Fury

Then I know that he has vanished into the cleft in the rock and I — so weary in spirit, wanting nothing more than to be, and to be with Ryan — have no choice but to follow.

15

I hear Ryan yell out as the gust of force that Jegudiel is hooks Selaphiel off the rungs of the ladder below him. And I seem to hear Jegudiel’s voice echo with faint laughter within this narrow vent in the earth: Persistence, Ryan. Courage. For you shall need it!

Then they are gone like a hurricane, my brothers, gone like smoke. Up and out through the manhole cover, which clatters away, leaving a tiny patch of early evening sky framed far above our heads. And I’m suddenly there in Selaphiel’s place, on the ladder, a few rungs below where Ryan is, and it’s pitch black because I’m just a girl in a black puffer jacket and dark grey jeans who gives out no light. But I can see that Ryan and Selaphiel haven’t even reached halfway. There’s still a hundred feet, more, to go.

Ryan’s voice is strained. ‘Tell me it’s you, and not some demon that just happened to wander in here smelling like fresh snowfall and moving as silently as a cat.’

He’s trying to keep his tone light, but I can hear the exhaustion; that he’s about to give way.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I say quietly. ‘About all of this. I warned you. And it’s only going to get worse.’

‘Just get us out of here,’ he says finally. ‘You can give me the bad news when we’re standing on solid ground with a December gale blowing in our faces.’

‘You’re sure?’

I hear him swallow. ‘It’s who you are. And holding you back, not letting you do all that freaky shit you can do, it just puts you at risk. It’s time for this ladybug to man up.’ His voice is suddenly wry in the darkness.

‘Well, if you’re sure …’ I say softly.

I don’t give him any more time to think about it; I collapse into vapour, coil myself around my beloved and haul us up and out through the open manhole. It’s over in seconds.

The instant I materialise in my human form beside Ryan, who’s breathing hard, like he’s just run a marathon, I fall to my knees, my head ringing with the feel of Luc reaching for me across some unfathomable distance.

Underground, the solid rock had sheltered me from his questing consciousness, but out here it’s like he’s coming at me from all sides, like the wind itself is roaring in his voice: There’s nowhere to hide now, nowhere. When I find you, I will tear you apart for what you have done to me!

It’s as if a breach is opening in the air between Luc and me, as if the shutter of a camera, or a great eye, is turning its gaze upon me, upon Ryan. I know I can’t let Luc see us here; am terrified that he might read my thoughts straight out of my head as I think them. Dimly, I feel Ryan’s hands on my shoulders, hear him call my name fearfully, and I know he’s never been in so much danger.

‘Not unless I find you first!’ I howl in reply, almost blind and deaf with pain.

The force of my fury — born of so much hurt and betrayal; a keen, animal rage — is like the lash of a whip, an open flame, upon Luc’s own psyche. I hear him shriek in surprise, in real agony, before that sense of questing is suddenly cut off, and the night no longer seems alive with his malice.

He’ll hesitate before he reaches out again, though it has cost me dearly. I roll over, moaning, hugging myself protectively, every part of me raw in the evening air.

Second by second, my senses grow less jammed, begin to return, and I realise that it smells of wet earth out here. It must have rained while we were below. But the air isn’t filled with returning birdsong, or the sound of tyres swishing on rain-slicked streets, but with sirens and the reflected glow of flashing lights.

Ryan raises me to my feet, and, without thinking, I pull him to me, needing his warmth, his strength, just to stay upright. I take in my surroundings shakily and see with shock that it’s as if we came up out of the ground not in Paris, but back in Milan. All around us is a scene of utter devastation. We’re standing on the only section of the street that hasn’t collapsed into the earth, taking with it cars, bicycles, trees, street furniture, road signs, the awnings and porticos of buildings. It’s not a Rue now, but a deep trench.

‘My God,’ Ryan breathes as he slowly processes the desolation around us. ‘What the hell happened up here?’

‘We happened,’ I say quietly.

He turns and stares at me, horrified.

The last of the day’s light has leached out of the navy blue sky. My internal clock tells me that it’s after four in the afternoon; that we’ve been gone for hours. There are no faces at the windows of the damaged buildings looming over us, but plenty of emergency personnel on the ground, and a large crowd being kept back at some far remove. I hear someone shout out as they catch sight of us standing in the middle of the road like sightseers. Except that Ryan’s covered, head to foot, in white dust, just like those kids were. We might as well have a flashing neon sign over our heads that says we’ve been down in the catacombs while the world caved in above us.

‘Arretez-vous!’ a man roars in the distance.

I don’t give him time to point a weapon at us or get any closer; I just grasp Ryan under the arms and leap into the sheltering sky, with Ryan bellowing out his fear.

I take us so high, so fast, that we are soon lost in the underbelly of black cloud that is advancing towards us. Soon, we are specks too small for the human eye to detect. They will have no explanation for us in whatever reports they file of this day.

The direction of the gusting wind is against us. Ryan’s stopped yelling, but his eyes are screwed shut and there’s a sick look on his face as if this is some crazy carnival ride he can’t get off. Once my trajectory starts to even out, he wriggles in my grasp, actually struggling to reach around and get the backpack, half out of his mind with fear.

‘We could just c-call Henri,’ he stammers through chattering teeth. ‘Catch a lift with him.’

It’s arctic up here and I hug him closer to me. ‘Henri’s officially off-duty,’ I reply gently. ‘And do you really think he’ll want to pick up after he sees what’s happened to the fourteenth arrondissement? If you can bear it, look down.’

Ryan shakes his head, terrified.

‘Street after street, Ryan, collapsed into the earth. If I were Henri, I wouldn’t touch us, and I don’t blame him. He won’t pick up. Please, don’t struggle any more. Remember what you told me? You’re not going to fall. I’ve got you, I’ve got you.’

Ryan’s breathing erratically and his eyes are still closed, so he doesn’t see us leave the chaos around the Ile de la Cite and Ile St Louis in our wake, doesn’t see that we’ve already left northern Paris far behind us.

To spare him a little, I’m holding back on how fast I can actually go. I feel no fear now as I stretch into the buffeting wind, into the smell of advancing rain. When Ryan is with me, it truly is as if I cannot fall.

The lights are so extraordinarily beautiful, like a net of jewels flung across the darkened land. I feel a surge of inexplicable joy, though I don’t think we’ve ever been so exposed, just two tiny creatures battling a vast and threatening sky.

‘I wish you’d look!’ I tell him.

He rests his cold cheek against mine, his eyes still closed. ‘Just tell me when it’s over,’ he says, teeth chattering, his whole body one long tremor.

Ten minutes later, no more than that, it is.

‘We’re here,’ I tell him, landing so silently, so lightly, that it takes him a moment to comprehend that solid ground is again beneath our feet. He staggers a little where he stands, opening his eyes with difficulty before raising his head. I see the look of shock on his face as he focuses on the signage on the hangar wall beside us: StA Global Logistics. Fear had blocked out the sound of aircraft taxiing down the runway beneath us, blocked out the odour of burning aviation fuel and wet tarmac.

‘You’re going to walk in the front entrance of that hangar,’ I tell him in a low voice, ‘and introduce yourself to the ground staff on duty and tell them you need the jet fuelled and ready for take-off as fast as humanly possible, faster. We’re calling in that favour — get Bianca on the line if you have to, or those