Fury

Ryan’s breathing is rapid and erratic and his eyes struggle to hold mine as the glorious face of Death smiles down upon him.

Azraeil places his hand upon the spot where Lucifer wounded Ryan. Without looking at me, he says quietly, ‘That is your final choice?’

‘Yes,’ I sob, ‘that is what I choose.’ Understanding, at last, the gift that he is giving me.

‘Then rise, Mercy,’ Azraeil says, looking up at me from where he holds Ryan on the floor. ‘And prepare yourself for the consequences of what you have chosen.’

And I feel such a shock of joy when I understand his meaning. For Death consents to kneel to me here, upon this cold concrete.

I remember how it felt when I tried to heal Karen Neill of her cancer. How it felt when I tried to stop Lela bleeding to death on the floor of the Green Lantern Cafe. I remember pursuing Ryan’s soul through the corridors of his dying body on the roof of the Duomo; of wresting Irina Zhivanevskaya’s soul out of the purgatory Luc had left it in.

One last shift. And no one here but Death comprehends the choice that I am making.

Azraeil’s blue eyes meet mine. He reaches up and takes my burning left hand before Luc can lurch forward, fingers outstretched; before Gabriel can even finish saying, ‘Mercy, no!’

I let out a shattering scream as Azraeil’s will moves through me, like a breath of holy fire.

Light begins to pour off me, out of me, in waves. I have no sense of up or down, no sense of place, of time. I am the world, or the world is in me, and like the world, I can feel plates moving, floes breaking, separation, reconfiguration, transfiguration, an unlinking.

Azraeil releases my hand and I look at my trembling fingers with wonder. My skin is matte, flat. The scar is gone, will never return.

Azraeil lays Ryan’s head carefully upon the ground and Ryan blinks up at us, unsure whether this is real or dream or afterlife.

The Archangel of Death rises, looks around challengingly at all who are gathered here. ‘My touch can mean death, or life,’ he says.

He turns and pins me with his bright gaze. ‘I gave him to you because your choice was just, it was considered. You are what you wished to be — a creature of clay, subject to the whims, cruelties and mercies,’ there’s the ghost of a smile on his face, ‘of this human life.’

He scans those gathered here again. ‘And none of you,’ he roars, so loudly that even Luc, even Michael, quail to hear him, ‘may touch them. I have marked them for my own. Any of you who reaches out to them in hatred or in anger will bring death upon your own head. They are mine,’ he says more quietly, ‘and in time I shall collect what is due to me.’

And he vanishes.

Ryan sits up, whole and unmarked, breathing easily, blazing with joy.

‘Mercy?’ he says uncertainly, scarcely able to believe I’m standing here, in a simple white dress, my feet bare on the cold concrete floor, my long, straight brown hair hanging forward over my shoulders.

I look around and everything seems two-dimensional. I can’t read anyone; I get no sense of the life force of anything alive in this room. I see the same faces I saw before Azraeil touched me, but the colours have no depth, the sounds I hear have no extra resonance. I have no ability any longer that is not super-natural. Only natural. Only human.

I am split by joy, but also by grief, for I can no longer read the mysteries inside Ryan’s heart. He is as blank and opaque and walled off from me as everyone is.

He rises slowly to his feet and we move towards each other like two people stumbling out of a fog. He catches me and spins me around lightly, as if we are dancing, and laughs.

Michael looks at Luc across the room. ‘She is beyond your power now. Find some other means to bring the end of the world upon us all, for you won’t find it here.’

Luc is looking not at Michael, but at me, as he hisses his reply. ‘Even Death cannot rule over me. Walk carefully in this world, my lost love, for harm comes in many guises, many forms.’

Then, without warning, he and his followers are gone.

I blink, unsure what to feel. I’ve been threatened and belittled and lied to for so long, survived so much, that Luc’s threat barely moves me. Just like that, I’m no longer necessary to him. I’m nothing, expendable, just clay.

‘I think I’m … free,’ I say to Ryan in dawning wonder. ‘Free at last.’

‘As free as any human will ever be,’ Gabriel says, moving forward.

Ryan releases me as Gabriel places a hand on my shoulder. He looks down into my face from his great height. ‘You are sure?’

‘It’s done, brother,’ I murmur. ‘There’s to be no undoing.’

He nods, a touch of sadness in his bright green gaze.

Uriel moves up behind him, gazes down at me, too. ‘You make a pretty human, sister,’ he says, and smiles.

‘And you a pretty angel,’ I tease him.

Michael calls out sternly behind them, ‘Come, brothers, the battlefront shifts again. Mercy has earned her rest. We shall see her ’ere long.’

He raises his burning black gaze to me and then they’re all gone, vanished into motes of light.

By the doors, I see Lauren and Richard craning their necks up, watching the light stream towards the ceiling before it disperses.

Ryan takes me in his arms. ‘Are you scared?’ he whispers.

‘I’m terrified,’ I reply. ‘Listen to the way my heart’s beating.’ I place his hand above my heart and his face collapses into shock.

‘I’ll try and keep things, uh, exciting,’ he says tentatively. ‘I know how much you’ve … given up. You can throw it in my face every day, if you want to.’

‘Standing still seems pretty exciting right now,’ I murmur, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him.

We don’t come up for air until Richard starts hooting and telling us to ‘get a room, already, people’.

‘I’m tired,’ I say suddenly, realising it’s true. ‘I could sleep for a year. And I’m … hungry.’

Ryan hears the surprise in my voice. ‘Are you ready to start again?’ he says, putting an arm around my shoulders and walking me towards the hangar door.

Outside, the rain has stopped, and soft sunlight bathes the cracked tarmac, the motorbikes and the shot-up houses in a soft, wintry glow.

‘Yes,’ I reply, as the others put on their helmets and climb onto their bike.

I turn and look at Ryan and kiss him again, because I can, and say fervently, ‘Yes, I am.’

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With loving thanks, as always, to my husband, Michael, and to my children, Oscar, Leni and Yve, who give me so much joy and put up with my award-winning vagueness.

To my brilliant, brilliant A-team who has been with me every step of the way — Lisa Berryman, Rachel Denwood, Lizzie Ryley and Nicola O’Shea. To you all, and to the lovely Mel Maxwell and the very talented Natalie Winter and Kirby Jones, my thanks for helping to bring Mercy home. Thanks also to Tim Miller, Lara Wallace, Melanie Saward and Allan Paltzer for working so tirelessly on my behalf.

To the wonderfully dedicated and insanely hardworking Catherine Onder, Hayley Wagreich, Stephanie Lurie, Ann Dye and Hallie Patterson at Disney-Hyperion, and to the marvellous Iris Prael, Ilse Rothfuss and Marie Kubens at Ravensburger Buchverlag, and to all my international editing and publishing teams, thank you for giving Mercy wings.