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  Belial nodded. ‘Can I have a look at that, please?’ He held his hand out.

  Carly threw a cushion at me. Catching it with the side of my face, I laid the knife on top of it then passed the whole thing over. Belial reached gingerly for the cushion and, being very careful, he studied the knife for a long while. Then he began to laugh.

  ‘He never had it.’ He laughed loudly and passed the cushion back. ‘He thought he did, but you had it all along. We hoped that was the case but nobody could get near enough to your knife to tell for sure.’

  ‘What?’ I stuck the knife back into its sheath. ‘Had what?’

  ‘Where did you get this from?’ He settled back into the sofa and elegantly crossed one leg over the other.

  ‘I’ve had it almost as long as I can remember.’ I thought hard. ‘It was one of the first jobs I did for the host. I had to deal with an escapee for the first time. Metatron sent Gabriel with me.’ I shrugged. ‘I got pretty beat up and Gabriel had to step in and help. He gave me the knife after I healed – said it may keep me out of any future trouble.’

  Belial nodded. ‘Well, it doesn’t surprise me that we can blame Gabriel for this.’ He snorted a laugh. Taking a moment, he rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his knuckles. He stared at the still sleeping man for a long, silent moment. ‘There were two spears.’ Belial spoke slowly as though giving himself time to remember details. ‘Longinus was using his own to finish off any poor souls that were still suffering and he broke it. He wasn’t very careful with his killing and a badly aimed thrust snapped the head off as the spear hit the wood of his cross. The blade flipped back and cut his hand. Weaponless, he tried to get a friend to put an end to Jesus, but his friend refused, although he did lend Longinus his spear. The bloods became mingled when he picked up both spears. Gabriel collected both weapons afterward and obviously made sure that Metatron got the wrong one.’ Belial frowned. ‘I don’t know why but he never really trusted Metatron. He must have laughed himself sick that you got the real one.’

  My mind reeled. These petty enmities had been going on for time beyond thinking. ‘Gabriel knew even then that Metatron would try and take over?’ It didn’t seem possible that I’d been embroiled in these events and had never known.

  Belial shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ He watched Lucifer sleeping peacefully on the carpet. ‘Gabriel became really paranoid after the crucifixion – wouldn’t talk to anyone, kept disappearing. I think he just decided to keep anything dangerous out of his reach. Metatron wouldn’t know the difference between the two weapons. Both had the same amount of blood on them but only one performed the actual deed.’

  I gingerly put the knife back into its sheath. My shoulders itched – I could almost feel it as an entity, sitting there just waiting. The most contentious weapon in the whole of history and I’d used it to cut coffee cake! I’d also opened boxes with it, dropped it in the bath on numerous occasions and used it to clean my fingernails. I smothered a nervous giggle with a cough.

  ‘So what happens now?’ I tried to ignore the metal’s heavy warmth. ‘Metatron did not look happy when we last saw him.’

  ‘We need him awake.’ Belial leant back, his hands in the pockets of his waistcoat. ‘Lucifer’s the only one with the power to oppose The Voice, and he’ll only do that if he wants to. He could wake up and just say, “I’ve had enough” and let it all end. That’s certainly how he was feeling just before he disappeared.’

  ‘So where exactly does that leave us?’ Carly frowned. ‘Neither of those options really work, do they?’ She began ticking points off on her fingers. ‘Lucifer wakes up and does nothing, Metatron’s plan goes ahead and we all die. Lucifer wakes up and is back to his old self and we’re stuck with the Morning Star in all his angry glory and we probably all die just because he’s pissed off. Lucifer wakes up, stops Metatron then takes power for himself and pretty much carries out the same plan …’ She shrugged. ‘Any way you look at it there’s just no outcome that’s going to be good for anyone.’

  ‘Well,’ Belial began, ‘we’re either the proud possessors of a paddle or we’re not. Either way we’re still up shit creek.’

  My stomach did a slow roll.

  ‘The question is, can we swim?’ Belial pushed himself to his feet with a grunt. ‘I’d better go and rally the other bathers.’

  ‘Hang on a moment.’ Carly had been staring into space for a while now. ‘How did Metatron know that Lucifer had returned?’

  Belial shrugged and reached for his overcoat. ‘I don’t know – maybe he can feel him.’ He waved his fingers about in magical passes. ‘You know, changes in the force or some such shit.’

  Well, that was true but I was positive we were missing something.

  Carly stood up to help her father on with his coat. ‘On balance I suppose it doesn’t really matter, does it?’

  Balance, status quo, everything equal. Metatron was always going on about balance. ‘Were you still talking when he took off?’ I asked.

  She nodded. ‘We’d been going round and round for ages about the meaning of God’s words regarding the ultimate destruction of Hell. Metatron got fed up with all the arguing and said that God would have the final say.’ She paused to remember. ‘He went into one of those trances of his then opened his eyes, screamed ‘No’ and disappeared like a cat with a rocket tied to its tail.

  Suddenly it all made sense. ‘Wouldn’t you?’ I said.

  Carly and Belial both looked at me. You could easily see they were related – I was faced with matching frowns.

  ‘Metatron has been pretending to talk to God for years but there’s been no answer – no one on the other end of the line, no one to give him guidance or answer his questions. Eventually he gets fed up with the Host becoming restless and starts issuing his own orders with God’s stamp on them. The first time he did it he probably shit himself waiting for retribution, but there was nothing, so he does it again and again and he enjoys it. He enjoys the power, enjoys the notoriety and enjoys the control. He decides that he doesn’t want to give it up and, as possession is nine-tenths of the law, he’s going to bloody well keep it.

  ‘So here come you lot bitching about the rules and the way things are going. Just to shut you up he goes off to contact God knowing that all he has to do is feel about in the darkness for a while, take the time to come up with a God-like proclamation and that will be it. You lot will all sod off with your collective tails down and his plan will continue unhindered. This time, however, there is something there. Just a tiny sliver of consciousness, but its growing and it’s enough to send him into a panic the like of which hasn’t been seen since Sodom and Gomorrah fell.’

  Belial’s jaw dropped.

  ‘There has to be a balance. Everybody keeps telling me that.’ I looked down at Lucifer lying supine and happily asleep. I jabbed my finger toward him. ‘He rises and basically drags God with him. The last thing Metatron wants to face is God; he would have too much to answer for. Suddenly he sees his time running out – he has to bring things to a head before God’s strong enough to stop him.’

  Carly looked at her father, her face stricken ‘We’re even more screwed than we thought,’ she muttered. ‘If he wakes up, God comes back and the whole of Armageddon goes ahead on schedule. If he doesn’t wake up Metatron will just come and take him.’ She rubbed her hands together and bit her lip. ‘Either way, Hell gets wiped out and takes us with it.’ She glanced up at me. ‘Will you stop doing that!’

  ‘Sorry.’ I removed my finger from my ear where I’d been poking and probing. ‘I think that being hit by half a house has given me tinnitus – I can hear bells.’

  ‘Bells?’ Belial gave me a wary look. ‘What sort of bells?’

  There was one long chime followed by four short deep bongs as though someone were hammering a gong; this sequence was repeated again and again. I tried to beat it out on the table. ‘It’s really making me feel tetchy,’ I said.

  ‘We have to go.’ Belial walked toward the door
and, sticking his head out, bellowed for someone to come. ‘That’s a recall. Michael’s calling the entire Host back. They’re getting ready for war, and somehow I don’t think their attention is on Earth any more.’ He bit his lip then turned to Carly. ‘Get hold of Nessus and get him organising things right away. We have to clear the city immediately.’

  CHAPTER 7

  IT TOOK A SURPRISINGLY short time to think up a plan of action, although admittedly it was a very simple plan: run away. Run away, as fast and as far as possible. Clear Hell, get everybody that didn’t want to fight out through the gates and onto other planes, then the gates would be closed. Anybody that stayed would almost certainly die. The Host numbered hundreds of thousands and Hell these days was populated by families, tourists, traders and refugees. The only two races that said they’d stay were the centaurs and the Drekavak. Even they acknowledged it was suicide – they just didn’t have anywhere else to go. The Drekavak felt that taking as many angels with them as they went would be nothing more than a gift to everyone else. And the centaurs? Well, all I could get out of them was a sort of embarrassed mutter that they’d rather face a billion angels than what waited them at home.

  ‘There must be something more we can do. I don’t want anybody to die.’ Carly wrung her hands nervously together as she stared out over the city.

  The Drekavak seemed to be enjoying themselves and there was a lot of huddling and whispering. There were a couple of disagreements but, eventually, one tall male stood up and shouted over to Belial.

  ‘We think we have a solution,’ he said.

  Belial’s eyebrows went up and he indicated for them to continue.

  ‘The angels are going to attack in force. They’ll do what they always do. By dint of sheer numbers and that bloody horn of theirs, the walls will fall and they’ll just stamp in and kill or capture everything in sight.’

  Belial nodded.

  ‘You have to hide Lucifer somewhere until he sorts himself out, yes?’

  Belial nodded again. ‘Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that, you see …’

  ‘Right.’ The Drekavak ignored him and, taking a pencil from behind one of his tall ears, began to draw diagrams on the wall. Belial winced as the intricate silver shot wallpaper became a whiteboard. ‘The one place the angels won’t go and Lucifer will be safe is Old Hell – specifically the Throne Room.’

  Belial came to his feet. ‘Whoa, Gallard, you’re mad! There’s no way we’d get there, not any more.’

  ‘Hear me out.’ The tall demon held up a paw. ‘If you take Lucifer and a small group you should be able to get through the lower levels. You’ll just have to be careful.’ He turned back to his drawings. ‘But first, we’re going to raze the city.’

  ‘No!’ Belial looked anguished and sat down hard, his legs apparently feeble.

  Carly sighed and placed her hands on his shoulders. ‘I don’t think we have a choice, Father.’ She squeezed gently.

  Belial reached up and held one of her hands. ‘But all the people … There’s hundreds of years of work here.’ He stared out of the window at the buildings and flags a long way below.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Gallard sighed. ‘If we don’t, then the Host almost certainly will and I think we can take most of them with it when it goes. At least it will die in glory.’

  The Devil’s second-in-command frowned. ‘That’s not glory. A few falling rocks isn’t going to stop an angel.’ He shook his head again. ‘It may slow them down if they have to dig themselves out but they’ll just keep coming.’

  The Drekavak smiled. ‘We’re not going to pull the buildings down, Belial – we’re going to make the city fight back.’

  ‘The city will stay?’

  Gallard looked over at the small group of Drekavak that were still muttering among themselves and shrugged. ‘Maybe. It could fall just from the fighting, or, by the time we’ve finished with it, it may be uninhabitable. You might not be able to come back. This has never been done before so we just don’t know.’

  Carly leant forward. ‘Father, we don’t have time for this. The Host are going to be on their way, Nessus says most of the people have already gone, but we have to move Lucifer – and quickly.’

  Her father puffed out his cheeks then patted her hand. He looked over at the tall Drekavak. ‘Will it work?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t need to know the details – just give me the bare bones of the idea then we’ll leave you blasted clever folk to do your worst.’

  ‘Right.’ Gallard nodded to the Drekavak. They all turned as one and trooped out of the room.

  Belial winced again.

  ‘Once everyone’s gone we close and dispose of all the gates.’ Gallard pointed to his drawing of the city in the market square; a cross marked the position of the fountain. ‘We set up another gate here.’ He pointed to the left of the cross. ‘We open both gates, you and your little lot head downwards into the lower levels. We’ll wait to see you gone then we close it behind you.’ He pursed his lips. ‘We need one person to stay behind to set off the traps, and that person will have to wait till the very last moment to make sure we take out most of the Host.’ He frowned at his drawing. ‘At the very last moment I will set the city off and make a run for it through the last gate.’

  ‘The Host will follow you.’ Carly stared at the sketches. ‘And what do you mean – “set the city off”?’

  ‘No, they won’t follow us. By that time there will be so much screaming and dying they won’t worry about one small demon.’ He spat the word out. ‘Or at least I hope they won’t. Even if they do, there’ll be another gate on the other side of this one that will be closed by the others as soon as I pass through it. Any angel seeking to escape the city’s wrath by coming through that gate will just find themselves trapped with no energy to use. They’ll be stuck.’

  I noticed he hadn’t answered her other question.

  ‘Which world are you going to use?’ Parity asked, her voice quiet and gentle.

  ‘I’ll be going home.’ Gallard stared, unseeing, at the wall. ‘I really hope that bastard Michael follows me through. I’d dearly love him to be stuck on a dead world.’ Gallard spat vindictively onto the carpet. ‘Let’s face it, he helped to read its final rites.’

  Getting up from her chair Parity walked over to the sad creature. ‘Make sure you don’t get stuck there.’ Wrapping her thin arms as far around him as she could, she hugged him hard. ‘We only just got you out last time.’

  Gallard smiled at her. ‘Been there and done that, my little fire top.’ He ruffled her candyfloss hair with a huge yet gentle paw. ‘I’ll be off that world as quickly as I can.’

  Belial stood up and looked over at me. ‘How are those bells of yours, Joe?’ he asked.

  I rubbed my temples. The ache was not fun. ‘Still there.’

  ‘Louder?’ Belial pressed.

  I shook my head then wished I hadn’t. ‘Just really insistent.’ Talking was beginning to set up a counter vibration against the toll of the bells. I resolved not to do it any more than I had to.

  ‘Right.’ Belial nodded over at Nessus who had just walked in. ‘We have about six hours. Open as many gates as possible – get the last of the citizens away. Chase them out, don’t let them hang around for possessions, pick them up and throw them through the gates if you have to.’ He looked at the clock on the wall. ‘We’ll meet at the fountain.’ As we all began to move he held up a hand. ‘One last thing …’

  The group of centaurs that had been heading for the door stopped and turned back with enquiring looks. ‘We can’t take everyone with us, so who wants to see the lower levels of Hell?’ He raised his eyebrows and looked around. ‘Volunteers only. Well, except you, Joe – you’re conscripted.’

  ‘Gee, thanks,’ I muttered.

  ‘I’m coming.’ Carly stated.

  ‘No, you’re not.’ Her father refused to look at her.

  Carly snorted.

  ‘Absolutely not.’ Belial was adamant. ‘You’re going with t
he rest of the refugees. I want you safe.’

  Carly continued to look at him, her face devoid of expression. ‘My life isn’t about what you want, so don’t be irritating.’ She smiled, taking the sting from her words. ‘I’m coming and you can stamp your feet or hold your breath until your face turns purple.’ She pushed her chair back under the table. ‘Just give in now, Dad. There is no way – no way at all – you’re going without me.’

  Belial threatened to turn puce; small whorls of dark energy suddenly erupted from his spine.

  Carly looked on, unimpressed. ‘Stop pouting, Father, just suck it up and let’s get on with it, shall we?’

  Her matter-of-fact tone took the wind out of his sails and the energy dissipated into harmless fog.

  Belial turned resolutely away from her and carried on taking names.

  Nessus was one of the first to step forward and turned almost crimson when Belial shook his head. ‘Nope, not you either.’

  ‘What do you mean, not me?’ Nessus roared at Belial. ‘Who else has got my muscle? Who else can look after you all? Who else has got my speed?’ Obviously mortally insulted the huge centaur was almost frothing.

  Unable to make himself heard over Nessus’s ranting, Belial stayed quiet and waited. Eventually, like a wind-up toy that’s used all its spring, Nessus ground to a halt.

  Belial stood up and, wandering over to the enraged horse man, slung an arm over his back. ‘I need you to do something for me.’

  Nessus turned his torso and frowned down at him.

  ‘Whatever happens …’ Belial looked thoughtful and wiped his nose on his sleeve with a sniff. ‘… we’re going to need a way out. I can almost guarantee we won’t be able to make it back out the same way we went in. I need you to open the Fae Gateway.’

  Carly gasped. ‘Father, no!’

  Melusine looked up from quietly polishing her knife. ‘That’s a shit idea, Belial.’ She shook her head and went back to her weapon.

  ‘Find Cu Sith.’ Belial frowned, ignoring everyone. ‘I can think of other Fae that would help, but he owes me a favour.’