A Madness of Angels

to buy time.

“I am interested in all unusual things.”

Then, and I was too numb by now to resist, she grabbed my wrists with the same forceful gesture by which I’d grabbed hers, and turned my hands over. She studied my palms, my fingers, my knuckles, my nails, the veins in my wrists. Having turned my hands this way and that, she then tossed them aside like rotten potatoes. She took hold of my face, with the same unsympathetic grip the doctor uses when examining a swelling, and turned it this way and that, scrutinised the colour of my eyes, the shape of my ears, even the condition of my teeth, smelt my breath.

Suddenly her fingers were at my throat, digging in, pushing my chin up as the tips of her nails drew half-moon rims of blood. We half-choked, reached instinctively to find the electric fires that always burnt inside. But her fingers went no deeper, and I held back, uncertain.

She hissed, her face an inch from mine, “Sorcerer.”

“How’d you tell?” I asked through the pressure of her fingers on my neck.

“I told you – I know things. I know the smell of magics; and you don’t just dabble, you swim in it, you breathe it. An urban sorcerer, in my shop? Who are you?” When I didn’t answer, her grip tightened, sending a wave of heat into my head as the blood strained in its arteries. “I am not defenceless,” she added. “As I’m sure you can imagine.”

“Very much so,” I croaked. “Are you like this with everyone you meet?”

“Your name!”

“Swift,” I said, and was pleased at how easily the remembrance of it came to me. “My name is Matthew Swift.”

Her grip relaxed for a moment; surprise, not intent. “Matthew Swift?” she echoed flatly.

“That’s me. Ta-da!”

“You want to tell me that you’re Matthew Swift.”

“Is this a bad thing?”

“You are a dead man, Matthew Swift.”

“You must have customers flocking to hear your predictions.”

“It was a statement of fact, of history.”

“It pays for prophets to be cryptic, particularly in this litigious age,” I wheezed.

“You misunderstand,” she said gently, her breath tickling my skin. “Now, right now, as we are talking, your corpse is rotting in the earth.”

I shrugged weakly. “Clearly, it isn’t.”

“Matthew Swift,” she said, slowly, “the sorcerer called Matthew Swift, died two years ago.”

“Question!” I said, raising one meek hand. “Did you actually see the body?”

She hesitated.

“Well, there you go.”

“Nothing bleeds that much and lives.”

We wound our fingers carefully around hers, started unpicking them from our throat. “Then consider this. If, hypothetically, I am the same Matthew Swift who was attacked two years ago and who lay expiring in his own blood while his killer walked away, happy with the thought that no doctor nor hospital in the world could repair such a hole in the heart, such a tear in the lung, such a rip in the chest – if, say, I happen to be the kind of man who can survive that to stand here now, shouldn’t you be more concerned about threatening me?”

We detached her last finger from our neck, pushed her hand carefully back to her side. She stood in front of us, jingling faintly with the weight of breath she drew. Finally: “How would Swift survive?”

“Precariously.”

“It’s not possible to…”

“No,” I said firmly. “It isn’t. Now will you tell me what happened to Khan?”

Silence.

I smiled my most beatific smile. A kind of serenity was settled over me. I knew now, standing in that stench of incense and beneath that endless nasal drone, that things had got just about as bad as they could conceivably get. Therefore it stood to reason that things could get no worse; therefore I was finally almost calm.

“His throat was cut,” she said flatly, after a pause. “He saw it coming, and couldn’t stop it. That’s power – to kill a man even when he knows every detail of his own demise – that’s truly a cruel death. If you are Swift, where have you been for two years?”

“Around.”

“I deal in cryptic answers every day, Mr Swift; don’t try and distract me with my own devices.”

“Fair enough. I will not play with you and invent some story; I will simply not tell you where I went or how I got there. Is that satisfactory?”

“No.”

“Well, shucks.”

“Can you prove you’re who you say?”

I thought about this. “No.”

“No,” she repeated with a nasty twist to her lip. “Of course you can’t.”

“I can’t prove it,” I growled through my teeth, “because I own nothing that was my own. Everything that I thought I had, everyone I knew… no, I can’t prove anything.” I added, “You are a terrible prophet.”

“My opinion of you is hardly in the stratosphere,” she retorted. “Why did you want to see Khan?”

“That’s my business.”

“You… wanted his help?”

“That’s not important.”

“Then what do you want?”

When we answered, we spoke without my noticing, with a word that slipped out as naturally as breath.

“Revenge.” Once spoken, it seemed so right, so honest and comforting, that I was amazed I hadn’t said it before. “I want revenge.”

“Against…?”

“The one who attacked me. Who left me to die. And… And against the one who brought us back.”

She hesitated, her narrow eyes flicking to and fro, her fingers dancing a tiny rhythm at her side, their jewellery jangling like wind chimes. “Where have you been?” she murmured. I had the feeling it wasn’t a question intended for me. Then, clearer, “Do you have a plan?”

“Not yet.”

“Does anyone know that you’re… that you claim to be Swift?”

“No. And if you tell anyone…”

“If I tell?” she snapped, defiant.

“We will kill you,” we said gently. “You are nothing before us. We can stamp you out like a whisper of static in the wire. We will kill you. I’m sorry about it, but that’s just how it is.”

She didn’t seem frightened by this, more curious. She put her head on one side and breathed, “Interesting.”

“Really?”

“You keep on saying ‘we’.”

I shrugged.

“I may be able to help you, possibly – Matthew Swift.”

“How?”

“I have… friends. People who share a common interest.”

“Why would you help me?”

She smiled. “Even if you aren’t Matthew Swift, you could be of use.”

“I thought you were helping me.”

“There could be mutual benefits.”

“I’m not really interested.” I turned to go, seizing the curtain. She reached out and grabbed my arm, her fingers digging into my skin. Instinctively we shied back, flexing our fingers for the feel of the power, ready to strike;