Fury

And then I close my eyes, too.

I’m not really sleeping; I’m thinking. But it’s a state of consciousness that starts as an acute awareness of my surroundings, of Ryan breathing deeply and evenly beside me, and gradually evolves into a state almost of grace, or meditation.

I find myself deep within the waters of the lake once more. I see Ananel surge towards me, and it all happens again, as if for the first time: his deadly, envenoming kiss, the flare of recognition in his eyes. And, again, I find myself with a blazing blade in my left hand, which I drive through his throat without hesitation. What else could I have done?

But this time Ananel does not die.

He is pinned to the rock by my killing energy, but the light of his grey eyes does not fade. Instead, they begin to change, in shape, in colour. The lashes grow longer, more luxuriant, dark gold in place of black, and the irises bleed from grey to a blue so pale and lustrous, they are like living ice, like broken water.

And his face … my God, it is not Ananel impaled upon my blade, but Luc. The Luc of Milan, of this world, the one I’ve never really known, his golden hair worn shorter than I remember it ever being, that sexy hint of stubble along his jawline.

The instant I see his face, pain floods through me. I feel myself physically convulsing within this false dream, this twisted memory, and I know that he’s causing it; he’s reaching across time and distance to hurt me in the here and now. It’s as though I’ve somehow called him to me, though I no longer want him in my mind or in my life.

As I thrash in agony in the water, Luc’s mouth widens into a grin as predatory as it is devastating. He grasps the hilt of the weapon that is buried deep within his throat and pulls it free.

The weapon does not obey the laws as they were laid down in the beginning; it does not vanish in his hand with a flare of light. Instead, he holds the twisted, burning blade aloft, and I watch the light of the flame change instantly, so that the pale blue holy fire is eaten away by a light that holds the taint of demon-grey at its heart.

Time seems to speed up and slow down all at once as I watch him open his beautiful mouth to speak my name. But I can’t hear it, because Hell is opening in my head and I am deaf, dumb and blind with pain.

Luc roars my name as if it were the darkest incantation of the blackest, most evil magic, and I feel one of his long-fingered hands encircling my throat, pressing deep, beginning to merge into my flesh.

Then, with a rush of violence, he bears me down into the filth of the lake bed, the water churning with our velocity. There, he lies atop me, writhing against me, in some terrible parody of the way we might have lain together in our secret garden. I feel him place the tip of the short, flaming blade beneath my jaw as if he would drive it through.

As I struggle to scream, I hear Luc say softly into the space between my eyes: Little fool, you’ve told me exactly where you are more clearly than if you’d used words.

And I scream at myself: Wake!

My eyes flash open into Ryan’s concerned gaze. I’m so disoriented, so wretched and distressed, to see that face, that beautiful face, leaning over me, that I scramble away from him and throw myself off the bed, dry-retching on hands and knees on the floor. I’ve never been good at reading the signs, but this time I know what my inner voice, my inner demon, is trying to warn me of. The threat is too real to be ignored.

‘We need to go,’ I gasp, finally comprehending where I am. ‘Luc knows I’ve left Milan. If Michael and the others haven’t still got him cornered, he’s going to come for me. For us.’

After a second of stunned incomprehension, Ryan is by my side on the floor, pushing my heavy hair off my face. He pulls me upright against him.

I’m shaking so hard I can barely articulate the words. ‘We can’t let him find us here. He can’t know of Bianca’s involvement. It would be a death sentence for her.’

I surge to my feet and stagger across the room, and begin feverishly stuffing our scattered belongings into the daypack Gia gave us.

‘But what did you see?’ Ryan asks, looking up at me from where he’s still kneeling on the floor.

‘I was thinking,’ I murmur, ‘meditating. Maybe even dreaming, I don’t know. But the first of the demons that I …’ I falter to a stop, remembering the violence of the kiss and the violence that followed.

Ryan doesn’t drop his gaze from me as he stands and dresses quickly, automatically checking the inner pocket of his leather jacket for his valuables, for that picture he keeps of me like a traveller’s medal.

‘Go on,’ he urges, as he shrugs into his jacket, steps into his worn-out boots.

‘It was Luc I saw. In place of the demon I … I … killed. And Luc overcame me. He saw how Ananel died, he knows it was me …’

‘But how could he know?’ Ryan scoffs, still unable to put much credence in a dream. ‘That can’t be possible — you’re making it sound like he has some kind of celestial GPS for you. No way.’

‘Then how did he find me in Milan when I was Irina?’ I wail. ‘I still don’t understand how, after all this time, he was able to work out who I was, where I was, when he’d never been able to do that before.’

Ryan shakes his head, unconvinced, and I grasp his arm, the leather of his sleeve cool beneath my burning hand.

‘We’ve always had this strange connection, Luc and I. Maybe because he was the one that marked me, I don’t know, I’ve never been able to work it out. It used to be that when I slept he had access to my thoughts, he could reach out to me across any distance and we could speak with each other as if we were face to face, like you and I are now. But even with that weird connection, he’s never been able to find me, not until now. If he can still get into my head, if my thoughts aren’t safe from him, then we need to move. We need to reach Selaphiel before Luc can figure out what we’re doing. And we’re putting Bianca at risk every second we stay here. Luckily for us, he didn’t see me at Villa Nicolin, he saw me at the lake. Let him think me still there when we’ve already fled for … Paris.’ I shudder as I say the word. ‘We’ve got to go. Now.’

Ryan picks up our backpack, finally catching the flame of my urgency. I can see from his face that he knows very well what the Devil is capable of. Ryan lives in his world. This is the earth that the Devil has made, as much as any other, and it would serve no purpose to remind a Son of Man what Lucifer is capable of. Every thought, every deed, every breath, the Devil would claim his stake in, if he could.

Ryan looks out the windows, but to his mortal eyes it’s still dark as night out there. ‘What time is it, anyway?’

‘Five fourteen,’ I say unerringly.

‘Close enough,’ he says. ‘Let’s wait for the car out front.’

Bianca opens the door to her bedroom before we reach it. She’s wearing an elegant pair of man-style pyjamas in oyster-coloured silk, piped in navy, but her eyes are heavy with sleeplessness.

‘You’re too early,’ she says without preamble, looking up into my eyes, into Ryan’s. ‘I’ll come fetch you when I hear the car being brought round. Try and get a little more rest.’

‘The way you have?’ I query softly. ‘I don’t sleep very well these days,’ she murmurs, shrugging. ‘Bad dreams.’

‘I get those, too,’ I say, making my voice as even and calm as possible. ‘And the last one I had convinced me that you have to throw together a bag of personal possessions and move up to the main house. Now. Better still, you, Clara, Tomaso and whoever else you’ve got working here, you all need to leave with us. It’s just a feeling I get.’

Bianca turns her bemused gaze on Ryan and he says quietly, ‘You should do it. I’d trust those “feelings” of hers with my life.’

‘My God,’ she murmurs, appalled. ‘What have you seen?’

‘The Devil,’ I reply, watching her face tighten in horror. ‘When he discovers Nuriel gone, there’s no telling what you’ll see out there on the water. Call your neighbours and organise an evacuation, get to higher ground. Or leave the country.’

Bianca hurries across the hall into the room with the telephone. I hear her speaking in fluent, harried Italian. ‘Send the car around now,’ she insists, ‘to the dependance. They need to leave now.