They Who Fell (15 page)

“You’re kind,” said Rhamiel. “Very kind. But we can all see it. It’s nothing like what the others endure, but it’s there. You can’t understand how it is for them. We were all creatures of beauty, perfect things in a perfect city. All quibbling over what must seem the most minor of differences, anything to set us apart. You can’t imagine what it’s like, to go from that to this. To be one of the Maker’s finest works, lovingly crafted, and then to fall, mangled into a monstrosity. Most of them didn’t want to continue on at first. A few ended things right away, by their own hands.”

“It was easier on me. I rose even as I fell, and the ones who used to see me as a nothing now saw me as a hero, the one who nearly escaped the Maker’s brand. It feels so strange, going from nothing to something, bubbling up from the bottom to the top. I know the love they profess for me isn’t real. The flatterers and the hangers-on are all looking for something—favors sometimes, or just the reflected sheen that comes from our association. But their attention fills me for a time, and makes me whole, something close to what I was before I fell. Then it fades as quickly as it came, and I’m back to where I started. None of it is real, none of it. I need to find something that’s real.”

He studied Jana, waiting for her reaction. She thought she knew something of how he felt and something of his pains, having been dizzied by a recent climb herself. She knew there was good in him, she was sure of it now. She wanted to heal him, to fill the emptiness, to fix the little spot she couldn’t see and to cover up his hands in her own. But still she had worries, and she couldn’t get them out of her head. Nefta had warned her to stay away, but Zuphias had said she was a snake. Then again, Zuphias was one of the hangers-on, and neither of them were particularly trustworthy. She’d been thinking about what Nefta had said, and she had her guesses as to what had made her this way. She bounced back and forth as to what to do, and then decided to take a leap, just as Rhamiel had.

“I’m grateful that you helped me,” said Jana. “I really am. But Nefta says you’re dangerous. She said you’re going to hurt me. I think she’s been hurt, too. I know you’re not like the others, not like Ecanus. But I don’t want to end up like her. I think you loved her, and you left her, and now she’s sad and broken.”

Rhamiel was taken aback, covered in confusion. “Nefta and I have never been lovers,” he said. “She would have laughed at the prospect, back where we were from. She was one of the fairest of us, far better looking than I’ve ever been. She was drawn to warriors, and while we’ve all seen battle, it wasn’t my primary profession. She thought me just as ordinary as the others, up there.”

“She’s infatuated with you,” said Jana. “She seems so hurt.”

“Perhaps she is,” said Rhamiel. “She hasn’t been in a good way, not since we fell. Her beauty was her being, and now it’s gone. She doesn’t know who she is anymore. It’s an extraordinarily painful thing, losing who you were and who you wanted to be. One can’t always make the world what they want it to be, but they can always imagine it to be whatever they like.” Jana winced at the comment; she’d retreated into her own imagination often enough to have a good idea of how Nefta must feel.

“But I can swear to you, I haven’t loved her and I haven’t left her,” said Rhamiel. “That’s all in her head. She’s never been much like me. My affections lie with the nobodies, the ones who never thought they were much and never thought they’d make it where they have.”

He looked directly at her, eyes unflinching, and his voice sounded of sincerity, the kind that can’t be faked. Jana believed him, even if it didn’t completely comfort her. He was still so different, so powerful, so bound up in the politics of the others, that even if he didn’t want to hurt her, it didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen.

“Why me?” asked Jana. “Of everyone in the tower, why are you watching me? You must have been watching me, to know what Ecanus was up to. Why did you bring me here in the middle of the night?”

He reached a hand out to her, gently, brushing her hair aside from her face. She flinched away at first, but then held her ground, letting him do it, and letting him know he didn’t intimidate her. Trying to let him know, in any event. She was, in fact, both very intimidated and very nervous. She hoped she wasn’t shaking, or giving it away with some other tell. If he saw, he didn’t say, and so she kept up the front of bravery. He stood in silence for a minute, just looking at her, and her at him.

“There’s something about you,” said Rhamiel, his voice low and deep. “Just something. Something I saw at our dinner, in the little server girl stumbling through her first performance. I couldn’t say precisely what, but then, that’s not how these things work, is it?”

“What things?” asked Jana.

“These things,” said Rhamiel. And then he did it. He leaned forward, bended his head down towards her, and he kissed her.

Her first impulse was to wriggle away, to dodge this sudden and unexpected affection. But then she looked at him, the strong warrior, the one in all her fantasies, the one who’d saved her life. And she closed her eyes, and she kissed him back. She’d never done it before, and hadn’t known what to expect, but she loved the intimacy it made her feel with him. He put his hand around the back of her head, running his fingers through her hair as they kissed, pulling her in closer.

“I can’t,” said Jana. “Nefta. If she ever found out—she’d be angry, so angry.”

“The only thing better than a stolen kiss is a forbidden one,” said Rhamiel. He pulled her in close, moving in for another, and she pushed him away before giving in again. She liked it too much, liked him too much, and couldn’t help herself despite the danger. The night was too perfect, the garden too enchanting, and the moonlight too dazzling. When he caressed her with his hands, she didn’t stop him. When he reached to unstrap his armor, she didn’t look away. And when he started to pull at her clothes, too, she reached back to help him. He pinned her against the gazebo, whispering things into her ear that shouldn’t come from the mouths of angels, things that excited her and things that flooded her cheeks with crimson.

They made love there, up in the skies, caressed by the clouds and kissed by the starlight. Then they held each other for what must have been hours, his wings enveloping her and protecting her, and everything was perfection, if only for a time.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

T
he man who approached them was young, an ambitious aide to one of the capital’s most powerful men. His white wool suit was smartly tailored, strong in the shoulders with dazzling silver cufflinks. He’d dared gold stripes on his tie, a deviation from the uniform, but his master had pull, and in this town that meant that he did, too. He arrived in a town car, escorted by several gentlemen on horseback, dressed in shabbier white suits of their own. They’d been Secret Service agents, once, and though they’d kept the name, they’d become something closer to palace guards.

“The Senator extends his regards,” said the aide. “He’ll see you in his offices, on Capitol Hill. If you’ll follow me.”

“The Senator can fuck himself,” spat Thane. The Secret Service agents grew edgy, putting their hands in the breast pockets of their suits and touching unseen weapons for comfort. Insubordination was unusual, and they weren’t used to it. The residents had grown docile, well aware of the fate that awaited them outside the city’s borders. If they displeased someone important, the best they could hope for would be to be ostracized, cast out into the wilderness and left to fend for themselves. The worst, they preferred not to think of.

“The Senator’s not someone to fuck with,” said the aide. “Not in this city, and not if you want to keep that pretty head of yours attached.”

“We won’t have any problems,” said Holt. “We’re in and then we’re out. The Senator gets what he wants, we get what we want, and then we’re on our way.”

The aide walked back to his car, snapped his fingers, and one of the agents rushed forward to hold open his door. Holt got them on their bikes, and they fell in line behind him. Some of the horses took up the rear, and some led the way, trotting through the streets and pushing aside anyone in their path. They passed street after street, storied avenues that had once housed the lobbyists of a thousand corporate interests. Now they were filled with squatters, appropriated from their owners and distributed according to the power of one’s friends.

The roads were tidy, covered in immaculately spread asphalt with not a pothole to be seen. But it wasn’t the Vichies who were maintaining them. They passed a chain gang, a line of emaciated souls with skin as grey as their ragged clothing. Lashed together at the waists, they’d been given just enough slack to allow them to go about their drudgery. They were sweeping the streets, pushing aside trash and scatterings of manure left by the horses. A single Vichy guarded them, a tattooed thug with scruffy hair and a squinty, piggish face. He lazily followed behind them, barking orders and waving a shotgun at anyone who wasn’t working to his satisfaction. The Vichies were dutiful servants, mimicking their masters and molding themselves in their image. If it was good enough for the angels, it was good enough for them, and so injustice cascaded downward as those with power reenacted their afflictions on those without.

Thane pulled up next to Holt as they drove, and shouted his disapproval. “Slavery’s your thing now, too? Told you they’re a buncha fuckers. You’re on and on about helpin’ people, and you just zoom past all this shit.” Then he slowed his pace, falling back with Dax and muttering to himself the rest of the way. He looked edgy and unhappy, and would have turned and left the group entirely if he hadn’t already entered the lion’s den.

They finally reached it: the halls of Congress, the place from which the rules had once been made, where backs had been scratched and favors had been dispensed. Fences and guards surrounded it, just as in days of yore, protecting those inside from those bearing grudges at their conduct. The horses stopped, and Senator Fletcher’s aide led the way on foot, walking them past checkpoints and through security barriers. There were metal detectors and scanners of all kinds, but they were quickly ushered through, as the guards manning them averted their eyes and tried to avoid trouble.

They weren’t even asked about their weapons, which was fortunate, as all of them were carrying them. Thane in particular had loaded up before entering the city, and he’d primed himself for the moment when one of the soulless bastards would dare to try and search him. He’d filled his pockets with knives, a gun, and even the sword, which he considered vulnerable to theft anywhere but on his person. He’d rehearsed the confrontation in his mind dozens of times, and was even looking forward to it, praying for an excuse to shove a knife into the throat of the first Vichy who laid a hand on him. He ended up disappointed; the Senator had enough influence that anyone associated with him was practically untouchable.

The inside was as impressive as it had ever been, the corridors lined with the trappings of power. Marble and paintings and elaborate sculptures paid tribute to the rulers within. They’d dwindled in number, ever since the Fall. No one was there to vote them in or out of power, and so titles that had once been of the people became titles of an aristocracy, hoarded by their owners and given out to newcomers only for great service to the established order. Congressmen stayed Congressmen, and Senators stayed Senators, and Secretaries of this department or that one were called Mr. Secretary long after whatever they’d been in charge of had disappeared.

The government itself had atrophied, devolving into a pantomime of itself, an act the players performed out of enjoyment and out of habit. They still had meetings and still held votes, though it was all for show. The decisions had already been made behind closed doors, and all that was left was to stamp their approval. There were still presidents, though no one elected them. They rose to power through pacts among politicians, and fell again as momentum turned against them in the games they played. Mostly they squabbled over their cut of the spoils, though a not inconsiderable portion of their time was spent issuing edicts and commands to far-off states whose existence they were no longer even sure of.

Senator Fletcher’s aide took them into the foyer of a grand office, filled with dark mahogany chairs, antique curios, and portraits of politicians from centuries past. Once it had been reserved for the leadership of the Senate, and passed from politician to politician according to the whims of the electorate. Now it was a prize plum occupied permanently by the Senator, though he’d never held any official leadership post. He’d been a backbencher before the Fall, slowly racking up seniority in the hopes that after a few decades he’d ascend to the heights of power. When everything collapsed, he’d rocketed to the top. Seniority was no longer in demand, so much as cunning and a lack of any ethical standards whatsoever. The Senator had cunning in spades, and was even more sociopathic than his colleagues, and so he flourished in a world where cream had to be rotten to rise.

Senator Fletcher forced them to wait, as very important persons are prone to do, for a very important person must also appear very busy. They sat in the greeting area, with nothing but knick-knacks to entertain them. Dax fiddled with a bronze sextant, trying to figure out how it worked, while Faye spun an oversized globe, running her finger along it to see where it landed and fantasizing about the many places she’d rather be. A dowdy old secretary in a prim green dress watched them from her desk the entire while, peering at them suspiciously through her horn-rimmed glasses. She was just as much a fixture as the furniture, having served the Senator since he was first elected years before.

Finally there was a rap from the door leading into the Senator’s personal office, and it swung open as the Senator’s aide emerged along with a few of his Secret Service agents. “The Senator is ready,” he said, and invited them all inside. Senator Fletcher was sitting before them, in a large leather chair in front of a large, expensive-looking desk. He was in his fifties, a politician’s prime, a man with just the right balance of energy and experience to run circles around his opponents. His graying hair was pristine, carefully combed with not a hint that it would ever recede. He waved them forward without looking up, motioning for them to be seated as he read from the very important papers in front of him.

“Mr. Holt,” said the Senator. “A pleasure to see you again, in this nation’s fine capital.”

“Again?” spat Thane, until Faye shushed him and pulled him onto a couch on the far side of the room. The agents were growing edgy, and they disliked Thane as much as he did them. They moved into position to flank the Senator on either side, a practiced maneuver that they’d copied from some movie or another. But it looked intimidating, and that was their purpose, and besides, it added to the aura of power.

“I’ve done my part,” said Holt, taking a seat in front of the Senator’s desk. “One of them’s dead. Hope you weren’t too close to him.”

“No one’s close to anyone in my line of work,” said Senator Fletcher. “I don’t care for any of them any more than I care for any of you. But they’ve got the power, and so we’ve got to deal with them to get what we want. Just like I’ve got to deal with you.”

“Don’t think you can screw me,” said Holt. “I know you’ve thought about it. They’re not going to like it if they find out you’re involved with us, and I have ways of making sure they do. Whatever else they are, they’re protective of their own.”

The Senator just laughed, and so did his aide. Then so did his agents, never ones to pass up an opportunity to toady. “I don’t particularly care what you tell them, or what they find out about our dealings,” he said. “They wouldn’t recognize my name if you told it to them. One of us is the same to them as all the others. If they make the connection, they’ll just kill the president again, and it’ll be business as usual for the rest of us.” The presidency was now a figurehead position with little real authority, but it was an incredibly dangerous one. The angels tended to assume presidents were responsible for anything they were unhappy about, and saddled them with the blame despite their lack of authority. Only exceedingly stupid politicians wanted the title so badly as to take that risk, but then, there had always been a surplus of exceedingly stupid politicians.

“Regardless,” said the Senator, “I’ve got no intention of scotching this deal. Our boys are fine young men, don’t get me wrong. Very enthusiastic. But they’re not exactly reliable, and I don’t see any of them taking out an angel anytime soon. I see a man like you, I see someone pragmatic. Someone I can do business with. Someone who sees through all the bullshit morality and bullshit laws we pass just so we can pretend we’re following them. You’re a man who sees things for the way they are, a man who takes what he wants. You wouldn’t be dealing with me otherwise.”

The Senator started laughing again, and so did his cronies. Thane’s teeth were audibly grinding together, and Faye had her work cut out for her in keeping him calm. She clenched his hand tightly, holding on and hoping she could hold him back if he erupted. He managed to keep himself restrained and in his seat, but only just.

“I’m a man who wants to kill angels,” said Holt. “People like you have always been around, but we survived. Things like them, they’ll kill us all. They’re going to live forever. They’re going to grind us down, one by one, until there’s nobody left but them. I think you’re a son of a bitch, but if I’ve got to deal with the slaves to kill the masters, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

“If the masters aren’t paying any attention, then who’s a slave?” said the Senator. “Not me. I’m doing just what I like, and getting just what I want. Hell, I’ve got it better than I ever did before. We made ourselves a pretty sweet deal with our ‘masters,’ you ask me.”

And indeed they had. The political class had seen the writing on the wall long before anyone else. They’d known things were hopeless almost from the beginning. The first few skirmishes had made clear that even a single angel wouldn’t be easily killed, and that the costs of battle would be enormous. Killing them all was a fool’s errand, though it didn’t stop idealists from trying. Other governments put up more of a fight, and the Russians had even managed the stomach to vaporize a few of their own cities just to get at a handful of the enemy. The militaries gave it their all, no matter which flag they swore allegiance to. But it was clear that none of it would matter in the end, and so the politicians sued for peace.

The angels were wholly uninterested at first, treating the negotiations as nothing more than an interesting parlor game. They tortured ambassadors and lopped off their heads for imaginary offenses, and then demanded immediate replacements only to repeat things all over again. The politicians grew desperate, and made the angels an offer they couldn’t refuse: fealty for safety, and an army of humans who’d finally return the favor after all their years of service. The rest of the world could be their playground, if only the capital were protected, and they’d help to turn the planet into a heaven of the angels’ own.

Thus the Vichies were born, and thus the rest were betrayed. The angels had intended it all as yet another game, and had never planned on keeping their end of the bargain. But the Vichies quickly proved themselves useful, and the angels quickly grew fond of being served. The towers went up, and servants were brought to them, offerings to the beings who’d come from the heavens. Men like Senator Fletcher orchestrated it all, and carved out a lucrative role as administrators of the angels’ fiefdom.

The Senator looked at Holt, and then at each of the others in turn. “I’m the slave, but you’re the ones doing my bidding. So which one of you can give me what I want?”

“Fuck you, traitor,” said Thane quietly from his seat.

“What was that?” asked the Senator. Thane held it all in, his face contorting in anger, while Faye dug her fingernails into his arm. The pain distracted him, and gave him something else to focus on, and so he held his fury inside to boil a little longer.

“I thought so,” said the Senator. “I’m loyal to myself, and that’s what counts. Not to some bullshit flag, or some herd of cattle who spent their days chewing their cuds and staring at televisions. I don’t owe you or anyone else a damned thing. Want to see something? Karl.” The Senator turned his head to one of the agents standing next to him, who visibly began to shake.