Chapter 30.1

 

Tendrils of the void crash against Roisin’s circle like high tide against a harbour wall, but Hasmed can accept that, for just this moment, the Fifth has a brief existence even if he won’t accept the validity of it. He steps forward until he is past the barrier, his wings of absence unfurled and his voice hollow and absolute: “You are not sustained by the framework. You are not anchored to any of the planes of existence. You are not permitted to be part of Creation.” The void follows him, spilling into the circle of ground that she’d marked out, another example of the invasion of a woman’s personal space. He extends his arms until his hands are either side of her skull and begins to close them together.

Roisin tries to move out of the way, but tendrils of void essence curl around her ankles and legs, fixing her in place. She cannot avoid what comes next. Can she?

His hands begin to close, the strength of the Angel of Destruction against the delicate bone of a young girl’s head.

But the world stops.

Not because Hasmed changes his mind about the need to unstitch her from the fabric of the world, but because something else arrives; Something older that sits more solidly in the history of Creation. Something that cannot be erased, for it was made by the Creator’s own hands.

The air thickens. The light bends into fractal rainbows more vivid than a whole carnival parade of drag queens making cocktails. The void around Hasmed’s wings shudders, as though encountering a pressure it cannot intrude upon or consume.

A voice rolls across the square like the drumbeats of the Orcs gathering at Minas Tirith in Lord of the Rings. Book or Film, the rolling dread was equally established. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

Roisin’s breath catches. She recognises the phrase from the funerals she’s seen in films although she’s never actually been to one, because her nan and granddad died before she was born. She guesses it’s something from the Bible, though from exactly where she’s uncertain. The mantle will know, but it’s gone strangely quiet.

Hasmed’s wings freeze mid‑flap and the air, what’s left of it after the depredation of the Void, snaps back with the sound of a thunderclap, the traditional noise to accompany the appearance of an angel, for that is exactly what has happened. Astaroth has appeared.

Not arrived. There is no fanfare, no trumpeting, no whirling circle of the fiery Abyss. One moment Roisin’s about to have her head crushed like a minor character in the Final Destination franchise and the next moment: Thunderclap! Astaroth appears.

There is a distinct, Astaroth shaped filling in the void, as though it has been forced to make room for the ancient fallen angel. He walks through the thinning air as if it were fog, brushing aside the edges of Hasmed’s erasure with the casual ease of someone parting curtains. He has become the centre of both their attentions despite the calm, figure he is currently wearing. It looks like one of the police officers, though Roisin can no longer see any of them in the square. He looks at Hasmed the way a literary publisher looks at an AI generated text.

“I wondered how long it would take you to escalate,” he says, voice warm, amused, and utterly unafraid. “You always were so… thorough, my friend.”

Hasmed drops his hands from their enclosure of Roisin’s head and turns, and although there is no outward display to the mechanical motion, she can almost hear the sigh of annoyance her mother would give when she dropped a plate on the floor for the third time. His empty eyes widen by a fraction — the closest thing an angel of annihilation has to expressing alarm. “Astaroth.” It is less of a greeting than an acknowledgement, and not at all in a friendly manner. His wings twitch, the edges of absence fraying like torn paper as the tendrils of void essence retreat to the safety of their shadow.

Astaroth’s smile is bright as an escort girl’s when a limo pulls up. “Sorry to interrupt, old lad.” He steps closer, hands clasped behind his back, posture relaxed, as though strolling through an English Heritage garden rather than a battlefield of collapsing reality. His brow furrows as he pauses to survey the damage. "I have to point out you’re overreaching,” he says gently. “Even for you.”