Heaven's Bones (38 page)

Sophie reeled, still feeling the effects of the chloroform, and sank to one knee. She struggled to stay conscious, knowing that in that house there was no room for anything but nightmares, but it was no use. Darkness stooped upon her, and she sagged against the cool marble steps. Above her she heard Robarts exclaim, felt his hands on her, thought desperately as the void took her: Don't touch me. God in Heaven, don't touch me.

Outside St. Agnes

They must have been half a mile from Bryani House when it struck the carriage: something big, and heavy enough to tip it dangerously far. Outside on the driver's bench, Alex let out an inarticulate, horrified cry.

The horses screamed in terror as the carriage tipped in earnest. Artemis pushed Lady Cecelia behind him, pinning her against the upholstered inside of the carriage to prevent her from tumbling
about. It landed on its side with a bone-twisting jerk, one door beneath them, one like a hatch above their heads. Ignoring the pain of his bruised ribs, Artemis forced the door open and scrambled out, dragging Lady Cecelia behind him.

Both stared, frozen in shock, at the front of the crumpled carriage.

In the first confusion Artemis thought it must be an eagle that grappled with Alex. But no—it was much too big.

It was a
woman
, a woman with wings sprouting from her back. They extended at least four feet in either direction.

The horses screamed again, and reared against the traces; they'd break their necks at this rate. Artemis dashed forward, avoiding the woman's wing as she bore down on Alex, and struggled with the reins and traces, freeing the horses. They ran with their bridles still on, faster than they'd ever run, he'd reckon, and for all he knew they ran into the sea.

Alex fell to the ground and the woman reared over him. She extended her hands, and somehow was holding knives, one in each—but no. The knives came out of her, were part of her, like a serpent's fang or a lion's claw. With deadly purpose she stabbed down at the man at her feet and he cried out again in frustration and pain.

Artemis leaped at the woman and saw Lady Cecelia do the same.

Gutsy lady
, he thought, as he struck at the winged woman's knee, hard as he could. He felt something snap under his fist and she recoiled, snarling.

Alex gained a slight reprieve as she hovered again, her injured leg dangling uselessly. With instinct born of a dozen childhood street fights in the London slums, he brought up his legs, so that his knees nearly touched his chin, and as she descended upon him again the burly coachman struck out with both feet, hard as he could, squarely into her midriff.

The effect was devastating. She fell back hard against the ground, and didn't rise again.

Artemis approached her cautiously. The only movement the woman made was to scrabble and dig at the ground with hands that he saw were dreadfully deformed, carved to allow her weapons to be rooted under the skin. Under her thin garment her body looked wrong, as if it too had been carved and formed into some kind of abominable instrument of destruction.

She looked up at him with bright, birdlike eyes.

“ 'e's broken me back,” she whispered in a Cockney accent. “ 'e's killed me, 'e has.”

She closed her eyes and sighed.

Artemis couldn't help but run his hand along the edge of the wing. It was a light metal, he saw, and wonderfully articulated to allow movement, so she might imitate the motion of a bird. Were the wings rooted in her like the knives?

He didn't want to see.

She opened her eyes.

“I can go now,” she said, with a kind of wonder.

Pity made him kneel beside her, and reach for her hand. It was clammy, and as her fingers tightened on his he felt the tip of the blade brush his knuckles.

“Why did you attack us?” he said. She looked at him, brows furrowed, as if puzzling out the answer

“Trueblood gave us orders,” she managed. “Trueblood told us: kill Jaelle's Breed. Every one of 'em, man, woman and child. Sparing not the infant in the cradle, not yet the old man on 'is deathbed. Kill each and every.”

“Jaelle's Breed,” said Artemis. The malevolent entity in the fog called him that, fifteen years before. “What is that?”

“Why, you are that,” she said, as if it was the simplest thing in all the world, “You and all your kin. The only folk that Trueblood
fears, because you can see 'is nature, and 'ow to destroy him in the end. All your kin in St. Agnes Town. We're killing them all.”

A mist was rising from the ground, and Artemis saw with a shock that it came from her body; it was pouring out from under her like water.

“Robarts, 'e made us Angels,” she said, her voice fading. “ 'Cause we fell so long ago, and Trueblood gave us the mists to keep us alive. But now I'm dead and free of 'im. Run.”

With a great effort, she turned her head towards him. “You can't save 'em. Run and hide from Trueblood, and live on.”

Her fingers twitched and the blade dug deeper, until the cold hand relaxed and he let it fall.

He turned to see Lady Cecelia crouched before the wreckage of the carriage, Alex's head in her lap. She'd covered him with her coat; the mists were rising from all over now, and the air was damp and chill.

Now Artemis could see the two great wounds where the angel had stabbed Alex—one was shallow, where the blade glanced off his collarbone, but the other had sunk deep into his abdomen. Lady Cecelia held a wad of cloth torn from her skirt, and was pressing it against the wound to halt the bleeding. The coachman watched her with the glazed look of a wounded animal, silent save for his heavy breathing.

“Artemis,” she said. “Was that an angel?”

“She said she was. A fallen angel. She said Robarts made her.”

Lady Cecelia shook her head. “Sweet Jesus.”

“And Trueblood ordered her—them—to kill us.”

“Trueblood. His manservant.” Over Alex's body, she frowned. “I knew he was evil.”

“I have to go to St. Agnes, Lady Cecelia—for help, and to see … if more than that one there are hunting my folk in St. Agnes, I have to stop it.”

“I'm staying with Alex.”

“Lady Ce—”

“I. Am. Staying. With. Alex.” She smiled suddenly. “Go to St. Agnes. Send help if you can.”

He nodded, inarticulate, and trotted off into the Mists. Cecelia watched him until he vanished.

“That Hamish,” said Alex, suddenly. “Not a bad lad, but terrible flighty. Can't tell you how often I've told him to polish the brass on the tack, and found him begging in the kitchen, or reading a penny dreadful in the stables.”

He closed his eyes and for a second Cecelia thought she must have lost him, but he came to himself with a start and shifted his heavy head in her lap.

“He's a good boy,” she said, still pressing on his abdomen. “No harm in him.”

“Oh aye. Just flighty is all.”

She watched as two figures loomed out of the fog, approaching slowly, but with inexorable and terrible purpose: two figures with great wings spreading behind them.

Alex laughed briefly.

“Goin' to be bugger-all trying to catch them horses.”

“Oh aye,” she said, watching the Angels, the dreadful Angels, come.

Bryani House, the Mists

Sophie woke—again—in a small, shrouded room, sighed, and swung her legs off the bed, wondering how often this penny-dreadful scenario would play out. Her head was clearer now, the drug mostly worn off—that was different.

There was another bed beside hers, and a woman lay on it.

Her chest had been split down the middle and her ribs spread apart. Within the hollow of her chest cavity her heart lay and,
impossibly, beat, very slowly. Fascinated despite herself, Sophie counted. One. Two. The rate was one beat per ten seconds.

The woman looked at the ceiling indifferently. When Sophie bent close to examine her, she blinked and looked at her.

Sophie jumped and backed away from the obscenity on the table, horror and pity twisting together in her breast.

Someone grasped her arms. She drew breath to scream and a hand clamped hard on her mouth.

She stifled the urge to pull away, instead turning into her attacker and stomping as hard as she could on his foot. He released her with a heartfelt oath.

“Gods and little fishes, Sophie,” said Henry, hopping on one foot and rubbing the other. “What else have you learned socializing with whores?”

“Plenty,” returned Sophie. “What are you doing here?”

He laughed hollowly. “Well, it appears that when my patron said he was interested in wings, he didn't exaggerate.” He laughed, and it had a mad edge to it.

She shuddered. Was Henry responsible for those mutilations?

No. She couldn't believe that. Not her cousin. He'd been fooled, tricked, and somebody else had …

“How long have you been here?” Her voice was snappish, and he flinched.

“I don't know.”

“Nonsense!” It was a relief to be irritated at
somebody
. “It can't be more than a week, Henry.” She edged past him, looking down the hallway.

“Ah, yes, but the time … the time is different here, Sophie; I finally figured that out.”

His voice was hoarse with an edge of hysteria. “Sometimes it seems you've been here a year, two, twenty. Then you remember, and it's as if you arrived this morning. You'll find that out soon enough.

Unless we leave. Now.”

She followed him down the hallway, and she recognized the same staircase. Instinctively, she held back.

“Not to worry,” said Henry. “They've been sent off, you see—all the little Angels on a great big mission,” he continued. “Practicing for storming heaven, as Trueblood says.”

“Trueblood?”

She peeked downstairs. The foyer was empty.

“Oh, Trueblood's invaluable, a very great asset,” babbled Henry. “A man of infinite resources. And the very devil, I suspect. If only he'd stay out of my
head.”

Sophie half-pulled her cousin down the stairs. He was babbling, and she barely registered what he was saying, but she nodded as if she did.

“He shows me things—the diagrams: marvelous work. Marvelous, monstrous work; who knew anyone was capable of such fine tolerances that long ago? I wish … I wish, sometimes, I could have taken them home with me, home in London, or take them to France and show Ader. He would … he would do something, I'm sure …

Sophie cut him off. “We'll get out and find someone, someone with a horse or a cart—something. We'll get word to the police.”

This seemed to galvanize Henry.

“This way,” he said.

He flung open the door and froze, staring outside. Sophie looked over his shoulder.

The fog had risen, thick and solid, seeming to glow from inside with a pallid yellow light.

“Mother of Christ,” said Henry. “It's like the world ended.”

“Oh, surely you exaggerate, Mr. Thorpe,” came a silky voice from behind him. “Perhaps you've been working too hard.”

They both whirled around. Sophie saw a tall man, dark complexioned, with an ineffable air of authority.

This must be Trueblood. The very devil.

As if he'd heard her thoughts, he turned to her.

“And my dear Doctor Huxley. It's so good to meet you at last. Doctor Robarts is quite taken with you.”

She reached out and took her cousin's hand; it was cold and clammy in hers. The man—Trueblood—was looking at her but she felt Henry tense at her side, as if a galvanic reaction was passing through his body.

“Get out,” she heard him mutter through clenched teeth.

The fog was as thick as a solid wall, but she preferred it to hearing one more word from Trueblood.

“Now, Henry,” she said, and by main force she swung her cousin around and toward the door, like they'd done as kids with Bernard, vacationing in the countryside—swing around, swing around, one, two …

“Three!” she cried for no reason at all, and she and Henry dashed into the fog.

It had been many years, but the boy inside him remembered the path through the fields, invisible to the eye but ever-present underfoot, an ancient path first forged by ancient peoples. Dimly seen through the rising mist were the landmarks and touchstones of his youth—there the mound, an old, empty tomb you could mount to catch sight of the sea; here the twin standing stones, raised in time immemorial, that marked the boundaries of the village.

Now Artemis heard the screaming and saw, ahead and up in the sky, the winged figures of Angels that were come to kill St. Agnes.

He sagged against the nearest stone—the lover's stone, it was called, because of the hole bored through its middle and the oaths taken there, hands thrust through and clasped in the middle.

He saw the eternal blue skies of heaven, and the helpless, flailing forms of angels, their wings thrashing against the fall, to no avail. They fell, and they fell and they are still falling.