Rebellion

“What’s this?” He pulled away from her, rubbing at her damp cheeks with his thumb. “If it’s that bad seeing me, I’ll go again...” He started to turn away, and she grabbed onto his arm.

“No. It’s not! Really.”

“I’m kidding, Alice. Stop being so bloody wet, would you?”

“Sorry.” She scrubbed at her face. “It’s been a bit of a trying day, you know?”

“Is that what you call it? Personally, I’d call it getting the shit kicked out of us. I think it’s fair to say we lost this one.” He safetied his gun and it disappeared into his jacket. “And you? How’re you doing?” He put his hands on her shoulders and held her out at arm’s length, ducking down slightly to peer at her. “You look like you’ve been in the wars.”

“Something like.”

“You’ve been getting into trouble, haven’t you?”

“No...”

“That’s not what I heard. I heard you’ve been causing quite a few problems for the Fallen. You and your little crew of Earthbounds.”

“What else was I supposed to do? What would you have done?”

“I thought you’d have learned by now that the last thing you want to do is follow my example, kid.” He grinned, and folded his arms across his chest. “But whatever it is you’ve been up to? It stops. Now.”

“Now you get to tell me what to do, too?”

“Damn straight I do.”

“You don’t just get to...”

“Now you listen to me, Alice...” Mallory’s voice was suddenly hard as he leaned closer to her. “You may think that you’re indestructible. You are not. And I’ve lost enough to know better than to let you go throwing yourself into every scrappy little fight that comes your way. You’re too...”

“Important?” she spat. “Yeah. Right. I remember.” And she did. She remembered Michael telling her that she was a weapon – his weapon, to be used against the Fallen as he saw fit.

“Yes. Important.” Mallory’s voice softened, and his eyes looked sad. He sighed. “But this is neither the time nor the place. We need to go.” He raised his voice, calling to the angel who had blocked her way. “Pollux! We’re moving.”

Alice glanced behind her and saw Pollux nod once. He really did look familiar, but she couldn’t work out why. She pushed the thought away, simply relieved to have found Mallory again. Descendeds might make people feel better simply with their presence, but this was something else, more than that. This was Mallory; here, now, back again. And Alice felt better than she had in a long time.

CHAPTER TEN Echoes and Ghosts

“WHAT TOOK YOU lot so long? You look like shit, by the way.” There was a man sitting at Adriel’s desk, leafing through one of the ledgers. A man who was most definitely not Adriel.

“I see you’ve yet to develop anything like manners. Or charm,” Mallory replied, leaning against the door frame.

“Charm’s overrated.” The intruder leaned back in the chair and pulled a pair of sunglasses down from the top of his head, folding them up and stuffing them into the pocket of his jacket. “And speaking of people with neither charm nor manners, it’s good to see you.”

“Really? Did you miss me, Vin? I’m afraid I didn’t miss you. Not once. Not even slightly.” Mallory’s scowl crumbled, and he grinned. Vin winked back at him.

Alice shook her head. Some things, apparently, never changed.

“Where’d you get the book?” she asked, pointing at the ledger the Earthbound had been reading.

He blinked back at her, then pointed over his shoulder. “On the shelves. I got bored waiting. Don’t you guys keep some magazines in or something?”

“It’s not a dentist’s office, you know. How did you get in, anyway?” Alice leaned back out of Adriel’s office doorway, and looked at the door swinging open on its hinges. The way she’d left it.

Whoops.

She glanced back at Vin, who looked innocent. “Someone forget to lock up, did they? I tell you what: you’re lucky I didn’t lock it with me inside and leave the lot of you out there. Have you seen it out there?”

“Still trotting out that ‘I’m a lover, not a fighter’ line, are we?” Mallory had leaned across the desk and spun the open ledger round, and was now flipping through it. “We were outside.”

“And a fat lot of good I bet it’s done you.” Vin suddenly looked serious. “There are Fallen everywhere. In the open. Right there. You can say whatever you want about me, but I’ve paid my dues, and I’ve not complained – not once – but I’m not touching that mess. Not with a forty-foot pole. Screw it.”

Alice frowned at him. There was something... off about him, somehow. Something she couldn’t put her finger on.

She realised she wasn’t just frowning, but staring. And, being Vin, he was staring back with an expectant look on his face.

“It’s bothering you, isn’t it?” he said.

“I couldn’t tell you exactly what it is, but yes.”

“It’s the hair.”

“Funny.”

Mallory cleared his throat. “No, really,” he said, “it’s his hair.”

Alice looked at Vin again – and now she saw it. The faint streak of grey that ran through his black hair and disappeared behind his ear.

Like Mallory, he had grey hair. New grey hair.

She looked from one to the other of them, and Mallory nodded. “I know. Later.”

Vin spotted the change in his tone, and ran his fingers through his own hair. “I thought it made me look distinguished. Silver fox, right?”

He ducked as Mallory threw the ledger at him.

It landed with a thump and a ruffle of pages. The room darkened, and the air filled with whispers and echoes. Alice, Vin and Mallory turned to see Adriel silhouetted in the doorway, his wings folding behind him. As he came closer, the heavy book flew back up to the desk – narrowly missing Vin again on its way – and settled on the polished surface.

As soon as he stepped into the office, the shadows retreated; the voices faded, and framed in the door was a man with nothing more remarkable about his appearance than a pair of dusty patches on the knees of his suit. He surveyed the three of them and arched an eyebrow, and Alice wondered just how bad they looked: how bad she looked, covered in dust and dirt and shards of glass; her face stained with smoke and her eyes red from the tear gas.

AFTER SHE HAD found Mallory, it became entirely apparent that there was no point in staying out on the street. The Fallen were there – no doubt about it – but they were too well camouflaged. There were too many people for them to hide among. And when the Descendeds and Zadkiel the Archangel disappeared, it was obvious that Lucifer had too. The angels had lost their prize, leaving only Mallory, Pollux and a handful of Earthbounds scattered through the chaos. And it was chaos. With the angels gone, the full weight of everything that had just happened began to sink into the crowd. They still didn’t remember the angels, but they remembered everything else. The bottles. The batons. The bricks and the flying glass.

Clouds of smoke and gas drifted along the street and they began to understand what they had done.

And as they began to feel it, to really feel it, the inside of Alice’s skin began to itch. It wasn’t much – not at first – just a tiny prickle on the back of her hand. But it was spreading, and fast.