Chapter 2

Iland on shattered stone and grunt in pain. If it wasn’t for the wards I’d have more than a few broken bones right about now.

I’m yanked off the ground. I feel fingers tighten on my arms and legs, then a rush of air. A moment of lightness, then another sickening collision and I bounce off the wall again and hit the floor. My gun skitters away into the darkness.

I groan and try to push myself up. Stay down! shouts a voice in my head. Pretend you’re dead.

But here’s the thing. I was never very good at listening to advice. Even from myself.

‘Why have you not burst?’ says the voice, and I hear a sliver of interest in the tone.

I shake my head, trying to chase away the blackness. Once again I’m lifted up, weightless. But I don’t feel fingers this time. I force my eyes open.

I’m hanging in the air in the centre of the room. An old man walks towards me. He has a wrinkled face, a neatly trimmed white beard. He’s wearing . . .

I frown. For a moment I wonder if I’m hallucinating. He’s wearing one of those pastel blue suits that Don Johnson used to wear in Miami Vice. Beneath that a pink T-shirt with ocean waves printed on it.

And cheap plastic sunglasses, the kind you get for five rand at the stalls along the beachfront.

‘Hey,’ I murmur. ‘The 1980s called. They want their clothes back.’

He doesn’t smile. I don’t blame him. That joke was already old in the 80s.

‘You are one of them, I think. Yes?’ Babalu-Aye pushes the plastic glasses up so they’re perched on his head. He leans forward and sniffs me. ‘Yes. I can smell the first breath of the world on you. The power. Like a baby trying to perform heart surgery. That is what you all are.’

Babalu-Aye sucks air through his teeth and stares at me thoughtfully. I don’t like that look.

‘You know what I have not done in such a long time?’ he asks.

‘Felt the loving touch of a woman?’ I say, as I glance around the room searching for the dog. I can’t see him anywhere. ‘No – dance naked in the rain. That’s it, isn’t it?’

‘Eat a softskin,’ he says.

Nope. Really didn’t need to know that.

‘I used to do it quite often. This was . . . oh – seventeenth century? Eighteenth? Time starts to lose meaning after a while. But it was one of my favourite treats. Children were the best. Such soft flesh. Succulent. Moist.’

He shivers with delight. His words bring the world sharply back into focus, bring the memories rushing back. Why I’m here. What I’m seeking.

‘Is that what you did?’ I whisper, fearing the answer. It would explain everything. The lack of bodies. All the blood. ‘With the kids you took?’

Babalu-Aye frowns. He reaches up and slaps me hard. ‘Do you not listen? I just said I have not eaten a child in a long time.’

I struggle in vain, trying to get out of his invisible grip. ‘Three years ago,’ I snarl. ‘A house in the mountains. That was your doing, wasn’t it? You told those guys to snatch the kids. Just like now.’

Babalu-Aye frowns, thinking back. He finally shakes his head. ‘Not me.’

‘Don’t lie!’ I shout. ‘Five kids. All under eight. There were three men there. Two got away. They know where the bodies are!’

Babalu-Aye floats up so that he is hovering in front of me, face to face. ‘You are not listening, human. I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘You’re lying! It was you! It had to be.’

‘Listen to me, my child. I was part of the creation of this land. I am this land. A hundred thousand years ago, your ancestors prayed to me when they barely understood the concept. Forty thousand years ago, they drew paintings of me in caves. I do not lie. What need have I for untruths?’

I shake my head in despair. I’d thought this would be it. That I was finally going to get the truth.

‘Then why?’ I whisper, my voice broken. Hoarse. ‘Why are you taking those kids now? Why are you here?’

‘Why am I here?’ He spreads his arms out and smiles. ‘This hospital feeds me – can you not feel the essence? How many diseased children died here? How many prayers were sent to me from this place?’ He lowers his arms and smiles. ‘But do not waste your thoughts on these children you seek. They are already dead.’

I stare at him blankly as his words sink into my soul, cutting fresh wounds across old scars. I want to reach out and rip his smug face to shreds. To gouge his eyes from his head and burst them in my hands.

‘The boy? The one you took yesterday?’

‘You did not see him while you were searching for me? No, of course not. You’re still alive, how could you?’

‘Show me. Take me to him.’

‘No,’ says Babalu-Aye. ‘I am bored now.’

He twists his hands in the air. I feel my head being pushed to the side, my neck pulled in the opposite direction. I scream as bright, flashing agony surges through my body. No matter how strong my wards they’re not going to prevent this orisha from eventually breaking my neck.

I feel vertebrae starting to pop. I’m looking sideways now, staring into rheumy yellow eyes, white teeth parted in a grin.

Fuck. No choice. Time to call in the big guns.

I close my eyes and repeat the words of awakening.

I feel them instantly on my skin as they stir to life. It tickles and repulses at the same time, a spider-walk sensation that crawls up my spine.

Light explodes in the room as my tattoos come alive. Twin dragons, green and red, bursting out through the gap at my collar to coil up in the air over my shoulders.

Babalu-Aye’s eyes widen in surprise. The glowing dragons – still attached to my spine – lunge over my shoulders and wrap around him. They lift him off his feet and flick him away. He spins through the air, hits the wall and falls to the rubble.

I hit the ground too, landing on my knees.

The dragons are hissing and spitting, dragging me forwards along the dirt. I grit my teeth and bring them to heel, forcing them back behind me with sheer force of will. I can feel their hatred, their desire to devour me, to devour everything.

Goddammit but I regret getting them. They were the first piece of magic I ever picked up. Sak yat, a Chinese tattoo magic that’s over two thousand years old.

Buddhist monks originally engraved the tattoos into warriors for strength and protection before they went into battle. I thought that sounded pretty cool. So I travelled to the Wat Bang Phra Temple in Thailand and asked them to ink me up. I had to do a few favours for the monks before they finally agreed. After that they took me below ground and left me to fast for two weeks. Then, when I was delirious and raving like a madman, they inked me the old-fashioned way, using a piece of bamboo tapped repeatedly against the skin.

And the ink isn’t any run-of-the-mill ink. It’s a special supply made from dried dragon blood, passed down through the centuries.

Only problem is, the tattoos – they’re kind of alive. The dragon blood craves sacrifice, and every time I summon them I find them harder to control. They hate me. Hate being trapped. They’d give anything to break free.

Plus, every second they’re awake they drain my life source, literally devouring parts of my soul. The dog helps me a bit, throwing in some of his own power so the tattoos don’t suck me dry. But even so, I’m terrified of calling them up. I never know if they’re sucking weeks off my life. Months. Years, even.

Still, if the alternative is actually being ripped apart by some old bastard of a god, I suppose you can’t complain.

I move forward until the dragons are within reach of Babalu-Aye. They wrap around him, yank him to his feet, pull him towards me.

His eyes widen suddenly in surprise. His lips pull back from the teeth in a shout of pain.

I wonder what’s going on. Are the dragons killing him? Draining him dry?

Then I see it. The dog has clamped his teeth on Babalu-Aye’s balls. Yeah, gods have genitalia when they’re corporeal. How else are they going to indulge in their favourite pastime – fornicating with mortals?

I focus my attention on the dragons and mutter the words of sleep. The dragons shudder, fighting me all the way. I push my focus into the words, repeat them over and over, and they finally release Babalu-Aye with a hiss of displeasure and snake back over my head, coiling back around my arms and down my back. As always, I feel like they’re somehow trying to take me with them. Like they’re trying to pull me into Nightside with them, where, I have no doubt, they’d have a lot of fun ripping me to pieces.

I stagger, a wave of nausea washing over me.

-London? Don’t flake out on me, man. Got my mouth full here.-

I straighten up, take a few steadying breaths. I spot my shotgun a few feet away and scramble over to grab it. Babalu-Aye has pulled a knife from somewhere and is about to plunge it into the dog’s ribs.

I place the sawed-off against the back of the old bastard’s neck. He freezes.

‘Dog,’ I said calmly. ‘Drop.’

The dog releases his grip. I take a shaky breath, relief flooding through my system. I break into a grin and glance down at the dog.

‘Who’s a good boy, then?’ I say. ‘Huh? You are. Yes you are!’

‘Bite me, London,’ mutters the dog.

 

I make sure the gun doesn’t lose contact with Babalu-Aye’s neck and use it to shove him ahead of me through the dirty corridors.

‘You know you cannot harm me,’ he says mildly. ‘The Covenant applies to your kind as well.’

‘You picked a good time to start worrying about the Covenant, old man.’

‘I am not a man. I am a God. Capital G. And if you think you are going to walk away from this, you truly are a most stupid skinbag.’

I prod him roughly with the barrel, hoping he can’t pick up on my nervousness. Hoping the dog, trotting along a few feet behind, can’t either. He’s right, of course. No matter what happens this afternoon I’m making enemies. That’s what happens when you don’t think things through.

Funny. That’s what Armitage always says about me. I’m too impulsive. If I survive this I’ll have to tell her she’s right. She’ll like that.

Babalu-Aye eventually leads me to the far end of the building. Into a long room with high windows to either side.

Dust motes flash and wink in the lowering sun. Glass partitions run the length of the room, painted with images that are supposed to be calming to children: a scene from ‘The Cow Jumped over the Moon’, with a cat that looks like it’s high on cocaine playing a fiddle while the moon leers down at it, grinning like a serial killer. Badly copied versions of Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig, chipped and faded. And creepiest of all, paintings of kids on their knees. Praying. But all of them with their backs to the viewer.

‘Where’s the kid?’

Babalu-Aye points to a door at the far end of the room. ‘Through there.’

We reach the door. It’s thick, with a round window at the top. But I can’t see through. There’s a piece of warped cardboard stamped with the word ‘sunlight soap’ stuck to the other side.

‘Open it.’

‘That is a very bad idea.’

‘Open it!’

The orisha sighs. ‘Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

Babalu-Aye pushes the door. I shove him hard, sending him stumbling into the room. I follow after.

Images flash before me, like photographs whipped past my eyes.

A huge room. White tiles, cracked, dripping with black fluid. An old metal bunk bed, six feet high, all the springs pulled out. A boy of about twelve tied spread-eagled between the frame of the top bunk, facing down to the floor. A fine sand-like substance siphoning from his nose and mouth, making little piles on the ground.

And on the floor some kind of black leathery cocoon. About ten feet long. There’s movement in the cocoon, a rippling beneath the surface.

‘What . . . ?’

Babalu-Aye looks at it in disgust. ‘They can never control themselves,’ he says. ‘They are like teenagers tasting their first beer. All they want is more and more.’

‘More?’ I don’t know what I’m looking at.

‘More souls,’ says Babalu-Aye. ‘Unbaptized. Unnamed. Before they reach adulthood.’

I look around in dawning realization. The scene in front of me changes in my perception, like one of those pictures that can be either a young woman or an old crone.

The powder – manifested soul, stolen from the child.

The cocoon . . . not a cocoon at all.

As if hearing our voices for the first time, the mass on the floor undulates backwards and rises up. Black leathery wings unfold. Six sets. Two at the feet. Two on the back. Two on the neck.

They open up to reveal . . .

I stumble backwards. The creature in front of me has four faces. Not four heads, but four faces, north, south, east and west. Each of them has black eyes and a mouth wide open in a silent scream. The noses are coated with the sand. It’s smeared across the cheeks.

I can’t believe what I’m looking at. I wonder if I’m the first human to see such a thing.

An angel. But in its true form.

I’ve seen one or two angels in my work at Delphic Division. Not many. They tend to stick to Europe for some reason. But those I have seen were always projecting an image, something that wouldn’t freak us poor mortals out. Marble statue features. Feathery wings, etc.

This ten-foot monstrosity is what they really look like.

It stares at me, but I see no awareness behind its eyes. I’ve seen the same look on crack-heads down at the beachfront.

This angel is getting high on the souls of children.

‘He’s becoming quite the addict,’ says Babalu-Aye conversationally. ‘I think I will have to move him to another city now. I can only acquire so many children before softskins start to complain.’

His words penetrate my shock.

I blink.

Then I shoot Babalu-Aye in the face.

His head bursts in a fine red mist. The explosion thunders through the room. Brain and blood spatter the dirty tiles. The orisha drops to his knees then falls forward to the floor.

I crack open the sawn-off, eject the empty shells, load two more. The dog is shouting at me, but I can’t hear him. My ears are ringing. I’m not sure if it’s from the gunshot or just shock. I jerk the gun, flicking it closed again. Pull back the two hammers.

Unload both rounds into the angel’s face.

It shrieks, black blood spewing from its mouths. It flies back against the bed, knocking it over onto its side so the kid is now suspended sideways in the air. I hurry forward, try to untie him. I can’t see any awareness in his eyes. I don’t know if I’m too late. Can’t get the rope undone.

The angel is thrashing around on the tiles, kicking and squealing. It’s like Satan’s own fingernails screeching across the blackboard of my soul.

I stop trying to untie the rope and jerk the shells out of the gun, load two more. Point the gun with my right hand and fish around at my belt for my knife – a present from Becca before she left me.

I find it. Cut the ropes of the kid’s feet. He swings down into a standing position.

‘Kid!’ I slap his face. ‘Kid. You hear me?’

The sand is still leaking from his nose and mouth, but the stream seems to have slowed. He blinks as I cut his hands free. The angel has stopped thrashing, is staring dully at me now, trying to speak around a ruined mouth. I’m sure I can see its flesh knitting together again, healing. I step forward and put the gun right against its head. It tries to bat it away but I pull the trigger. Brains or whatever the hell angels have spatter out the other side and it flops down again.

The dog’s voice gradually filters back into my awareness.

‘You are so fucked, London! What the hell are you playing at? You won’t get away with this. Every orisha and super is going to be after your blood! This is what happens when you don’t listen to me you stupid c—’

I turn and look at him. Something in my face stops his stream of abuse. He backs away. I turn back to the kid. He’s looking around now, his awareness returning. I try to block his view of the angel behind me.

‘Can you walk? Kid, can you walk?’

He blinks at me and moves his mouth. He spits. Sand drops to the floor. I wince, resisting the urge to tell him not to lose any more.

‘Get out of here. Go downstairs. Out the front doors. You hear me?’

He nods, then stumbles out the room. I wait till I see him start to run past the glass-walled partitions before turning back to the angel, wondering how to finish it off.

It’s standing right behind me.

The angel backhands me. I fly through the air and smash into the tiles, collapse to the floor. I lose my gun again. Need to glue that damn thing to my hand. It skids about ten feet away, out of reach.

The angel’s face is reforming before my eyes, white-grey flesh knitting together. Its wings – the largest pair on its back – flare out, stiffening, smashing into the ceiling, punching holes in the tiles. The wings flex and move with each heavy breath the angel takes, pulling tiles from the walls.

There is a moment of emptiness. The breath of creation waiting to see what happens next. Ceramic fragments fall to the floor with tiny plink plink sounds.

Then the angel smiles around its ruined mouths.

It uses its wings as leverage, stiffening them and launching itself straight at me.

I don’t have time to think. I shove off with my feet, sliding through Babalu-Aye’s blood. I make it out of reach just as the angel lands where my head was, crushing the floor tiles with its weight.

It gets stuck in the hole for a second, long enough for me to scramble for my gun. I unload the last barrel into its face, aiming for the eyes this time. It screams in pain and I turn and run. The dog is already ahead of me, halfway towards the door at the far end of the glass-partitioned room.

So much for my backup.

I pop the shells and load my last two. Not good. The shells aren’t really having an effect on the angel. This is going to require something more radical.

I look over my shoulder just as the wall of the room explodes outwards, the angel simply shoving through the bricks. Dust billows towards me, followed by one extremely pissed off and extremely high angel.

I reach around and grab my satchel, pull it open and stash my gun. It’s not going to help me.

Running. Holding my bag in one hand. Through the glass-partitioned room, along the corridor beyond. Down the stairs, slipping onto my back, pushing myself up as I hear the footsteps pounding behind me. Down to the first floor. The yellow corridor. Close now. Have to get out. The angel won’t come out into the light. No matter how high the stupid thing is, an angel revealing itself to the public is a huge no-no. I hope. I don’t know. But it’s my only chance.

The corridor is long. I sprint as fast as I can, but even before I reach the end I know I’m not going to make it. The footsteps are closer. I can hear them, feel the vibrations in the wooden floorboards.

I glance over my shoulder just in time to see the angel launch itself at me, reaching out with huge hands. I spin around, bring my knife up. It pierces the angel’s hand as it crashes into me. We fly back into the wall. Rotten plaster caves in, showers us in white dust. I can feel the dog’s wards straining at the impact.

We’re embedded in the wall. I hear the snapping of teeth. The fucker is trying to bite me. I yank my knife out its hand and stab it in the neck. Black blood gouts over my hand, steaming hot. I snatch my hand back but the angel doesn’t seem to have noticed the wound. I push back on the angel’s chin, forcing its neck taut. I bring the knife up to cut its throat but the angel jerks back, pulling us both out the wall.

I punch the knife repeatedly into its stomach. Over and over until it lets me go. I drop to the floor, scrabble between its legs, stand up, and do the only other thing I think might hurt it.

I use the knife to slice one of its wings off.

The angel shrieks in pain and fury, whirling around. One of the remaining wings hits me and sends me tumbling to the floor. I push myself to my feet and run. I run like I’ve never run before, fishing around in my satchel as I do so.

My hand closes around what I’m looking for. An insurance policy. Something I ‘forgot’ to hand in to the evidence locker after one of my cases.

I pull it out. It’s a hand grenade, but I don’t know what’s inside it. Holy light, demon fire, swarms of flesh-eating locusts. Could be anything. Only thing is, if I use it, it’s going to bring me to the attention of the Accountants, people I really don’t want noticing me.

Hell, what does it matter? I’ve already broken the Covenant. The Accountants are going to be after my blood anyway. Might as well drag my life out as long as possible.

I keep running, heading for the front door. I can hear the angel following after me, but I’ve managed to pull ahead. I yank the safety pin on the grenade, holding the striker lever down. I wait till I’m only a couple of rooms from the front entrance then I drop the grenade behind me and keep on moving.

I make it through the reception area.

I’m in the open air atrium, passing the graffiti-covered columns, when the grenade explodes.

The detonation hits me in the back, throws me off my feet. I skid along the tiles, then scramble up and lurch through the wooden door, out onto the grass as the structure starts to collapse behind me. I run until I’m almost at the main gate, ducking and darting to avoid falling masonry.

I finally stop and turn around.

Stone and bricks are still pattering down around me. Black smoke billows up from a hole in the roof. As I watch, the outside walls buckle, those that weren’t blown outwards now collapsing in on themselves.

I frown. So . . . the grenade was just an actual grenade? That’s a bit anticlimactic. But at least it will have taken care of the angel. For a while. Long enough for me to get away.

Speaking of which, I should get out of here. I blink and look around. The dog is waiting by the gate. I trot over to join him.

‘You happy now?’ he asks.

‘Where’s the kid?’

‘Long gone. I wouldn’t worry. He seemed to know where he was going.’

I can hear sirens in the distance.

‘You want to hang around, get arrested for terrorism, or you reckon we make ourselves scarce?’ the dog asks.

I start walking. I feel as if my whole world has crumbled around me again. I got my hopes up. I knew I shouldn’t have.

Never expect anything. That way you can never be disappointed.

We cross the street, heading back to the Land Rover. Moses is standing there, staring at the black smoke billowing into the sky. I fish around in my wallet and take out a two hundred rand note. All I have on me. I pass it to Moses.

‘I wasn’t here.’

Moses tears his gaze away from the smoke.

‘What happened?’

‘Gas leak,’ I say. ‘Moses, I wasn’t here, OK?’

He looks at the money. Once again, he makes it disappear. ‘You weren’t here.’

‘Thanks.’

The dog hops into the passenger seat. I start the engine and pull out into the street, moving slowly around the cars that are stopping to rubberneck. Hopefully none of them saw us leave the grounds.

‘You should be happy. At least you saved the kid.’

I don’t answer. What’s to be happy about? If it wasn’t Babalu-Aye then I’m no closer to finding out what happened three years ago.

I sometimes think I’m dead and stuck in limbo, doomed to repeat the same cycle of hope and defeat over and over again until the end of time.

It would be no more than I deserve.