Mercy (4) – Fury

Ryan convulses and falls to the floor at Luc’s feet, looks up at me, wide-eyed, struggling to breathe.

  Luc lets his hand fall back to his side. ‘Your entire life has been for nothing,’ he sneers as he looks down at Ryan, twitching and shuddering on the floor. ‘Someone as worthless and powerless as you are could never hope to hold onto a being like her. Soon, I will end her life,’ he indicates me. ‘And hers, too,’ he gestures at Lauren, ‘the way it should have ended inside that monster’s dungeon.’

  He laughs as he sees all the life, the colour, flowing from Ryan’s face like the receding tide.

  He turns and looks at me. ‘The moment we quit this accursed place forever, everything becomes possible for me again. Everything. We have been too long apart, my love. Look at me. Take my hand.’

  His voice is so full of dark seduction that I almost forget where we are; that we are no longer those two lovers who lay entwined in a bower of flowers, vowing eternal love for each other. He holds his hand out to me as if whole centuries have not come between us, as if he doesn’t bear the blood of millions upon it.

  I back away from him, my burning left hand held up between us in a gesture of negation, screaming, ‘Azraeil! Azraeil!’

  There is no sound but the harsh rattle of Ryan’s breath inside his chest, the sound of him dying. Luc has stopped time to let me hear Ryan die, to watch him die. His life is ebbing away at my feet. I feel it the way I felt it within the Duomo. The light of his dark eyes is failing; he has no strength even to tell me he loves me, and to say goodbye.

  I scream again into the echoing space, ‘Azraeil! I know you want him, he’s one of yours, you’ve marked him for your own. Azraeil!’

  ‘Azraeil is in the business of listening to and helping no one,’ Luc taunts.

  He gestures at Gudrun, at dead-eyed, auburn-haired Hakael beside her. ‘Keep them all back,’ he orders. ‘Once I take her beyond the boundaries of this vile planet, do as you will with all of them; do your worst.’

  But then a sudden wreath of fog, a fine silver mist, twines rapidly across the floor. It coils around Luc’s ankles, and he leaps back from it, cursing God.

  When Azraeil materialises between us, clad in his customary black, there’s actual fear on Luc’s face, for even Death takes precedence over evil. Death is a power unto itself.

  I fall to the ground beside Ryan and cradle his head in my hands, weeping tears of bitter light.

  ‘Give him back to me,’ I beg Azraeil brokenly, ‘for he goes beyond my power. I have no power to heal a mortal wound dealt by Lucifer himself.’

  Azraeil looks at me measuringly with eyes as blue as the daytime sky. ‘You hold free will in such regard, sister,’ he says quietly. ‘If it were to come down to a choice, who would you be for?’ He indicates Luc, then Michael, with his eyes. ‘Choose correctly and the mortal lives; incorrectly, and he dies. It is a gamble, as all life is. I am in a wagering mood today.’

  ‘Why make me choose, why test me with riddles, when this good man lies dying?’ I sob. ‘He is my love, and I will never find his like again, not in any life, yet you ask me to choose between two warring houses that shall never agree a peace, not until the other is utterly destroyed?’

  ‘Choose,’ Azraeil says in a steely, ringing voice. ‘And choose wisely because the world turns on your decision; though your choice has always been pre-ordained.’

  ‘Nothing is predetermined, pre-ordained!’ I cry brokenly. ‘How could that single heinous act of Luc’s — of casting me down — mean that Ryan must die? The human world and the celestial world will always be spheres that operate independently, that only ever briefly collide from time to time. We are just random acts to them, Azraeil, like the Ebola virus, or a nuclear bomb dropped from the sky on a clear day. Random, unpredictable, rare; so often destructive. They exercise free will as much as we do. Ryan chose me,’ I sob. ‘When he could have chosen safety, normality, life.’

  ‘But we are the highest beings in creation,’ Azraeil parries. ‘Weren’t we created to do God’s will? Are we not God’s will? How could this man even presume to “choose” you?’

  ‘We were formed,’ I cry. ‘We are acts of God in living form, mere instruments of His power, as senseless and directed as every mortal upon this earth. We are the same …’ I weep. ‘Underneath it all, we are the same. There is no fate, Azraeil, only coincidence. I have lived as a human for millennia. Nothing is predetermined. It is all chaos, and from it you must wrest your life. You make your own fate. You see the cards that you are dealt, and you play them, as they come, you play them.’

  ‘Choose,’ Azraeil says quietly, implacably.

  I raise my burning eyes to him.

  ‘Then, before God,’ I cry, ‘before all here assembled, I reject you all.’ I turn to Luc. ‘You, Lucifer!’ I spit. ‘I reject you utterly. And you, Michael! I reject the rigid determinism that you espouse. And even you, Azraeil: I reject Death. I refuse to choose sides. I choose him, I choose Ryan, and a life lived in simplicity and goodness that hurts no one. That is what I choose.’

  Azraeil kneels and wrests Ryan from my arms, and I cannot hold onto him, though I claw and weep and plead.

  Ryan’s breathing is rapid and erratic and his eyes struggle to hold mine as the glorious face of Death smiles down upon him.

  Azraeil places his hand upon the spot where Lucifer wounded Ryan. Without looking at me, he says quietly, ‘That is your final choice?’

  ‘Yes,’ I sob, ‘that is what I choose.’ Understanding, at last, the gift that he is giving me.

  ‘Then rise, Mercy,’ Azraeil says, looking up at me from where he holds Ryan on the floor. ‘And prepare yourself for the consequences of what you have chosen.’

  And I feel such a shock of joy when I understand his meaning. For Death consents to kneel to me here, upon this cold concrete.

  I remember how it felt when I tried to heal Karen Neill of her cancer. How it felt when I tried to stop Lela bleeding to death on the floor of the Green Lantern Café. I remember pursuing Ryan’s soul through the corridors of his dying body on the roof of the Duomo; of wresting Irina Zhivanevskaya’s soul out of the purgatory Luc had left it in.

  One last shift. And no one here but Death comprehends the choice that I am making.

  Azraeil’s blue eyes meet mine. He reaches up and takes my burning left hand before Luc can lurch forward, fingers outstretched; before Gabriel can even finish saying, ‘Mercy, no!’

  I let out a shattering scream as Azraeil’s will moves through me, like a breath of holy fire.

  Light begins to pour off me, out of me, in waves. I have no sense of up or down, no sense of place, of time. I am the world, or the world is in me, and like the world, I can feel plates moving, floes breaking, separation, reconfiguration, transfiguration, an unlinking.

  Azraeil releases my hand and I look at my trembling fingers with wonder. My skin is matte, flat. The scar is gone, will never return.

  Azraeil lays Ryan’s head carefully upon the ground and Ryan blinks up at us, unsure whether this is real or dream or afterlife.

  The Archangel of Death rises, looks around challengingly at all who are gathered here. ‘My touch can mean death, or life,’ he says.

  He turns and pins me with his bright gaze. ‘I gave him to you because your choice was just, it was considered. You are what you wished to be — a creature of clay, subject to the whims, cruelties and mercies,’ there’s the ghost of a smile on his face, ‘of this human life.’

  He scans those gathered here again. ‘And none of you,’ he roars, so loudly that even Luc, even Michael, quail to hear him, ‘may touch them. I have marked them for my own. Any of you who reaches out to them in hatred or in anger will bring death upon your own head. They are mine,’ he says more quietly, ‘and in time I shall collect what is due to me.’

  And he vanishes.

  Ryan sits up, whole and unmarked, breathing easily, blazing with joy.

  ‘Mercy?’ he says uncertainly, scarcely able to believe I’m standing h
ere, in a simple white dress, my feet bare on the cold concrete floor, my long, straight brown hair hanging forward over my shoulders.

  I look around and everything seems two-dimensional. I can’t read anyone; I get no sense of the life force of anything alive in this room. I see the same faces I saw before Azraeil touched me, but the colours have no depth, the sounds I hear have no extra resonance. I have no ability any longer that is not super-natural. Only natural. Only human.

  I am split by joy, but also by grief, for I can no longer read the mysteries inside Ryan’s heart. He is as blank and opaque and walled off from me as everyone is.

  He rises slowly to his feet and we move towards each other like two people stumbling out of a fog. He catches me and spins me around lightly, as if we are dancing, and laughs.

  Michael looks at Luc across the room. ‘She is beyond your power now. Find some other means to bring the end of the world upon us all, for you won’t find it here.’

  Luc is looking not at Michael, but at me, as he hisses his reply. ‘Even Death cannot rule over me. Walk carefully in this world, my lost love, for harm comes in many guises, many forms.’

  Then, without warning, he and his followers are gone.

  I blink, unsure what to feel. I’ve been threatened and belittled and lied to for so long, survived so much, that Luc’s threat barely moves me. Just like that, I’m no longer necessary to him. I’m nothing, expendable, just clay.

  ‘I think I’m … free,’ I say to Ryan in dawning wonder. ‘Free at last.’

  ‘As free as any human will ever be,’ Gabriel says, moving forward.

  Ryan releases me as Gabriel places a hand on my shoulder. He looks down into my face from his great height. ‘You are sure?’

  ‘It’s done, brother,’ I murmur. ‘There’s to be no undoing.’

  He nods, a touch of sadness in his bright green gaze.

  Uriel moves up behind him, gazes down at me, too. ‘You make a pretty human, sister,’ he says, and smiles.

  ‘And you a pretty angel,’ I tease him.

  Michael calls out sternly behind them, ‘Come, brothers, the battlefront shifts again. Mercy has earned her rest. We shall see her ’ere long.’

  He raises his burning black gaze to me and then they’re all gone, vanished into motes of light.

  By the doors, I see Lauren and Richard craning their necks up, watching the light stream towards the ceiling before it disperses.

  Ryan takes me in his arms. ‘Are you scared?’ he whispers.

  ‘I’m terrified,’ I reply. ‘Listen to the way my heart’s beating.’ I place his hand above my heart and his face collapses into shock.

  ‘I’ll try and keep things, uh, exciting,’ he says tentatively. ‘I know how much you’ve … given up. You can throw it in my face every day, if you want to.’

  ‘Standing still seems pretty exciting right now,’ I murmur, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him.

  We don’t come up for air until Richard starts hooting and telling us to ‘get a room, already, people’.

  ‘I’m tired,’ I say suddenly, realising it’s true. ‘I could sleep for a year. And I’m … hungry.’

  Ryan hears the surprise in my voice. ‘Are you ready to start again?’ he says, putting an arm around my shoulders and walking me towards the hangar door.

  Outside, the rain has stopped, and soft sunlight bathes the cracked tarmac, the motorbikes and the shot-up houses in a soft, wintry glow.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, as the others put on their helmets and climb onto their bike.

  I turn and look at Ryan and kiss him again, because I can, and say fervently, ‘Yes, I am.’

  With loving thanks, as always, to my husband, Michael, and to my children, Oscar, Leni and Yve, who give me so much joy and put up with my award-winning vagueness.

  To my brilliant, brilliant A-team who has been with me every step of the way — Lisa Berryman, Rachel Denwood, Lizzie Ryley and Nicola O’Shea. To you all, and to the lovely Mel Maxwell and the very talented Natalie Winter and Kirby Jones, my thanks for helping to bring Mercy home. Thanks also to Tim Miller, Lara Wallace, Melanie Saward and Allan Paltzer for working so tirelessly on my behalf.

  To the wonderfully dedicated and insanely hardworking Catherine Onder, Hayley Wagreich, Stephanie Lurie, Ann Dye and Hallie Patterson at Disney-Hyperion, and to the marvellous Iris Prael, Ilse Rothfuss and Marie Kubens at Ravensburger Buchverlag, and to all my international editing and publishing teams, thank you for giving Mercy wings.

  I am forever indebted to the indomitable Norma Pilling for reading the initial drafts of Mercy, Exile, Muse and Fury and wading through my truly appalling Latin and Italian ‘stylings’ in order to suggest sensible alternatives. Thanks also for climbing to the rooftop of the Duomo for me when I couldn’t be there myself.

  A huge merci to M. Michel Rateau for fixing the French and providing useful guidance on the usage of French oaths.

  With thanks also to Quino Holland for tweaking the Inca Trail material and the Quechua. It’s an honour to have you in the family.

  To my father, Yean Kai Lim, and mother, Susan Lim, and to Barry and Judy Liu, my thanks for, literally, holding the baby. To my sisters, Ruth and Eugenia, you rock, and always will.

  And in loving memory of Ngo So Khim, Lim Koon Yaw, Lau Eng Swan, Koh Boon Chiang, Ko Keng Hoo and Frank Liu. Still, and always, missed.

  This is a work of fiction. Most of the locations described in this book are entirely fictional, as are all of the characters and events. Again, certain authorial liberties may have been taken with those buildings and places that do actually exist in the real world, and for those, the author apologises and, once more, begs your leave.

  Please note that the inscription on the stone statue of the Archangel Jegudiel was taken directly from a Bernini angel on the Ponte Sant’Angelo in Rome, Italy, and the lyrics for the song sung by the Archangel Uriel during the trek towards Machu Picchu are taken from the sixteenth-century Corpus Christi Carol (author anonymous), but with the original Middle/Early English modernised to assist the twenty-first-century reader.

  Mercy ‘wakes’ on a school bus bound for Paradise, a small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business — or thinks they do. But they will never guess the secret Mercy is hiding …

  As an angel exiled from heaven and doomed to return repeatedly to Earth, Mercy is never sure whose life and body she will share each time. And her mind is filled with the desperate pleas of her beloved, Luc, who can only approach her in her dreams.

  In Paradise, Mercy meets Ryan, whose sister was kidnapped two years ago and is now presumed dead. When another girl disappears, Mercy and Ryan know they must act before time runs out. But a host of angels are out for Mercy’s blood and they won’t rest until they find her and punish her — for a crime she doesn’t remember committing …

  An electric combination of angels, mystery and romance, Mercy is the first book in a major new series.

  All Mercy knows is that she is an angel, exiled from heaven for a crime she can’t remember committing.

  So when she ‘wakes’ inside the body and life of eighteen-year-old Lela Neill, Mercy has only limited recall of her past life. Her strongest memories are of Ryan, the mortal boy who’d begun to fall for her — and she for him.

  Lela’s life is divided between caring for her terminally ill mother and her work as a waitress at the Green Lantern, a busy city cafe frequented by suits, cab drivers, strippers, backpackers and the homeless, and Mercy quickly falls into the rhythm of this new life.

  But when Mercy’s beloved, Luc, reappears in her dreams, she begins to awaken to glimpses of her true nature and her true feelings for Ryan. How can she know that her attempts to contact Ryan will have explosive consequences?

  Meanwhile, ‘the Eight’ — responsible for her banishment — hover near, determined to keep Mercy and Luc apart, forever …

  Mercy’s search continues in the second book of this major new series.

  In the t
hird MERCY novel, Mercy wakes in a new unknown host, her love for Ryan and Luc burning stronger than ever. But who will she make the ultimate sacrifice for?

  Mercy is thrust into the excessive world of fashion when she awakes in the body of a troubled Russian supermodel, Irina: bitchy, hot-tempered and known to be dabbling in things she shouldn’t, Irina is on the verge of a very public breakdown. Against the glamorous back ground of opulent Milan, Mercy continues her increasingly desperate search for Ryan to lead her back to her immortal lover, Luc. But this time Mercy is aware that her memories and powers are growing ever stronger – and she begins to doubt Luc as The Eight reveal more of her mysterious past. Are Luc’s desires as selfless as her own or does he want her for a more terrifying purpose?

  The grand scale celestial battle for Mercy’s soul builds to an incredible stormy crescendo as archangels and demons clash in a cataclysmic showdown that not all will survive …

  About the Author

  Rebecca Lim is a writer and illustrator based in Melbourne, Australia. She worked as a commercial lawyer for several years before leaving to write full time. Rebecca is the author of fourteen books for children and young adult readers, and her novels have been translated into German, French, Turkish and Portuguese.

  Also by Rebecca Lim

  Mercy

  Exile

  Muse

  Credits

  Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2012

  Angel Wings © Caroline Church/Illustrationweb

  Woman © Susan Fox/Trevillion Images

  Sky © Shutterstock

  Copyright

  First published in hardback in Australia by HarperCollins Publishers Australia in 2012

  First published in paperback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2012

  HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,