“Two more hours, and we should be in Durham.” Shaw traced a line along the map spread out on the car’s hood.
“That long?” Ines asked, her voice little more than a groan. She was sick of being on the road. Sick of leg cramps from sitting in the same position for hours. Sick of the way the seat belt dug into her neck any time she dozed off and her head started to tip over. Sick of the awkwardness she felt stuck in the car with Damon and Rumiel.
Spending time with either of them alone would have been fantastic, but being around them both was a nightmare. She could feel the big stupid smile that spread across her face when Rumiel looked at her the right way, or when Damon said something funny or thoughtful. That smile made her glance nervously at the other one, afraid he would work out that something was up. Even moments of pleasure now made her squirm.
“That long,” Shaw said. She folded away the map and leaned against the hood, stretching her slender legs out in front of her. “We could have been there in a quarter of the time if we’d driven directly. But then we would have been running into roadblocks and military convoys, flights of angels raising people’s spirits, and throngs of demons feeding off their hate. This way, we avoid the worst of all those things.”
“I don’t think we’ve entirely avoided them,” Damon said, staring across the road.
They had stopped on the shoulder of a quiet back road running along a hillside, a place obscure enough to not have road markings. It could just about have coped with traffic going both ways as long as there was nothing wider than a mini. On the side where the hill sloped up above them were a selection of rocks large enough to use as seats while they ate more of the food they’d taken from the petrol station—Rumiel gobbling chocolate and jelly sweets with childish glee, Ines nibbling on crisps, Damon drinking a cup of coffee that had gone cold an hour ago.
Suddenly, her friend tensed.
On the other side of the road, a figure was approaching across the fields. He looked at first like a man, albeit an old-fashioned one, in his loose-hanging black suit and broad-brimmed hat. As he came closer, Ines caught a glimpse of the features hiding in the shadow of that hat, and she understood what had set Damon on edge. A pale mask of fake skin drooped from a visage with a hooked nose, jagged black teeth, and bulbous green eyes. It lurched from one leg to the other, moving swiftly and yet as though the process of walking were completely alien to it.
“Should we go?” Ines asked, placing a hand on the knife she kept hidden in a sheath up her other sleeve.
“No,” Damon said, setting aside the coffee as he stood up. “I’m going to have to have this conversation sooner or later—might as well do it now.”
Both Shaw and Rumiel stiffened as they realized what was approaching. Shaw kept her face neutral but held her hands loosely by her sides, ready for action. Rumiel glared in open hostility. Both had dedicated their lives to battling demons and their influence. Now one was coming towards them, and for once, violence was not a solution.
The creature reached the opposite side of the road and stopped. Sweeping its hat from its head, it curled forward in a low bow, while strings of writhing grey hair hung from its head.
“Viscount Demi-Chron,” the creature said. “I bring greetings from your father and from all attending upon the court of Lord Chron. He is proud of your progress, and we all wait eagerly for the next actions of the heir to our master’s throne.”
“Straighten up, Eldervain,” Damon said. “Life is enough of a mockery without you playing the posing courtier in the middle of nowhere.”
“There is no posing to this,” Eldervain said, returning his hat to his head. “It is very much a matter of substance. You have taken on great power, son of Chron, and we all wish to see what you will do with it.”
“Nothing that need concern you—that’s what I’m doing,” Damon said.
“I must beg to differ, oh inheritor of greatness. Yours is a power that places you among the upper echelons of demonkind. You are all but a lord in your own right now. Your actions are the concern of many, among them those who await you at court.”
“I have business in the world. And even if I didn’t, I would have no desire to visit Hell.”
“Then perhaps its denizens could visit you?” Eldervain stepped forwards, hands outstretched. “Many are eager to call upon you, to seek your patronage and discover what they might do to earn your favor.”
“If they want to be in my good books, then they should just stay away,” Damon said, drawing a watch from his pocket. “And you should do the same, Eldervain. Whatever my heritage, I’m still human, and that’s the life I choose. I’ll defend it by force if I have to.”
“Threats and posturing.” Eldervain grinned, revealing row after row of filthy pointed teeth. “Your father will be proud.”
He bowed once more and walked away across the field.
Damon was shaking as he sat back down on the rock next to Ines. She placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and he leaned his head against it, taking deep, calming breaths.
“It’s okay,” Ines said. “If you don’t want to deal with them, you don’t have to.”
“Really?” Damon looked her in the eyes. “Because if they decide to come for me, I’m not sure I can fight them off.”
“Maybe Ines can.” Shaw stood where Eldervain had been, sipping from a can of Coke and watching the demon as he shambled into the distance. “The girl who can fight angels and demons without magic, someone unheard of in all my studies and years in the Ministry. If anyone can chase away your would-be minions, it’s her.”
“And if Ines commands it, then I will assist,” Rumiel said, grinning. “It will be no burden to cut down the forces of Hell.”
“Great,” Damon said. “More fighting.”
The demons weren’t the only ones looking for them.
Half an hour later, as Shaw wove the car through the remains of a burned-out military convoy, Ines looked up and saw a bright figure hanging in the sky above them. Another joined it, and as the two descended in slow circles, she saw for certain what she had feared from the start—they were angels, and they were on the hunt.
“Rumiel, there are some of yours out there,” she said, pointing at them. “Do you think they can tell we’re here?”
“I do not know,” Rumiel replied. “It depends upon who they are. Sanctus has little gift for anything beyond the brawl. Hernais, on the other hand, can track the passage of a soul through the world once he has its scent.”
“Great.” Ines reached down the side of her seat, picking up one of the assault rifles left behind by the fleeing soldiers. “How easily can any of them fend off bullets?”
“Too easily.”
There was a click as Rumiel unfastened his seat belt, and then the whir of his window being wound down.
“I will see if they are of the Blazing Host,” he said. “If Michael sent them, then it is best that we know it.”
Before anyone could object, he burst out of the car with a thudding of wings through the air, racing towards the shining figures.
“Great.” Shaw slammed on the brakes and leaned forward to better see what was happening. Ines stuck her head out of her window, fingers tight around the gun as she watched to see what would happen.
For a moment, it appeared that they had gotten lucky. As Rumiel approached the other angels, all three stopped and hung in the air a hundred feet above the ground, wings flapping as they conversed. Ines began to relax.
Then there was a roar, and fire blasted from the hands of one of the figures, surrounding Rumiel in a ball of flames. Seconds later, he shot out of the inferno, sword swinging. There was a flash, and the other angel went flying backwards, arcing towards the ground.
Rumiel turned to face his other opponent. Too slow bringing his sword around, he did not get the blade up before the angel slammed into him, shoulder to belly. Rumiel’s sword vanished, and the two of them grappled in the blue sky, grabbing at wings, punching at faces, trying to get a lock on each other’s bodies. Tangled together in their melee, they tumbled from the heavens, heading towards a hill farther down the road.
The car jolted as Shaw hit the accelerator. Ines was flung back in her seat, gun still in hand, as they raced for the area where the figures would land.
The whole world seemed to tremble as the two angels hit the ground, dirt flying as if an artillery shell had just hit. The car screeched around a bend, shot across a junction, and ploughed through a wooden gate into a field, splintered planks hurtling in every direction. Shaw wrenched the steering wheel around, and they skidded to a halt a hundred yards from a crater in the middle of a field of flattened corn.
Ines leapt out and raced towards the crater, from which sounds of violence were emerging along with flashes of light. At the edge, she paused, gun ready, staring down.
The two angels were in the center of the crater, fighting with supernatural power and passion. With a swift movement, Rumiel raised his opponent above his head and slammed him into the ground, dirt flying. A moment later, he was on his back as his opponent swept his legs out from beneath him. The two of them rolled over and over, battering at each other with hands and feet, light bursting in great arcs from their fists. So much magic had flooded into the world, it seemed, that clashes between angels drew power from the very air.
The other angel gained the upper hand, straddling Rumiel, pinning his arms in place. A flurry of blows smashed against Rumiel’s face, the light flickering so fast it could have triggered an epileptic fit.
The gun felt useless in Ines’s hands. What if Rumiel moved as she fired and she hit him? Or what if she was such a terrible shot that she just hit him anyway? After all, she had never fired a weapon like this before. But she couldn’t just stand here, not when Rumiel was in danger.
Swinging the rifle around, she charged down into the crater, letting out a roar of rage. The angel turned as she reached it, and she slammed the butt of the rifle into the side of its perfect white face. A ripple seemed to cross its features as it was flung back, off Rumiel and down in the dirt.
Casting aside the rifle, Ines leapt upon her opponent. He raised his hands, and a glowing knife started to appear in one of them, but Ines was faster. Her blade, a kitchen knife she had kept sharp since her first encounter with a demon, was already in her hand. She slashed across the angel’s arm, knife cutting through glowing flesh, and the angelic blade disappeared. As she plunged the knife down towards his chest, the angel heaved them both up out of the dirt, flinging her aside even as she buried the blade in his shoulder. Teeth bared, he pulled the kitchen knife out and cast it aside. He spread his wings wide and flew back up into the sky.
There was a bark of gunfire. The angel jerked, and one of his wings hung limply, but he kept on flying. At the edge of the crater, Shaw stood with the other assault rifle in her hands, smoke drifting from the barrel.
“Better than nothing,” she said, lowering the gun.
Rumiel smiled as Ines helped him up, and as he leaned on her, she felt her heart race.
“I knew I could count on you,” he said and hugged her tight.