Fury

further thought, that I’m not completely unnecessary. My role is to provide cover for you.’

‘Cover?’ I can’t hide my incredulity and draw back from him, but he tightens his arms to halt my progress.

‘You’re fairly crap at acting human on a good day,’ he says, a gleam lighting his eyes. ‘Consider me your veneer of normality.’

‘I was supposed to get Nuriel out of here, then leave,’ I remind him quietly. ‘And you were supposed to run screaming from the freaky girl with the freaky powers at the first sign of trouble. That was the plan.’

‘Plans change,’ he murmurs. ‘Until I met you, I was the guy most likely to get a football scholarship and marry Brenda Sorensen. In that exact order.’

‘And Felix and I were supposed to be on our honeymoon in the Serengeti right about now, but here’s where the story ends,’ Bianca adds forlornly, looking down at her bare feet. ‘Which leads me right back to my point. I can have one of our jets fuelled and ready for take-off at daybreak. We have a private hangar. You’ll get into Le Bourget by mid-morning. It’s that easy. You just have to say the word.’ Her gaze flicks back to mine.

‘No one’s going to expect an archangel to travel by Gulfstream,’ Ryan says almost gleefully. ‘A Gulfstream with two coffee makers on board.’

‘Honestly, Ryan,’ Bianca says, half-appalled.

He grins. ‘You can always trust me to zero in on the important stuff. And yes,’ he continues, seeing the stony expression on my face, ‘you are being railroaded. We worked it all out.’

‘But I don’t want to go to Paris,’ I wail.

Bianca leans forward. ‘But you have to,’ she insists.

I turn my head and glare into her eyes so fiercely that she actually scrambles backwards across the couch, banging into the armrest at the end, her hands raised before her defensively.

Ryan pulls me more tightly into him, steadying me, his arms crossed about my waist. ‘Hear her out, please,’ he whispers into my hair.

Bianca sits straighter, tucking her legs back beneath her before shoving her heavy plait back over one shoulder. ‘I see certain … symmetries between us,’ she says falteringly. ‘We’ve both been utterly taken in, utterly betrayed, by the most toxic and despicable …’ She looks down, takes a shuddering, composing breath, before her startlingly blue eyes flick back up to mine, a bright sheen of tears in them. ‘People I have known, places I love that hold only the happiest memories for me … they’ve been swept away. They only exist now in my head.’

I realise from her unfocused gaze that she’s speaking of her old life with Felix, but also of her life here. She’s been twice bereaved, in such a short space of time.

‘I know that you understand what I’m talking about. And I don’t know what we did to deserve having our … our … worlds ripped apart,’ she says, her voice rising in anguish, ‘but you’re what I wish I could be. You have the power to hurt the person who did this to you. Don’t underestimate the healing qualities of simple vengeance, of retaliation, when you are absolutely in the right. God, what I wouldn’t give …’

She clenches her hands into fists upon her knees before something seems to recall her to our presence. Her voice is almost normal, almost calm, as she says, ‘The St Alban Group is primarily known these days as a financial services powerhouse. But centuries ago, we built our fortune upon shipping, and we still have a global logistics arm that even Satan himself could not rival. We move bullion, livestock, even weaponry, all around the globe daily, point to point. Getting a guy and his …’ her expression is nonplussed, ‘… freaky girlfriend into Paris would be child’s play.’

‘A freaky girlfriend with no papers,’ I remind them both with an edge to my voice, remembering the small, dark booklet amongst Ryan’s things. ‘The sovereignty I hail from doesn’t issue those.’

‘One passenger on the manifest,’ Bianca says brightly, refusing to be cowed by what I represent. ‘We get the cabin crew to turn a blind eye, or we minimise the number of crew, smuggle you on board somehow —’

‘We wouldn’t need to,’ Ryan interrupts softly. ‘Mercy can take care of getting herself on and off unseen.’

‘One passenger it is then.’

Bianca digs around in a pocket of her jeans and fishes out an embossed business card, holds it out to me with shaking fingers. I don’t take it, and her hand almost drops at the palpable hostility I’m giving off.

‘You act as if it’s already decided,’ I say menacingly. ‘Given my troubled history, I dislike feeling like I’m being cornered.’

‘I warned you about that,’ Ryan tells Bianca ruefully. ‘She doesn’t like being told what to do. The counsellor at Paradise High used to tell me I had issues with authority, but she …’ He gives me a little shake. ‘She’d have to be off the charts.’

Bianca’s voice is small as she continues holding the card out to me. ‘The choice is yours. But if I wanted to twist the knife into someone who deserved it, and a person offered me the means of getting from A to B to Z just on the strength of a phone call, I’d already be there, twisting the damned knife.’ Her voice drops further so that it’s barely audible. ‘When we’re young, they teach us about “turning the other cheek”, that vengeance isn’t a valid response. But this is Lucifer we’re talking about, Mercy. To save someone you love from him could never be wrong.’

I take the card, finally. It has the words StA Global Logistics embossed across the top and a logo featuring a galleon in full sail centred over a pair of crossed keys. There’s a single telephone number printed below, commencing with a plus symbol. The card offers no useful information to a casual reader.

‘That’s the family hotline,’ Bianca says. ‘Anyone wants to move a lover, a vintage car, a carton full of contraband for our own personal use, we call the wizards that man this number. I’m not saying I approve or disapprove, I’m just saying that’s how it goes. Borders are porous, and all borders can be worked — it’s almost a family motto. I’ll get you into Paris, and this is a free pass, if you need it, to get out of there again. You just say where and when, and it’ll happen like magic.’ She blinks rapidly and her eyes grow shiny again. ‘Just quote Crespigny19A when asked — the name of Felix’s favourite dog and our apartment number on the Upper East Side. Stupidly easy to crack, but I haven’t got around to changing it yet. Something that will shortly be rectified.’

I hand the card back to Bianca and she looks down at it, crushed. ‘So you won’t do it?’ she says in a small voice. ‘You won’t go?’

‘Merce?’ Ryan’s hold tightens as he looks into my eyes.

‘The dark place that Nuriel finds herself in now,’ I whisper, ‘Paris represents that place for me. The misery I felt then was nothing compared to the torment that Nuriel has endured, but I was at my … lowest there. I don’t think I will ever again be as alone, as lost, as forsaken, as I was in Paris.’

Bianca leans forward as if to touch me comfortingly, and I draw back into the solid warmth of Ryan’s body.

‘I don’t need your card,’ I say quietly, and her dark brows draw together unhappily. ‘I don’t need it,’ I go on, ‘because I’ve already memorised the number and the magic password. I won’t forget them, not now. You can keep it.’

Bianca sits upright, letting the card fall from her fingers. ‘So you’ll do it?’

I can see her immediately working out what she has to do, what she has to say, to make the magic happen.

I nod wearily within the circle of Ryan’s arms. ‘No other course would honour Selaphiel’s compassion for the monster that I was, nor Nuriel’s selflessness. They never deserved torture, and their bravery deserves mine. Those that guard Selaphiel were drawn to the darkness below, and in the darkness they must remain, or die — there are no innocents among them. Luc’s people have made a desert enough of this world. If I — who never had a task, never had a purpose — must be the one to slay the dragons that guard the gates of Hell in order to save Selaphiel, then so be it.’

I look up at Ryan. ‘But it’s not your fight, and you don’t have to do this. You should take up Bianca’s offer and go home.’

‘Damned with you,’ Ryan whispers, smoothing my hair back off my forehead, ‘damned without you,