32.15

 

A cough breaks the tension, wet and ragged, it goes on for several seconds as Paul doubles over, clutching his chest, one hand over his open mouth as he struggles to breathe between coughs. When it finally stops, he looks at his cupped palm where a blob of mucus the size of a flattened ping-pong ball sits, artichoke green and shot through with dark veins of red.

Steve grabs him. “Paul? Hey, Paul. Are you okay?”

The lump of phlegm flies out of Paul’s hand and onto the floor at the side of his chair, where it glistens in the growing morning light through the window. Steve steps back from it and Paul looks embarrassed. I’m sorry,” he says. “I must have picked something up somewhere. Maybe someone at the pub was ill and got too close.”

“You poor thing.” Roisin turns from the angels and reaches to put one hand on his shoulder. “You need a good rest when this is over.”

He offers her a weak smile, but his posture is still hunched, his left hand holding onto Steve while wiping the mucus from his hand on his trousers. “If the apocalypse is about to happen, we’ll all be getting a rest. A very long one.”

Roisin means her return smile to be reassuring but is afraid it comes out as thin-lipped and tense. “I’m sure it won’t come to that.”

Pestilence sighs, almost bored. “I’m afraid he’s had a bit of intimacy with Linnea. That’s her job, you see. To spread pestilence across the land.”

Roisin shakes her head, confused. “Linnea? Is that someone at the pub, Paul?”

“I’m Linnea.” The assistant shrugs; a very human gesture for an angel. She must have been down on earth a good while. “I had to feed. It was the only way to survive. And you did give me permission.”

“Oh no.” Roisin’s stomach drops as she looks wide-eyed at Steve. “The neighbours downstairs.” She closes her eyes to focus her sight through the planes. Less than thirty feet away a man lies sprawled in a chair next to a child’s bed, the child already sleeping in the grip of a fever. She can see mucus coating his lungs and throat, as well as the pillow, the sheet and multiple tissues. She can hear his heart labouring under the strain, the fractals in his body growing dim. In the bathroom next to them, his mother is kneeling in front of the toilet, breathing heavily over a bowl full of vomit, her face red with fever, tears and mucus. She returns her focus to their flat. “They’re dying.”

“I didn’t drain them. You told me not to drain them.” Linnea shook her head. “If I had drained them the infection would have died with the last spark of life. Now, though,“ she shrugged again. “You told me not to drain them.”

“Are you saying it’s my fault?” Roisin could feel her anger building once more, and Linnea wasn’t an indestructible angel of annihilation. “I was trying to save lives.”

“Brother.” Pestilence shook his head. “Don’t worry about such things. You are Famine. Or were. The lives and deaths of mortals should be beneath your attention now. We work to a different rhythm, that of the Great Plan.”

Roisin turned to him, feeling the blood course hotly into her face. “Don’t you dare tell me not to care about people. I’m people, in case you’d forgotten. It’s my whole job to save them from whatever this is.” She waves a hand to include the whole room.

Astaroth’s eyes widen. “You didn’t. Isn’t that a bit premature?”

Pestilence shrugs. “I didn’t do anything hasty. Hasmed broke the Fifth Seal. The architecture will run its course if it isn’t dismantled in time.”

Roisin’s mantle flares. “Stop it. Make them better.”

Pestilence looks at her with mild curiosity. “I can’t. Just as War can’t stop the wars the antichrist started, or Death can put his feet up and take a rest.”

Astaroth steps forward. “You mean you won’t.”

Pestilence smiles. “Same thing. The Fifth Seal has been broken. Hasmed is away repairing the architecture. Death is… busy.” He places one hand over the centre of his chest. “So I’m here to do my job.”

Roisin stands. Her mantle glows faintly. She can see his obfuscation but can’t tell what underpins it. “What job? The riders aren’t supposed to be abroad until the End.”

Pestilence’s smile widens. “I have to show you what the world looks like when the truth is no longer hidden.” He gestures to Paul, who is shaking, sweating, eyes unfocused. “To show you what people become when the architecture stops protecting them.” He steps closer. “And to show you what you are, Roisin, now that the Fifth Seal is gone.”

Roisin’s breath trembles. “What am I?”

Pestilence leans in. “The only thing left that can break the Sixth Seal and rebuild the architecture of Creation.”