Fury

‘You’re not the only one among the elohim that actually feels,’ he says bitingly. ‘There are simply not enough of us to guard against everything, to save everyone. So some are spared while others perish, and there seems no fairness in anything, no system, no order. But we do what we can, and we can do no more.

‘Life in this world is already dark, already messy enough, without the active interference of the Devil and his legions. The vast majority of Luc’s daemonium will never be as powerful as a single elohim, for most did not fall as Luc did, they were created out of the leavings of this world. But what the daemonium lack in grace, in speed, in power, they make up for in ferocity and sheer numbers. While our kind can only ever dwindle over time, the daemonium can and always will be replenished while Luc lives.

‘You have accused us before of being merely “watchers” — but how, in truth, is the life of one man to be balanced against another? Every action has a consequence; and we see each one stretch out before us endlessly even before we act. We fight a battle that has many fronts, and these fronts open and shift and change constantly. Some have “natural” causes, others do not. It is our burden and our rationale, and we accept it.’

His voice is suddenly gentler. ‘And that, Mercy, is why you must leave. Life will persist here regardless of what you do. Ryan’s people are tenacious — they have weathered so much. But Luc cannot be allowed to export the terror and the evil he deals in beyond this place. It is the time for selflessness, Mercy, for letting go. To rage against the conditions we face — that way lies insanity and paralysis.’

Then he turns and flows away, Ryan held as gently and carefully in his arms as a small child. And I think that this is the closest I have ever come to the mystery that lies at the heart of the Eight, and I am momentarily ashamed to have added to their cares and their sorrows. My love seems so small in comparison to theirs, but it is the very centre of my world now, of who I am.

And that is the paradox: I see what I must do, but it would tear me apart to do it.

The sun is high overhead as we cross the equator, and dark clouds gather above us as Uriel begins to take us down. As we cross the seas towards the mainland, he calls, ‘The Nazca Plate lies directly beneath us, the Volcan Llaima to the south. See what Luc has wrought in my absence, in mere days.’

The coastline we are crossing is obscured by a creeping grey fog. There’s nothing but dark above our heads, and a growing darkness before us as Uriel indicates peak after peak to the south spewing forth ash and grit and lava for miles along the coastline.

‘Some have been dead for centuries,’ he tells me. ‘But now Luc brings the Ring of Fire to life on every side; from here to the isles of Japan. It is only the beginning.’

Rain begins to fall as we angle northward along the coast, and develops into squalling winds and a heavy wet-season downpour that obliterates all light. Uriel does his best to shield Ryan from the worst of the storm, which touches neither of us. Lightning cuts through the sky repeatedly, briefly illuminating our approach towards a sprawling river-valley township ringed by immense mountains. The low, white-walled, red-roofed buildings are centred around a great square that gleams a lighter grey in the general greyness and is divided by patches of greenery, electric lampposts, footpaths, flowerbeds, a fountain, green benches. Two towering, Baroque-style stone churches, each in possession of two grand belltowers, face directly onto the square, as do several graceful stone arcades punctuated by archways. There is no one upon the surrounding streets or in the square.

As we approach the square from above at great speed, Uriel says inside my head, The Plaza de Armas, Square of the Warrior. It is only fitting that this is where we should part. For you have been braver and truer than you know.

We descend through day that has become night, through howling wind and stinging rain, towards a patch of greenery in the shadow of one of the great churches. We’re still about three hundred feet off the ground when Uriel mutters a single word into Ryan’s closed eyes: a word of command, of waking. I am above and behind Uriel as we descend, shielded from sight by him, and I alone catch the instant that Ryan’s eyes flash open to take in Uriel’s stern countenance over his. Uriel’s eyes are focused on the distant ground beneath us, and not upon the human he bears.

I see Ryan’s emotions chase each other across his face. For he’s often gazed upon that simple pencil sketch he keeps of me, I know, meditated upon it, matched it up against reality. Now, I literally see him thinking: Like Mercy. Not Mercy. Demon.

All this takes only seconds.

Then Ryan does the bravest, most misguided, stupidest thing I’ve ever seen him do. He closes his eyes, his lips moving silently in prayer, or farewell, and he dives backwards out of Uriel’s arms.

He’s falling like a stone through the sky, the rain soaking him instantly, making his heavy, mortal body even heavier, second by second. His eyes are closed and he’s as graceful, as accepting, as a diver. There’s no messy struggle; the lines of his body are tight and clean, arms outstretched. He makes no sound as he falls, still wearing that stupid backpack across his shoulders. He’d rather be dead, because he thinks that I must be. For he saw me surrender to the demons in Tokyo, and then woke to find himself in the grasp of a being of fire that looked like me but was not me and must therefore be some fiend, some shape-shifter demon.

I am all reaction, no thought, as I pull myself instantly into a tight downward spiral and try to catch him on the way down, catch him before he hits the granite walkways that bisect the Plaza de Armas.

Uriel’s so shocked, so unable to credit what Ryan has done, that he’s seconds behind me as I catch hold of Ryan by the hands. The force of our coming together threatens to rip his arms from their sockets. His eyes fly open as my fingers tighten convulsively around his. We’ve formed an imperfect circle, an ellipse, with our joined hands, and we’re spinning and spiralling through the air as centrifugal forces, gravity, take us over.

There’s no time to do anything but accept the ground rushing up to meet us, and I curve myself protectively around Ryan’s body the way I did when we collided with the great glass and steel roof of the Galleria in Milan, using every fibre of my being to cushion the impact of the blow when we hit the ground. Entwined and entangled together, we tumble across the rain-slick grass, skid over the cobbled surface of the Plaza, before coming to rest hard up against the base of a lamppost.

I lie there, shocked into immobility by the fall; a fall that has stirred up echoes in me of that other time. But this time, I am not burnt, blackened or near death. I am whole and very much alive.

It may be seconds, or hours, before I roll Ryan off me onto his back. His eyes are closed, but his life force pulses beneath my fingers and he starts to cough. The sound is harsh and painful. I place a steadying hand upon him as the rain beats down, feel his racing heartbeat below my palm.

I continue to lie there, staring up without blinking into the torrent falling out of the sky, seeming to see every drop, every needle of rain coming down, even up to its source. Maybe this is all we can ever be, I think in relief, in anguish. Only ever one second away from disaster, from ruin.

And I see that maybe Uriel is right: that if being with me could drive Ryan to do this, then I should go.

Uriel falls out of the sky beside us, landing lightly on his feet. I only vaguely register that he’s human-sized again, sporting the floppy, college-boy haircut, thin wire-framed spectacles and preppy designer gear he was wearing in Tokyo.

Ryan opens his eyes, looks up into Uriel’s face and some kind of primal recognition flares in them. He sits bolt upright, slamming the back of his head against the lamppost behind him in his haste to put some distance between himself and Uri. Then he realises that I haven’t moved at all, that I’m not even faintly concerned, and he looks from Uriel to me, from me to Uriel, in numb disbelief.

‘You say Luc and I could be twins,’ he says harshly. ‘What’s the deal with this guy?’

He braces himself against the glistening lamppost and uses it to slide upright onto his feet, then checks himself automatically for bruises, for fractures. The rain is seeping into his mouth, streaking down through his spiky, growing-back hair, the stubble on his face. He glares down at me where I’m still lying on the ground, motionless beneath the driving rain.

The tone of his voice and the very sight of him suddenly make me so furious that I’m on my feet before I register it, pummelling his chest with both my fists. Ryan retreats from the force of my blows.

‘Why bother?’ I scream into his face. ‘Why bother asking who he is? Why even check if you’re still in one piece when you just tried to commit suicide from three hundred feet? I’ll kill you myself if you ever pull a stunt like