Drinking Midnight Wine (42 page)

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Authors: Simon R. Green

BOOK: Drinking Midnight Wine
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“Yes I do,”
said Leo.
“I’m a Morn.”
His great wolf teeth savaged Angel’s flesh, and her hot blood sang against his tongue as his jaws piled on the pressure until his teeth grated against her neck bones. Angel dropped the hammer Mjolnir and spun round and round, screaming in pain and rage, while Leo clung grimly on, fighting to sever her spinal cord. But in the end he was just a wolf, and she was Angel. She forced her arms back until her hands could reach his hairy shoulders, and then her fingers sank into his flesh like knives. His bones cracked and broke as her grip tightened, and then she tore him away from her.
Leo kicked helplessly as she held him up before her with one hand, studying him with hot, angry eyes, and then she casually tore his left forelimb right out of its socket. Blood spurted clear across the room as Leo howled in agony, more like a man than a wolf. Angel pulled off his other legs, one by one, and only then tore off his head. She looked at the bloody pieces piled on the floor before her, her head cocked slightly on one side, as though puzzled by the extremity her rage had driven her to. Passions of all kinds were still new territory to her. Hob made tut-tutting noises.
“How many times do I have to tell you, Angel! Always clear up after yourself. Remember, we have to live here.”
Angel shrugged and threw the pieces of what had once been Leo Morn out of the door, followed by Jimmy Thunder’s still twitching body.
Leo! NO! NO!
They all heard the Brother Under The Hill screaming, thundering through their minds, a harrowing scream of rage and loss and bitter intent. And they all heard the earth rumble and break, as just outside the town a hill began to open. On the side of that hill was an ancient drawing of a giant human form, carved out of the white chalk beneath the grass in centuries past, so long ago now that few indeed remembered by whom and why. There are chalk carvings on hillsides all across the country. Some say they mark the worship places of forgotten gods; others, that they are fertility symbols. Only in Mysterie did a very few remember that chalk giants marked the resting places of dead or sleeping Nephilim, the giants in the earth. And under the carving on the hill outside Bradford-on-Avon a giant was stirring, his ancient blood awakened by a terrible loss. The hill shook and trembled and broke apart, the cold wet earth splitting open, and out came The Brother Under The Hill, roaring in his anger even as he wept for the last of the line of Morn.
He was twenty feet tall, a great and muscular figure of more than human grace and perfection. Entirely naked, wet mud still daubing his golden skin, the old wounds still showing on his back from where he’d torn away his wings long and long ago. He cried out, and his great voice filled the night. No longer resting in the earth, no longer bound by his ancient oath, the last of the Nephilim in the world of men headed for Blackacre with blood and vengeance on his mind.
Nephilim: human-angel hybrid. Sterile, like all hybrids, they adopted human families as their own. The Brother had adopted the Morns, watched and guarded them down the generations, had taken pride in their heroic deeds. Now they were all gone. The Brother came striding through the night with inhuman speed, to stop the Serpent’s plan in Leo’s name.
In a matter of moments he was upon Blackacre, and crashed through the boundary without slowing. The thick fog shrank back from him as he passed, unable to bear his overwhelming presence. The dead guards came to stop him and he swatted them aside easily, sending their broken bodies flying and tumbling through the night. The great trees lurched forward on their roots to form a barrier before him, and he crashed right through them, rending and breaking the dead wood with his huge golden hands. He was Nephilim, semidivine, touched by the Holy, driven by loss and remorse and cold, cold anger, and he would not be stopped.
He strode out of the broken trees and into the clearing, and approached the farmhouse. Hob sealed all the doors and windows with his magic, and called up all his defenses till the old building glowed in the dark. The Brother didn’t care. He loomed over the farmhouse, defensive spells crackling harmlessly against his golden skin like static, and brought his huge fist down like a hammer. He beat against the farmhouse with his bare hands, and the old stone and timbers creaked and groaned under the onslaught. One by one the defensive spells went down, shattered by the Nephilim’s presence and resolve. Stone cracked and crumbled, roof tiles exploded, and the whole structure shuddered, as though afraid.
Inside, dust was falling thickly from the groaning ceiling and wide cracks opened up in the walls, leaking unhealthy fluids as though they were bleeding. The whole room rocked like a boat at sea. Hob was screaming with rage. All his plans were being put at risk, by the one thing he hadn’t bargained for. He glared furiously at Angel.
“I can still do this. You, buy me some time. Get out there and do something!”
“No!” said Luna, moving swiftly to put herself between Angel and the door.
Hob didn’t hesitate. “Kill her, Angel. We don’t need her. We’ve got Gayle. But do it quickly, please. She is my mother, after all.”
Angel turned her crimson gaze on Luna, who didn’t flinch. If anything, she looked sad. “From my high station, I see everything. I saw you fall, Angel. And I remember what you have forgotten. Look at my armor, Angel. Read what is written there, and know the truth.”
Angel frowned and moved slowly forward to stand before Luna, almost as though drawn against her will. She studied the script that was graven into the shimmering metal.
“I know this,” she said softly.
“Yes,” said Luna. “It’s Enochian, a language for talking to angels. Can you read what it says?”
“Yes,” said Angel. “It’s my name and my history. I remember who I am. I remember everything, now.”
Her voice rose, suddenly sweet beyond bearing, powerful and potent, as she called out to the Brother in a language never spoken in the world of men. Never spoken because the human voice could not support it. She spoke to the Brother, the Nephilim, in the language of angels, and he halted his attack. There was a long pause. The night grew quiet as the house slowly settled, licking its wounds. Hob glared about him like a trapped animal. And then the front wall of the parlor split apart from top to bottom and slowly opened up like a pair of stone curtains, letting in the night. Through that great gap looked the kneeling Brother, the rage in his face replaced at least for the moment by shock and wonder.
“Uriel?” he said slowly. “Is that you?”
“Yes,” said Angel. “It’s me, finally. It’s been a long time since I last saw you, Brother To Humans. My son.”
“Is there
anyone
here who understands what’s going on?” said Toby, but no one answered him. Hob and Luna and Gayle only had eyes for Angel and the kneeling Brother. In the end, Angel turned round and looked at Toby, and for the first time her face seemed calm and relaxed.
“Once upon a time, Toby Dexter—because the best stories all start that way—once upon a time, in the days before human history was set in stone, angels walked the earth. You see, there was once a Great War in Heaven, between those angels loyal to the Creator, and those loyal to the Morningstar. We all know how that turned out. But there were some angels who couldn’t make up their minds as to which side they should be fighting on, and even if they should be fighting at all. So after the War was over, something had to be done with them. Not pure enough for Heaven, or evil enough for Hell; for their indecision, their lack of faith, and lack of moral conviction, the Creator sent them away. He reduced them from the immaterial to the material, and placed them on earth, there to live as mortals among mortals, and learn morality the hard way.
“Now angels have no sex of their own, no male or female. But once made mortal they became men and women, better to help them appreciate and understand the new world they moved in. And, not surprisingly, the mortal angels mated with mortal humans, and produced children. These hybrid sons and daughters were the Nephilim, giants of great power and huge emotions. Perhaps luckily for the path of human civilization, these hybrids were sterile, or their descendants would have dominated Humanity’s story forever. Still, there were giants on the earth in those days, legendary kings and conquerors, statesmen and philosophers, heroes and villains—long-lived, but not immortal. Most of them are gone now, dead or sleeping, buried in the earth, at peace at last.
“The mortal angels slowly learned morality, through their own actions or those of their children, and one by one they determined their true natures, and they departed the earth as the Creator called them home, back into the immaterial. But some of us never forgot our children. I . . . had unfinished business here, that continued to haunt me. So after many restless centuries, I was allowed to return here. I descended back into the material, to meet with my only child, the last of the Nephilim still involved with the world of men.
“But it all went horribly wrong. I had to forget much of who and what I was, to be able to operate on the limited, material plane, and this left me weak and vulnerable. The Serpent In The Sun saw me fall, saw an opportunity, and interfered with my descent. He shut down all my memories and even arranged for me to materialize as a female this time, to further distance me from my past identity. Hob was the first living thing I saw, so I imprinted on him, and served him, as the Serpent intended. Sorry, Hob, but we were never truly companions. I’m just somebody else your father used.”
“But why?” said the Brother. “What brought you back here, back to me, after all this time?”
“Because I never said good-bye,” said Angel, or Uriel. “And because I never told you I loved you.”
“You killed my Leo,” said the Brother.
“Yes,” said Angel. “I’m sorry, now.”
“Families!” said Hob bitterly. “It always comes down to families, and the ties that bind. I’ve never been allowed to have anything, and now they’ve even taken you away from me, my fierce and bloody Angel. In the end, you were just something else my father could use to hurt me. Well, the hell with all of you. This is my place, and I have power here. Power to punish the world and everything in it. Power to call down the Sun! Father! Send me your fire!”
Angel threw herself at Hob and wrestled with him. They were both inhumanly strong, and neither could overpower the other. The Brother put his great hands on the broken parlor wall and tried to widen the gap, so he could get in and help. The house cried out as more dust fell from the ceiling. Luna watched it all with wide, wondering eyes. Gayle turned to Toby, gripped his arm, and pulled him down so that they were face-to-face. She called up the last of her strength, that she’d been saving for a moment such as this, and her gaze and her voice were strong and sure.
“This is your moment, Toby, your reason for being here. Angel can’t stop Hob, not here. Not in his place, not his power. No one could. He will destroy Angel, summon his father’s fire, and channel it through him, and do every awful thing he swore to do. He’ll kill us all, and rape and remake the worlds of Veritie and Mysterie. He’ll damn all the life that replaces us to an endless nightmare under his control, and his father’s, unless you help me stop them. As a human, as Gayle, I’m helpless to intervene. But you still have a foot in both Veritie and Mysterie; you have a link to both worlds, no matter where you are. I can’t access my power; but you can bring it to me.”
“How?” said Toby. “Tell me how.”
“The ley lines,” said Gayle. “My power, the power of the living earth, travels along those lines. I put you in touch with them, earlier today. You’re still linked to them. You can reach out and touch them, even here, and bring my power to me. I can use that power to become my true self, Gaia, and do what must be done to stop the Hob, and the Serpent.”
“I remember the ley lines,” said Toby, meeting her gaze steadily. “Just touching them for a moment hurt me beyond bearing. Holding on to them long enough to bring them to you would kill me, wouldn’t it?”
Gayle nodded slowly. She wouldn’t let herself look away from Toby’s relentless gaze. “Yes. You could die, Toby. Being a focal point might protect you, or it might not. I don’t know. The odds aren’t good. Oh, Toby . . . I have no right to ask this of you. You already died once for me today. But you’re the only one who can do this. I can’t make you. It has to be your choice, your decision. But we can save the worlds, Veritie and Mysterie. Or you can let them die, and be replaced by something else. Your choice.”
“My choice,” said Toby. “The one that changes everything.”
“Yes,” said Gayle.
“Hob was right about one thing,” said Toby. “Looking back, it wasn’t much of a life I had. But it still sounds better than anything Hob or the Serpent have planned. And I won’t condemn all of Humanity to death just because I never got the breaks. I don’t want to die, Gayle. I want to live on, with you. I love you, even if you are only a mask for something that could never love me. I understand now. Mortal must not love immortal, for the same reason that the moth must not fly too close to the flame. Unfortunately, love doesn’t care about things like that. So I’ll do what’s necessary. Bring the ley lines here, and burn on their coals. Not for the worlds, or even Humanity, but for you. Because a mortal man called Toby Dexter finally found love and would rather die than live without it. Can I get a good-bye kiss, for luck?”

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