Iron Angel

down before she covered two yards, and there was no chance of close combat here, either. Resistance would only lead to their slaughter, but that may have been what the Spine intended all along.

A voice called down, “You have reached a place of redemption, Rachel Hael. Your journey ends here.”

She spotted her interlocutor as one of four Spine perched on the roof of the nearest pendulum house, sighting his weapon at her. Rachel braced herself, her muscles still weary from the strain she had put them under during the fight earlier in the temple. She doubted she’d be able to focus a second time quite so soon. And this time, anyway, the Spine would know what to expect. Nevertheless, she had little choice, and mentally she prepared herself.

A gust of air brushed her cheek, as though something had moved quickly through the air nearby. Somewhere far below, a chain creaked.

Carnival?

Rachel’s gaze snapped to the source of the sound just as a violent tremor shook the bridge, followed by a mighty rumble of rock, like in a landslide. The granite deck pitched abruptly upwards, then slammed back down. Its chains groaned under enormous pressure. Rachel staggered, fighting to keep her balance. She heard the snap and whine of cables, then the hideous clamour of shrieking metal, and finally a series of vast booming concussions. The air clouded with white ash, as thick as fog.

And then silence, but for a shrill ringing in Rachel’s ears.

She heard a voice: “Remain where you are. There has been a disturbance.”

A disturbance?

Rachel coughed. Her eyes smarted. She could see nothing but churning clouds of sediment thrown up by the pitching bridge-which meant that for the moment her enemies couldn’t see her, either. The whole deck continued to rock in its cradle of chains. Trench was nowhere to be seen; for all she knew he might have fallen to his death. “No shit,” she shouted back, to give them her position. “Some sort of disturbance. I’m not going anywhere.”

They would be aiming now.

Her Spine training demanded that she flee while she still had a chance of escaping from her foes in this murk. But they’d expect her to run, and would shoot ahead of her position. Instead, she took two steps backwards and sat down. Flying bolts whined through the air ahead of her. She heard them slam against the deck several yards away.

Now they would be reloading.

Rachel scrambled to her feet and ran. Vague grey shapes loomed around her, chains and pendulum houses suspended in the ashen murk. A darker shadow rushed by on her left side. She ducked, and sensed a large object dashing past, the air howling behind it. A storm of grit lashed the side of her face. She kept going, her eyes narrowed against the stinging dust.

A second barrage of bolts hit the deck behind her, though not nearly so many as before. But by then she was clear of the bridge: there were cobbles underfoot. She found a doorway, pressed herself flat against it, and waited, listening hard.

Among all of the creaking and groaning metal, Rachel heard other, smaller noises: wet, ripping sounds, and the snap of breaking bones. At times she thought she heard a dull soft whoomph like the thump of wings. Something unseen was butchering the assassins. She didn’t hear a single scream, but then Spine never made a sound when they died.

Had Carnival returned to help her?

But when the clouds of sediment finally thinned, Rachel could see no trace of the scarred angel, merely a scene of utter devastation. An eerie silence hung over the bridge and its surroundings. She could see no sign of the temple assassins. Indeed, most of those pendulum houses in which the Spine had been hiding were gone, lost to the abyss, their broken support chains now empty, creaking back and forth in the dusty gloom. On the opposite side of the bridge the Taptack Acres, that vast, crippled district, had also vanished. Freed of their heavy burden, the mighty foundation chains that had once sagged under the strain of all those streets and houses now loomed overhead. It looked as if a storm had ripped through this broken quarter of the city, and then abruptly departed.

“Carnival?” Rachel called.

No answer.

Could the sounds of slaughter have been Rachel’s imagination? Had the destruction been caused by nothing more than the parting of one weak but crucial support chain, a break that had sent a terrible shock wave through the entire district?

“Carnival!”

These silent chains offered no answers. Rachel glanced up at the pulsing, fire-lit sky and decided not to linger.

Trench had not gone far. In this warren of blocked and buckled streets he had chosen to flee down one of many dead ends. Rachel caught up with him just as he was leaving the mouth of this alley to retrace his footsteps. He was in no better mood than before: sour and scowling, his eyes as dark as murder. When he saw her he lifted his chin and glared at her with unmasked contempt.

“This wretched place will be the death of me,” he growled, jabbing a finger back in the direction from which he had come. “There are already Icarates in the city!”

“Icarates?”

“Mesmerist scouts,” he said. “Shape-shifters. The city is infested with them.” He dragged the back of his bleeding hand across his lips, then spat. “You must lead me out of here now. There’s little time left.”

Rachel studied him carefully. “Who are you?”

“Who am I?” His eyes flashed with arrogance. “I am the champion of the First Citadel, commander of Hasp’s Archons.”

Hasp’s Archons?

A chill clutched Rachel’s heart as she realized her mistake. The consciousness that now held her friend had never been one of the thirteen souls in Devon’s elixir, which meant that this thing could have come from only one place. The assassin felt her mouth go dry.

“You’re from Hell?”

He smiled cruelly. “The First Citadel is home to all angels who have died in battle in this world. My life ended nine hundred years ago in the service of your Church, and now I have returned to serve it once more. War has been raging in Hell for centuries. Our fortress is under siege. Many of us have already been taken by Menoa’s forces to the Ninth Citadel, where our souls are altered, smashed apart only to be changed into impure forms. I must deliver a message to one of Ayen’s sons before we are lost.”

“Where is Dill?” Rachel demanded.

Trench shrugged. “He’s in Hell. We merely required his body, not his soul.”

Rachel could only stare at Trench in numb shock. She had failed to protect the young angel on the mountain of bones, and then brought him back only for him to see his home and everyone he loved destroyed. She had failed him again in Sandport when the Spine captured him.

And now…?

She had failed him in the worst possible way. Iril had reached out and claimed him back. Everything she’d done had been for nothing. She’d lost him all over again.

She grabbed Trench’s shoulders. “How do we get him back?”

Disbelief clouded the impostor’s face. “Do you have any idea who you are assaulting?” His voice became ominously low. “I am a descendant of Callis, your own god’s Herald. You will bow before me.”

“Ulcis was never my god,” Rachel said. “I didn’t bow before him and I won’t bow before you.” She took hold of one of the angel’s damaged wings and twisted hard. “Now tell me how to get Dill back from Hell.”

Trench struggled against her clumsily, but his stolen body lacked the strength to resist. At last he stopped fighting. “We share the same enemy, Rachel Hael,” he said evenly. “Iril’s Mesmerists threaten your world as much as mine. But if they are defeated, the archons of the First Citadel will try to release Dill and return him to this body. However, if I fail to find help, and the citadel falls, your young friend is doomed to suffer more than you can imagine. The Mesmerists remake souls into whatever form suits their war plan. Your kind might face Dill on the battlefield one day-not as an angel, but as a monster or a bleeding sword or a warship: a sensate hulk of iron without even a mouth to scream his agony.”