Heather stepped on to the street, closing the door behind her. At the bottom of the hill, the University clock tower told all and sundry that it was quarter past eight. She was running late. Watching her scurry up the street, he couldn't help noticing how harried she looked. What had she been told? Did she know he had escaped? Was that common knowledge yet?
As she turned the corner at the far end of the road, he made his move. Jogging along to his front door, he scanned the street for any sign that his home was being watched. As far as he could tell, he was in the clear. This delighted him, though it also tickled at the back of his mind, making him uneasy. If he were the police, the first thing he would do to catch a fugitive would be to set up surveillance at their home.
Did it matter? It was another sign that God was with him.
Clive licked his palms, smoothing his tangled hair back over his head. Using his reflection in the door's glass panels, he rubbed the worst of the grime off his face. Satisfied that he was presentable enough to pass muster, he pressed the buzzer for Mrs Burke's ground floor flat. Almost ninety-two years old, living on her own, Elizabeth Burke was the least likely resident of the block to be up to date with current events. Her voice creaked over the intercom. “Hello? Hello? Hello?”
Clive grinned happily. The old dear had never grasped modern technology, and the intercom was a thing of mystery to her. Whenever she used it, she shouted.
“Mrs Burke, it's Clive Huntley, the teacher from upstairs. I helped you carry your shopping in a few weeks ago?”
“Yes? What is it dear?”
“A bit embarrassing really.” Clive could hear the false cheer in his voice, garnished by the stress of the ticking clock in his mind. “I've locked myself out. Could you buzz me in?” A pause. Clive imagined Ambrose's corpse lying steaming on a frosty pavement somewhere, torn apart by twisted chimera beasts. He stopped himself hammering at the door in desperation.
The lock clicked, the door fell open, and Clive was in.
Wasting no time on the lift, he bounded up the stairs, his heaving lungs suffering for it by the time he got to the second floor. The door to Ambrose's flat was shut, with yellow police tape crossing the frame. Next along the corridor was the door to his own flat. He had intended to go straight to Ambrose's in the hunt for clues, and had only waited for Heather to leave because she was the nearest neighbour who might hear if he was forced to kick the door in. Now though, he was curious, eager for a touch of normality. Everything was happening too fast, and there had been no time to consider why it all felt so wrong. Clive was on a quest to save an angel from the fiends of Hell. What could be worthier or simpler than that? Why were little voices chanting uncertainty and insecurity at him?
Clive pulled the spare key from under the doormat, and let himself in. Home is where the heart is, and surely God would not be so churlish as to begrudge him a moment's quiet contemplation.
The first thing to hit him when he entered his living room was the smell of Heather's deodorant, a sweet, fresh scent that reminded him of woodland mornings, and made him breathless. Glancing round, he was overwhelmed by familiarity. The brown leather suite, an extravagance not yet paid for, the glass coffee table, currently strewn with homework from one of Heather's primary school classes, the computer they negotiated for time on in the corner, the breakfast bar, a handful of coffee grains scattered across the surface – the normality of it all crushed the madness from his mind, released a harsh sob from his throat. Sitting heavily on the couch, the leather still warm from where his wife had been sitting just ten minutes ago, he tugged at his hair until the pain brought tears to his eyes.
“What’s happening to me?”
Angels? Demons? Even more impossibly, he, Clive Huntley, assaulting one of his own pupils? Frustration and impotence flooded him, spilling a whimper over his lips. How did he stop it? Could he even begin to try?
Ignoring the sharp-edged hollowness that the knowledge of everything he had lost carved into him, he walked to the mirror above the television. Wretched and confused, his reflection stared back at him. I look insane, he thought, and then realised with dawning hope that this was very likely the truth of it. Of course he hadn't put Jamie Sullivan in hospital, or been questioned by the police, or been spirited away from a cell by angels. It was all a delusion. Obviously, something had happened to him, he had been somewhere for the past twenty-four hours, but the thought was still reassuring. A nervous breakdown perhaps was preferable by far to the fantasy he was experiencing.
The anxieties diminished a little. Clive knew he couldn't deal with this on his own. Despite the distance that had grown between them, he needed Heather’s help.
Hurrying now, terrified that the delusions might take over again, he rushed to the bathroom and stripped off his clothes. Jumping in the shower, he pushed the pressure up as high as it would go and let the water pound the grime from him. Washing away the sweat and dirt was like washing away the madness, and when he stepped back out he felt fully himself for the first time in days. Drying off with a towel, he found a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt, slipped them on, and collapsed back on to the couch.
Should he call Heather's school, or go in person? Better just to turn up and explain, he decided. She was going to have a lot of questions about where he had been last night, none of which he could provide satisfactory answers for. Leaning forward, he started to gather up the homework she had obviously forgotten to take with her, and looked around for a bag.
When he glanced back down at the paper in his hand, he froze. Unnatural patterns, so recently erased, began to reform in his mind, and he found it hard to focus.
That's fine, he told himself desperately. Don't focus. It all starts again if you focus. It would be so simple to put the childish drawing, entitled 'The Best Thing About My Holiday', face down on the table. He could forget about taking Heather's work to her at the school, and go straight to hospital where they had drugs, and professionals who would be able to tell him how and why his mind had broken.
Yet his eyes had outpaced him, and he was already staring at a picture of a street at night. Something about the street was familiar, even as rendered by Minna Gilroy, aged six, who three weeks before had signed her name in purple crayon, and carefully put the date in the corner.
What had drawn his attention though, hung above the street. A man flew high above the boxy row of buildings, a huge sunny smile pencilled across his balloon head. Instead of arms, he had sail-like wings. Six curly scribbles of dark hair blew behind his head.
At the bottom of the page, above the artist's signature, was one word.
AYNJEL
Brushing his fingers over the paper, feeling the waxy texture of crayon beneath them, he knew this was no delusion. There was another witness. Clive's jaw clenched, and his eyes hardened, even while tears trickled down his cheeks.
Ambrose boiled the kettle in Calum's office, plucking an Earl Grey tea bag from a box on the counter and dropping it into a cup. Outside, the sun was finally showing signs of making an appearance, though the flat pre-dawn light was still dull enough for the amber street lamps to remain on. In the small churchyard, frost rimed the path that he had forced himself to stagger across three weeks before, giving no hint of the bubbling heat it had inflicted on him then. Now Calum had also tasted Heaven's warmth in person, though Ambrose had managed to dump him over the gate before the human could burst into flame.
Wondering whether the priest had blisters this morning, Ambrose sat at the desk next to the window and flicked the portable television on. Unused to constraining his urges, he was having difficulty forcing himself to remain on the church grounds, and was hungry for news of the outside world. Pouring hot water into his mug, he watched the breakfast headlines while he mused over his problem.
The Church of St Cottier was a good place to hide from Pandora's people, especially as Metatron had personally interrogated Calum there. It would never occur to the archangel or his Superior that Calum had not divulged the whole trut
h, and that bought Ambrose time. As for his own people, they were blind to events on consecrated ground. While they might guess he was in a church, they wouldn't know which one. They remained a bigger worry than Heaven's folk, as they had no reason to rule St Cottier's out. Eventually, his trail would lead them to those same wooden doors he had tumbled through aflame. Logically, it might even be the first one they tried.
In his favour was the sheer difficulty of the search. Time had little meaning unless you were in it. When they stepped into the time stream, angels and demons were bound by its rules, but looking at it from outside was very different. Time ceased to exist, as all of it was displayed at once. In looking for Ambrose, they were searching every moment that had existed for traces of him, looking at all Glasgows, in all time zones. They would have found him in the past already, but couldn't act against him then without causing a paradox. If they jumped into the Nineteenth Century and destroyed him, then he would never have existed to commit his crimes in the first place, so they would never have destroyed him, meaning he would commit his crimes, so they would have to destroy him, and so on ad infinitum. No, they had to find him in the linear now, and the best way to do that was to put as many agents in the city as possible.
Letting the tea burn his lips and throat, he took a huge swallow and grimaced. Earl Grey was not an experiment he would be repeating. Unfortunately, he could not say the same for leaving the church. Eventually, he would have to go, and as soon as he stepped through that gate he'd light up like a beacon, and the chase would be back on. He couldn't leave without them finding him, but eventually they'd find him if he didn't leave. Stalemate. Unless Ambrose could find a door they wouldn't be monitoring.
Setting the mug down, he reached to turn the television off, then paused. On the fuzzy screen, a woman was standing beside the Clyde.
“…in Glasgow, where the police have received several sightings of a huge sea snake going up and down the river Clyde. It's the latest in a series of bizarre reports, and comes as light relief to officers exhausted from dealing with ritualistic killings, unexplained deaths, and more. That public paranoia has reached such heights has been noted with concern by Councillors and Police Chiefs alike. Back to the studio, Jackie.”
The scene shifted to a studio, where a female newsreader with long red hair affected a serious look. Ambrose listened intently. His own misadventure at Queen Margaret Union accounted for some of the unexplained deaths. The serpent was no great mystery, almost certainly Leviathan in the form he felt most comfortable with. Ritualistic murders though?
“In other news, police have asked the public to be on the lookout for escaped prisoner Clive –”
Ambrose flicked the television off in frustration. Maddeningly, Calum's computer had no Internet connection, or he would be able to track down some of those previous stories. Swallowing his frustration, trying to imitate a little of the patience Pandora would doubtless demonstrate in the same situation, he picked up the phone and dialled Calum's home number. There was no answer, and he hung up, resolving to remember to check the news at lunchtime. It might all be unconnected to his predicament, but he had an uneasy feeling that he was missing the big picture. Calum was going to collect a lifeline from Ambrose's old flat later in the day, although Ambrose had not told him how important this item was. When he delivered it, they could talk about other matters too. He frowned. To be so reliant on a human for aid made him feel uncomfortable, but if he would trust his future to any mortal, it would be Calum.
Standing, he was about to leave when he noticed the mug. Carefully, he bent down, not touching it, and looked closer. His uneasiness grew as he rubbed his eyes, then looked again.
Four long, tapering marks ran along one side of the mug, with a fifth, shorter, mark on the other side. Peculiarly, he found himself unable to quite focus on those clear smudges. Gingerly rubbing his finger through one of them, he stood back up in alarm when he traced a new mark behind it. Ambrose looked carefully at his fingertip. It was clean and dry. There was nothing to rub off. Bending again, he looked more closely at the marks, making himself dizzy trying to focus on them, and realised they were spreading together.
Ambrose stepped back, and that was when he saw that the chair was also marked, as though somebody had placed a moulded piece of ever so slightly frosted plastic in the shape of his body on it. When he looked closely at the floor, he noticed faint, blurry footprints criss-crossing the room.
Whatever was happening, Ambrose had never seen anything like it before. Having identified the phenomenon, he saw it everywhere. On the kettle's handle, on the television buttons, on the telephone. On everything he had touched.
Feeling the first flutters of panic, he strode out of the office and across the hall, trying not to think of the footprints he was leaving behind him, pretending not to notice the blurring anomaly covering the door to the spare room. Pushing it open, he went in, saw the blurring everywhere, turned to Pandora…
Who had her eyes open.
Ambrose blinked.
Pandora's eyes were peacefully closed.
Ambrose rushed to her, not certain of what he had seen. “Pandora? Pandora, can you hear me?” He shook his angel gently. There was no response, and he sat back with a heavy sigh. Was it any surprise he was seeing things, spending all day cooped up in this place?
Shaking Pandora had shifted her slightly on the bed. Though it was difficult to see against the white sheets, Ambrose knew what he was looking for now, and the blurring where Pandora had lain was unmistakable. Whatever was happening to him, was also happening to her.
The flutters of panic grew manic in him, and he paced the small room, clinically running through the possibilities.
Pandora's Master, or Ambrose's own, had inflicted… something… on them.
No, that could only be done if they were found, and if they were found then more direct measures would be taken against them. Besides, the effect was limited to what he touched, and so far had led to no ill effects for him personally.
Being on consecrated ground over a long period was having some unexpected effect on them.
No, the consequences of being banned from consecrated ground were blisteringly well known. Ambrose was well connected, and was sure he would have heard if anything like this had happened before.
That left… that didn't leave anything at all. Ambrose had nobody he trusted to ask, nowhere safe to research.
Defeated, he sat next to Pandora, unusual sensations of anxiety tingling his insides.
CHAPTER TEN
Calum snapped his arm out, and watched the stone fly over the Clyde. It tumbled, dusty and useless, until it hit the water and vanished. Calum knew how that felt. After spending eight years serving God, he was cast aside as though it had all meant nothing.
As the chill wind numbed his face, rushing straight down the river to where he stood on Bell's Footbridge, he wondered if that could be right. Was all his work worthless in the Lord's eyes? Rubbing his neck gingerly, he had to accept the probability. Already blistered along his back and shoulders from the previous day, that morning he had put his dog collar on without thinking, and then tore it off as it seared his throat. What would happen if he tried to lift a crucifix? It was an experiment he was not prepared to undertake.
Follow the stone. He wanted to. Life had little meaning, cut off from the divine. It will only take a second, and then the decision will be out of your hands. Follow the stone. In the past, he might have thought this was the devil tempting him, but what use would the devil have for a failed priest? Besides, Satan was likely preoccupied with finding Ambrose. How mundane an image to have, when only weeks ago he would have imagined the Lord of Hell in grandiose, fear-inspiring terms.
Join him then. Calum's eyes widened at the thought, and his gut twisted. So, that was how temptation worked. When you couldn't get what you wanted, accept the only alternative, however vile. Would preaching Satan's will be so much different from preaching God's? Furthermore, of the two preternatural bei
ngs he had actually talked to, Ambrose was far preferable to Metatron, despite coming from Hell rather than Heaven.
Of course, he wouldn't do it. The reason he was standing on the cantilever bridge, the steel armadillo of the Scottish Exhibition Centre bulging on the shore, the vast, reaching arm of the Finnieston crane a little downriver, was to consider whether to undo all the damage he had caused. Could he commit the act that Ambrose had pointedly avoided mentioning, if it meant he would avoid his eternal torments? In exchange for salvation, could he bestow damnation on Ambrose and Pandora?
Calum stared upstream, at the motorway bridge that took the thronging rush hour traffic through the centre of the city, and wondered whether he would be able to live with such a thing. Unable to sleep the previous night, he had rationalised the pros and cons, and been so convinced that it was the right thing to do he had found his hands pressing together in preparation for prayer. A lingering respect for Ambrose, that he knew he should not feel, stopped him from going further. Beyond his wonder at Ambrose's existence, he felt a startling admiration for the fallen angel. Would Calum have the courage to turn his back on everything he knew, and offend the most powerful beings in existence, all for the sake of love?
His sigh formed a fleeting cloud in the frosty air, before the wind blew it behind him and carried it away. The bridge rattled as a cyclist whizzed by. Calum turned and nodded in greeting, an old habit never to let a stranger pass by without acknowledgement, but the cyclist paid him no heed. Instead, he was looking at the Clyde with keen interest. Calum followed his gaze, wondering what was so fascinating, and remembered a half-heard item on the radio that morning. Something about the river.
Below him, the grey waters rolled by, buoyed by heavy snow in the lowlands, chunks of ice carried with surprising speed along the bloated waterway.