so pale, so glorious, and yet contain so much darkness. I never saw that darkness when he appeared to me in my dreams. He is indeed a liar of talent, the best there ever was.
‘Tonight,’ he murmurs, ‘I begin the reclamation of what I have lost. And you shall witness me bring the kingdoms of earth and of Heaven to their knees, so that I may be God at last, over all.’
He places the heel of one shining hand upon my forehead and I am transfixed by his touch, as if by a live current. I can neither breathe nor struggle, though my mouth is stretched wide in a silent scream.
My left hand ignites. It bursts into a searing white flame that is as coruscating as it is beautiful.
And all around me, I see an answering flame — shining from Luc, from Gudrun, from all of his winged warriors, his daemonium.
Each of them bears a glowing wound that is suddenly visible beneath the long-sleeved, high-necked raiment that they wear. Some bear scars at the base of the throat — as Gudrun does — some upon the shoulder, the centre of the back. Many are scarred upon their forearms, or their upper arms. Some bear one scar, others two.
Even Luc bears a glowing scar right in the centre of his broad chest, visible beneath the human clothing he has assumed. The size of an archangel’s handprint.
They are all marked, as I am.
In some way, they are all exiles, too.
But there is no time to ponder the mystery. The pain of Luc’s touch is excruciating — it’s as if my soul is being destroyed, or transfigured.
His touch reaches down into Irina’s skull, into her flesh and bones, the very matter of which she’s made. He’s drawing me out, coil by resistant coil. He’s following the switchbacks and false trails, the broken pattern that I’ve somehow been cast into. He is irradiating me with his fire, seeking to remake me, remould me.
And I see, I see —
— that final, fatal moment in which Luc and I were the epicentre of something vast, a conflagration waiting to happen, an ache in time, a breath suspended. The Eight arrayed against us, weapons of power raised, a shining multitude gathered behind them. Behind Luc and me, another shining multitude. Two halves of a people that had once been whole and united.
I remember Luc’s words: ‘Then, as an act of faith — of goodwill, shall we call it — take that which is most precious to me.’ His tone is final, without emotion, as he says, ‘I permit it.’
And I remember that searing pain in my left hand, feel it now. But this time the world does not go blank and white. This time, I do not block what happened from my mind.
This time, when I relive that moment, the moment when my left hand sustained the wound that begot all wounds thereafter, my memories do not twist and shatter like glass. I live them as if that time is now, not some long ago yesterday.
My left hand was grasped so tightly in Luc’s that when he pushed me with every ounce of his indomitable strength, I was unprepared. His act of betrayal seared me forever.
He sacrificed me.
And I’d fallen through the canopy of Heaven itself, fallen through the night sky, screaming just one word.
Mercy!
19
All the horror of those days is mirrored in my eyes.
Luc curses as he meets some final point of resistance in my unravelling. There’s something caught in me, like a locked box, a hard knot. My name; my name is bound in there. My name is the anchor point. Raphael called it the last defence, but he did it for my protection, unwittingly creating a weapon to be used against me. None would be able to draw my name from me willingly, but what if my name were already known?
Luc doesn’t bother to unravel that last portion of my soul. It’s something useful to him, a means of control. He simply rips me free, and I feel more than see Irina’s body fall away from mine. She slumps unconscious, face down upon the runway in her lovely dress, her pretty tiara, her damaged wings.
I look down at my gleaming limbs, the glowing, sleeveless raiment that I always wear when I am myself. Stare down at my burning left hand, the flames fully visible in the poor light. Disoriented, disbelieving, betrayed twice over by the one I’d loved more than anything. Itself a heresy, surely.
I’m still small, still mortal-sized. So dazed to find myself inhabiting my own skin after all these long years, these interminable centuries, that I do not know how to shape-shift, to make myself Luc’s equal again.
‘Rally to Mercy!’ I hear Michael roar, defying the dark angels that threaten to engulf him, parrying their blades more swiftly than the human eye could follow. ‘She must not fall to Luc. Rally!’
The air is full of the sound of opposing energies colliding.
Luc holds out his hand to my small one. And, for a moment, I wonder what would happen if I simply took it.
‘Come with me,’ he says almost kindly, ‘and you shall live and prosper and be free. Nothing, none of the darkness to come, shall touch you. You shall always be untouchable in my court.’
I look up at him. ‘Though not your queen,’ I say softly. ‘Never your queen.’
He shakes his head. ‘That part of the history of us is done. It is over. But stay with me willingly, and every heart’s desire shall be yours. Even that boy.’ He gestures into the darkness behind us. ‘For you, I will let him live. Let him be your … pet. Your plaything. And when you tire of him …’ he shrugs. ‘Throw him away.’
I move forward towards Luc, almost hypnotised. His right hand is still outstretched, still open to receive mine. What he promises is so much more tempting than the fate the Eight have always had mapped out for me. Ryan. I would get to keep Ryan.
‘No!’ I hear someone roar, and K’el seems to fall out of the air to stand between Luc and me. My watcher, the one I spurned so many years ago, who loves me still, despite the torment I’ve caused him. My protector, to the last.
‘Mercy, get back!’ K’el cries. ‘The earth will no longer be enough to contain him if you submit now. Don’t you understand who he is? What he wants?’
‘He’s the Devil,’ I say simply, understanding at last, but too late. ‘He’s the one responsible for all the evil in this world, all the tribulation; who fuels the worst excesses, the darkest desires and perversions of human nature.’
‘He goes by many names,’ K’el says fiercely as he pushes me back towards the now abandoned press gallery at the far end of the catwalk, his fiery weapon all that stands between us and Luc. ‘Shaitan, Belial, the adversary — these are only some of the names he is known by. But we have ever known him as Luc, or Lucifer, the day star.’
‘The Archangel of Light.’ I laugh despairingly.
‘No more,’ Luc snarls, stalking us in long, easy strides. ‘When my brother Michael cast me down, I ceased to be elohim. The Archangel of Light is dead. And the Devil has arisen in his place.’
The air shimmers with smoke and flame and ambient heat and I scan the area around us for any sign of Ryan, but all I see littered around us are fallen bodies, overturned furniture.
We do not sense Gudrun until she leaps out of the flames beside us. K’el does not see her — so intent is he on me, on Luc — until the short, burning blade she’s holding in her hand enters his side. He looks down in surprise at the light bleeding from his pierced side in bright drifts, in errant curls of pure energy. Shock distorts his features — in some ways we are naive, we elohim. Always imagining we are inviolate, so far above everyone and everything that nothing could ever touch us. We deal in death, yes. But rarely glimpse it ourselves, face to face.
‘K’el!’ I sob, pulling the demon’s blade free and twisting my hands into the energy of which Gudrun is made. Though she towers over me still, I swing her up and over my head before sending her flying down the length of the runway with a blast of pure energy fuelled by all the hatred, envy and rage in my body.
Before she hits the blank wall at the northern end of the building, she scatters into a billion pieces and
