Rebellion

body, but his mind is adrift. Any prison I build for him, he turns to his advantage: I locked him in hell, he made it a sanctuary; I lock him up here, he mocks me from the shoreline. He turns humanity against itself and gains power from the chaos while my army fights in vain. He openly walks in the world while we remain hidden, and he takes and he takes and he takes, and I... will... not... lose.”

“There’s always choices, Michael. You don’t need me to tell you that. Are you sure you’re making the right ones?”

“Ever the philosopher, Mallory.” Michael stared out of the window and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I can see why she listens to you.”

“I thought that was the point.”

“Mmm. We’ll see.” He brightened. “But all this is irrelevant. We think we’ve found it. The way to bind him.”

“And then what?”

“Then we destroy Lucifer... and every single one of the Fallen with him.” Michael turned away from the window and back to face them, and his eyes were white-hot with fire. “Lucifer wants absolute war. I’m only too happy to oblige.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Run, Brother

THE FIRST THE Quartermaster heard of it was the bell. Not the bells of the priory or the smaller church lower on the island, but a hand-bell, rung hard and fast, and then dropped with a clatter. Phillip looked up from his workbench and muttered something under his breath. That was the alarm bell. And it could mean only one thing.

He ran to the door of his workshop, tucked beneath the little chapel in the cemetery, and wrenched it open. The graveyard was as tranquil as ever; there was no sign of life. But he could hear running footsteps, shouting. Screams. Without thinking, he ducked back into his workshop and snatched up Mallory’s guns. He threw them into the middle of a cloth on the table and hastily wrapped them up, before throwing them into a green holdall, along with several boxes of bullets. Slinging the holdall onto his shoulder, he leaned over the table and took hold of one of the stones of the wall. Mortar crumbled under his fingernails as he tugged and worked at the edges of the stone. Something lay in the gloomy space behind: something slender, wrapped in a dirty rag. He hesitated, and then added it to his haul. Without another look back, he slammed the door behind him and raced through the graveyard; his feet crunched on the gravel, and he ran as though the devil was behind him.

As far as Phillip was concerned, he was.

THERE WAS SHOUTING, and the sound of more running feet; the howl of a wind that had sprung from nowhere, screaming through the streets and slamming into the ancient walls. Phillip wound his way through the buildings of Mont Saint-Michel, the first plumes of oily black smoke curling up from the island beneath him. And still he ran.

He had reached the bottom of a broad flight of steps, overarched by enormous granite buttresses, when he saw the first of the guards. Three of them lay strewn across the steps, their bodies broken, their wings torn and lifeless. Blood seeped out from beneath them, trickling into a pool almost at his feet. Phillip stared at them. “Forgive me,” he whispered, looking into the dead eyes below him, then stepped over them, lifting his habit clear of their blood. He clutched his bag and ran up the steps two at a time.

The steps climbed sharply, crowded between high walls, and then levelled out into a long, straight passageway. At the end of the passage was smoke. Smoke and fire. Scorch marks stained the granite blocks on either side, and deep sword cuts in the rock.

Bodies littered the ground ahead of him, and with mounting horror, he realised that he was going to have to go through them to reach the priory. Slowly, he picked his way between them: wings torn apart, littering the ground with feathers, and empty faces, their eyes open and unseeing. Something brushed against his ankle and he recoiled with a gasp: a hand. An angel he didn’t recognise, but the sigil on his wrist was Michael’s. His fingers were still clasped around the hilt of his sword.

The passageway rang with the sounds of fighting now, screams and howls bouncing off the high stone walls, and Phillip felt cold. So cold. It occurred to him that he could turn back; he could run. And the more he thought about it, the more appealing it seemed. There was nothing to stop him – he knew the island better than anyone. He was sure he could make his way out without being seen, and he certainly knew his way across the sands to the mainland. All he had to do was wait until dark, and he could make a run for it. No-one would think any less of him. After all, he was only human.

Phillip’s head snapped up. The voice in his mind, the voice telling him to run... it wasn’t his. He looked down at his feet. He had, without quite realising, turned and taken several steps back the way he came. “I am myself,” he said to no-one. “And I choose my own end in peace.” The air around him cooled again, the wind swallowing his words. There was no-one there to hear them. It didn’t matter. Head held high, Phillip started forwards again.

The thick white smoke now spanned the end of the passageway, hiding everything behind it. There were shapes moving, and flashes of light – of fire – but everything was obscured. He stretched out his hand to touch it, watching it coil around his fingers... then snatched them back, suddenly feeling foolish. Someone on the other side of the veil screamed, and something heavy fell to the ground.

Phillip stepped through the smoke.

PHILLIP HAD NEVER considered hell. He had never claimed to be perfect, and had led a less sheltered life by far than most of the brothers in Michael’s service, but the chaos at the end of the passageway was like nothing he had ever seen, either waking or dreaming.

Five angels, fully armoured, surrounded the prisoners, their backs turned inwards. Florence and Xaphan, wrists still bound and tied to one another, cowered in the middle of the circle, while the Descendeds lunged outwards at a half-dozen Fallen. They hurled themselves at the angels in a fury, tearing, clawing, gouging, biting. And despite the fire the Descendeds threw at them, they kept coming. A heap of blackened bodies past the knot of angels suggested there had been more. Far more, judging by the number of dead angels Phillip had passed. He didn’t stop to wonder where they had come from; didn’t wait to ask. Instead, spotting a glint of silver beneath a pile of scorched feathers, he hurried towards it.

The sword was heavier than he had expected; while the angels swung theirs with one hand, it took both of his and all his strength just to lift it. The point shook wildly as he held it up, with fear and exertion.

He could see the doorway. The one he needed. Less than fifty yards ahead and the wrong side of the pitched battle going on in front of him. If he could get to that, he could get to Zadkiel and Michael.

One of the Descendeds looked up and saw him, frozen in the midst of the chaos. Phillip recognised A’albiel, one of Michael’s favourites. He was already wounded: one shoulder hung lower than the other and his face was covered in blood and ash. Flames blazed around him as his chest heaved in and out with the effort of breathing; his breastplate shone under a layer of battle-grime. He would know what to do.

Phillip met his gaze, and A’albiel seemed to understand. He nodded, and shouted something Phillip could not make out. The others must have understood it; they raised their swords as one and whirled – and in a blur of fire and feathers, they had spun around pinning the attacking Fallen back against one of the walls and leaving a narrow gap behind them. They had given up their defensive position, had laid themselves wide open, but they had given him a pathway to the door.

“Go!” A’albiel shouted at him. Phillip dropped the sword and ran for the door.

As he passed them, still running, he thought he saw Xaphan wink at him...

And then he was in the doorway, scrabbling for the handle and tumbling through, slamming the door shut behind him.

OUTSIDE, A’ALBIEL HEARD the door bang, heard the key turn in the lock. The Quartermaster was safe. He