must be panicking about now.’
‘Why?’ I kept looking at the hank of hair lying outside the cell. I was a little disgusted with myself. The hank of dull hair lay in a small pool of blood. Thin, limp and dead, it was hardly the great trophy I’d hoped for.
‘Because tonight is the festival.’ Galgaliel frowned. He looked around at our blank faces and began to laugh. ‘You really are here, on the wrong day, the wrong time and in the wrong place, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Every year, the council puts out an invitation for one child from every household to be awarded the special honour of studying away from here. Each child tells the council what they would like to study and the council pledges to find them a loving family that wants to take on an apprentice to train.’ He looked around at us. ‘You with me so far?’ He glanced at me. ‘For you, Joe, I’ll try and keep the words small.’
‘Thanks a bunch.’
‘Anyway, there’s a big festival with food, drink, dancing – all that sort of thing. The children get paraded around, they say goodbye to everyone and promise to send letters home then they all get ushered into the bowl with the council.’
‘What’s the bowl?’ I asked.
The angel frowned at being interrupted. ‘It’s a huge natural pit of moldavite. It’s one of the crystals that amplifies and holds power and this is where the gateway has been set up.’ He looked down at the dirt. ‘Now, where was I …’ he murmured. ‘The children go into the bowl and the gates are closed, but it doesn’t matter. You can see the glow of the rift when it opens and, when the doors are released, the first traders of the year come through and the children have gone off to pastures new.’
Belial shook his head. ‘So what’s the problem?’
‘Over the last two or three years, it seems as though the birth rate here has dropped.’ Galgaliel got to his feet and began pacing the cell. ‘So last year there were only about 60 kids who applied to the apprenticeship programme, and when we ran out of power for the gate about three months ago, I began to put two and two together. This year it’s worse and there are only 20 children.’ He shrugged. ‘I know Gomory’s worried because she started complaining about my prices. She also implied that I needed to be nice to her, otherwise I could find myself in a sticky situation. She happily informed me that I’d only been left alone because of the services I provide and that the time might come when they don’t need me any more. She said that maybe they could find a better use for me. Then you lot come along, leaking power like a whole herd of sieves, just in time for the festival.’
‘I don’t get it.’ I just knew I was missing something.
Belial sighed. ‘Kids have the longest life ahead of them, Joe. How much power do you think you’d get if you could take their lives and use them as an energy source?’
He waited patiently for the penny to drop and, when it didn’t, he scrubbed a hand through his hair, grimacing as his fingers knocked a bruise. ‘I may be wrong,’ he said, ‘but I think Galgaliel’s suggesting that they’re managing to extract the children’s life energy and transfer it into the crystal, which holds it until they need to open a gateway.’
‘That’s hideous! They’re angels – they wouldn’t do that.’ I thought about it for a moment and then, finally, the other penny dropped. ‘There aren’t enough kids for them, so now they want to use us instead?’
Galgaliel gave me a short round of slow applause. ‘Give the boy a cigar,’ he said. He glanced up at Belial. ‘The only thing I can’t work out is how they’re doing it.’ He rubbed his dirty neck then looked down at his hand and sighed.
‘Don’t let it bother you too much. I think we’ll find out soon enough.’ Belial settled back against the wall and closed his eyes. ‘Wake me when it’s all over.’
‘Well, I don’t see any reason to sit around here and take what’s coming to us,’ I said. Closing my eyes, I firmly decided that I was in the next cell with Carly. I opened my eyes with a grin and sighed as I realised the same crowd were still around me. They were all looking at me curiously.
Farr ran his hand over the walls. ‘These seem to be made of stone, but it feels wrong. It’s almost as if it’s dead – I’ve never felt anything like it before.’
Belial laughed. ‘Did you really think I’d still be here if I had any choice in the matter?’
There didn’t seem much point in talking after that.
Although there were no windows in that cramped, dingy cell, we could tell when night fell. The approaching dark brought with it an almost palpable feeling of expectation.
The sound of a key turning in a lock brought us all to our feet.
Carly, Parity and Una were taken out of their cell and paraded round to stand in front of us. Each had a personal guard who held a long knife to their throats. ‘We’d really like to get you there all in one piece.’
One guard ran a rough hand over Carly’s shorn head. ‘Don’t let’s have any trouble now, eh?’
I tried to smile at Carly but she avoided my eyes – her shorn head made her look about 12 years old. Parity stared unseeing at the wall. Only Una seemed unfazed by the threatening behaviour of her captors. She gabbled on about the cell and that she was cold and hungry and thirsty.
We walked in a line – one woman at the front, two women at the back – through what seemed to be miles of featureless stone corridors. Most of it had been left to decay. The walls were crumbling in some places and, farther down the passage, rusted cell doors hung askew from broken hinges. The entire place smelt of damp and fungus. Eventually we were brought
to a halt before a strong wooden door. It looked out of place in this crumbling ruin. The deep red wood shone and in the candlelight looked almost wet. Someone had spent hours polishing that door.
The guard holding Carly shuddered slightly then wiped his palm down his trousers a couple of times before finally raising it to knock.
Three staccato raps echoed down the corridors.
‘Let me go.’ A soft whisper swirled around the passage, ebbing and flowing as it stretched away only to be dragged back. ‘Let me go, let me go, let me go …’ The words were repeated time and again, one long running monologue of begging and torment. ‘Let me go, let me go …’
Farr straightened and cocked his head to one side. His mouth dropped open and he swallowed hard. Closing his eyes he began to mutter under his breath. Graham stepped to his side and gripped his wrist, breaking his concentration. ‘You mustn’t do that,’ he said in an urgent whisper.
Belial stood upright and stared around trying to follow the path of the unseen whisperer. ‘Monstrous,’ he murmured.
‘What is it?’ Galgaliel asked Graham then blanched as he realised the change in the man. He bowed his head. ‘Lord,’ he acknowledged.
Lucifer, still trying to follow the whispering, leant on the wall with his head on one side. ‘Galgaliel.’ He gave the healer a huge grin. ‘Long time no see.’ He tore his attention from the whisperer to peer at the angel. ‘Looking a bit rough, my friend. What happened to that fantastic long hair of yours?’
Greatly daring – or getting to the point where I just didn’t care any more – I nudged Lucifer. ‘I don’t think this is the time for them …’ I nodded to the guards who were watching us ‘… to find out you don’t know anything about insurance.’
Lucifer laughed; it was a deep and entirely happy sound. ‘Who says I don’t know anything about insurance?’ He turned from Galgaliel to stare at me, his dark eyes unblinking. ‘I’m the ultimate insurance, aren’t I, Joe?’ He snorted and went back to trying to track the path of the whispering voice. ‘Keep me with you and you make sure Metatron doesn’t bother you – isn’t that the quintessential meaning of insurance?’ He raised his eyebrows and smiled. ‘Of course, no one has bothered to ask me what I want.’