Blood and Feathers (20 page)

He straightened his tie and cleared his throat, momentarily angry at himself, and reached for the handle of the door to the basement stairs... then snapped his hand away as his fingers brushed the knob.

It was cold. Searingly cold; cold enough to have left a red welt on the tips of his fingers where they touched the metal. He held his hand up, peering at his skin – and saw his breath in front of him. He backed away – or tried to. Instead, he found himself slipping sideways, his feet fighting for grip on a floor that had suddenly become like glass. The ice was spreading out and across the floor, away from the door... which swung on its hinges and stood, open, inviting.

It wasn’t that he wanted to step through it. Far from it, a good portion of his mind was telling him to get out now, as fast as he could, and not to come back – to throw the keys in the nearest hedge and to lose the memory of this house. But it was the other part of him that was winning.

He took a heavy half-step forward, skated the rest, grabbed at the doorframe for support. His hands stuck to the ice that crawled up the wood and he had to pull himself free. Here, at least, his shoes gripped the bare concrete of the floor. A bulb hung from the ceiling. It was already lit, the glass misted with cold. The stairs dropped away ahead of him, bounded by the wall on one side and a black iron banister on the other. Icicles hung from the rail, trails of frost etched across its surface. His suit felt very thin.

The stair-treads crunched under his weight, but thankfully his feet held steady – more so than his knees, which shook violently with every step – and yet he could not bring himself to turn around. A chill breeze shifted his hair and gooseflesh rose on his arms. A few more steps...

The basement was empty. It was cold, yes, and it was small, but it was empty. There was nothing there except for a lightbulb hanging from the roof, a few cobwebs and a very frightened estate agent, desperately trying to choke down the heart that seemed to be beating in his mouth. It was strange, but clearly not (and he paused before he turned the word over in his mind) supernatural. He stood for a moment, trying to pull himself together, and that was when he noticed the keyhole.

Set into the wall at shoulder height, just across from him. It was brass, old-fashioned, and dulled by frost. And it was lit. He wouldn’t have seen it otherwise. Who would look for a keyhole in a brick wall, never mind one in a basement? But there it was. A blue light spilled out, drawing him closer. He pulled his jacket closer around him and moved towards it, holding his hand in front of it, watching the light on his palm. He ducked his head, lowered his shoulders and edged up to it until he was near enough to look through.

An eye looked back at him.

The ground shivered as he fell back, his arms and legs moving in different directions at once – all as eager as each other to get themselves far, far away from
this
, whatever it was.

The ground shivered, and the world shook, and the bricks pulled themselves from the walls and spun through the air, and he was screaming.

And the man on the other side of the wall just smiled.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Genesis

M
ALLORY HAD KNOWN
he would have to do this. And now it was time.

“There’s another kind of angel: they’re known as Travelers. They’re almost always from Raphael’s choir: empaths, usually. They choose to be down here. Not as an exile, but as a visitor. It’s temporary; a passing state. The thing is, up there, you’re disconnected. You can see the world – all of it – but you feel so little. It’s why the Descendeds seem so cold. It’s not that they’re cruel or that they don’t care, it’s just that they don’t understand. And that can make it hard to
connect
. So the Travelers live as humans for a while, they
become
human, and then they try to pass on everything they’ve learned. It keeps us from forgetting what we’re fighting for, reminds us why we make the sacrifices we do.

“The thing is, the Travelers never know how long they’ve got. They live as humans, among humans. They build up lives, friendships, relationships, families, but they have to return when they’re called. It’s the only binding put on them when they leave – that they will heed the call. Whatever lives they had, whoever they were, everything gets left behind. But sometimes, they don’t listen.”

He hoped his voice was still holding steady. It didn’t feel like it, but he couldn’t stop.

“It’s a nice idea: the voice comes down from on high and says hey, go on a field trip. Come back and share your findings with the class. Maybe it’ll concentrate their minds a little, but it’s not so easy. Not really. To unpick the fabric of a life? To disentangle months – years, maybe – of hopes and dreams? To just up and leave? How easy is that? And for an empath, who will feel the pain chasing them with every step they take towards home?

“Travelers cause complications. Descendeds forget – angels forget – how much of a problem we are. Humans and angels, we don’t mix. We’re not supposed to. Their minds aren’t built for it. Doesn’t matter how much faith they might have... faith’s just that. It’s a belief, trust in something. So when you out-and-out prove it, it opens boxes that are meant to stay closed. It changes things.

“Your father loved you, Alice. He did. He loved your mother too. He didn’t know to begin with, not even when you were born. She always hoped she would never have to tell him, I think, and when she did, she...”

He stopped, frowning, and took a deep drink from his flask.

“You remember the day Gwyn and I came for you? You found it easy to trust me, didn’t you? Not him – and I don’t blame you for that, because he
is
Gwyn, after all – but me, you felt safe with. Surprised even yourself. And you know why? It’s because we’d met before. You won’t remember it, you were too young the first time. Five, maybe. I came to see Seket, your mother. She’d refused the call, and I tried to talk her out of it, tried to make her change her mind. I tried to persuade her to leave. Raphael was willing to give her another chance – he always did have a soft spot for her – and I thought, I thought if I... I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I thought that if anyone could get through to her, it would be me. Well, that was wrong, wasn’t it? All she did was throw me out. She said I couldn’t understand. Me. Not understand
her
. Maybe she was right. After all, I didn’t. I told her she should answer the call, go home while there was still time, while she still had a chance. You know what she said? She looked at me, and she laid a hand on my arm and she said, “Mallory, this
is
home.”

“That was the last time I spoke to her.

“Your father knew, of course. By then, he knew everything. He was broken. I’ve never seen a man with such a hole in his soul. And
you
could feel it – even then, you could feel it. You were a little older, but your world had just fallen in on itself and you paid no mind to yet another pair of visitors to the house. Richard was... let’s say he was
uncertain
when it came to the future, and we couldn’t be having that. Not with you in the picture. So Gwyn made him swear; made him swear on things that not so long before were only
ideas
to him, that he would keep you safe. That when you were ready, when it was time, he would call us. And then he could be free. Of course, things changed: the Fallen found a way to tip the balance and they found you. I don’t entirely understand how those things fit together, and I don’t need to. My job is to keep the Fallen down, and part of that is keeping you safe until you can do it yourself. You’re almost there. You just need to remember, Alice.

“You need to remember who you are.

“You need to remember what you saw.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Deja Vu

A
LICE HAD HAD
the dream before. Many times.

She was standing at the top of a hill, in the street she grew up on. Across from her, a crescent of houses stretched away down the slope, curling round on itself at the bottom. It was noon, but the sky was heavy, gloomy with a coming storm.

The paving slabs sucked at her feet as she started to move. They slowed her, pulled at her, holding her back from where she needed to be. She had to reach the end of the road. Tugging her feet up from the pavement, she walked... and it was only that desperate need to move, to be where she had to be, that got her past the eagle.

It was always there, the eagle. And once she saw it, she always knew she was dreaming, always knew that none of this was real – not that it helped her. She was still fighting her way down the incline, fighting to drag down the too-thin air. And there it was, hunched on the roof, watching her. A giant of a bird, bigger than anything she had ever seen, and when it spread its wings, they blotted out the sky.

Alice walked. Alone and afraid, she walked.

The corner was close now, and already she could see past the bend to the figure waiting there: waiting for
her
. Her mother, her hand shading her eyes despite the dark as she looked for her daughter, a breeze catching her hair and swirling it up and around her face.

Someone was with her, behind her. A man. She could make out the line of his shoulder as he placed his hands on her mother’s arms. Her hair spun in the air, whipping back and forth as the wind built and the sky darkened to midnight.

Alice saw her mother reach for her, call out, but her words were lost between them, and although the stranger’s grip held firm, she did not seem to struggle... and Alice stopped.

The paving slabs were hinging on themselves, swinging up like a trapdoor between them, and she could no longer make out her mother’s face through the wind and the dust and the dark.

Her voice was gone, and although the ground had freed her feet, they would not move. She was frozen and rooted, silent, and her mother walked through the gale to the trapdoor. She paused a moment, that unknown man still only two steps behind her, then her shoulders sagged and she stepped back into his embrace.

Somewhere overhead, thunder roared and the eagle was airborne, and beneath a sudden flash of lightning, the paving slammed down again, and Alice’s mother and the stranger were gone, leaving Alice alone in the storm.

“Y
OU NEED TO
remember who you are. You need to remember what you saw.”

A
LICE IS SIX
years old, and barefoot.

She has slipped out of the front door – her father in the garden, busy with the lawnmower, has no idea that his daughter is running down the street after her mother, who has forgotten her wallet. Alice knows she shouldn’t be outside on her own, but how far can her mother have got in five minutes? She knows the route she takes when she walks into town: they’ve walked it together so often. She turns the corner into the top of the Crescent – and there, right at the bottom of the hill, is her mother.

But something is wrong. Her mother is no longer walking. She has stopped, and is looking around, wrapping her arms around her body, her hair blowing in the wind. The man walking towards her... Alice didn’t see him before; where did he come from? One of the houses? Does he know her mother? From the way she steps back, away from him, it almost looks like she’s afraid. And still he comes closer. He moves oddly, like he is too large for his own body, and the bright sunlight glints from something on his face. Glasses.