Behind Lahav's back, the flames seemed to gather and rise, bunching around his shoulders and flaring out. They looked like wings and Morgan was reminded of Belle, whose shadow had once appeared winged too.
"Do you understand now, brother?" Jimmy said. "Do you see why we follow him?"
Morgan nodded dumbly, watching the figure of the angel against the night sky.
Lahav left, striding into the desert as the flames faded into a red glow around him, but the ceremony went on. The men circling the fire clasped their hands to form a ring. Morgan let his own hands be taken. He felt the other men's calluses rough against his palms and realised his own skin had softened in the months since he'd left the Middle East to work for the Hermetic Division.
He couldn't join in the prayers; he didn't know the words, but he tried to feel something as he listened to them.
"When Satan seeks to rise against me," Jimmy said, "the Saviour rises in my defence."
But Satan had risen against Morgan and through him and there had been no one to save him except Tomas and his own fallible conscience.
"These are the days for reversal, overturning and demolishing," the militiamen said. "These are the days for noise and fighting, when the demolition dust will blind many eyes."
That, at least, Morgan believed. The world was crumbling and he felt powerless to preserve it.
"Do thy friends forsake, despise thee?" they sang. "Take it to the Lord in prayer. In his arms he'll take and shield thee - thou wilt find a solace there."
Morgan scrambled to his feet, releasing the hands of the men to either side of him and avoiding their eyes as he retreated away from the fire and into the empty desert. He could feel Jimmy's gaze follow him, but the man himself didn't and Morgan was soon hidden from their eyes in the darkness.
He saw Lahav when he was still twenty feet away. The light of the fire seemed to cling to the other man, illuminating the sand around him so that every rock and pebble had a small, sharp shadow.
"I know what Belle is," Morgan said. "I don't know why it's harder to believe in you than in her."
"They're stronger in this world," Lahav said. "Evil acts are there for everyone to see. We try so hard and fail so often... It takes faith to believe in what I serve." He looked worn out and more human with it.
"You're possessed by it too," Morgan said. "It's inside you, the way the demon's inside Belle."
"Yes."
"You invited it in."
"Yes. The Shomer Hamikdash thought they could use the malachim the way the CIA uses Belle and her dybukk. I volunteered to open myself to it, but when Lahav came he wouldn't serve. How could he? It's our place to serve him." The other man looked across the desert, eyes black in the night.
"So what happened?" Morgan asked.
Lahav shrugged. "A truce. The Shomer have always had an interest in the lost Temple treasures. My search for the shofar didn't displease them."
"Your search?" Morgan said. "Or his search, the thing inside you? Because I'm not talking to him now, am I?"
"No, he rests now. His power is in the world of spirit. To do what he just did in the world of flesh drains him."
"So I'm talking to the real you now. Whoever you are."
"I'm Meir Porat." He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. "Yes. I'm still Meir."
"Are you... do you want him inside you?"
The Israeli's eyes slid shut, and when they opened again they were blank. Morgan wasn't sure if the angel had returned or if the other man was simply unwilling to reveal any more than he already had.
"What I want is irrelevant," Lahav said. "You know what I am now, so you know what I say is true. Join my side in this conflict, and you can be saved."
Morgan knew he ought to have felt relieved. He hadn't been played for a fool and he really could get what he wanted. But instead all he could remember was Julie's smiling face before Lahav had slit her throat. Maybe she had needed to die - if she'd been involved in Dr Granger's work, she might not have been a total innocent. It was just that he'd expected the other side to be different, an opposite to Belle and her kind, not a reflection of them.
Still, this was war. That was one thing both sides agreed on. And Morgan was a soldier; he knew the acts that war demanded.
"I have joined your side," Morgan said. "Just tell me what to do, and I'll do it."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The plane juddered as it landed and Coby gritted his teeth. He'd always hated flying. He liked to be the one in control. When he stepped out onto the tarmac the brightness of the Californian sun hurt his eyes and he felt the clamminess of his skin gluing his shirt to his back and beneath his arms. After six years in Europe he'd forgotten how hot his homeland could be in the Fall.
He examined his own feelings about being back. He'd felt no nostalgia for America in all the years he'd been away, but he was surprised to find a kind of comfort in the familiar signs and signifiers of the place: the shape of the magazines in the newsagents, the fonts on their covers, the brands of candy for sale beside them. An automated voice announced flights and departure gates and for a moment he heard it as accented and foreign. Then something inside him clicked back into an old, accustomed position and the accent was gone. He heard it instead in his own voice, an exile's distortion of his vowels as he told the immigration officer that he was here on holiday and no, he didn't intend to stay long. He couldn't stop himself darting a glance behind him as he walked through customs, but there was no one behind him.
Coby had last seen Lahav standing on the river bank as the knife he'd meant for him had plunged into Morgan instead. Coby had run and hadn't looked back, and every second until he was on the plane to America his shoulders had tensed with fear of the hot blade they expected to feel between them. But Lahav hadn't caught him and soon it wouldn't matter if he did.
The exit from the airport led straight to the BART station, minimalist and unwelcoming. He let one train go by, checking to see that everyone boarded it before taking the next. If he was being followed, they were being subtle about it.
Sound inside the train was muffled by the incongruous carpet, an oddly suburban gesture on this city transport. It was grubby and he could see a black scar where an illicit cigarette had been stubbed out on the material. It was nothing like London's Tube with its over-bright lighting and claustrophobic curves.
Coby had sometimes caught the train from Cambridge and then travelled the Tube late at night, hunting. He was careful not to indulge himself too often, but if one or two of London's rough sleepers went missing, who was there to notice or care? The grim network of subways around Elephant and Castle had been his favourite stalking ground. He couldn't imagine a much worse place to spend your last moments on earth.
He didn't like his urge to kill. It was a weakness and it made him vulnerable. But he recognised that it was an addiction he couldn't kick. If he was careful, the only court he'd have to answer to was the one he'd face after he died. And now...
He'd heard of the Croatoans and their claims that they could spirit travel. He'd even intended to check them out, after he'd recovered the shofar. Ironic that they'd had it all along. It was odd they hadn't used it yet, but maybe they didn't understand its true power. If that was the case, he could swap information for the chance to enter Eden alongside the cult's leaders - and they could all pick the apples from the Tree of Life. He'd never have to face that final judgement and neither heaven nor hell would have any hold on him.
He left the BART at Civic Centre to take the N-Train to Buena Vista Park. The view from its peak swept out towards the mottled green of the Presidio and the Golden Gate Bridge beyond. The sky was a very clear blue, the sea too, and he drew in a satisfied breath of the pine-scented air through his nose. Paradise, he thought, or a pale imitation thereof. If he did this right, he'd see the real thing. A literal Eden - or as literal as anything could be in the metaphorical realm of spirit.
It didn't take him long to find the Croatoan centre in Haight-Ashbury, though he was
surprised not to see recruiters loitering outside. There was no bell either, and after a moment's hesitation he turned the handle and pushed the door open.
It was dark inside, shutters over the windows blotting out the sun. And it was silent. When Coby flicked on the light switches he saw that the place was almost empty - just a dark, cavernous space, no tables or chairs. The bulbs which illuminated it were bare, even the shades taken. The place had been abandoned, but not in any kind of hurry.
Damn it. This was the only link he had to the cult. There were recruitment centres in other US cities, but if this one was abandoned those probably were too. And he couldn't waste time rambling all over the country - not with the Mossad agent on his tail.
He had to hope they'd left something behind. He gave the entrance hall a cursory glance - nothing but paint and a few spiders - before heading deeper into the building. It was bigger than it had seemed from the outside, and he realised that the neighbouring houses must be a part of the Croatoan centre too, their apparent individuality only a façade.
The first corridor was lined with rooms, each as empty as the initial hall. They weren't much larger than cupboards and he guessed they'd been used for one-on-one sessions with potential recruits.
The next corridor was featureless, but a smell grew, stale and unpleasant, as he approached its end. It was the scent of an unwashed body - a living smell, not a residue. He heard shuffling from the room beyond and the smell strengthened.
The old man was huddled at the far end of the room, sitting in the centre of a pale rectangle on the dark blue carpet. Coby guessed that something heavy must once have sat there, but the old man's weight barely flattened the fibres beneath him. He looked lost inside his baggy combat jacket and his face was emaciated beneath his worn baseball cap. The smell was coming from him, so strong now it seemed to thicken the air. There was the stink of alcohol too, cheap booze soaked into the old man's clothing and oozing from his pores. He was just a bum who'd made the same discovery Coby had - that the Croatoan centre was vacant property.
Coby smiled. They were alone, and this was a man no one would miss. He shouldn't, he knew he shouldn't, he had more important things to do, but it had been too long since his last. He felt the urge as a tightening in his groin and a hot flush along his neck. He had to do this. He needed it.
The old man's eyes were a little glazed, but there was still an intelligence that the drink hadn't entirely eradicated. He would know enough to fear death. Coby saw that fear in his eyes now as he read the expression on Coby's face with animal instincts that living on the streets must have honed. Animals knew when they were hunted.
"Hey, buddy," the old man rasped. "We're all friends here. Right, pal?"
"I'm nobody's friend," Coby said. He took a step closer and the old man scrambled to his feet, but he could only retreat a pace before his back was to the wall.
"It's the occupational hazard of being a sociopath," Coby said. "We can't form attachments like you ordinary people do. I just don't have it in me to care." He took another step closer, arms stretched to either side in case the old man decided to bolt. "It's not that I don't feel anything. They say we sociopaths don't have empathy, but that's not quite right. I understand perfectly what you're feeling. There's fear, and later there'll be pain. If I didn't understand it, I couldn't take such pleasure in it."
He wasn't sure the old man had understood everything, but he'd understood enough. A thin trickle of urine seeped from beneath the man's pant leg and the sharp smell cut through the musk of his body odour.
Coby didn't have a weapon with him, but that was OK. He liked to use his hands. The skin of the old man's neck was unpleasantly greasy and his fingers caught in the tangled ends of his beard. Beneath that Coby could feel his pulse, fast and frantic.
"Please," the old man said. "Please don't."
Then Coby's hands were too tight for him to speak and he watched that lovely red flush of blood colour the man's sickly flesh and heard the helpless sucking of his lungs for breath that wouldn't come.
At the very end, the old man began to fight. Coby always wondered at the strength of the will to live, even among those who had so little to live for. He tightened his hands, using his weight to press the old man against the wall. The frail fingers clawed at his and he knew that he'd have scratches when this was done, but what did it matter? He'd be beyond the reach of any human law very soon.
The old man's lips turned blue and Coby knew it wouldn't last much longer as the fingers clawing at his hand slackened. He felt the usual mingling of excitement and disappointment as he saw the light in the old man's eyes die. He let him go as soon as he felt the body slacken, and it flopped to the floor, drool leaking from one corner of the bloodless lips. Corpses didn't interest Coby. It was death he enjoyed, not the dead.
"Well," a voice said behind him, "You've certainly kept yourself busy, son."
He spun round, almost tripping over the old man's sprawled legs.
The speaker stood a few paces back, one arm loose at this side and the other pointing a gun at Coby's heart. It took him a moment to place the seamed face beneath the yellow-grey hair and then his gut clenched with fear. But what the hell was the detective inspector from Granger's case doing in San Francisco?
Spalding looked down at the dead old man. "I see repentance isn't high on your agenda." Coby glanced at the corpse then back at the policeman. There was no point denying it. He shrugged. "Like the song says - I am what I am."
"You should have taken us up on our offer," Spalding said. "You didn't have to suffer in hell if you served our master on earth. We haven't intervened so far because we trusted the opposition to keep their own house in order. But we can't let you do this, son."
When Coby frowned in confusion Spalding laughed and used his free hand to flick open the buttons on his cheap white shirt. There was a pentagram tattooed on his chest, the lines of it a little fuzzy beneath the wiry hair. Coby grimaced. "Of course. But why should you care? I've been doing your work quite nicely for you so far, and believe me, once I've eaten the apple, you're not going to be seeing a softer, kinder Coby."
"Not good enough. You'll be doing our master's work, but you won't be his. Hell doesn't want allies - only slaves."
Which was exactly why he'd turned down their offer in the first place. He felt his heart race but he made himself smile confidently as he said, "What if I've found the emancipation papers? Do you want to be a slave to them - in this life and the next? Work with me and we can both be free."
Spalding hesitated, and Coby felt a moment of hope, then the other man shook his head. "I picked my side. You haven't found the apples yet, son. I'm gonna make sure you never will."
Coby saw Spalding's eyes narrow as his finger tightened on the trigger and couldn't quite believe it was going to end like this. When he heard the volley of shots he waited for the pain, but it never came. A second later, Spalding's body tumbled to the floor, a halo of dark blood spreading around it. Coby stared at it, uncomprehending. Then he saw the curl of smoke in the corner of the room and for the first time noticed the gun turret hidden there and the camera above it which must have guided its movements. Someone had been watching. They'd seen Coby murder the old man, but they'd chosen to kill Spalding.
The flood of adrenaline left him as quickly as it had come and his legs gave out. The carpet cushioned his knees and hands as he leaned forward and emptied the contents of his stomach onto it.
When he was sure his legs would hold him, he stood and made a circuit of the room - the search he should have conducted before, if he hadn't been distracted by the lure of the helpless old man. There was nothing but one rickety table with a CD player in its centre. It was plugged in, a red light blinking beside the play button.
It was such an obvious invitation that he hesitated. But if it was a trap, his head was already inside its jaws. He pressed play.
"Hello, Coby," the recording said. The voice was distorted, clearly disguised, but he thought it was male
. "We haven't been properly introduced yet, so you can call me Laughing Wolf. You've got no reason to trust me, I know, but I did just save your life. And I've got the thing you're looking for. Of course, neither you nor I can wield it the way we really want - and you almost got the one man who can use it killed back in Cambridge."
There was a pause, and Coby thought, Morgan.
"Yes," the recording said, as if it could read his thoughts. "But don't worry, the knife missed, and he's already here. And there's one other player. I'm not sure if you've considered this - no, I know you have - but possessing the power to kill the guardian and eat the apples of life is no use if you can't get into Eden in the first place. So we need a spirit traveller, someone to open the way. And she's been drawn in too. All the pieces are in place, everyone except you. Now I'm going to tell you exactly what you need to do."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The metal of the boxcar burned beneath the fabric of Alex's jeans, but the wind was cool on her face as the engine powered through the desert. She could see the pure straight line of the tracks ahead of her, lost in heat haze before they reached the horizon. The train's form kept shifting beneath her, one moment red and rusted crates, the next wooden and rotting. The engine sometimes ran on diesel, other times puffed out clouds of steam which dissipated into nothing as they floated past her. Sometimes the ghosts of horses galloped alongside them. The railway had been a constant in this empty landscape, and the spirit world remembered it.
Raven sat cross-legged in front of her, his back to their destination. He'd told her he'd know when they reached it and she didn't doubt him, though the desert seemed featureless to her, the cacti and scrubby bushes repeating tediously through the hour-long journey from Roseville.
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