Thy Fearful Symmetry (7 page)

A long list of such questions queued up, to be met with bewildered ignorance. Clive wished he had been paying more attention during the interview, had thought to ask some of those questions to the redheaded Inspector who had been so perplexed by his prisoner. Now he would have to wait until he saw a solicitor. During the interview, he had waived the right to have one present.
 

What had he been thinking?

Clive punched the wall, regretting it as long knitting needles of pain jabbed through his knuckles and up the muscles of his forearm. Holding his fist between his thighs, he fought the urge to cry out. They already thought he was crazy, and he had given them more than enough ammunition to support the theory since he had been in the cell.

Of all his questions, two stood out with particular clarity, and they were nothing a solicitor could help with. Least important was how he was going to explain this to Heather. Vastly outweighing that was how he was supposed to find Ambrose from the confines of a police cell?

Clive strangled the urge to hurl himself repeatedly at the door, perhaps destroying it through force of will, so that he could be free for the hunt. Perhaps his friend would find out that Clive was in prison, would come out of hiding to help him. Perhaps the door would open any moment now, Ambrose would be there, and the police would understand that this was all a mistake and Clive didn't belong in jail at all.

Ambrose's name and face blazed in Clive's head like a storm lantern, whiting out his lesser fears, and he collapsed back on to the mattress in exhaustion.

Unable to find the energy to twitch his muscles back to life, he lay there, knowing sleep was not going to come, lambasting himself for his weakness, and the careening path fate had taken to leave him this impotent.
 

Clive was pulled from his reverie by a tinny electrical hissing somewhere behind him. At first he tried to ignore it, but it persisted, grew in pitch, and finally he turned over.
 

Nothing looked out of place. The door was still a hulking sentinel standing between his old life and his new, the red bricks of the wall looked as weary as he felt. The bulb in the corner, sealed behind shatterproof glass that spread and diffused the light...

Was the only place the noise could feasibly be coming from. Staring hard, Clive was certain he could see a background cascade of sparks showering about like dancing fairies behind the frosted glare of the glass.

Self-preservation cuffed his misery aside, and he rose warily from the mattress. Perhaps it was simply an electrical fault of some kind, but something didn't feel right, and he eased towards the opposite corner of the room, next to the stained aluminium toilet. Clive was suddenly aware of the cold. Had the chill been this penetrating when he had entered the cell? He didn't remember.

I have lost my mind
, Clive realised.
What do I think is going to happen, exactly?

The light blew up. Clive threw up his arms to protect his face from the glass too late, but his relief at being sprayed with gravel-like chunks of safety glass rather than razor sharp splinters lasted only until he saw what had punched through the cover.
 

Moving silently, the ball of blue-white light streaked past his face. A sharp pain caused him to jerk his head back, and when his hand reached his cheek he was amazed to find it rimed with frost. Throwing himself against the back wall, thrusting aside the numb terror that would make him helpless if he succumbed to it, he drew back as the light, about the size of a tennis ball, bounced frantically off walls and door, leaving tiny, round patches of web-patterned frost where it hit. Moving so fast that Clive could only track it by the afterimage trail snaking behind it, the light took seconds to leave the room looking as though snowballing children had run riot through it.

Clive's startled gasp aside, the only sound had been the shattering of the glass. Even with the ball of light streaming silently from surface to surface inches in front of him, the silence was soporific. Clive could smell his own sweat staining his shirt, could feel trickles of it running down his side and soaking into his pants. As the temperature dropped further, he could almost count each goose bump form, sculpting a tight Braille message of terror and chill across his arms.

Too slowly, he remembered there was a panic alarm next to the bed. One quick lunge, and there would be officers with him in moments. Sluggish muscles tensed, his imagination painting snowman portraits of what might happen if that icy ball were to devote time to his flesh, and he twitched in anticipation of the leap across the cell.

The ball stopped dead, and Clive jerked back at the suddenness of it. Floating there at chest height, it bobbed slightly, as though riding a gentle tide.

Clive could not shake the notion that it was looking at him.

“Help,” he said, but he knew that the squeak he managed through dry lips went unheard outside the cell.

Before his bulging eyes, the ball started to change shape, expanding and deforming, rods extruding from the bottom and sides, a smaller ball pushing up from the top. The rods thickened, the ball gained definition. Larger and clearer the shape grew, even as its light dimmed, pulling darkness in towards it.

Finally, though Clive could not place when the transition from a morphing shape to an identifiable form took place, Clive was looking at a man. In the icy blue light emanating from his body, he was beautiful. Naked, slender, sharp featured, haughty, seductive - Clive was reminded of Ambrose. Arousal and awe battled in him, even as he wondered at the back of his mind what the strange smell bunching at his nostrils might be. There was a faint, unpleasant hint of egg there, but his senses were so overwhelmed by the glory before him that he dismissed it.

“Do you know who I am?” Clive relaxed as the man spoke, his soft, cultured tones wrapping him up like a blanket. There was something familiar about the voice, something that tried to ring alarm bells before being shot down by his stupefied need to venerate this being.
 

What was he?
 

What else could he be?

“You're an angel.” Dropping to his knees, Clive stared in open wonder at the face above, absurdly pleased that his words had put a smile on the creature's face, not caring what was amusing.

“You have a unique way of viewing the world, Clive Huntley.” Clive might have suspected he was being mocked, were it not for the sure and certain knowledge that a creature so radiant, a creature so obviously sent from the God he had not believed in five minutes ago, would not stoop so low. “I am certainly not mortal.”

“What... why are you...”

“I am here in search of one of my own. Your devotions drew me to your cell. You worship with surprising vigour, for a mortal.”

“Worship... I...” Clive couldn't think, didn't want to waste his devotions on anything but the creature now exposed to him, and only the feeling that he was expected to fill in the blanks bullied his mind into sluggard motion. “Ambrose?” It made sense. Not bat wings, but great, sweeping angel wings. “Ambrose is one of you?”

The angel dropped to his haunches, bringing his face level with Clive's. The cold stung his cheeks, but he refused to back away. “Yes, Ambrose is one of my fellows, a lesser creature, but serving the same master.”

The cold grew too much, freezing Clive's flesh. Locking his neck, his lips peeling back in a grimace, he held his ground. “Lord,” he begged, “it's too much.” Raising arch eyebrows, the angel stood again, stepping back so that the cold dropped down to bearable levels. As it retreated, the darkness crowded around Clive again, leaving the angel burning with pale fervour in the centre of the cell, like an ice beacon in the dark.

“I didn't expect…” Clive stopped, almost unable to ask questions of this remarkable creature, but knowing he might never again be in this position. “You're so cold.”

“I am, aren't I? The precise opposite of how good Christians imagine Hell, wouldn't you say?” Clive nodded. If Hell was hot, why should Heaven not be cold? The angel's eyes bore into him. “What of you, Clive Huntley? Are you a good Christian?”

Shame plucked tears from Clive's eyes, and he lowered his face into his hands. Two days ago, he would have known the answer. Though he did not worship, he lived a good and generous life. Now those same hands that cradled his sobbing face were guilty of beating an innocent boy half to death.

“Hush, Clive.” The words were immediately soothing, and he lifted his head again, scarcely aware of the tears freezing on his cheeks. “You have sinned, it is true, but my Master knows that it was a sin wrought of confusion and guilt. You are not an evil man. Thus, you are offered an opportunity.”
 

Clive's face split in a pitifully grateful grin. “Yes, anything. I'll do anything.”

“Be sure, mortal. There is always a moment of choice. This is yours. Do you commit to me?”

Clive nodded, wanting to cry at the angel's doubts in him.

“Then find him. Find Ambrose. Your friend is in grave danger. He has offended the battalions of Hell, and they nip at his heels. Should they catch him, he
will
be lost.”
 

Clive's fear exploded afresh. Clutching himself, he felt urine dribble down his left leg, a streak of heat in the bitter chill.

“You have to find him for me, Clive. I have looked, but he has hidden himself away. You must find him, and then you must summon me.”

Nodding, Clive forced his lips into action. “How?”

The angel held out a hand. Resting on its palm was a crisp US dollar bill. Tentative, Clive reached out, ignoring the icy aura that drove needles through his fingers, fascinated by the play of blue light on his own imperfect flesh, and took the offering.

“This binds you to me, Clive. Rejoice at that.” Clive felt exultation shaft him, gathering at his suddenly straining penis. “On the design of that note is an eye, resting atop a pyramid. Press that symbol to your forehead, between your eyes and a little above, and think of me. I will come to you, and the hordes of Hell shall be baying at my back. There is not much time.”

Again, Clive felt the fear, and a suffocating hopelessness. Casting his arms wide in despair, he indicated the cell around him, its four walls more claustrophobic than ever. “I'll do it, I'll do anything,” he was desperate for his sincerity to strike home. “But how am I supposed to search while I'm locked away...”

The light coming from the angel soared in intensity, flashbulb bright, and Clive fell back, covering his eyes, waiting for the hard slap of the concrete floor.

When instead he felt the soft tickle of grass at his neck, he began to laugh. Somewhere, deep down where his critical self still lived, he knew it wasn't a healthy laugh. Pulling his hands from his eyes, he sat up, still giggling, and looked around.
 

Evening was falling on Kelvingrove Park, in the West End of the city. To his left, past where the park dipped down to the river Kelvin and back up to the road, Glasgow University's one hundred and twenty year old clock tower speared a finger at the setting sun. In summer, students crowded the grassy bank on which he lay, soaking in the sun while they grappled with philosophies, arts, and sciences. In another University, in another part of the world, he had once done the same. Another world. Another Clive Huntley. Things were different now.

There was nobody in sight, and the cold evening air told him why. Still giggling, absently wiping dribble from his chin, Clive climbed to his feet, the smell of his own sweat and urine hardly bothering him. Kelvingrove Park was big, but he was near to Hillhead Street, where he had once been neighbours with an angel. A very long time ago, so it felt. Staggering, unaware of the vacancy in his smile, he limped down the slope to the path, slipping the fresh dollar bill into his pocket as he went.

Not much time. Not much time to save an angel from Hell's screaming damned. Not much time to earn redemption for his crimes. Pulling in a lungful of fresh air, he knew he had been set a big challenge, but was sure he was up to the task.

Clive Huntley had a special destiny, and as he made his reeling way from the park towards the grumble of rush hour traffic, a walk he had made with his wife many times since coming to the city, that knowledge made him clutch at himself with glee.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ambrose went white, the strength draining from his legs and arms, and he wondered if he was going to vomit. There were those among his former colleagues, true hellspawn mostly, who delighted in vomiting almost every time they manifested to humans, but Ambrose had always found the tactic demeaning. Most of the fallen angels did. Now though, his stomach was telling him he might not have much choice.
 

Ignoring Calum's plea for information, he sat inelegantly down on the beaten wooden stool next to Pandora's bed, gazing at her in horrified wonder. Her long dark hair splayed across the pillow, and her full lips were pursed. Her fine eyebrows framed wide, extraordinary eyes. She was every inch the sleeping angel, lit by the cold light of the dying afternoon. Aloof, unattainable... except Ambrose had crossed that threshold and now she was his, as much as he was hers. It was such a strange, transforming passion, reshaping him moment by moment in ways that the steadfast, compassionate love he had known when he stood among the Heavenly Host never had. While that was enduring, consistent, this was a scourging fire.

Yet, for all that he loved her, she was more of a mystery to him than ever. How important could she be among the ranks of angels that God would send his greatest and mightiest to hunt her down? He thought back to that night, just three weeks previously, when he had escaped Leviathan, confessed his sins, and sought out Pandora. She was home, and she was not alone. Michael was there, torturing her to destruction, and the insanity in her eyes had hurt Ambrose in places he didn’t know he could still lay claim to. Michael. Archangel, commander of God’s armies, majestically powerful. Under ordinary circumstances, Ambrose would have been snuffed from existence.