Something moved in the street ahead, and I stumbled to a halt. Suzie saw it too, and crashed to a halt just ahead of me, automatically bringing her shotgun to bear. Two dim figures came running down the street towards us, silhouetted against the fires burning behind them. They both looked... wrong, somehow. And then the skin of Count Video came flapping down the street, raw and empty, with his flayed body running weeping after it. Suzie and I drew back to let them pass. There was nothing we could do.
'I don't think the city resistance is faring too well,' I said, trying hard to sound calm.
'Just when you think you've seen everything...' said Suzie. 'These angels are hard-core. We have got to get off the street, Taylor. But I am fresh out of ideas. Think of something. Fast.'
From up above came the sound of great wings, beating on the night. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, sounding lower all the time. I glared about me, looking for inspiration. We had the street pretty much to ourselves. Everyone else had either gone to ground or was waiting to be buried under it. Dark, hulking, anonymous buildings lined the street to either side. Some of them were more damaged than others, but none of them had lights in their windows. Suzie and were on our own, surrounded by the enemy, and miles and miles from friendly territory. Business as usual, really, only more so. And just when things couldn't get any worse, they did.
Grey figures appeared out of nowhere, blocking off the street ahead of us. A dozen grey men in grey suits, watching us, unnaturally still and focused. I looked behind me, and, sure enough, there were more grey figures there. The angels had found us. I looked up at the sky, half-expecting to see winged figures plunging down, to snatch us out of the street and carry us away, but there was no sign of any attack. Presumably they thought we still had the Speaking Gun. Once they figured out we didn't, we were dead in the water.
The figures up ahead pulsed suddenly with a bright and brilliant light, pushing back the night. Suzie and I both cried out, dazzled, and had to raise our arms to shield our faces. We'd grown too accustomed to the gloom. Widespread wings blazed like the sun. I looked back, eyes smarting, only to see grey figures disappear inside a sea of darkness that rolled slowly up the street towards us. A complete and unrelenting shadow, far darker than any mere absence of light could ever be. Unbearable light ahead, and a merciless dark behind.
'Oh shit,' said Suzie.
'My thoughts exactly,' I said. 'Please don't shoot at the angels, Suzie. If you do, and they notice, they'll get even more annoyed with us.'
'What do you mean us, white man?' Suzie flashed me a brief smile. 'These bastards really do want you, don't they, Taylor?'
'They want my gift, my ability to find things. Whichever side controls that is pretty much guaranteed to get to the Unholy Grail first.'
'Well,' said Suzie, 'given that we are outclassed, outnumbered, and almost certainly out-gunned, might this be a good time to strike some kind of deal?'
'No,' I said immediately. 'I don't work for free. And I don't trust extremes, of whatever kind.'
'I really don't think they're in the mood to take no for an answer.'
'And there is the very real possibility that either side would be willing to destroy me, rather than lose my gift to the enemy.' I looked at Suzie. 'They only want me. You could ...'
'No I couldn't,' said Suzie. 'I'm not leaving you. That much I can do for you.'
The light swept slowly down the street, while the darkness advanced from behind. It would have been a close bet which was the most disturbing to look at. Such pure manifestations didn't belong in the material world. And I really didn't want to be still standing here when the two forces met. I looked about me while Suzie hefted her shotgun unhappily.
'All this, just for you, Taylor? Haven't these creeps ever heard of overkill?'
'They're angels, Suzie. I think they invented the concept. Remember Sodom and Gomorrah? And we're facing agents from Above and Below... The light and the dark, and us caught right in the middle.'
'Story of my life,' Suzie said briskly. 'Come on, Taylor, I'm waiting. What are we going to do? What can we do?'
'I'm thinking!'
She sniffed. 'You always did freeze in the clinch, Taylor.'
Suzie turned her shotgun on a recessed door in the wall beside us and let fly with one blast after another, as fast as she could work the pump. The door collapsed and blew inwards in a cloud of smoke and splinters, blown right off its hinges. Suzie dived through the jagged gap into the gloom beyond, with me crowding her heels all the way.
Once inside, we moved to either side of the open doorway and pressed our backs against the wall, while we waited for our eyes to adjust to the dim light. The wall felt comfortably thick and solid, even though I knew it wouldn't even slow the angels down. I felt as much as saw a huge, echoing space before and around me. A little light came through slit windows set high up on the walls, and I began to make out a series of narrow aisles between towering stacks of piled-up merchandise. Outside in the street, inhuman voices rose in rage and frustration. The sound was pure and primal and painfully loud. The two forces swept down the street and slammed together with a sound like mountains crashing. The floor shook underfoot, and the walls of the warehouse trembled. Flashes of bounding light flared through the slit windows, illuminating the warehouse like lightning going to war. And above it all, the sound of giant wings beating furiously. The air was heavy with significance, with the feeling of vital matters being decided by forces far above Humanity. I snorted, and shook my head. Like I was going to let that happen.
'Any idea where the hell we are?' said Suzie. 'All I can see is crates, and all I can smell is sawdust and cat's pee.'
'If we're where I think we are, they manufacture lucky charms here. Let's hope some of it will rub off. This way, I think.'
I pushed myself away from the wall and strode off into the gloom, Suzie padding along beside me. We threaded our way through the piles of stacked crates, heading for the far end of the warehouse. We hadn't made twenty feet before what was left of the doorway was blown inwards by a blast of concentrated light. The gloom was banished in a moment, every part and content of the warehouse thrown into sharp relief. I ran like hell, and Suzie was right there beside me. The floor shook under our feet like an earthquake as angels punched through the warehouse wall like it was made of paper. I put my head down and kept running.
The floor broke open right in front of me, a jagged crack that widened in an instant into a gaping crevice. I tried to jump it, but didn't even come close. My stomach lurched as my kicking feet found nothing beneath them, and I fell into a darkness that seemed to fall away forever. At the last moment I caught the far edge of the crevice with one flailing hand, and fastened on to it with a death grip. My shoulder exploded with pain as my fall was suddenly halted, all my weight hanging from the one arm. I scrambled for the edge with my other hand, but I couldn't quite reach. The ground was still shaking, and the edge under my hand didn't feel at all secure. I looked up, and there was Suzie, on the far side of the gap, looking down at me. I should have known she'd make it. She knelt, studying my situation, her face entirely blank.
'Get out of here,' I said. 'They don't want you. And I think I'd rather fall than let them use me.'
'I can't let you fall, Taylor.'
'You can't touch me, remember?'
'Hell with that shit,' said Suzie Shooter.
She reached down with one hand, and I reached up with my free hand and grabbed it. Suzie's face set into cold, determined lines, and her grip was as sure as death, sure as life, sure as friendship. She hauled me up out of the crevice, and we both fell sprawling on the far side of the gap. She let go of me the second I was safe, and we both scrambled to our feet on our own.
'You'd be surprised what I can do, when I have to,' said Suzie.
'No I wouldn't,' I said. 'I've tasted your cooking, remember?'
Sometimes humour is all we have to say the things that can't be said.
Angels came crashing through the warehouse wall as though it was nothing more than heavy mist. As though the angels were more solid, more real than anything in the material world they currently moved in. And perhaps they were, at that. Brilliant light and pitch-darkness invaded the warehouse, consuming everything they touched. Suzie glared at me.
'Tell me you've come up with an idea, Taylor. Any idea. Because I think we've run as far as we're
