Vigil: Verity Fassbinder Book 1 (41 page)

‘Give me the double-winged and I shall break the sky. We shall go
home
and be free of this place.’ The Arch made gigantic fists, just in case his point needed underlining. ‘Give it to me, or I
will destroy everyone you care about.’

He couldn’t take Calliope from me, but he could do
that
. He could find David, he could find Lizzie and Mel, Bela and Ziggi, he’d hunt down the Norns and Rhonda. He and his would
turn the sirens into so many shredded feathers . . .

No, he
couldn’t
take Calliope from me. I had to make a sacrifice of her, give up the protection of her – but if I surrendered, she was dead.
And if I surrendered, there would be only a brief reprieve for everyone else: if I surrendered, the sky would be broken and
there would be night eternal. Life under that kind of reign had nothing to recommend it.

Yet as long as this child remained alive, as long as she remained as she
was
, she would always be a danger, a threat to those around her, because she’d always be a weapon. The Archangel would pursue
her to the ends of the earth, I was certain of that. Calliope would never be free. She would have no chance to grow, to become
something different. She’d have no opportunity to make her own decisions, to
change
. . .

The Arch advanced on us again and his movement galvanised the sirens. They rushed forward as one, like a rising tide, breaking
into smaller groups until each angel was surrounded by his own pack of
howling, biting, slicing bird-women, as enraged as they could possibly be, flying and clambering up monumental bodies, swinging
on the angels’ wings, trying to tear them off in a dreadful echo of what had been done to their sisters. Eurycleia and a phalanx
faced off against the Arch, blocking his path. Behind him, I could just about make out an eerie flashing presence, so fast
and fierce I couldn’t be entirely sure of what I’d seen: something that whirled by in a haze of summer colours and blazing
black and silver, an atavistic dance that left angels shrieking in its wake.

Eurycleia leapt, talons aimed at the Arch’s beautiful face, her wings creating a tornado that buffeted Ziggi and me. He let
her think she had a chance, let her get within a hair’s breadth, then struck her out of the air as if she was an insect. When
she came to rest on the lawn, bleeding from her mouth and nose, feathers floating about, struggling to rise, the Arch bent
and closed one of his hands around her swanlike neck and lifted her high.

‘Do something,’ I said to Ziggi. I couldn’t leave the baby, and though I wasn’t fond of Eurycleia, I didn’t want her slaughtered
in front of her granddaughter – I didn’t want her to suffer the same death Serena had. Ziggi gave me a look of reproach, but
loped into the fray anyway, fumbling with the Taser. I watched as the prongs flew and hit their target, pierced the fabric
of the angel’s chiton, and embedded themselves in his thigh. The Arch roared and swatted Ziggi, who went down like a ton of
bricks and didn’t move again. I bit off my cry and thought furiously.

Ziggi’s charge had achieved his aim of distracting the Arch. Eurycleia, dangling from his fist, managed to get one leg swinging
and kicked him right under the chin. His head snapped back and he dropped her, but her blow had been no more than a green
ant’s bite to him and within moments he was poised to stomp her.

Then there came that whirlwind of ragged colour I’d glimpsed before, and the battle changed.

The Archangel froze, his face a ludicrous rictus of disbelief. His eyes met mine and I saw worlds dying in them. He toppled
as slowly as a felled ghost gum tree, a hand outstretched towards me – towards Calliope.

Ligeia, suddenly, terribly, stood over the fallen angel. A sword protruded from his back, its ebony hilt studded with gold,
engraved swirls and curlicues weaving up and down the blade. She withdrew the weapon, kicked the Arch over as if he weighed
nothing, then plunged her hand into his chest. The beating of the heart slowed and stopped in the seconds between being pulled
from between his ribs into the air and being put into the old siren’s mouth. The Archangel began that same transformation
his Brisbane brother had gone through, becoming a fast-burning silvery ash that was swiftly lifted on the slightest of breezes.

An intense quiet settled over the battlefield, broken only by the last shrieks of angels being torn apart by siren hands,
by the wet sound of chests being prised open and bloody hearts being shared amongst the victors. To my great relief, Ziggi
began to stir and swear, and Eurycleia also sat up slowly, her gaze fastened on her mother as if she had never really seen
her before. As if Ligeia was terrible and wonderful and worthy of awe.

She truly was.

The Arch and his tribe were gone, but there were more angels in the world. The baby was still a danger. This was my last chance,
while the sirens were preoccupied.

I knelt and put the little girl down, gently unwrapping the pink bunny rug and laying her on her tummy. I slid the Boatman’s
knife out of its sheath. The blade heated up almost immediately.

Tenderly I took both sets of the baby’s wings in one hand, holding on tight as they twitched against my palm. Ignoring the
cries from Ligeia and Eurycleia, I raised the knife, praying I had enough time before they came for me.

‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, this will hurt,’ I whispered, and brought the Boatman’s blade down sharply. It sliced through the
tendons where they attached to her back. Blood spurted, but only briefly, and only a little. Calliope gave a great howl, though
the knife cauterised the cut almost immediately, so how much was pain and how much outrage, I couldn’t tell.

Change transforms, makes things both less and more – different – and we all adapt in our own way. Be patient: you’ll find
your own way
. The vision of my father the Archangel had offered me had reminded me of Grigor’s words, of their value, and had given me
an idea of how to make the child
anew
.

Calliope had been transformed: less than she had been, but free of that which put her life in danger. She was no longer double-winged,
no longer a key, and so no longer suitable for
anyone’s
arcane purposes.

In my hands, both pairs of wings, black and silver, turned to a luminous powder, which I tossed into the air like glitter.

I breathed out and resheathed the knife before re-wrapping the
bawling baby against the cold and settling her on my hip. I rubbed a hand over her skin and found nothing more than a raised
pink scar that looked months old.

Ziggi wobbled to his feet. One of his eyes was swollen almost shut and blood trickled from a split in his lower lip.

‘You okay?’ I asked and his look of disdain made me laugh in spite of everything. I pulled him into a hug with my free hand.

‘We still got things to do, you know,’ he said gruffly. ‘Boyfriends to rescue, monsters to slay.’

‘You’re right,’ I said, and felt horribly guilty that I’d had even a moment of relief when David was still missing. ‘What
was I thinking?’

‘The child.’ Eurycleia’s imperious tone was gravelly, but no less demanding. She and Ligeia stood in front of me, and seeing
them side by side, I could at last see their resemblance to each other. Tobit waited behind them, his chains gone, with the
rest of the conclave, bloodied but unbowed and positively glowing with their victory. Eurycleia held out her arms for the
baby she’d never bothered to see and said again, ‘The child.’

Though Calliope had been giving me some reproachful glances, her crying had diminished to a grizzle and she showed no sign
of throwing herself at her grandmother, or anyone else. As I surveyed the three, I wondered which of them was praying for
the chance to do as Eleanor Aviva had suggested: to go back to the beginning, back to the place where it had all begun and
do something differently, to change something, to make things go their own way.

Eurycleia was motivated by her regrets, but I didn’t think it would change her behaviour. She would try to shape Calliope
into the mould Serena had resisted. Ligeia, happily licking blood from her lips, would be no better; she’d bring the child
up in the old ways,
tell her about everything she was heir to, every morsel of flesh, every trickle of ichor. And Tobit . . . Tobit was completely
uninterested, maybe because he thought he had no right to his daughter, or because he didn’t want the responsibility. I wasn’t
sure, and I didn’t really care.

‘No,’ I said, ‘none of you lot. Not now, at any rate.’

I didn’t need to see Eurycleia’s expression to know she wasn’t going to take that lying down, but as she lunged, Ligeia held
her back, one clawed hand clamped on her shoulder. Mother and daughter stared at each other for long moments until the older
woman said, ‘She’s right. Wait. We will wait.’

Eurycleia shrank, somehow. As Ligeia wiped her sword on the skirt of her dress, adding a smear of dark silver to the sedimentary
layers already there, I saw the weapon up close for the first time and realised how strikingly similar it was to the Boatman’s
dagger, both in craftsmanship and design. She must have seen that dawning on my face because she said, ‘Such things often
come in pairs.’

‘I’ll contact you when I’ve made my decision,’ I said.

The sword became a tattered umbrella once more and Ligeia gave a brief smile before wrapping a wiry arm around her daughter
and leading Eurycleia away. The other sirens followed in their wake and soon the garden was empty except for us, some stray
feathers wafting in the air and piles of ash that grew smaller with each puff of the winter wind.

I blinked. My eyeballs felt dry, as if I’d been staring for the longest time. I probably had. Looking at Tobit I realised
he was roughly the same size as the Archangel. So who had he been
before
? I also realised the angel-related buzzing in my head was gone. He noticed my stare and shrank down a bit, as if embarrassed.

I looked askance at him. ‘Why don’t I hear a noise around you?’

‘I’m not like them. I never was.’ He rubbed his wrists where the now-disintegrated chains had worn them red.

‘When we first spoke about your daughter and you told me about the Arch, did you know there was a prophecy? That it wasn’t
just a random crusade?’ I demanded.

‘Your opinion of me is that low?’

I looked around the garden. ‘The sirens certainly cleaned up.’

‘The angels were starving – too many of them in this small area and not enough faith.’ He tentatively reached out a large
finger to Calliope, who grabbed for it like a bird going for a worm. ‘Lucky for the old lady. She wouldn’t have had a chance
against the Arch at his full strength.’

‘Lucky for us all,’ I said, but I wasn’t sure about his assessment. I reckoned Ligeia could have taken out a whole legion
of Archangels, given the right motivation.

Tobit shook off Calliope’s tenuous grasp and started to move away, but I put up a hand to stop him. ‘Hey! You’re not going
anywhere – Brisbane needs an angel. Probably. I might have been a bit careless with our last one.’ He looked sceptical, but
I hadn’t finished with him. ‘You owe me a big fucking favour! I know exactly what you’re going to do.’

He said nothing while I told him what it was.

*

I slouched into the seat, Calliope clinging like a small clam. It was quiet in the gypsy cab, and warm, and I closed my eyes,
savouring the knowledge that at least
one
thing was okay. One thing – not the biggest thing, no, but one thing, and for a few beats, that was fine. That was a win.

‘Next?’ Ziggi had never been a big fan of resting on laurels. Without opening my eyes I sighed, and the baby echoed me. The
bubble broken, my fear for David rushed back in and pushed all the air out of my lungs. Though the Arch had shown me my dead
and David hadn’t been amongst them, that was a while ago, and it felt like ages had passed since then. Time was a knife’s
edge, seldom kind, and I was keenly aware that I might be chasing a ghost by now.

‘I dunno. Back to the drawing board,’ I muttered. Then I sat up straighter, an idea taking hold. We hadn’t heard from Bela
yet and he wasn’t answering his phone, but I thought of Eleanor Aviva’s words again: Beginnings are
so
hard, that’s why we always try to go back to them, to change them, make things move differently. To make things go our way.

‘Back to the beginning, Ziggi.’

He turned the key in the ignition as I started explaining. ‘Ascot – the Winemaker’s house. It’s still there, right? You can’t
erase
it, it’s still glamoured. Hiding in plain sight . . .’