Blood and Feathers Read online

  The stair-treads crunched under his weight, but thankfully his feet held steady – more so than his knees, which shook violently with every step – and yet he could not bring himself to turn around. A chill breeze shifted his hair and gooseflesh rose on his arms. A few more steps...

  The basement was empty. It was cold, yes, and it was small, but it was empty. There was nothing there except for a lightbulb hanging from the roof, a few cobwebs and a very frightened estate agent, desperately trying to choke down the heart that seemed to be beating in his mouth. It was strange, but clearly not (and he paused before he turned the word over in his mind) supernatural. He stood for a moment, trying to pull himself together, and that was when he noticed the keyhole.

  Set into the wall at shoulder height, just across from him. It was brass, old-fashioned, and dulled by frost. And it was lit. He wouldn’t have seen it otherwise. Who would look for a keyhole in a brick wall, never mind one in a basement? But there it was. A blue light spilled out, drawing him closer. He pulled his jacket closer around him and moved towards it, holding his hand in front of it, watching the light on his palm. He ducked his head, lowered his shoulders and edged up to it until he was near enough to look through.

  An eye looked back at him.

  The ground shivered as he fell back, his arms and legs moving in different directions at once – all as eager as each other to get themselves far, far away from this, whatever it was.

  The ground shivered, and the world shook, and the bricks pulled themselves from the walls and spun through the air, and he was screaming.

  And the man on the other side of the wall just smiled.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Genesis

  MALLORY HAD KNOWN he would have to do this. And now it was time.

  “There’s another kind of angel: they’re known as Travelers. They’re almost always from Raphael’s choir: empaths, usually. They choose to be down here. Not as an exile, but as a visitor. It’s temporary; a passing state. The thing is, up there, you’re disconnected. You can see the world – all of it – but you feel so little. It’s why the Descendeds seem so cold. It’s not that they’re cruel or that they don’t care, it’s just that they don’t understand. And that can make it hard to connect. So the Travelers live as humans for a while, they become human, and then they try to pass on everything they’ve learned. It keeps us from forgetting what we’re fighting for, reminds us why we make the sacrifices we do.

  “The thing is, the Travelers never know how long they’ve got. They live as humans, among humans. They build up lives, friendships, relationships, families, but they have to return when they’re called. It’s the only binding put on them when they leave – that they will heed the call. Whatever lives they had, whoever they were, everything gets left behind. But sometimes, they don’t listen.”

  He hoped his voice was still holding steady. It didn’t feel like it, but he couldn’t stop.

  “It’s a nice idea: the voice comes down from on high and says hey, go on a field trip. Come back and share your findings with the class. Maybe it’ll concentrate their minds a little, but it’s not so easy. Not really. To unpick the fabric of a life? To disentangle months – years, maybe – of hopes and dreams? To just up and leave? How easy is that? And for an empath, who will feel the pain chasing them with every step they take towards home?

  “Travelers cause complications. Descendeds forget – angels forget – how much of a problem we are. Humans and angels, we don’t mix. We’re not supposed to. Their minds aren’t built for it. Doesn’t matter how much faith they might have... faith’s just that. It’s a belief, trust in something. So when you out-and-out prove it, it opens boxes that are meant to stay closed. It changes things.

  “Your father loved you, Alice. He did. He loved your mother too. He didn’t know to begin with, not even when you were born. She always hoped she would never have to tell him, I think, and when she did, she...”

  He stopped, frowning, and took a deep drink from his flask.

  “You remember the day Gwyn and I came for you? You found it easy to trust me, didn’t you? Not him – and I don’t blame you for that, because he is Gwyn, after all – but me, you felt safe with. Surprised even yourself. And you know why? It’s because we’d met before. You won’t remember it, you were too young the first time. Five, maybe. I came to see Seket, your mother. She’d refused the call, and I tried to talk her out of it, tried to make her change her mind. I tried to persuade her to leave. Raphael was willing to give her another chance – he always did have a soft spot for her – and I thought, I thought if I... I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I thought that if anyone could get through to her, it would be me. Well, that was wrong, wasn’t it? All she did was throw me out. She said I couldn’t understand. Me. Not understand her. Maybe she was right. After all, I didn’t. I told her she should answer the call, go home while there was still time, while she still had a chance. You know what she said? She looked at me, and she laid a hand on my arm and she said, “Mallory, this is home.”

  “That was the last time I spoke to her.

  “Your father knew, of course. By then, he knew everything. He was broken. I’ve never seen a man with such a hole in his soul. And you could feel it – even then, you could feel it. You were a little older, but your world had just fallen in on itself and you paid no mind to yet another pair of visitors to the house. Richard was... let’s say he was uncertain when it came to the future, and we couldn’t be having that. Not with you in the picture. So Gwyn made him swear; made him swear on things that not so long before were only ideas to him, that he would keep you safe. That when you were ready, when it was time, he would call us. And then he could be free. Of course, things changed: the Fallen found a way to tip the balance and they found you. I don’t entirely understand how those things fit together, and I don’t need to. My job is to keep the Fallen down, and part of that is keeping you safe until you can do it yourself. You’re almost there. You just need to remember, Alice.

  “You need to remember who you are.

  “You need to remember what you saw.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Deja Vu

  ALICE HAD HAD the dream before. Many times.

  She was standing at the top of a hill, in the street she grew up on. Across from her, a crescent of houses stretched away down the slope, curling round on itself at the bottom. It was noon, but the sky was heavy, gloomy with a coming storm.

  The paving slabs sucked at her feet as she started to move. They slowed her, pulled at her, holding her back from where she needed to be. She had to reach the end of the road. Tugging her feet up from the pavement, she walked... and it was only that desperate need to move, to be where she had to be, that got her past the eagle.

  It was always there, the eagle. And once she saw it, she always knew she was dreaming, always knew that none of this was real – not that it helped her. She was still fighting her way down the incline, fighting to drag down the too-thin air. And there it was, hunched on the roof, watching her. A giant of a bird, bigger than anything she had ever seen, and when it spread its wings, they blotted out the sky.

  Alice walked. Alone and afraid, she walked.

  The corner was close now, and already she could see past the bend to the figure waiting there: waiting for her. Her mother, her hand shading her eyes despite the dark as she looked for her daughter, a breeze catching her hair and swirling it up and around her face.

  Someone was with her, behind her. A man. She could make out the line of his shoulder as he placed his hands on her mother’s arms. Her hair spun in the air, whipping back and forth as the wind built and the sky darkened to midnight.

  Alice saw her mother reach for her, call out, but her words were lost between them, and although the stranger’s grip held firm, she did not seem to struggle... and Alice stopped.

  The paving slabs were hinging on themselves, swinging up like a trapdoor between them, and she could no longer make out her mother’s face through the wind
and the dust and the dark.

  Her voice was gone, and although the ground had freed her feet, they would not move. She was frozen and rooted, silent, and her mother walked through the gale to the trapdoor. She paused a moment, that unknown man still only two steps behind her, then her shoulders sagged and she stepped back into his embrace.

  Somewhere overhead, thunder roared and the eagle was airborne, and beneath a sudden flash of lightning, the paving slammed down again, and Alice’s mother and the stranger were gone, leaving Alice alone in the storm.

  “YOU NEED TO remember who you are. You need to remember what you saw.”

  ALICE IS SIX years old, and barefoot.

  She has slipped out of the front door – her father in the garden, busy with the lawnmower, has no idea that his daughter is running down the street after her mother, who has forgotten her wallet. Alice knows she shouldn’t be outside on her own, but how far can her mother have got in five minutes? She knows the route she takes when she walks into town: they’ve walked it together so often. She turns the corner into the top of the Crescent – and there, right at the bottom of the hill, is her mother.

  But something is wrong. Her mother is no longer walking. She has stopped, and is looking around, wrapping her arms around her body, her hair blowing in the wind. The man walking towards her... Alice didn’t see him before; where did he come from? One of the houses? Does he know her mother? From the way she steps back, away from him, it almost looks like she’s afraid. And still he comes closer. He moves oddly, like he is too large for his own body, and the bright sunlight glints from something on his face. Glasses.

  The wind is still rising, and Alice’s own hair is blowing now, into her eyes and her mouth. She tucks it behind her ears, but it whips free again, flipping around her like a halo.

  A cloud passes in front of the sun; a shadow falls across the pavement.

  And she sees him. He lands near the end of the road, just ahead of her – swoops in on wings white as teeth, feathers shifting against one another as he moves. Small sparks speckle the feathers and he folds them behind him, striding towards her mother. She cannot see his face, but she knows it will not be kind.

  Now Alice’s mother is caught between the two: the man and the angel. She looks from one to the other, and that’s when she sees her daughter on the hill. She calls out and the angel stiffens slightly but he does not turn, nor does he stop. Instead, he advances on her, one arm raised, and spreads his wings, hiding them all from Alice’s sight. Feathers fill her world. There’s a cry, hard and harsh and fearful, and the street is awash with light and flame. Lightning courses down the road as the cry builds to a scream that echoes off the houses. The angel lowers his wings and Alice’s mother is ablaze with a hungry white fire.

  The light fades and she seems unharmed. She sways a little on her feet, staggers first forward then back, then forward again, and falls. The angel flaps his wings, once, twice, and rises above them all. He does not leave, but perches on a rooftop where he folds his wings about him, watching. Waiting.

  Alice is no longer thinking. She is running, or trying to. Because a hand is on her shoulder, holding her back. She looks around and sees another man, yet another stranger, his brown eyes fixed on the road ahead.

  “You don’t want to do that, Alice. You want to stay right here,” he says, his voice warm but distant, and she obeys.

  She watches as the man with the glasses lifts her mother from the ground. She feels the earth shake, and watches as it opens... she watches as her mother is carried into hell, and watches as the ground closes over her.

  Alice is six years old, and barefoot, and shaking. Without a word, Mallory gathers her in his arms and turns away, towards home. She buries her face in his chest, smelling leather and incense and candlewax. He carries her back to her father, standing ashen at the end of the drive, who takes her into his own arms and smoothes her hair, pulling her close. He, too, is shaking, his body shivering in spite of him. There are no words, and then there are only the two of them – alone with each other in the sunlight.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Nor are we Out of it

  “THAT DREAM...” SAID Alice.

  “It wasn’t a dream, no.” Mallory shook his head.

  “And you were there.”

  “I was.”

  “You knew. You’ve known all along. Everyone knew.”

  “Alice...”

  “I was six years old, Mallory. I was six years old, and I watched my mother burn, and I watched her Fall. And in all the years that came afterwards, all the times I had that nightmare; in all the times I dreamt it, no-one thought to tell me that it was okay? No-one thought it might be appropriate to tell me I wasn’t going mad? Did it cross anybody’s mind to mention this when they took me out of school and put me in a hospital?”

  “What, Alice? What could anyone say? That you were reliving the memory of your angel mother Falling, of seeing her carried down to hell? Imagine what would have happened to your father if he had tried.”

  “Do you know what they did to me? I was a child. Do you have any idea what my life was like in there?”

  “You want to talk to me about being kept somewhere against your will? Somewhere you don’t belong? Somewhere that makes you ache for home every time you breathe? You want to go there? With me?” There was an anger in Mallory’s voice that Alice had rarely heard. Not just anger, but a bitterness, and a sorrow. It wasn’t enough.

  “A year in hospital. Two years with a shrink. Four years with a therapist. Six years of medication...”

  “I know.”

  “No, you don’t. All this time, I thought it was my mother dying that messed everything up. She died, and something was wrong with me. I just couldn’t cope with it. I looked around and saw other kids who’d lost their mums or dads, and I wondered why I couldn’t be like them, why I was so weak. And now, after all this, you come along and tell me that it was you who ruined my life. You and all the other goddamn angels.”

  Mallory’s slap stung her cheek, forcing her to take a step back. She steadied herself and glared at him. His face was stern, his wings extended and twitching in agitation.

  “There is a line, Alice, across which you do not want to step. You want to blame me for everything that might have gone wrong in your life? Fine. If that makes you feel better, you go ahead and do it. But don’t you dare stand there and tell me that your life is so very much worse than a thousand, a million – a billion – others. You want pity? You won’t get it from me. That’s not what I am, and I warn you now, feeling sorry for yourself is a faster way into hell than anything Xaphan could ever conjure up. But you know that already, don’t you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You think I don’t see you flinch every time?” He whipped out his silver flask and waved it at her, and Alice found herself pulling away. “You see?” he said. “I know you, Alice. I know what you’ve done, who you’ve been, how you’ve spent your time on this earth, so don’t even bother trying to convince me you’re something you aren’t.”

  “Oh, right. And maybe if you weren’t so fucking obscure all the time, I might feel a little more inclined to believe you.”

  “You want clarity? Sure. Here it is. Your mother, Alice, your mother was one of the most extraordinary of Raphael’s choir. I know that, because she, of all the angels, was the one I chose to love. I loved her, and she left me. She chose to leave me – to leave all of us – and she chose damnation. And now, here I am: trying to explain to her daughter, who looks so very like her, why I have to send her into hell itself. Why she has to walk in there willingly and alone, and why she might never come out again. All in the name of a war we can never win. How’s that for you?” He uncapped the flask and took a long draught, then wiped the neck with his sleeve and held it out to her. “Now, are you sure I can’t tempt you?”

  “Funny.” The ground felt soft beneath Alice’s feet, uneven and unstable. “I...”

  “It’s alright.” He pocketed the fl
ask and sighed. “You’re doing well, you know. For what it’s worth, I’m proud of you.”

  “Thanks?”

  “I mean it. But we’re out of time, and you’re not ready. You’re a long way from ready. You can’t control yourself and you’re not strong enough.”

  “Wait... alone?”

  “Sorry. I should have mentioned that sooner. It’s in the rules. I’m doing my best, but...”

  “Alone. I have to go in there alone.”

  “Yes.” He had the good grace to look uncomfortable.

  “And what...” – she choked on her words, but somehow they found a way out – “what am I supposed to do when I get there?”

  “You remember those people I told you about? The ones who’ve been stolen? They’re the reason the balance is tipping. You have to make sure no more are taken.”

  “But how am I supposed to do that?”

  “Xaphan. It has to be Xaphan. He’s found a way of opening these hellmouths – you have to stop him. Stop whatever it is he’s doing.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you’re you. And because I know you can.”

  “How? How the hell do you know that?”

  “It’s called faith, Alice. You should try it sometime.”

  “You don’t want to put your faith in me, Mallory. I’ll let you down. I let everyone down, in the end.”