The Storm (22 page)

He burst from the sky like lightning, unleashing a peal of thunder as the world reformed around him. Disoriented, he stumbled, crashing into a sheet of corrugated iron. It was a house of some kind, or a shed, his cold fire reflected in the dull metal. He whirled around, his wings slicing through it, blowing it to dust. There were similar buildings everywhere, hundreds of them, stretching down a hillside. In the distance was another city, and another ocean. He saw a mountain with a huge statue on top that he half recognised from the telly.

Where the hell was he?

A noise behind him, somebody shrieking. He turned again, seeing a face appear between two of the buildings. It was a kid, but the expression belonged to an animal, full of feral rage. Others took up the boy’s cry until the place sounded like a zoo at feeding time. Footsteps pounded the dirt as they came for him, swarming from all directions, their eyes bulging, their hands twisted into claws.

Go away!
he yelled, trying to hold his words in his throat where they couldn’t cause any harm. Even so, the thought seemed to have power of its own, rippling over the buildings and turning the first line of ferals to ash.
No, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!
he said, flapping his wings, the sheer size of them kicking the cloud of powdered flesh and bone into whirlwinds that darted playfully between the buildings. He soared, seeing the ferals below, hundreds of them now, trampling each other to reach him.

Something detonated in the sky, a shockwave blasting over the favela, flattening the tin houses and everything else. Brick held up his hands to shield himself from it, and through his fingers he saw Rilke cannon earthwards. She was on him in a split second, the impact punching him down through metal and soil and rock, as though he was being slammed into his grave by a freight train. He felt the fingers of her mind worm into his head, into his heart, trying to undo him, and he swore at her, each word a hammer blow that forced her back.

Brick squirmed loose, his angel burning at full strength, its electrical hum the loudest thing in the world. He rocketed up the channel that he’d carved in the rock, escaping into sunlight. Rilke was waiting for him, hovering, so bright it was as if the sun had fallen out of the sky. All around her was a crater of destruction, the buildings flattened. People were still streaming across the wreckage, stumbling over the corpses of their friends and neighbours, blinded by their own instinctive hate.

He stretched out his wings, ready to flee again, but Rilke grabbed him with invisible hands, holding him there. She clamped something over his mouth, a fist of air wedged down his throat. How could she be so strong when she was so broken?

I’m sorry, Rilke,
he said.

Look at him, Schill,
he heard her say.
Look at him beg, like a dog. What shall we do with him? Shall we do to him what he did to you? Shall we pull him apart piece by piece by piece by piece?

Brick struggled, unable to prise himself loose. He couldn’t even force a word up his blocked windpipe.

You killed him,
Rilke screeched.
You killed my brother!

No!
was as far as he got before Rilke opened her mouth and spewed out a sound. It wasn’t quite a word, just a wet, gargled noise, but it came from her angel, and when it struck him he thought the entire universe had been turned upside down. He hit the ground again, rolling through steel and rock. Even through the chill of the fire he could feel the agony of it.

It seemed forever before he finally stopped moving. He pushed himself up, his angel no longer burning. Liquid dripped from his face, impossibly hot against his skin, and when he put his fingers to it they came away red.

No,
he thought, his ears ringing so much that he didn’t hear the ferals until the first one had him by the throat. He grunted, trying to prise the fingers loose, only to feel something smash into his cheek, a fist or a boot. Colourless fireworks danced against the sky, gouging holes in his vision. He tried to kick-start his angel the way he used to kick-start his motorbike, but he didn’t know how. A long, dirty nail jabbed into his eye and he screamed.
Work, dammit, please! PLEASE!

More ferals were on him, so many that they blocked out the sun. Not so many that they hid Rilke, though, as she sailed through the air, her wings unfurled. He could hear a noise over the pounding thrum of her angel, high-pitched and ugly, like a nail against glass. She was laughing.

Who the hell did she think she was? She killed Lisa, shot her in the head. And how many others? Thousands. And she had the gall to accuse
him
of murder? His anger clawed up from his stomach, an inferno erupting from every pore. It incinerated the crowd, shunting Rilke backwards, letting him push himself from the ground.

He didn’t give her a chance to recover, throwing everything he had at her. He swung his arms as though in a bar brawl, each strike lobbing great gobs of energy through the air. Most of them missed her, carving trenches down the hill, through the city, lashing across the distant ocean. He shouted too, not caring what he was saying, letting the angel speak for him. Rilke fought back, bolts of lightning crackling in all directions as the air between them was churned into a fever.

One of his assaults must have hit its target, because suddenly Rilke was cartwheeling, burning like a Catherine wheel as she vanished into a sea of debris. Brick swiped his hand through the air, invisible fingers lifting up a thousand tonnes of metal and wood and people like a blanket. He clenched his fist and the blanket crunched into a ball, the whole thing bigger than a football stadium. He flicked it away, seeing it sail through the air as if it had been launched from a catapult, skimming across the surface of the sea.

She had to be dead, that had to have killed her.

The ocean exploded, Rilke blazing up from it like a missile fired from a submarine. She vanished, reappearing instantly in the sky above him. Her fire flared up and she disappeared again, then again, filling the air with embers. He could hear her voice fading in and out, still laced with insanity,
broke us, broke us, I won’t tell her, little brother, she doesn’t need to know, not if we kill him.

Stop it,
he said.
Just stop it!

She pulled herself out of reality again, and this time when she reformed she was right behind him, her fire casting his golden shadow out over the land. She wrapped her arms around him, hers
and
the angel’s, locking his own against his side. The sound their angels made together was unbelievable, the thrum so loud that he could see rocks dancing on the ground below, everything solid turned to liquid. Sparks hissed and cracked around them.

‘Should have left him alone,’ she said, her lips against his ear, the words detonating against his armour of fire, ricocheting off in every direction. The air was growing more agitated, groaning against the force of them. In the distance the city was crumbling, tower blocks blown to dust. The immense statue snapped in two and toppled, half of the hillside collapsing after it.

He fought her, trying to prise himself loose, but he just couldn’t budge. The earth beneath them was being pushed away, like a helicopter hovering over water, forming an immense crater. The sonic pulse of the angels grew louder, rising in pitch. Still those flashes of light – white and gold and blue and orange – snapped out like whips, each one making the sky shake. He could barely hear Rilke past the roar of it.

‘You shouldn’t have broken us.’

I didn’t!
he yelled at her, ‘I didn’t! It was the man in the storm! He killed your brother!’

His words must have rung true, because he felt her grip loosen. He took his chance, burrowing out of her arms. The moment he broke contact something ignited in the space between them. It was like another nuclear explosion, propelling him upwards on a wave of light. It took him a moment to find his wings, stretching them out and bringing himself to a halt, his eyes bulging at the sight of what they’d done.

The force of their explosion had left nothing – no buildings, no people, no water – just a desert of sandy-coloured dust from horizon to horizon. The ocean bubbled across the distant land as it tried to level itself, the roar of it audible even from up here. The air rose and fell around him, the planet catching its breath, the odd crackling spark darting up towards the sky.

I didn’t do that,
he told himself, his own heart pounding almost as hard as the angel’s.
It was her, she did it, she killed them, not me.

There was no sign of Rilke anywhere. Maybe she’d blown herself up, ripped herself into atoms, scattered them over the boundless grave below. It was just as well, as Brick had never felt so weak, so tired, even with the fire coursing through his veins.

Something drew his attention to the sun and he turned his head up, seeing it split in two. Rilke dropped towards him, her scream kicking up the dust of the dead, churning the ash into dunes. He lifted his arms, ready to defend himself, realising even as he did so that he couldn’t beat her, not by himself.

He cast his mind out, opening up the fabric of time and space and stepping through. This time, though, he knew exactly where he was going.

‘He’s coming.’

Howie had barely finished speaking when Daisy heard a pistol crack in the air above the forest. She looked up through the branches as a streak of black lightning split the sky in two, so dark that it scarred her retinas. A second followed, clouds of darkness seeping from the broken air like ink spilled in water. Thunder dripped down from the ruptured sky, filling the forest with noise.

‘Get ready,’ said Cal. ‘Whatever happens, stay together, yeah?’

The sky was now filthy with smoke, gouts of ugly black fire spraying from the centre of the chaos like poisoned solar flares. A shape was forming in the churning madness, two huge wings that beat with enough strength to crack the trunks of the trees, strip them of every single needle. The beast roared as it pulled itself free, an
inward
roar, like a deafening asthmatic breath. Its face was hidden by smoke but Daisy could see the silhouette of its mouth there, the darkest thing in the sky.

‘Stay together,’ Cal said again, shouting now. ‘How do we do this?’

Daisy glanced at him, then at Howie, then at Marcus, who held Adam in his skinny arms. They were all staring at her, waiting for an answer. But why? Why did they think she knew what to do? She was only twelve years old. She wasn’t heroic, or strong, or really all that clever either. She didn’t know anything, she didn’t
know
.

Only . . . she
did
. The truth was somewhere deep inside her, yelling as loud as it could, telling her that if they stood their ground here and tried to fight the man in the storm then they would all die. She could almost see it – Marcus and Adam first, blown into dust because they didn’t have their angels yet. Then her, because she was so tired. Cal and Howie would give it everything they had, but it wouldn’t be enough, not against
that
.

The beast was hauling itself from the emptiness behind the world, tearing reality to shreds. That same horrid feeling seeped out with it, sucking all the warmth from the day, all the goodness, making Daisy feel like she could just cry and cry and cry and never stop. There was nothing above her but an upside-down ocean of boiling tar, the sun a faint halo. It was as if night had fallen, suddenly and without warning. The man’s eyes were dark spotlights that scoured the forest, searching for them. Its gasping breath sucked up trees and roots and rocks. It hadn’t seen them yet, though.

We need to go,
she said.
Right now.

What?
Cal said.
We can fight it, there are three of us. We did it back in London, we can do it again.

Wait!
she told him, but Cal had already shed his human skin, a blast furnace erupting in the hollows of his eyes, spreading out over his body. His wings thrust up from his back, a burning beacon that turned night into day once again. The beast shifted his lightless gaze to where they stood, and she could almost sense the rancid joy there as he realised he had caught them.

Daisy dived into her head, unlocking the door and letting her angel out. Howie did the same, erupting into flame. She looked up with her angel’s eyes and saw the man attack with a fist of smoke. It hammered down like a meteor, impossibly fast.

She reached out with her mind and grabbed time in her burning fingers. It was like trying to hold back a Dobermann on its lead, she could feel herself being dragged along behind it. But she dug her heels in, hearing the aching groan of the universe as its rules were broken, every single atom shuddering in protest.

I can’t hold it,
she said, seeing the sky fall in slow motion, waiting for the moment it struck her and everything ended. Cal knew what to do, though, opening a door and pulling them through – first Marcus and Adam, then Howie, then her – letting it slam shut behind them.

Daisy looked back as reality closed, seeing the knuckles of liquid night strike the ground where they had been, exploding trees into splinters. Then time shook itself free from her grasp, her tummy doing a dance as they burned themselves back. Through the flurry of glowing embers she could see the others, two angels who glowed like molten steel, plus Adam and Marcus wrapped in each other’s arms, blue fire burning beneath the skin of their chests.

The world lurched back into place, fluttering for a moment like a piece of stage scenery about to topple. When it had settled she made out a landscape of ice and snow, a ridge of mountains jutting from the horizon like teeth. It was almost dark here.

Daisy lowered herself to the ground, switching off her angel to let it rest. As soon as she had she regretted it; it was
freezing
here, the wind like a dead person’s fingers running up and down her back.

‘Little warning?’ said Marcus, wiping puke from his mouth. He and Adam were doubled over, a pool of white sick beneath them. ‘I don’t mind being dragged all around the world, but give me a chance to prepare, yeah? Never mind the puke, I think I might have just cacked myself.’

Daisy laughed through a shiver. Adam ran to her and she wrapped her arms around him.

‘Could have brought us somewhere warmer, too,’ said Marcus, his teeth chattering.

‘Sorry,’ Cal replied. ‘I haven’t exactly got the hang of this, yet. Besides, it’s quiet, nobody around to try and kill us.’ He sighed. ‘We should have fought it.’

‘Yeah,’ said Howie, shaking his head. ‘Now it knows we’re scared.’

‘We couldn’t have won,’ said Daisy. ‘It would have been suicide.’ The word caught in her throat, images of her mum lying dead in the bed.
We would have hurt you.
‘We weren’t strong enough.’

‘How do you know?’ Howie said.

‘Mate,’ said Cal. ‘That’s enough. None of us have any idea what’s going on, but Daisy, she knows things. She has right from the start. You can do what you like, but I trust her.’

Cal flashed her a smile and she returned it, although it was quite difficult because the muscles in her face were frozen. Howie just swiped an arm through the air, dismissing them, turning away to study the distant mountains, nestled in twilight.

‘We
can
beat him,’ Daisy said. ‘But we need everyone. Brick and Rilke.’

‘Rilke?’ said Marcus. ‘She has to be dead by now, after what he did to her.’

‘You and Adam, too,’ Daisy went on. ‘We need your angels to hatch.’

‘Yeah, I’ve been trying,’ said Marcus, prodding himself in the chest. ‘Bloody thing isn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to me, though. I must have got the laziest angel in the whole . . . I don’t know . . . angel place.’

‘Why do you call them angels?’ Howie said over his shoulder.

‘You know,’ said Cal. ‘Fire, wings, flying, beating the crap out of a big, bad devil in the sky. Pretty obvious really.’

‘They’re not, though, are they?’ the new boy said. ‘I mean, angels aren’t real, for one. And if they are, they’re
good
. Like, totally nice and stuff. This feels different. This thing . . .’ He held out his hands, as if they still had fire sprouting from them. ‘Makes me feel like I kinda
want
to blow stuff up.’

‘I don’t think they’re like in the Bible,’ said Cal. ‘We spoke to a priest, a few days ago.’ He stopped, frowning. ‘Man, no, it was
this morning
.’ He shook his head like he couldn’t believe it. ‘Anyway, he said . . . Well, I don’t remember to be honest, I was in a pretty bad way. But some people think the Bible’s based on things people saw like centuries ago, stories that got passed down.’

‘So . . .’ said Howie when Cal didn’t continue.

‘So, you know, this must have happened before, these things made of fire, fighting that thing made of smoke, or whatever it is. People saw it, and told their kids, and so on, and they got the name angels. Yeah?’

Howie shrugged.

‘Does it matter?’ said Marcus. ‘All we know is they’re here, in us, and they want to kick arse. End of.’

‘You sure?’ said Howie. ‘What if they’re on his side, what if we’re supposed to be helping the man in the storm?’

‘Don’t you bloody start with all that,’ said Cal. ‘Heard it from Rilke, and look where it got her.’

Howie held up his hands in surrender. ‘Just trying to cover all the bases, is all. Not easy going from walking around drunk on a beach to being possessed by a not-quite angel who wants to save the world from certain destruction.’

‘You were drunk?’ asked Daisy. ‘How old are you?’

‘Thirteen,’ he said. ‘Plenty old enough.’

‘You
still
drunk?’ said Cal.

Howie smiled. ‘No, unfortunately. Think a bottle of rum might make all this a bit easier to cope with.’

‘Ew,’ said Daisy. They were silent for a while, and she turned inward, speaking to her angel.
Is he right? Are you good? Have you been here before?
It gave no answer, sitting there like a statue in her soul. She thought about what she’d seen earlier, the place they came from, a cold, dead place where nothing happened. It made her shudder, the idea that when this was over – whether they won or lost – her angel would have to return. It would be locked back in its cell until the next time it was needed.

‘So, how do we do it?’ Marcus asked. ‘Might take days for my angel to wake up. By then there won’t be anything left to save.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Cal. ‘There’s a way of . . . of motivating them.’

‘Yeah?’

Cal nodded, but instead of speaking he seemed to beam out an image of it. Daisy saw him standing on the edge of a cliff, then tumbling over it. If his angel hadn’t woken then it would have died, Cal too. That had been a huge gamble.

‘Whoa, dude, no way!’ Marcus said. ‘You’re insane. No way I’m making a leap of faith like that.’

‘Just an idea,’ Cal said. ‘Got a better one?’

‘I might,’ said Daisy.

She smiled at Marcus, firing up her angel, looking at the blue flame in his chest, the way it strained out, trying to reach her. He backed off, squinting against the brightness of her eyes, muttering, ‘Why do I think I might not like this?’