They Who Fell (23 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

“K
eep moving,” said Thane, as Dax followed behind him. They’d almost made it up to the top of the ramp, when they saw one of the angels circling above them before going down to investigate the servants’ escape. Thane was in fine form, but it had taken a lot out of Dax to make it this far. They’d been running most of the way up, and he didn’t have the endurance for that kind of distance. He was huffing and sweating, his face gone flush, and he looked like he might have to be carried to make it over the finish line.

He’d never have been allowed up there, if there had been any choice. But Holt had ordered that he stay with the bomb, no matter what happened. The others could probably have set it off, and Dax had given them a crash course in what they’d need to do if it came to that. But none of the rest of them really understood it, not how it worked. They could push the buttons, or set the timer, or enter the code. But there would be no test run, and if something went wrong, the rest of them would have been left to whack the device with their hands and hope for the best.

Dax, by contrast, had done nothing but read up on nuclear technology since they’d acquired it. It genuinely interested him, and he genuinely wanted to be there to set it off. He’d gone through a thousand contingencies in his head, and had come up with a game plan for every one of them. He was fascinated by the mechanics, by the physics, and by the opportunity to be the one to kill more of the angels than any other person had since the Fall.

They came to a door at the top, and Thane began working the elaborate handle to open it. Their instructions from Holt had been simple: get to the top, go through the door, set the timer, and find someplace to hide the suitcase. Then get back down the ramp, hopefully in time to avoid the explosion. He claimed to have an insider’s account of the Perch, and that they were unlikely to encounter any angels if they didn’t go any further than instructed.

Battle plans never survive contact with the enemy, and this one was no exception. They got the door open, and peeked inside. It opened into a large lounge that was as empty as had been promised, but the way back down was another matter. They heard a thud, and then footsteps, and they knew what they’d see before they turned around.

She was exceptionally beautiful, or at least half of her was. The rest of her was a mess, though that was no surprise when dealing with the angels. The ruined side of her face was too badly damaged to convey emotions, but the side that had been left intact managed to say it all. She was furious, and itching to take out her accumulated anger on two very vulnerable targets.

“I know what that is,” said the angel, looking at the suitcase in Dax’s hand. “I know why you’re here.”

She started the beginnings of a rant against their defiance, something the angels had gotten into the habit of doing before administering their punishments, but Thane didn’t let her get far. He leapt at her mid-speech, drawing his taser and jamming it into her neck. She was shocked by more than just the current; she obviously hadn’t ever encountered a servant with a temper to match her own. He grabbed onto her tightly and pushed, forcing the both of them over the edge of the ramp.

Dax rushed over and summoned the courage to look down. Thane was on her back, his arms wrapped around her wings, holding on for dear life as they glided downward. It was rough going; she was doing everything she could to push him off and regain control. They slammed into the ground, and all Dax could see was her wings spread wide, and servants running away to avoid her. He couldn’t tell what had happened, but at this point there was nothing he could do. He charged through the door, entering the lounge and trying to find a good hiding place.

He settled on a bar, well-stocked with alcohol. He threw the suitcase on top, clicking it open and poking at the detonator. His fingers were shaking as he started entering the code. He hit the numbers, one after the other—and then he missed. He’d struck the wrong key, too nervous to even aim his finger. The suitcase started to blare at him, beeping loudly and flashing asterisks all across the keypad. He sank his face into his hands, his shirt covered in sweat, and prepared for the worst.

The beeping stopped, and the keypad reset. The bomb didn’t explode, so he took a second stab at it, this time slowly and carefully. He entered a time, entered the code, and watched the numbers begin to click downward towards zero. Then he started grabbing bottles of alcohol from the shelves below the bar, filling his arms with them and clearing a space where he could hide the bomb.

Holt’s voice came over the walkie-talkie before he could finish. “Dax. Dax!” He set down his armload of bottles, dropping a few as they rolled across the room. “I’m here!” he shouted, a little too loudly, before thinking better of it and shifting to a low whisper. “I’m here.”

“Dax, she’s coming back up,” said Holt. “Thane’s down. He’s alive, but he’s hurt bad. Faye’s taking him out of here. I’m heading up the ramp.”

“No!” said Dax, again a little too loud. “No. Get out of here. Get on a bike and go. I’m fine.”

“Dax, she’ll kill you,” said Holt.

“I already set the timer,” said Dax. “You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

There was no way he was making it back down, not in the time he’d given himself. He’d have just set the thing off, but the others deserved a chance, and he figured a few minutes one way or the other wouldn’t make much of a difference to the angels. He turned off the walkie-talkie, and shoved the suitcase into its hiding spot. He put the bottles back into place in front of it, the ones he could, and then stood up. He couldn’t think of anything else to do, and so he wandered over to one of the tables, took a seat, and waited.

Heroism wasn’t quite how he’d envisioned it. He thought it would have been something flashy and inspiring, and not a simple act of selflessness. He’d imagined himself going out in a final battle against the forces of evil, zapping them with the collar or slicing away at an army of them with one of their swords. He’d rehearsed speeches in his head, and things to shout, and concocted an endless number of impressive deaths for his enemies. Instead, all he’d done was pushed a button and sat in a chair.

He waited there alone for a few more minutes, compulsively checking his watch as the time went by. It wasn’t long before she burst through the door. She looked worse for the wear, one of her wings a little crooked, her hair matted and looking like she’d overslept. She scowled at him, walking towards him briskly, and grabbed his arm to lift him to his feet.

“Where’s your weapon?” she asked.

“Fuck you,” said Dax, smiling wide.

She didn’t like that, and she wasn’t in the mood. She took his hand and gave it a twist, snapping the bones in his fingers so they pointed at odd angles. He cried out in pain, and fell to the floor clutching his wrist.

“Where is it?” she asked again.

“Go fuck yourself,” said Dax. He was stuttering now, the pain audible in his voice. But this was his moment, the one he’d spent the last few years looking forward to, and he wasn’t going to waste it now.

She grabbed him by the neck, lifting him to his feet. “I love you,” she said. “I love all of you. Can’t you see that I love you? And yet always you attack us. We do what’s best for you, you must know that. It must be what the Maker wanted, else he wouldn’t have sent us here. To teach you. To make you better. You need to be our servants, just like we needed to be yours.”

“Your slaves,” said Dax. He collected the juices in his mouth, and he spat, hitting her square in the eye. “Your Maker left you in the oven too long, you ugly, lunatic bitch.”

He’d never stood up for himself before, not to anyone, and he’d never felt so good. It didn’t last. The angel roared, a bitter cry, and thrust her arm through his stomach and out the other end. She pulled out a chunk of flesh and guts, and left him to choke on his blood. As he fell to the floor, and faded away, all he could think of was that it had been worth it.

The angel looked around, trying to find where he’d put it. She overturned tables, and ripped at the cushions of couches, and pulled strings of lanterns from the walls. Finally she saw the bottles, where they’d rolled along the floor past the edge of the bar. She rushed around to the other side, and saw where he’d tried to hide it. It was immediately obvious. He’d done a terrible job, leaving all of the bottles out of order in a messy line.

“There you are,” she said, as she caught sight of the suitcase. “Let’s get you out of the tower.” She reached down to retrieve it, and then it all went black.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

J
ana saw them in the air as they fled, flying low in the skies back towards their home, an armada of angels returning for battle. She recognized at least one of them, from the lion-like thing on his chest: Rhamiel, near the lead, behind what looked like Zuphias. They must have seen the servants escaping; they flew right overhead. But they didn’t stop, didn’t even pause. They just kept racing back towards home, turning upwards towards the top of the tower as they approached.

She’d always been taught not to look back if you fled from an angel, lest they turn you to salt. But she couldn’t help herself when she heard the boom. The tower erupted behind them as they ran, trying to get as far away as they could. The top burst off, and a giant cloud of dust mushroomed upward from within, sending debris raining in all directions. The angels at the front were enveloped by the cloud, and the ones at the back began plunging to the ground, knocked from the air by the force. She turned to run back, to try and find Rhamiel, only to see the sides of the tower begin to heave and shake as it caved in on itself. Still she kept running towards it, until a few of the servants grabbed her, pulling her forward as they went.

She started to cry, but she could only watch as the cloud got bigger and bigger, and none of the angels rose through it. She couldn’t tell what had happened to them, couldn’t see through all the smoke. All she knew was that Rhamiel was in there, somewhere in that inferno, and there was nothing she could do to get to him.

The survivors regrouped by the edge of the old city, huddling and talking among themselves about what to do and where to go. Finally three of the outsiders roared forward on their bikes from out of the clouds of dust, down a man and with one of their survivors wounded. She stuck close to Sam, and watched them as they pulled their friend from the bike and started to patch him up. His bones were bent and broken, but he’d survive, as long as they could give him some time to recover.

She couldn’t help herself. She started bawling uncontrollably, and the woman came over to comfort her. She wanted to hate her, and all of the rest of them. But she couldn’t. She knew why they’d done it, and knew that most of the angels had deserved it. But still she thought of Rhamiel, and wondered what had become of him, and still she cried.

Before long she felt a churning in her stomach, and queasiness overcame her. She began to throw up, leaned over and heaving onto the ground. It sent the woman into a panic.

“One of them has her,” she shouted. “One of them’s in her head.” The woman lifted her chin, and looked into her eyes, searching for something. “Are you okay? Tell me you’re okay. Tell me what you’re feeling. I can help you, I promise I can help you.”

“I feel sick,” said Jana. “I feel really sick.”

“Do you hear voices?” asked the woman. “Do you hear anything in your head? It’s fine if you do. It’ll make you sick, just for a while, but we can stop it.”

Jana was taken aback. “It’s not that,” she said. Then she started to cry again, and the woman pulled her close and hugged her as hard as she could.

“Just tell me what’s wrong,” said the woman. “Just tell me what’s wrong, and you’ll be okay.”

“It’s been a month,” said Jana, in between sobs. “More than a month.”

“It’s okay, honey,” said the woman. “Just let it out.”

“It’s been more than a month,” said Jana. “And I haven’t bled.”

END OF BOOK ONE.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Liked the book? Two other novels in the series are in the works, so if you want to get a heads up as to when they’re being released, please sign up for my mailing list by
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They Who Fell is a first novel, and I’m happy to have checked that off my bucket list. But I couldn’t have done it without the help of others.

Thanks to Glendon Haddix and Tabatha Haddix of Streetlight Graphics, for designing the cover and handling the formatting. They’re great to work with, and I highly recommend them to anyone just getting started who wants to avoid worrying about anything but the writing part.

Thanks to the beta readers, who helped immensely with my writing and with improving the novel generally. I can’t recommend beta reading enough to anyone trying to write a book, given all the helpful advice I received, in particular with the romance subplot (necessary to the story, but not a genre I have much experience with as a man). It won’t surprise any woman reading this that the most common piece of advice I received for that part of the book from the female beta readers was “slow down and take your time.” I’m not sure if I accomplished that, given the pacing needs of the story, but I tried.

Thanks specifically to the first round of beta readers, including Thomas Allen, Cate Hogan, Shelly Kueny, Laurie Love, Sally Odgers of Affordable Manuscript Assessments, Ashley Parker Owens, Melissa Scott, Bethie Swanson, emeraldcityem from fiverr, kitkatplus from fiverr, and periwinkle from fiverr. They confronted a much rougher draft, but helped me identify a number of basic ways to improve my writing, from adding more details to improving some of the characters who needed some work.

Thanks also to the second round of beta readers, including Kathy Dixon Graham, Molly Keeton, Julie Kelley, Mati Raine, Tina E. Williams, and Greg from 2bookloversreviews.com. They received a version that was much further along, but still were able to help tighten things up, act as a sanity check to make sure I’d fixed things from the first round, and clean up a bunch of lingering errors.

And finally, thanks to the readers. It’s flattering to think that someone’s read through all this after many months of labor, but you did, and I appreciate it.