Fury (25 page)

It may be seconds, or hours, before I roll Ryan off me onto his back. His eyes are closed, but his life force pulses beneath my fingers and he starts to cough. The sound is harsh and painful. I place a steadying hand upon him as the rain beats down, feel his racing heartbeat below my palm.

I continue to lie there, staring up without blinking into the torrent falling out of the sky, seeming to see every drop, every needle of rain coming down, even up to its source.
Maybe this is all we can ever be
, I think in relief, in anguish.
Only ever one second away from disaster, from ruin
.

And I see that maybe Uriel is right: that if being with me could drive Ryan to do this, then I should go.

Uriel falls out of the sky beside us, landing lightly on his feet. I only vaguely register that he’s human-sized again, sporting the floppy, college-boy haircut, thin wire-framed spectacles and preppy designer gear he was wearing in Tokyo.

Ryan opens his eyes, looks up into Uriel’s face and some kind of primal recognition flares in them. He sits bolt upright, slamming the back of his head against the lamppost behind him in his haste to put some distance between himself and Uri. Then he realises that I haven’t moved at all, that I’m not even faintly concerned, and he looks from Uriel to me, from me to Uriel, in numb disbelief.

‘You say Luc and I could be twins,’ he says harshly. ‘What’s the deal with
this
guy?’

He braces himself against the glistening lamppost and uses it to slide upright onto his feet, then checks himself automatically for bruises, for fractures. The rain is seeping into his mouth, streaking down through his spiky, growing-back hair, the stubble on his face. He glares down at me where I’m still lying on the ground, motionless beneath the driving rain.

The tone of his voice and the very sight of him suddenly make me so furious that I’m on my feet before I register it, pummelling his chest with both my fists. Ryan retreats from the force of my blows.

‘Why bother?’ I scream into his face. ‘Why bother asking who he is? Why even check if you’re still in one piece when you just tried to commit suicide from three hundred feet? I’ll kill you myself if you ever pull a stunt like that again!’

‘Mercy,’ Uriel says warningly, and my anger dissolves into a tight feeling inside me, like unshed tears. I back away from both of them, crossing my arms tightly against my chest to protect myself from any more hurt.

Uriel walks over to Ryan and they eye each other warily, of a similar height and build, their body language indicating each is unprepared to be cowed by the other.

‘I’m Uriel,’ he says, putting out one hand awkwardly, in the human way, to be shaken.

‘You’ve never met before,’ I interject acidly, ‘but he’s been inside
your house
, Ryan. He has a habit of just turning up and giving people orders. Like how he wants us to go our separate ways, from here, now, today.’

‘In my
house
?’ Ryan looks down at Uri’s hand almost in horror, as if it might turn into a snake and bite him. He makes no move to take it.

‘Penalty time is over, Ryan,’ I say, trying to keep my voice light, though I’m gripped by that aching grief. ‘Because Uriel says so. I never did tell you, did I, about how much we resemble each other? About how, like you, I’m curiously twinned. Uriel tries to deny it, but our resemblance is proof to me that God exists, and has a sense of humour.’

Uriel glares at me, unamused, and lets his hand fall back down to his side. ‘Say what you have to say to each other,’ he snaps, ‘then get out of the way and let the real work begin.’

Ryan crosses his arms belligerently. ‘What happened to the right to
choose
?’ he snarls. ‘It’s not something reserved for you high and mighty
elohim
. I don’t choose to leave, and neither does Mercy. Not yet, not now, not when the world is literally going to hell. She can still do
good
down here. She can help you in ways you can’t begin to imagine. She can help you get Luc —’

Uriel moves so quickly, bunching one of his fists into the front of Ryan’s jacket and hauling him close, that Ryan turns pale with shock. The breath freezes in his throat at something dangerous he sees in Uri’s face, only inches from his, but he keeps speaking anyway. ‘The only beings that can contain Luc are you Eight and Mercy. She can still play a part. She’s already killed some of them, you know, some of Luc’s people.’

Uriel’s eyes snap to mine, though he doesn’t relax his grip on Ryan. ‘How many? What order?’ he barks.

‘Ananel, Remiel, Neqael and Turael,’ I say, seeing recognition and then astonishment in his gaze. ‘All first order. All once
elohim
, as you well know. Turns out I’m a natural at this killing thing.’ My voice dies away.

Uriel’s eyes flick back to Ryan’s as Ryan adds quietly, ‘And I’m still useful. Look at you, look at her, then look at me, and tell me you don’t need the kind of help I can give you …’

Uriel looks down at himself sharply, then across at me, and I think I get it a second before he does. Ryan is soaking wet; he looks like he fell in the Pacific Ocean on his way over. But Uriel and I are both bone dry. There’s not a mark on us. Before the rain can even touch our hair, our skin, our fake human gear, it burns off, vanishing completely.

Uriel suddenly releases Ryan’s jacket front, and Ryan rocks back on his heels in obvious relief.

That’s when I hear the children.

They come out of the stone archway by the church and head for Uriel, chanting, ‘Ayar Awqa! Ayar Awqa!’

There are six of them in all, four girls and two boys, wearing colourful coats and knitted jackets and hats, their pretty skirts and patched trousers festooned with hand-embroidered flowers, leaves and animals. They crowd around Uriel, still chanting, and he looks down at them as if he has woken from a dream. He actually smiles; a smile of such radiant beauty that the children seem to sigh and smile back as one.

They lead him back towards the archway, out of the rain, holding onto his hands, onto the hem of his navy sweater with its incongruous preppy logo. He goes with them without a word.

Ryan and I look at each other in confusion. Then he fetches our backpack from where it was torn off during our rough landing and hoists it up by its broken straps. I hook one of my arms through his and we turn and follow the children.

‘Why do they keep saying that?’ he asks under his breath as we draw beneath the archway where the children are clustered around Uriel, still chanting, ‘Ayar Awqa! Ayar Awqa!’

‘It’s a name,’ Uriel says, looking away from the adoring faces of the children for a second. ‘In Quechua, the local language. They believe that Ayar Awqa was a winged man who flew down from the sky and transformed into a foundation stone of this place, Qosqo, Cusco.’

The oldest child, a girl of probably no more than seven, picks up a small basket filled with knitted finger puppets from where it was tucked against the archway, out of the rain. She takes Uriel by the hand and indicates he should follow her. The remaining children crowd around us shyly, taking our hands, tugging at the hems of our jackets, calling me ‘Sister of Ayar Awqa’ and calling Ryan ‘Maki Sapa’.

The name makes me laugh out loud, and Ryan says curiously, ‘What’s so funny?’

I exchange conspiratorial looks with the bright-eyed, dusky-skinned children and try to keep my face straight as I reply, ‘Oh, they’re calling you Monkey Features — I think your grooming could use a little work.’

Ryan’s mouth falls open in surprise, then he screws up his face and lets his arms dangle down. He starts chasing the smaller children up and down the arcade, making monkey noises.

Uriel and I and the older girl look on, smiling. But then she claps her hands together, and we all stride out into the rain.

It beats down as if it will never stop. But the children pull us eagerly by the hands through the deserted streets, pointing out things they think we’d like to see, like special stones and good places to eat. The further we go past rain-soaked squares and quiet
barrios
, past glistening stone churches and the narrow, chaotic workshops of local craftspeople, the poorer and more crowded the neighbourhoods become. Finally, we reach a two-storey shophouse, where the baskets of local wares have been shoved in deep under the dripping awnings to keep their contents dry.

There’s no one inside the store, which smells of wool and tobacco and spices, soap and incense, bodies, dust and earth. The children take us up a narrow set of stairs at the back to an apartment with its front door thrown open. Beside me, Ryan’s breathing heavily and his face is streaming with sweat. With so many of us here, the tiny place — three, maybe four rooms in all — feels unbelievably crowded.

Ryan suddenly sags over at the waist, dropping the broken backpack on the floor at his feet. He stands there bent over and shivering, wheezing and wet through, his head hanging down, his elbows braced above his knees, oblivious to everything around him. I put a soothing hand on his back, but he doesn’t respond, almost gagging for air.

Uriel and I exchange glances. Then, together, we take in the people in the room the same way they’re studying us.

There are a couple of elderly women seated on a low, sagging velvet settee beside a radio that’s prattling loudly in Spanish. They wear the same colourfully embroidered skirts and short woollen jackets as the little girls do, and have skin like gleaming mahogany and grey hair wound into long, tight plaits. Their seamed fingers fly as they work at intricate pieces of knitting, their black eyes never leaving us.

Two men sit across the room either side of a round, wooden table, small glasses of a cloudy green liquid in front of them, a deck of cards laid out between them. By the similarity of their looks and the degree of grey in the older man’s hair, I guess they must be father and son.

I get a glimpse of a woman — maybe the younger man’s wife — momentarily framed in the doorway to what must be a kitchen, her eyes wide with surprise, before she moves out of sight, her long, full, red skirt, bordered in gold, twitching out of view.

Nobody speaks, until Uriel says quietly and politely in Quechua, ‘We are honoured to be among you.’

Then, suddenly, all the children are talking at once in their high, clear voices.

‘They fell from the sky!’

‘Upon the Plaza de Armas!’

‘Like Ayar Awqa!’

‘The woman is his sister!’

‘The sister of Ayar Awqa!’

The younger man snorts suddenly and points at Ryan, who is still struggling to get air into his body. ‘And this
gringo
? He is like Ayar Awqa, too? The man can barely stand, let alone fly. He has
soroche
, the sickness all the
gringos
get. Look at him.’

The man searches out the oldest child with his eyes and beckons her forward. ‘Flor,’ he says sternly, ‘you were not raised to lie. Nor should you ever bring the
gringos
,’ the word is said with disgust, ‘into our home. We are not exhibits. How we live is not for them to see.’

‘But, Papi,’ she says quietly, ‘we are not lying.’

She takes his hand, and he gets to his feet reluctantly and allows her to tug him in Uriel’s direction.

‘Look at the man and the woman, not the
gringo
,’ she says. ‘Then look at us — at me, Luis and César, Ana, Gabriela, María.’

She takes her hat off and wrings the rain out of it onto the floor.

The man — compact, tanned, clean-shaven, his short black hair oiled back neatly — approaches us. He scrutinises Uriel, who stands there calmly in his designer-look clothing without hat, umbrella or baggage. The man looks up sharply into his face, reaches out to touch the skin of his cheek, then quickly withdraws his hand. He does not look at me, but his body language, his thoughts, are no longer unfriendly, only confused.

‘It must be some trick,’ he mutters, looking back at the older man seated at the table.

‘It’s no trick,’ the older man pipes up. ‘If the children say he is Ayar Awqa, and that one is the sister of Ayar Awqa, then who are we to deny it? They are our children, and they are good children. But that one is certainly a
gringo
, and if we do not get him some coca tea, he will be a dead
gringo
before he has even climbed Dead Gringo Pass.’ The old man throws back his head and laughs with his toothless mouth.

The young woman sweeps out of the kitchen, looking down shyly as she passes us, and hurries out the open door of the apartment and down the stairs.

When her footsteps have disappeared, the old man shouts in Quechua, ‘Welcome! Welcome! Siblings of the Great Owl. Pull up a chair and tell us what it is that you want with us, and we will do everything in our power to help you.’

‘A moment,’ Uriel tells the old man politely, then he turns to me and says in a fierce whisper, ‘As good-hearted as these people undoubtedly are, “pulling up a chair” is the last thing I have time for. I need to reach Machu Picchu
now
. Anything could have become of Gabriel in my absence. Let the mortals nurse Ryan back to health before he heads for home, but you and I cannot remain here drinking their tea. If it’s indeed true what Ryan said, that you slew those demons single-handed,’ I hear a disbelief in his voice that he’s unable to hide, ‘then I would welcome your aid in locating Gabriel. We fly in there, we take the place apart and we get out. Then you leave Gabriel and me to find the others.’

Ryan straightens slowly, pale-faced and holding his head. ‘Uh, wouldn’t they be expecting that?’ he wheezes.

‘Speak plainly,’ Uriel snaps, his dark eyes flashing.

‘They’ll be expecting you to, um, approach Machu Picchu — shit, in Peru, we’re in
Peru
?’ He sees Uriel’s face and continues huskily: ‘They’ll be expecting you to go in in full celestial regalia with, uh, swords blazing. It’s what you guys do best. But it’s too … obvious, isn’t it?’

He turns slowly, wincing, his eyes struggling to focus on the local man standing beside us. ‘You trek to Machu Picchu, right?’ he says in English, the only language he knows. ‘I remember reading about it once. How long does it take, sir?’