32.13

 

Astaroth steps forward, becoming an even height with the angel to speak to him face to face. “Why would you rejoice at the death of your brothers?”

“Why would we not? Creation was perfect until the Great Rebellion was overthrown. Then Creation became corrupted by the interference of the Fallen. Then the Watchers were sent to repair the damage and they were corrupted, too. The Nephilim should never have survived the Flood.”

Roisin looks at them both, towering above her. She is the size of a toddler compared to the two competing angels. Nevertheless, her voice rings out clearly. “But isn’t… wasn’t the Creator ineffable? He must have known the corruption would occur. He must have known the Watchers would succumb to the temptations of Creation. He must have known the Nephilim would survive the Flood.”

“Illogical.” Hasmed stares down at her. “Creation was interfered with by the rebel angels. The architecture was damaged, foundations destabilised. The Plan was ineffable, the Creator Himself less so. His plan will be fulfilled. The architecture will be repaired. Creation will begin anew.” The void flickers once more through his wings. Gone are the glitches, the tremors, the impairment she caused to him, and in return Hasmed has been renewed with a new sense of purpose. He was skipping right to the Endgame. “The sixth seal will be uncovered and broken.”

Astaroth shakes his head. “You can’t. The Sixth Seal remains hidden to all of us.”

“Not to God.” As Hasmed speaks the name, the air changes. The flat fills with the scent of wet parchment and the stink of mouldering books. Roisin is triggered by olfactory memory, and is taken back to when she was ten or eleven. Haywood Street in Laverstone smelled like this, the morning after Danny Cook set fire to the school library and it took seven fire engines to put the conflagration out.

Her mouth is filled wite the taste of metal, like an old copper coin held under the togue. There is an increased pressure behind her eyes and the mantle inside her pulses again with the recognition of a brother

Astaroth stiffens. “Oh. He’s back.”

Roisin turns and the Artist is standing in the doorway, though he has lost his bohemian garb and painting coat and is now dressed in robes of russet and coquelicot, shot through with veins od sienna and umber. His appearance is not dramatic or made with any form of fanfare, he is just suddenly present, though his eyes have darkened and his skin has paled to almost translucency. He holds up on hand, palm outwards, which bears what looks like the tattoo of a pair of tarnished brass scales.

He looks at Roisin, and the faint smile he wears does not reach his cold eyes. He seems to assess her for a moment before turning to Hasmed, who is once more almost the size of Steve. “I felt the seal broken.”

Namaan recoils and retreats several steps while Astaroth speaks directly to him. “It exposes the Martyred Ones. It does not summon you.”

£Everything summons me.” Pestilence smiles thinly. “Everything and Nothing.”

Hasmed turns toward Pestilence and he is “I must repair the architecture,” he says quietly.

Pestilence nods, as if this is expected. “You broke the Fifth Seal. The system will collapse if you don’t.”

“Noted.” Hasmed looks at Roisin one last time. “I will end the world cleanly, child, exactly as it was shown to John the Madman.” And then he is gone.

No fade, no Star Trek transporter effects, no opening of the sky, or the ceiling, in this case, just gone, like the last page removed from a Christie novel.

The flat steadies for a moment, filled, suddenly, with the absence of an angel.

Then everything gets worse.

Steve grabs Paul’s arm as the assistant wakes from her long inactivity. “You have returned at last, my lord,” she says.

“Aye. You have fulfilled your purpose and begun our Great Work.”

“Great work?” Roisin looks at her. “What great work? What have you done?”

“She has served her calling, as she was set to do from the beginning.” Pestilence places his tattooed palm on the assistant’s head as she presses her chin to her chest, and Roisin can see a flow of soul fractals pass from him to her. When he releases her, she stans and looks at her hands as she begins to change. The flesh sloughs away to expose what looks like a layer of golden stone, much as the Egyptians would have recognised as the placed the great marble capstones of the pyramids at Luxor. The rest of her skin falls away, revealing a form any model would have slaughtered a city for. Her spine splits open and a pair of wings unfurl.

Roisin shakes her head. “How did I not see you were another fucking angel?”