Chapter 31.1

 

She hits the floor like a sack of potatoes whirled around the head and struck against the wall, but without the spillage. It could have been much worse, but her shoulder connects with the ragged carpet first and causes her body to do the backward roll she could never manage in school PE lessons. She ends up face down with a mouthful of unvacuumed carpet and an emptiness in her crotch that feels like the starving of the Irish while the British lords dine on venison and mead.

It takes a moment for her head to stop spinning and for her hearing to return. There is also pain radiating from her left arm, but she’s afraid to look at it in case it’s broken. Not because of the break itself. She’s had her arm, one leg, two ribs and a clavicle broken in the past and the thing she hated most about each one was the enforced immobility. Luckily, it’s her left arm so she’ll still be able to draw and paint.

She rolls onto her back as the shouting in the background of her hearing suddenly snaps into focus. Steve is shouting her name, over and over though his feet are dominating her field of vision. He has nice shoes. She hadn’t noticed that before. Why is Steve here? Where are Astaroth and Hasmed? She was just starting to get through to him. Why are her jeans wet? Has she wet herself? That would be embarrassing.

The flat snaps into focus around her. The flat. She’s back in the flat. Hasmed ripped the mantle of knowledge out of her. That’s why she feels so empty. Not only empty, but alone. In a short space of time – though how long has it actually been? Minutes? Hours? No longer than that, surely, because the others are all still here.

The emptiness in her stomach. The wet trousers. She hasn’t wet herself at all, it’s blood from where Hasmed pulled the mantle out. She’s probably got a hole the size of a loaf of bread in her and she’s bleeding out. No wonder Steve is shouting.

She rolls onto her back. There’s a crack in the plasterwork of the ceiling. She remembers that happening, though she can’t remember what caused it now. She can see Steve now, a combination of panic, distress and relief all crowding for screen time on his face. Paul is to her left, a cup of tea in his hand and the assistant is behind him, one hand on his arm as if to stop his coming toward her. Looming over her is the Nephilim, and while it’s nice that he’s embraced his new look, she misses the skilfully shaded skull he had when he first arrived. Wasn’t the Artist here a minute ago? Where’s he gone? Is whatever he’s doing more important than preventing the Apocalypse from happening?

She slaps one hand to her belly, but it doesn’t hurt like it would if there was a wound there, nor does it feel wet or sticky with blood. She sits up, using her left hand as a lever, which is slightly painful but not as much as it would were it broken. She curls forward, her arms curled around herself, her hands shaking, breath stuttering between a howl of anger and a wail of loss.

Steve drops to his knees beside her. “Roisin? What happened? What did they do to you?”

She can’t answer because she doesn’t know how to speak without the mantle’s clarity. The world feels too loud. Too bright. Too heavy. Too fleshbound. Too human.

And it terrifies her.

The Nephilim kneels on her other side, blocking her view of Paul but she is relieved to find she at least has the connection with him. She is still her old self, it seems, with the ability to see the soul fractals and communicate with her drawing-portal-creature. Its awareness flares, surrounding her with warmth like she was wrapped in a duvet. She didn’t realise how cold she was until then. Shock, probably. Doesn’t shock make you feel cold? Something about an adrenalin dump?

The Nephilim’s quilt of emotional wellbeing of filled with tiny rents of the rage it is barely controlling. It… He… is not calm or steady, He is filled with fear, though not, she feels, for her safety but its… his… own. For the first time since he broke out of his prison, the Nephilim looks at her with something like panic. “They took it. They took your mantle.”

Roisin nods, trembling. “I know. I feel empty. I feel… violated.”

The Nephilim’s awareness flickers violently. “They should not be able to. No one should be able to. Not even Hasmed.”

Roisin swallows down the cry that threatens to overtake her. “He did anyway.”