Rebellion

“But tell me – seeing as you know so very much about him – why is Lucifer so afraid of Mallory? Why has he made it his personal mission to destroy not me... but Mallory? And you with him? He could have killed you in hell, and you could not have stopped him, if that’s what he wanted; gift or no gift. You walked out of hell because he let you. I know him better than anyone else. Me, he just wants to defeat. You, however, he wants to destroy. You and Mallory both.”

Alice blinked back tears, determined not to show the Archangel how much his words hurt. Because hurt they did. Even if it had crossed her mind more than once that Lucifer could have killed her. Even if Rob’s warning about the angels not telling her everything had rung in her head for months. It had been at the back of her mind every time she had gone out, looking for the Fallen; every time she had found one. Every time she had fought them. What if Lucifer had simply let her go? What did that mean?

Something more than fear wound its way around her heart, into her throat, threading itself through her. Doubt.

“You were a librarian, were you not?” Michael suddenly asked. Alice simply stared back at him, dazed.

“Am. Not was. Am.” It was an automatic answer, and technically, it wasn’t true. What she was, currently, was the Angel of Death’s receptionist. And even then, she was on what was best described as a sabbatical.

“I have something to show you. Come with me.”

“Where?”

“My library, of course. Where else?”

THERE WAS NO door. Of course there wasn’t. Because that was something normal people had: doors, and stairs. And bookshelves. Alice had always considered bookshelves to be an integral part of the library experience.

Not here.

Michael hadn’t given her a chance to respond; had simply snatched up her hand. The world had spun, lost in a blur of scarlet and woodsmoke. Up became down became up became down... and that was it. She was standing in the middle of the strangest library she had ever seen.

It was circular, the walls curving up to a dome above her head. The floor was made of wooden boards that followed the line of the walls; sweeping past and beneath her and polished to such a shine that she could see herself reflected in them. There were no windows – and, strangely for this place, no candles. The light seemed to seep out from the walls themselves: soft and white and everywhere at once. The room glowed.

About halfway between the floor and the curve of the dome, a narrow gallery ran the entire circumference of the walls, jutting out from them with no visible support as though it had just grown there. And everywhere, there were books and papers, piled high on the floor, on tables, on chairs. Hanging from the walls between carvings and what looked like reliefs of faces, draped across stools... everywhere. The air smelled of paper and ink and dust... and Alice just stared.

“How do you like it?” Michael asked, standing beside her and watching her take in her surroundings.

“It’s extraordinary,” she whispered. And then, she saw it. Half-hidden among the other carvings on the wall ahead of her; a small, square relief of three angels. One was clearly Michael: a crown of blazing fire upon his head and his sword in his hand. One was fairly obviously Lucifer, bound in chains, a cloud emerging from his mouth. And between them, his face solemn, even in stone, was Mallory.

Alice lifted her fingers to the stone, hesitating an inch or so before they touched it. It was him, clearly him. Mallory. Between Michael and Lucifer... watching as Lucifer Fell.

She urged her fingers forward and they grazed the carven Mallory’s face. He looked so serious, and so sad. It was so lifelike that she half-expected the stone to give under the pressure of her touch, to see him flinch. To see him blink.

“What is this?” she asked Michael, hearing the floor creak behind her.

“The truth,” he said. “The reason Lucifer fears Mallory. Fears him and hates him. Because he trusted him, and Mallory betrayed him. To me.”

“To you? But...”

“There was no-one Lucifer trusted more than Mallory. When he planned his little coup, who do you think he turned to first?”

“Mallory...” The name came out as a whisper.

“Mallory. And Mallory, being the creature that he is, came to me.”

“He turned him in.” She saw it flash by in her mind’s eye: Lucifer walking into a room much like the one she was in; finding Mallory waiting for him. A question hanging in the air. “Mallory, why are you armed? ” And Mallory, clad in his armour and with his hand on the sword she had never seen him use, turning his back on his oldest friend.

“He turned him in. Everything that has come since...”

“You mean Mallory started the war?”

“Lucifer started the war. Mallory, well, Mallory was trying to prevent it.” Michael sighed. “Much good that it did us.” He drew away from her, back into the middle of the room. “Look at the banner,” he said, pointing to a wide stripe that ran around the walls, just above head height. It was covered with symbols Alice didn’t recognise. She tore her eyes away from the carving of the angels and looked, but could make no sense of them. They were familiar, somehow, and yet alien. There were thousands of them; hundreds of thousands, running on forever around Michael’s library.

“Names,” he said.

“Names?” She stretched up, running her fingers across one of the symbols. “These are letters?”

“No. These are names. Each one an angel lost to the war.”

Alice’s hand snapped back. “But there are...”

“Countless names. Not quite. I count them. I know the tally.”

“Who put them here?”

“Adriel, of course.” Michael brushed his hair back from his forehead. “We remember. The Fallen had their river of blood. I have this.” He waved at the wall. “Mallory has his books.”

“His books...” A memory scraped at the edge of Alice’s mind. Notebooks. Notebooks filled with scrawled letters and shapes, utterly indecipherable. Pages spilling across a dirty floor...

“That’s your handwriting? I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s not shorthand; what kind of language is it?”

“Mine.”

“He keeps track? Of all of them?”

“He feels he must.”

“Oh, Mallory.” It was all she could say, even though he wasn’t there to hear it.

Suddenly, she understood. She understood him. She understood it all, and she turned to face Michael. “We have to find him.”

“Why? Because this changes anything? How? Simply because you now know something, does it make what went before any less true? Mallory is still a soldier. Still a prisoner. Still a loose cannon, and I still can’t trust him. So he stays where he is.”

“I trust him.”

“And I don’t trust you.” His tone was flat. Hard. “Everything I have done for you, and I still can’t trust you.” He folded his arms, his eyes raking over her. “Some would ask why I give so much to a traitor’s brat, who consorts with traitors. How can you be anything more than the sum of your parts? Human. Traitor. Fool. Weak.”

“By ‘some,’ you mean Gabriel.” It was almost funny. “He’s not exactly perfect, either.”

“Perhaps not. But who is?”

“I am more. More than that.”

“Are you? I wonder.” It wasn’t a threat this time. It wasn’t even a question. More than anything, Michael seemed to be thinking aloud. There was silence then: the kind of silence that settles in libraries and places where old books are kept. A silence which was thick and soft and knowing and full of the names of the dead. He walked away from her, his footsteps heavy on the shining boards, and his back was still to her as he started to speak, louder now and clearer. A challenge. “Prove it.”