33.1

 

“Do you feel that?” Roisin speaks aloud, more out of habit than any disrespect to the Tongue of the Elohim. The flat is trembling in that too‑clean, too‑fixed way that means Hasmed’s repairs are already spreading through the architecture. Patches of the floor are closing up, sealing away the martyrs once more, which is, frankly, a blessing, because her idea of Hell is a whole bunch of people crowded together and moaning about the justice they’re owed. That’s probably what a police force’s Family Liaison Officer must feel like every day. No wonder they bugger off to make tea in every BBC drama.

Paul has left the room and is now in the small bathroom they all share, coughing and spitting into the toilet bowl. He is also moaning, but she can forgive that; at least he’s genuinely ill. Pestilence stands by the open door, watching Paul cough blood into the bowl. He is also, rather inappropriately in her opinion, sketching a drawing of her flatmate, in the style of one of the great Italian masters of the Renaissance. Linnea is sitting on the back windowsill, preening her wings. What was that Bible verse about vengeance Samual L Jackson keeps quoting in Pulp Fiction? Something appropriate for this situation, she’s sure. She can hear the neighbours crying through the floors. The Nephilim is crouched low, awareness flaring like a warning siren as he stares down through the boards at them like a stalker with Special Needs. Astaroth’s attention in on his mobile phone, though whether he’s doing something useful or playing a game is anybody’d guess, although the tongue protruding very slightly from the corner of his mouth indicates deep concentration.

Only Steve, who has had the presence of mind and the social conscience to fetch a cloth and spray bottle of ‘Ocean’ brand all-purpose cleaner, is aware enough to answer her from where he’s cleaning up Paul’s bloody phlegm. “Feel what?”

“That vibration?”

He shakes his head. “Sorry, no. Traffic maybe? It must be coming up to rush hour.”

“No. It feels like…” she closes her eyes, scanning through the planes trying to find the source… “like your twin sister is having her teeth drilled by a bad dentist.”

“I don’t have a twin sister.” He uses a tea towel to pat Paul’s armchair dry. “I used to have an older one and seven younger siblings, but that was all a long time ago, and I’ve mostly lost touch with the various nieces and grand nephews.” He shrugs. “My loss. I don’t think I ever will, now. I wonder if any of them became playwrights?”

“Hush.” Roisin puts a hand to her chest as she burps. “Pardon me. I’ve got a bit of wind, I think.”

Roisin feels a familiar pressure inside her chest. “Not again.” Less pleasure in her fanny this time, and more like a building urge to vomit like she’d been overindulging in Merlot and Red Bull shots at the Palais Royale in Laverstone. Definitely something to do with the mantle inside her. “The mantle…” Her wings snap open and wrap around her torso like a second pair of arms.

Astaroth springs forward and manages to catch her before she falls. His voice is low, his tone urgent, stripped of all his usual warmth. “Roisin. Listen to me.”

She looks up, from his arms, her breath shaky and uneven. She is trying to quell the urge to vomit and breathe at the same time and unfortunately her body is unwilling to do both. “What’s happening?”

Astaroth glances at Pestilence, then back to her. “You’re starting to externalise the architecture.”

Roisin frowns. “I’m doing what? How do I stop it?”

Astaroth’s expression is almost… reverent. “You’re building a new architecture. Exposing the bones of Creation, Revealing the truth. The real truth. The truth the architecture was built to hide.” He lowers her gently to the floor, where she can be supported by… “Is that a giant fucking centipede?”

Astaroth waves the question away. “Never mind that. It’s just the soul of an old witch in my retinue. She won’t hurt you; she just likes having weight pressed against her. Listen. The Sixth Seal is revelation. Not prophecy. Not destruction. Revelation.”

“I felt the earth move.”

There is the ghost of a smile on the angel’s face before he turns serious again. “This is the breaking open of the sixth seal.”

Roisin swallows down some rising bile. “I thought you said only I could break that one.”

“Yes. That’s exactly what you’re doing now. Breaking it open.”