Rebellion

“Work. She works in the office.”

“And that would be where?”

“The undertaker’s. I work out back. I’m training, you know? Learning to run funerals and that.”

“Undertaker.” Mallory felt a twinge in the pit of his stomach as everything he’d feared was confirmed. Just this once, why couldn’t it be a coincidence? he thought.

“It’s a good job. People think it’s...” Toby tailed off again and Mallory’s attention snapped back to the cell, but then Toby carried on. “Are you alright? You just sounded a bit... off.”

“Your boss. He wouldn’t happen to be called Andrew, would he?”

“Mr Langham? You know him?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Mallory groaned inwardly. “And god help me, because I can’t quite believe I’m saying this... but that... girlfriend of yours. Alice, yes?”

“You know Alice?” Toby’s voice perked up considerably.

“Oh, yes,” Mallory mumbled. No such thing as a coincidence, was there; not here, not now. Not ever. Click- click-click went the cogs in his head.

Toby was talking again – animated now. He was telling Mallory how accident-prone Alice was; how twitchy. How sad she seemed. How alone. How he knew that all she needed was someone to take care of her...

“You ever think she might be able to take care of herself?”

Toby snorted, which immediately set him off into a coughing fit. “I thought you said you knew Alice. She couldn’t take care of a stick insect, let alone herself!” He coughed again – a damp, unpleasantly sticky sound – and moaned. They were done talking for the time being, by the sound of it, and Mallory rested his head back against the wall. How could Toby have Alice so very wrong? Thinking that she needed taking care of? She was more than capable of taking care of herself; he’d seen her.

But the Alice that Toby had described was so different – so very different – she might as well have been someone else. How could that be? People were who they were, weren’t they? They didn’t flip a switch and change from one thing to another...

Not unless someone tried to make them.

Not unless someone told them they were two things and then left them hanging midway between the two.

That was the kind of thing that could break someone, make them take the wrong turnings; make the wrong choices. He knew it better than anyone: Rimmon had taught him that, all those years ago.

Mallory thumped his head back against the wall so hard that he saw stars, and he hoped that Alice – his Alice – was stronger than Toby believed her to be.

She would have to be.

VIN LISTENED FOR footsteps, a sound... anything. Anything at all that might suggest someone was coming.

Naturally, there was only silence – if you discounted the dogs. There was always noise from the dogs. But given what Forfax actually fed his pets, Vin wasn’t sure he didn’t prefer the racket they made when they were hungry. At least then he knew they weren’t eating someone...

He had no idea what he was going to do when he actually managed to get out of this cell. None. He’d tried to come up with a plan, but it hadn’t exactly worked out – so instead, he was working on the basis that he was going to find Mallory and ask him what his plan was. Mallory was bound to have a plan.

All Vin had to do was get to him.

He had no idea how long he waited but, finally, there were footsteps. No cane, by the sound of it, which meant it wasn’t Forfax. Maybe that was a good thing. The more he listened, the more footsteps he heard: it was at least six or seven people, he decided, walking quickly and quietly. One of them sounded like they were dragging their feet.

He held his breath as the footsteps passed the door and started to fade, and then – as hard as he could – he slapped the door with the flat of his hand. The metal made a loud bong, ringing in his ears and making his eyes water. A noise like that must have got someone’s attention...

The grille in the door slid back with a rattle, and Vin dropped into a crouch below it, sliding as close to the door as he could. He could hear the Fallen on the other side breathing as they peered in... but couldn’t see him. A key turned in the lock; a bolt was slid back.

He crossed his fingers and hoped it was one of the stupider ones, and then he moved.

Quick as a flash, he was on his feet. He darted back a couple of paces from the door – and before the unfortunate creature on the other side had time to move, Vin had thrown himself feet-first straight at the metal.

He didn’t have time to consider what might happen if the hinges did not give, which was just as well. Give they did, shattering in puffs of dust. The door ripped free from the wall, twisting under its own weight and the force of Vin’s attack, and spun into the corridor. The Fallen who had been foolish enough to be on the other side of it was pinned beneath it as it fell. He screamed once, then fell silent. Vin didn’t much care. All he cared about was getting away: the metal door had sung like a cathedral bell as it fell, and someone would have heard it.

Looking first up, then down the corridor, Vin weighed his options. The footsteps had passed from left to right, hadn’t they? They had sounded like someone was being taken somewhere – someone reluctant. A prisoner. So were they being taken to or from a cell? He thought about it a moment more, then spun abruptly to the left and set off along the corridor at a cautious jog.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Thicker Than Water, Stronger Than Death

THERE WERE MANY things Jester wished he could change. He would have told Vin to stop being an idiot. He would have done his physics homework in the fourth year of secondary school. He would have asked Alice how it felt, being a half-born, just to see if it was the same for both of them, even though he doubted it could be. Not with Alice being Alice.

But of all the things he would change if he could; of all the glittering possibilities, he would have listened to his sister.

If he had listened to his sister, things might have been different.

If he had listened to his sister, he would have heard her telling him that she had met someone. He would have known when she began to withdraw, to change. He would have noticed the bags under her eyes, the fading light behind them. He would have known.

At least, this was what he told himself when the door shut behind them and the two of them were alone in the room.

It wasn’t much for a family reunion: a rectangular concrete box with a table in the middle, bolted to the floor. A mirror ran the length of one of the longer walls, but Jester knew what that really was. A small, round speaker jutted out of the opposite wall, and a tiny CCTV camera blinked at them from the corner. There was nothing else in there except for the knife on the table. And Florence.

The problem was that Jester recognised the knife – or at least, he thought he did. He didn’t know how, exactly, but it tugged at some part of him he couldn’t quite find. It rattled around in the back of his mind like a half-forgotten promise. It made him think of summer, of learning to ride his bike. Of the smell of poster paint...

It made him remember.

Zadkiel. It was Zadkiel’s.

And it was here.

He looked at Florence across the table.

The room filled with white noise as the loudspeaker crackled into life.