it in the dark. The angel raised his head, the muscles of his neck standing out like cords with the effort, and blinked. “He’ll find you, Rimmon. You can run all you like, but he’ll find you.”
The man in black laughed. “We’re counting on it.” He gestured to the guard, who picked up a metal can, unscrewed the top and poured the contents over the captured angel’s head. The smell of petrol filled the sewer. Still the angel watched as Rimmon held up his lighter, popping the lid open.
“Now. You’re one of Michael’s boys, so I’m willing to bet this wouldn’t normally bother you. But you’re Earthbound, and – let’s face it – you’re not at your best, are you? So...” He tailed off, taking a step back. “Tell them we’re coming. If, of course, they find you in time...”
The lighter hit the floor and bounced.
The flint sparked... and suddenly fire was racing up the angel’s legs, across his torso and through the feathers of his broken wings, lashing itself to him more tightly than his chains.
Rimmon turned and walked away, the others falling into step behind him. As the Earthbound began to scream, a smile crept across the Fallen’s face...
CHAPTER TWO
New Girl
THE HALFWAY TO Heaven did not look like the most welcoming of places. To put it another way: from the outside, the Halfway to Heaven looked like a dive. Which it was. A dingy bar halfway down a street; a bar with gloomy windows and a rubbish-strewn alley alongside it, a swing board that hung, creaking, over the pavement, and a doorman with a black coat and an ID badge.
A doorman with a black coat and an ID badge, and wings.
The Halfway to Heaven was a dive, but it was the angels’ dive. It was the haunt of the angels serving out their exile – the ones who had been barred from heaven (albeit temporarily) for any number of crimes and for any given length of time. The Halfway was where they drowned their sorrows and traded their war stories. It was their sanctuary: it was where they felt safe – and more importantly, it was where news and gossip were spread. An Earthbound angel is still an angel... and angels talk.
And there had been much to talk about. At first, it had been rumours. Rumours of a half-born, the daughter of a lost angel and a former priest; a half-born who burned. Rumours that she was being protected by none other than Mallory – the closest thing to a leader that the Earthbounds had, and one who was never less than an irritation to their Descended-angel superiors. Rumours that the half-born was being prepared for hell.
For once, the rumours had been true.
All of them.
The half-born, Mallory, the battle at the gates of hell itself – where most of the Halfway’s regulars had joined the fight – and the final, triumphant capture of Lucifer’s vacant body and the closure of hell. All of it was true.
Except... after a while, the triumphant capture of Lucifer’s body didn’t feel like such a triumph. After all, what good was his body without his mind? He was still free to hop from body to body, taking possession of his legion of Fallen angels as and when he pleased. Utterly unpredictable and completely unstoppable. And hell? Hell, it turned out, hadn’t been so much a prison for the Fallen as their stronghold, and its gates were built not to keep them in but to keep the angels out. Nothing remained of it but ash... and the Fallen had scattered to the winds. They could be anywhere.
They were everywhere.
Cut loose, they crawled the cities looking for trouble – and if they didn’t find any, they made it their business to start some. Anything to tip the balance ever further in their favour; to sway humanity towards them... and meanwhile, the angels’ celebration toasts turned to drowning their despair.
Not that it bothered the woman sitting at the bar, eating stale peanuts out of a bowl. Her hair fell across her face as she picked at them, only occasionally looking up to reach for the glass of water in front of her.
“She doesn’t belong here,” said the Earthbound at the other end of the bar, speaking to no-one in particular. He had built a little wall out of empty shot glasses in front of him and his speech was slurred, although it was only half past four in the afternoon.