Part 3 (2/2)

He let me go then, and left me to gain control of my breath as he pondered me from a distance, a huge puddle of darkness in the room. His next words came slowly, oozing like rivulets of revulsion. ”Have you come to kill me?”

He came near again and bent down, looking at me. His wings rustled and I could feel his breath, faintly sweet against my face.

”You have traces of angel on you.” His voice had changed, as if he were performing an autopsy, speaking into a tape recorder. Dry. Emotionless. ”And the scent of Paris on your body. Raphael and Metatron.” He sounded as if he had almost resigned himself to my answer. ”Have you come to kill me?”

”No,” I said. ”I haven't.”

I thought he was going to speak to me then, perhaps to confide, perhaps only to resume his interrogation, but then somebody turned on the light and an awfully familiar voice said, echoing in the darkness, But I have

Chapter 9.

I saw him through the bars, but he wasn't looking my way; in fact, he wasn't looking anywhere but right ahead, and he was in a hurry.

There were no guards, only a small unmarked door that led outside, and he got into the driver's seat of a car that was parked there.

Eldershott, it appeared, enjoyed quite a few unusual freedoms as a prisoner of Lubyanka.

My money and papers were still in the guards' possession. It seemed that, when they'd dragged me in, they hadn't expected me to claim them back.

They were right, though for the wrong reason.

I only had to walk a short distance to get a cab, and he was almost out of sight by then, so I asked the driver to step on it and she did, not saying a thing.

”He owes me money,” I said, which seemed to merely confirm her suspicions, so that she slowly nodded.

It was crunch time, bring him in before he gets away, but I was beginning to think Control weren't that interested in that, perhaps, as much as in where he would go next, since everywhere he was, it seemed, Archangels died.

Which went for me as well. It wasn't a thought I liked to contemplate.

He got out at Yaroslavski train station. I followed him to the cas.h.i.+er, the one that handled foreign visitors, and heard him get a ticket on train number four, for its entire journey, no stops, second cla.s.s.

I bought a second cla.s.s ticket to Ekaterinburg from the Russian counter, handing over the money in roubles. It would take me half of the way on the same train, and then....

”It's me.”

No clicks on the phone, no little interruptions in the line, no static electricity in the background.

”Don't worry, it's safe.” And, ”Have you got him?”

”Yes.”

”Have you made contact?”

”Not yet.”

”Good. Where are you now?”

”Getting on a train that's going to Beijing.”

That seemed to throw him back a bit, but he soon returned with, ”What do you need?”

Good man.

I told him what I wanted and could almost hear Seago nodding on the other side of the line, and he said, ”Carry a copy of Pravda when you go onto the platform and leave it somewhere visible. You will be approached at Ekaterinburg.”

Click.

It was as hot on the train as it was cold outside; there was a samovar in the corner at the edge of the corridor, and a small wood fire burning underneath, heating up the water.

The cabin was empty, and I put down the small bag of necessities I'd bought at the station and sat down, incredibly weary, and closed my eyes, listening for the shrill cry of the engine and the rhythmic motion of the wheels as they began to move. Eldershott was in the same car, two cabins down; I waited until the train was in motion before walking past his cabin, and he was in, and there was nowhere to go; I intended to keep an eye on him, but right now I was simply too tired. I returned to my cabin, climbed up to the top bunk, stretched out, and slept.

My dreams were troubled, and took me back to Lubyanka, to the dark, small cell and the dark angel, Azrael, and that terrible voice saying, but I have.

I felt a soft hand caressing my neck, then moving down, and somehow I was freed of the shackles. I stood up and turned slowly, and faced Sophie Stockard.

Sophie Stockard: grey eyes like the calm before a storm, set like stones into a heart-shaped face devoid of all colour. Pet.i.te build, but muscular, which must have come from the dancing.

She was dressed in a simple s.h.i.+ft, grey and featureless, and her arms were bare and as pale as her face.

”Where is my Johnny?” it was the dancer Sophie speaking, the one I had begun to suspect was hidden inside, but she was hushed by the other.

Azrael, she said, and there was a tone of amused malevolence in her voice. How good to see you again.

I looked at the angel, and that strange distortion of my sight began again, so that the cell seemed to stretch into a long, dark tube or corridor, Azrael standing at its end, unmoving and still.

Have you nothing to say for yourself? Sophie enquired with the same malevolent laughter. She began advancing down the corridor, and its walls pulsed and s.h.i.+fted as if they were somehow alive. Nothing to justify to me, to explain, to plead?

There was silence from the Archangel.

My poor, poor Azrael, said that terrible voice, as Sophie started to close the distance between she and the angel, her thin body seeming to grow as it moved further away.

Then the angel attacked.

Azrael's dark body suddenly bloomed, those great black wings opening to their full span, and he flew at Sophie like a desperate animal, hands outstretched for her neck.

She hit him, her small fist connecting with his face with the impact of a rock thrown from a catapult, slamming him back against the wall, but Azrael recovered, lifted a wing and sliced, and the tip of those s.h.i.+mmering feathers cut through Sophie's arm.

Droplets of bright red blood splattered the wall like tiny diamonds.

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