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Carly ran her fingers through her long hair then stood for a moment with her head bowed.

  Feeling the need for a mundane task I set about pouring the tea. Carly smiled at me as I handed her a mug that read:I don’t have a short attention span, I just … Oh look a chicken! I snorted a laugh. Mine declared: This would be funny if it wasn’t happening to me. I laughed harder. There are times when you are so far in the shit you just can’t get any deeper so you might as well just go with the flow. I turned to Carly. ‘So … a Nephilim, eh? Aren’t you supposed to be 18 foot tall and built like a brick outhouse?’

  Carly took a sip of tea and sighed. ‘I’m in disguise.’ She didn’t smile.

  My next laugh spilt my tea which seemed the funniest thing I’d seen for a long time. I couldn’t breathe; my stomach, face and sides hurt. Every time I tried to stop, I’d look up at Carly and Nessus who’d come in while I was howling and the looks of astonishment on both their faces would set me off again. Placing my mug on the tray I flopped back into the cushions. Laying down seemed the right thing to do.

  Nessus rumbled a laugh. ‘You told him then,’ he said.

  Carly nodded in bemusement.

  The big centaur stared at me for a moment then, picking up my mug, began to drink my tea. Returning to stand next to Carly he studied me rolling around on the sofa as one would a strange bug in a plate of salad. He had to raise his voice to be heard over my laughter. ‘So how’s the patient doing?’

  Carly gave him a wry glance. ‘Not very well. I’ll take Sir Giggles down there to see her, when I can get him to focus.’

  ‘Let him laugh it out.’ Nessus drained the mug; it looked like a toy china cup in his huge hands. ‘It’s better for him than crying and that’s what I’d be doing in his shoes.’

  Carly nodded again, ‘I know I said he’s taking it well, but this is heading toward hysteria.’ She paused and nudged the sniggering centaur. ‘Could you possibly …’

  Nessus nodded, then, handing her his mug, crossed the room. He picked me up by the front of my jacket then, hauling me off the sofa, held me at eye level and gave me a little shake.

  Having your brain rattled around your skull is enough to focus anyone. ‘Ow … What?’

  ‘Are you OK, Joe?’ Nessus enunciated each word.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ I smothered another giggle that was threatening to well up and break free.

  ‘Here’s your bag.’ Nessus handed over my backpack. Nothing was missing and, after checking for the second time, I looked up at him. ‘It’s all here?’

  He nodded. ‘I wouldn’t want to touch anything in there.’ He studied me as I slipped the ’dusters back into my pockets and slid the knife back into its sheath between my shoulders.

  ‘No time to chat.’ Carly reached a hand toward me. ‘We have to go.’

  ‘Hang on a moment.’ Pulling out the white box and the file I placed them both onto the table. There was silence. Ah well, no point putting off the inevitable … I flipped the catch and opened the box. It was empty.

  Carly shrugged. ‘Well, that’s not really a surprise, is it?’ she said.

  ‘But he showed it to me and then shut the box. Neither of us took it out.’ I slammed the lid shut. ‘I was with him all the time and there was no way he could have taken it out.’

  Carly shrugged again. ‘Well, he obviously has and, as I said, it’s not really a surprise. How do you know that what you saw was the real knife and not just an illusion or a simulacrum?’

  ‘I don’t, I suppose. He wouldn’t let me touch it.’

  Following Carly and Nessus through the cool stone corridors, I didn’t really notice where we were or where we were going. I just concentrated on keeping those little giggles under control. Incident after incident rolled through my mind and, with each dead or defeated demon – no, not demon, I corrected myself. Another little giggle threatened to bully its way to the surface; I pushed it firmly back down. What I really wanted to do was curl up in a corner and just let my guilty conscience roll face after face past my inner eye. How could I have been so deluded? Every stupid instruction from Metatron now made sense. For a thousand years I’d been laughing at him, thinking I was so clever to do so little work and do it so badly. No wonder Michael hated me. If I was an example of what the human race had become it was understandable why he was all for annihilating every single one of us. Maybe if I found him and called him a few justified names, that bloody great sword could achieve what I’d failed to do so many times.

  That final thought brought me up short. Is that what I’d been trying to do all this time – find a way around my immortality? If I did my job badly enough maybe one of them would be able to finally kill me. Had I spent a thousand years trying to commit suicide by the application of apathy and stupidity? It was no wonder I’d failed: it was a fairly short-sighted plan.

  ‘Hang on a moment.’ I reached forward and put a hand on Carly’s shoulder. ‘If all you’ve been doing was waiting for me to “see the light” and swap sides, why was that Drekavak trying to kill me?’

  Carly stopped walking and, without turning around, stared at her boots. ‘She wasn’t supposed to, she was just supposed to bring you to me and we were going to explain all this and let you take the file to Metatron. We were taking a huge chance but you had to want to do this.’

  ‘But she didn’t say anything …’

  Nessus turned with a wince. ‘We didn’t realise how upset she was.’

  ‘With what? What did I ever do to her?’

  ‘Well, you’d already covered her in dog do and thrown her into a tree, then you broke her leg.’ Carly ticked points off with her fingers before turning away and leaving me to my thoughts.

  I still felt a little aggrieved. The Drekavak had certainly appeared to be trying to kill me. I’m not sure I can be blamed for defending myself. It seemed a little unfair.

  ‘Here we are.’ Carly stopped directly in front of me.

  Still swinging between self-pity and self-depreciation I bumped square into Nessus’s backside. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered.

  ‘Focus.’ Carly grabbed my ear and gave it a twist, smiling at the yelp of pain the familiar manoeuvre elicited. ‘You actually have a chance to do a real good turn here, so basically the next 20 minutes or so will be entirely down to you. Just remember, although it feels like it, you’re not actually immortal.’

  ‘What?’ That was against everything I’d been told.

  Not giving me time to think she opened the door and pushed me inside. With Nessus behind her, I had no choice but to stagger into the darkened room.

  Bulky curtains were tightly closed against the outside world and the thick, cloying scent of heavy incense made the air almost painful to breathe. In the far corner loomed a large bed, its covers ruffled and heaped, grey from long use and spotted with red and yellow stains. To one side, a pair of darkened figures, one large and one small, shared an uncomfortable-looking hard-backed chair.

  Standing on the other side of the bed was a demon I recognised. Tall, heavily built and the colour of a week-dead corpse; he looked up with a smile which changed instantly to a look of panic. His yellow eyes widened and he turned, arms outstretched, as though to protect the immobile mound within the bed.

  Carly put a pacifying hand up. ‘It’s all right, Jarroh,’ she said. ‘I thought he might be able to help.’ She turned to face me, a serious look on her face. ‘What are you, Joe?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’ I’d been engaged in a staring contest with the white demon and it took me a moment to process her question. ‘I don’t know … a miserable waste of oxygen maybe?’

  Grabbing the soft skin under my upper arm she squeezed hard making me yelp again. ‘No snappy comments, please, not now. Come on, concentrate … What are you?’

  As I looked down into her bright green eyes my head buzzed and my tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of my mouth. I swallowed. What was I? I had no idea: human, angel, pawn, undead? All of these labels passed through my mind, but I knew they weren’t
the entire story.

  ‘Well?’ Carly gave my arm another squeeze, gentler this time.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ It was the only thing I could think of that was utterly and completely true. I was sorry: sorry for turning a blind eye; sorry for myself; for others; for everything.

  Carly nodded and pulled me toward the bed. The atmosphere in the room grew colder.

  A flaccid, grey Drekavak lay in the bed. Thin, clawed hands occasionally clenched then relaxed, plucking feebly at the dirty sheets, its breathing arrhythmic and stertorous. The scales, dull and translucent, were wet with sweat and it was obviously just a waiting game. Sickened by the smell and the inevitable guilt, I peered into the gloomy corner where the two dark figures sat. The larger of the two sat on the chair, its body slumped and its head in an uncomfortable-looking position against the wall as though, while watching the other struggle to breathe, its own body took too much effort to control. Perched on its lap appeared to be a small kangaroo – obviously a young Drekavak who had yet to gain its scales. The youngster was crying continuously and silently, tears making dark tracks on its furry little face, one tiny, clawed paw held that of the one in the bed. Occasionally it would lean forward, a look of hope on its little face but then would sit back and sigh when there was no movement from the figure under the blankets.

  As we approached, the adult glanced up incuriously then went back to watching the bed. Slowly its brow furrowed and equally slowly it looked up again, focusing on me.

  ‘You!’

  Faster than I would have considered possible it leapt out of the chair, regardless of the youngster that landed, with a squeal, on the bed. Then, grabbing me by the throat, lifted my feet from the floor and casually hurled me across the room. As I hit the polished wood floor the air rushed from my lungs and I had no choice but to lie against the far wall making sounds fairly similar to those of the patient.

  Screams and sounds of falling furniture pierced my grey haze. Carly and Nessus were both shouting at the enraged Drekavak to stop. Nessus grabbed for the maddened demon then yelped and ducked as razor-sharp claws ripped across his arm.

  ‘Keril, please wait!’ Carly shouted. She ducked as the stool she was holding was torn out of her clutches and sent smashing into the far wall. Nessus pulled her out of the way as the demon thundered past, its narrowed gaze fixed solely on me. Skidding to a halt it reached down and seized my ankle then hauled me, still coughing and gasping, out into the middle of the floor. ‘I’m going to rip you limb from limb,’ it screamed. ‘I was stopped from doing anything terminal to you; couldn’t kill you, couldn’t confine you. Free will, that’s what they told me. You had to come here of your own free will.’ Slapping a chair away, it didn’t even look away when, hitting the wall, the legs disintegrated into splinters and kindling. ‘Was it your own free will that gave you the right to beat up and then stab my sister?’ Kicking furniture out of the way, the creature headed toward me. Its normally expressionless face twisted into a snarl, claws ripping through everything in its path.

  Trying to ignore the pain in my chest I fumbled around in my pockets. The ’dusters seemed slower than usual to grip my fingers. The angels had been lying to me: the demons had their own agenda. There was nobody to back me up – I was completely alone. This time I wasn’t going out lightly. I’d had enough of dying; this time I was doing it for me.

  The Drekavak reared back, flicking his claws out; obviously he really meant to make good on the threat to rip me open. Seeing a slight opening I blocked with my left and cuffed him lightly with my right which hurled him, hard, back across the room. The effect was fairly impressive. He bounced from the far wall and landing heavily on top of a table which promptly collapsed. Small containers of tablets, a bowl of water and half-empty bottles of odd-coloured liquid flew gracefully into the air, sparkling and pin-wheeling before cascading down to soak the stunned demon. He spluttered, groaned then lay still.

  Finally able to breathe, I dragged myself to my feet and brushed myself off. I drew my knife. I really didn’t care that this was another life I was intending to take. This was self-defence and I was fed up beyond words of people and things attacking me for reasons they were unwilling to explain. Lies – all lies.

  As I stalked past the bed, gaze fixed on my attacker, Carly held on to one arm and Nessus took the other. Shaking Carly off was fairly easy; I didn’t even need a weapon. Nessus, however, was another matter. I took a firm grip on the centaur’s wrist and then lifted and twisted. He screamed as his legs buckled. Stepping over him I continued on toward the dazed demon who was still trying to pick himself up.

  Armed as I was I could take them all out. I didn’t need to be careful any more. I wanted to get rid of them all. I had no idea whose plan that would fit into and I didn’t care. Starting right now I would rewrite myself. I wasn’t going to be anybody’s lackey any more.

  Holding the knife loosely in my hand I stepped over the remains of the chair and headed toward the still gasping demon. One long swipe, that’s all it would take, and I’d be able to see if the insides of the creature were better looking than the outside.

  A small sound made me glance over my shoulder. The child that had been sitting on Keril’s lap was staring at me. His huge black eyes followed my every move. His little mouth was open in a soundless scream and he seemed to be trying to burrow himself into the bed. Grabbing the flaccid arm of the patient he had wound himself into her limp caress. Catching me glancing his way, the fuzzy little thing panicked further and began a small backward and forward rocking movement. Still wailing soundlessly, he stared blindly toward me, the very picture of terrified hysteria.

  All my murderous intentions vanished and I stopped and dropped the knife. I like kids and they usually like me. Whatever my reasons were for wanting to kill everyone, right now I was that child’s worst nightmare and that realisation dropped me like a hammer to the back of the head.

  It was actually Keril that physically dropped me. Thundering across the room he tackled me with the ferocity of a New Zealand rugby player and down we both went again. This time Nessus and Carly were there. Nessus merely picked Keril up and confined him in a bear hug. Carly kept up the barrage of shouts, standing between me and the enraged creature forcing him to concentrate on her.

  ‘Keril, stop it! I think he can help …’ She repeated this about four or five times before the combination of her shouting and Nessus squeezing forced the pained demon to finally focus and, with a strained gasp, he managed a short nod.

  Sick and confused I sank to the floor and, sitting quietly, let them all scream around me.

  Gently and cautiously, Nessus let him go and Keril dropped to all fours beside me, both of us breathing heavily.

  The tall white demon, Jarroh, only let the silence last for so long before he came bustling round with his hands full of spilt drugs. He stared at us all. ‘No more fighting.’ Each word was punctuated with a hiss. He turned to me. ‘You … if you can help, help; if not, get out and let her get on with …’ He turned and gave a quick look at the still sobbing child then sighed. The end of his sentence came out as a hiss: ‘… sleeping.’

  ‘Nessus, keep an eye on him.’ Carly pointed at Keril. She obviously wasn’t in the mood for explanations. ‘You, come here.’ She pulled me toward the bed. The child squeaked and began rocking again. Carly picked him up and handed him to Keril. ‘Shh, Arden, sweetie, don’t worry, we’re sorry, it’ll be OK.’ She kept up a meaningless and calming babble as she handed the shaking youngster into the other’s waiting arms.

  I stared down at the bed. The sleeping patient’s chest rose and fell only shallowly as though pressing against a huge weight. A dressing covered her chest which did nothing to stop the black blood from oozing through and around the once-white cotton cover. ‘Is this …’ I swallowed and turned to Carly.

  She nodded. ‘This is Alice, Keril’s sister and little Arden’s mother. This is the lady you cut with that bloody knife of yours. We have less than a day before Arden beco
mes an orphan. Incidentally his dad is also dead – killed by one of the host a couple of years ago – so he really isn’t having a good time at the moment and he has angels to thank for all of it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’ I watched the frail nostrils flutter; in repose the face seemed serene. ‘So what … what the hell do you think I can do? Don’t you think I’ve done enough?’

  ‘You need to use the knife on her again.’ Carly wandered across the ward and stood over my abandoned weapon.

  ‘NO!’ Keril leapt toward me, only just held back by the sheer brawn of Nessus, his muscles at full flex. ‘No, please don’t put her down.’ Keril hugged little Arden and began to sob. The child looked surprised and raised a paw to stroke the older demon’s face. ‘Don’t cry, please don’t cry,’ it whispered.

  ‘Calm down, Keril, I’m not asking him to kill her.’ Carly gently kicked the knife toward me; it skittered across the ward floor with a sound like nails down a blackboard, stopping only when it bumped against my foot. ‘Pick it up, Joe.’ She stood with hands on hips and glared at me till I complied. I don’t know what she expected me to do but there was absolutely no way I was going to use this knife again.

  ‘Don’t think.’ Carly indicated the demon whose breathing had now deteriorated into a series of short gasps. ‘Just place the knife against the wound and “know” that it will undo the damage it’s done.’

  I shook my head and stepped forward. I had no idea what she expected me to do.

  ‘You’re part angel, Joe,’ Carly cajoled. ‘When Metatron gave you immortality he gave you all the other skills and powers that a member of the Host has. In fact, being one of the most powerful of the Host we’re hoping he gave you more than he intended to.’

  I stepped closer to the bed. My hand was shaking – why was that? Holding the knife out I stared at it but was surprised to see it disappear beneath a film of tears. Dashing these away with the back of my hand I held the knife out again.

  ‘Lay it on her chest.’ Carly walked up behind me. ‘Just tell it that you want that act of violence undone. Just “know” that it’ll do what you ask, OK?’