into shards. Bright fragments of glass exploded outwards into the night. Wind rushed in.
The demon had twisted its hammer and driven the angel’s club down, pinning it against the floor. “I do not wish this,” it said.
“Gods!” Hasp hissed. “I…don’t…” He slammed the heel of his free hand into the creature’s face, sending it hurtling backwards. Flower crashed into a cluster of chairs and a tea table, smashing them to fragments. A vase of roses fell and shattered.
“Watch the furniture!” Carrick roared. He had a manic grin on his face; his eyes shone with violent lust. “Don’t smash anything else, angel, or I’ll make you pay for it. I’ll make you suffer so badly you’ll think this is a pleasant dream.”
Harper struggled to break free of his grip, but he was too strong.
Hasp reeled, screwed up his eyes, then snapped them open again and gasped. The blood quickened and seemed to glow like molten iron inside his glass armour. Rose petals skirling around him, the angel advanced again.
Flower had already risen. The blisters on its face had burst and now wept clear fluids over its chin, but the demon didn’t appear to have been injured. It hunched low, twirling its hammer again, its tiny eyes locked on the approaching opponent.
Harper tried to grab Hasp as he passed, but her fingers found no purchase on his smooth arm-bracer. The armour felt red-hot where she touched him. She twisted away from Carrick. “Hasp, I order-”
Carrick silenced her with a punch to her stomach and then wrestled her against him. Harper felt the wind go out of her. She tried to reach the bulb in her belt, but couldn’t move her arms against the chief’s grip.
The angel advanced.
Hasp swiped at Flower, and again the demon danced away-surprisingly quickly for such a bulky creature. The hammer shot out, but Hasp diverted the blow by changing his club into a shield. A second violent concussion shook the observation car. Facets shattered and rained down around them. Fresh torrents of wind screamed through the carriage. “I do not wish this,” Flower said.
“Don’t break the glass,” Carrick yelled at Hasp. “I order you not to smash any more fucking windows!”
The angel groaned and staggered back, clawing at the metal-and-bone mechanism at the back of his skull. Streams of smoke unfurled through his fingers. The parasite howled like a wild beast. Hasp closed his eyes. “You…” he gasped. “I…don’t…”
“Finish it,” Carrick snarled.
Hasp was still reeling as Flower stepped forward and swung its hammer hard at the angel’s chest. But the god raised his shield in time. The blow connected with a terrible thud. Hasp stumbled back a step, yet remained on his feet.
Carrick threw Harper aside and snarled at Hasp, “Kill it now, without that damned weapon. Use your bare hands.”
Abruptly the angel dropped his shield. He lunged at the demon, grabbed its head between both hands, and pulled it close to his chest. Flower tried to swing its hammer, but it had no room to move. Hasp hunched over the blistered thing and squeezed.
The demon gasped. “I do not…wish this.”
“Yes,” Carrick hissed. “That’s it. Break that skull.”
“I do…not…”
“Harder!”
“No, Jan, please. For god’s sake don’t make him do this. Order him to stop.”
“I do not wish…”
“Harder!”
“Hasp!”
“I…”
After it was done, Carrick ordered the angel to find a mop and bucket and clear up the mess. Hasp obeyed the chief liaison officer without a word, but his eyes stayed black for a long time afterwards.
Mina Greene was bored. She had pressed her nose against the exterior glass wall for three minutes, looking for ghosts in the bloody desolation beyond, but she soon grew tired of that. She had gathered up the god’s sketched castles, then set to work improving them, adding people in the windows and flowers and flags on the balustrades, until the last pencil lead had snapped. Finally she had crumpled all of the sketches into pellets and flung them at the other captives. They were all broad-shouldered Northmen with wheat-coloured hair and hard blue eyes. Once strong and proud Coreollis soldiers, they now slouched like broken men. They grumbled weakly as Mina threw her paper missiles. One of the older men even had the temerity to demand that she sit still and stop annoying him and behave like the goddamn human being she was supposed to be.
Now Mina ignored him. It wasn’t difficult: he was hideously scarred-all hunched over under his blanket with only his scorched hands visible. They looked like they’d been roasted in a steamship furnace before being plated with glass. She ignored all of the others, but she singled this one out for special indifference.
He had the cheek to feign relief.
The train’s steel wheels clattered on the tracks below:
The pumps in the corners of the slave pen puffed suddenly, blowing fine red mist into the air. The soldiers breathed it in deeply, but Mina just wrinkled her nose.
Invigorated by the hellish air, the soldiers stretched and shifted like men aroused from a long sleep.
“The train’s slowing,” one of them said. “We’re pulling in somewhere.”
Another man opened his eyes. “The Larnaig ferry? Can you see Coreollis?”
“No.” The first soldier was peering through the carriage wall into the darkness beyond. “We’re still in Pandemeria. This is the Cog Portal.”
The second man grunted. “Then they’re sending us back to Hell. Lord Rys must have changed his mind about the handover.”
“Not a chance. This is just a temporary stop. The Red King is coming to meet his ambassadors.”
“Traitorous fucks.”
The soldiers had gathered along one wall to watch the train pull in. Mina could hear the locomotive slowing now, the thump of its engine, the hiss of steam, and the clack of rails under steel wheels.
Mina thought of her own painted wagon, so far way in Cinderbark Wood, and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She turned and hid her face against the wall, ashamed to let the others see her like this, and found herself staring at her own grubby reflection. A sob found its way out of her throat.
“Quiet, girl.”
The old burned man had spoken to her. “I don’t want to listen to your bleating all night,” he went on. With his bent black limbs and crooked spine, he looked more like a ghoulish puppet than a man. She might have felt pity for him, if his grin hadn’t been so sardonic and cruel.
“Don’t you dare speak to me like that!” she snapped. “I’m Mina Greene. I’m older than you.”
“I’m Mina Greene,” he mimicked in a singsong voice. “I’m Mina Greene, I’m Mina Greene.” His eyes narrowed on her. “Who is Mina Greene? Shall we take off your blanket and see?”
She exhaled sharply, composing herself.
He began to crawl towards her. “We’ll all be dead again in a couple of days anyway,” he said. “Why not enjoy ourselves now?”
“You’d better stay back,” she said. “I’m dangerous. I know spells.”
“Oh, yes?”
Mina looked to the other slaves for assistance, but none of them would even meet her eye. “Get away from me,” she cried. “I’ll scream.”
