But then a bright, numinous light sweeps past the windows of our tower, followed swiftly by another, causing me to flinch, for I alone recognise its source. I can almost hear Gudrun breathing in the night, all her hatred, and that of her dead-eyed hunting partner, Hakael, bent towards me. They smell my fear. They seek to know where we hide inside this vast stone edifice. If Ryan and I had not reached sanctuary, I’m sure we’d already be dead.
‘Once,’ I say, struggling to keep my voice calm as the sweeping, searching light recurs, and recurs again, ‘there were upwards of a thousand elohim. Some created male, some female. Eight were made most powerful, most prescient, of all things that dwell in the universe: His regents. His princes. Tasked to discern His will.’
Their names rise like smoke in the icy air. ‘Barachiel,’ I murmur, ‘Selaphiel, Jeremiel, Jegudiel, Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael …’
A look of shock appears on Ryan’s face. ‘Mercy, those are the names of archangels. Beings that people actually … worship.’
‘And they were my friends,’ I whisper, ‘like my brothers. The name of God is woven into the very fabric of their beings, their names, as it is in mine, if only I could remember it, but something was done to me to make me forget, do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?’
There’s baffled wonderment on Ryan’s face. For a moment, I get a torrent of feeling from him, denial the strongest thread.
‘And these eight, uh, archangels …?’ he says hesitantly.
‘Were the ones who kept me “safe”, who placed me inside a woman called Ezra, into another called Lucy, a girl called Susannah, then Carmen, Lela, Irina; and, before them all, an unbroken chain of human lives I can no longer recall …’
Ryan frowns. ‘Kept you safe from what?’
I pretend not to hear. ‘Our people are further divided into malakhim — the messengers, who are sometimes seen to intercede with the living here on earth; and seraphim, ophanim, dominions, powers, others. There are many … “castes”, for want of a better word, but the elohim are highest of all.’
Ryan rolls his eyes. ‘Castes? You’ve just described Paradise High. And, I guess, I used to be one of the elohim, too. Before I fell. So snap! Some pair we make.’
I return his grin with a startled smile of my own, but then my voice grows sombre again. ‘There are three classes of being under God: bestial, human, angelic. And one thing is known and understood by us all: never shall they intermix, or evil is the result. I know it as if it is written on my soul in letters of fire.’
‘Evil?’ Ryan leaps on the word. I feel his sudden tension in the arm lying across my shoulders.
‘When the Daughters of Man began to multiply upon the earth,’ I explain, unsure of how I gained such knowledge, where the words arise from, ‘some of our people lay with them, begetting a race called the nephilim. Some say they are murderous giants, some say devouring spirits.’
‘Fairy tales,’ Ryan scoffs.
My eyes sharpen upon his. ‘The way the Devil and his demons are?’
‘What we are isn’t evil,’ he insists.
‘I don’t know what we are,’ I reply. ‘And I’m not saying I agree. I’m just giving you an idea of the … baggage that I come with.’
Two supernatural factions wrestling for control of my soul across the centuries, reduced to this one word: baggage.
Ryan’s answering look is wry.
I recall Irina’s roomful of bespoke luggage and give a short laugh. ‘I’m just telling you that this is how we’re … wired. So if you don’t think I come with the biggest damn warning sign you’ve ever seen, you aren’t really looking at me properly. Why aren’t you afraid of what I represent? Why aren’t you already running?’
Ryan looks down. ‘You know the answer to that. Don’t make it any harder for me than it already is. And I’m not saying that the, uh, nephilim were a good thing. But the fact that they, uh, might exist,’ his face is sceptical, ‘shows that some of your people broke “the law” in the past, right? By mixing with us lower life forms. You might say you’re programmed one way, but I see you questioning things all the time. Everything you’ve done since I’ve known you has been a process of trying to break free; to override what was done to you by eight of the most powerful beings in existence.’
I stiffen at his words, recognising both truth and heresy in them. It’s true that I no longer comprehend the ways of my own kind; that, in some way, for better or worse, I’ve … evolved. After all this time, I may be more human than not. Don’t I feel pain, fear, grief, sorrow, when I was created to feel none of these things?
‘Were they all there? The Eight?’ Ryan asks, catching me by surprise. ‘At the Galleria?’
I shake my head. In my mind’s eye, I relive the instant Luc cut K’el down and pain explodes through me again. I rock forward, crossing my arms tightly to hold in the hurt.
‘K’el’s last act in life was to protect me,’ I gasp. ‘Even though I never loved him enough to deserve such sacrifice.’
‘K’el?’ Ryan seizes on the unfamiliar name, his grip tightening. I know what he remembers: a gleaming giant, tawny-haired, unyielding, honourable, bitter, with eyes like a young lion, who stood between me and Luc.
‘Raphael was supposed to be there, too,’ I whisper. ‘But he never made it. Nor did Jegudiel. And Selaphiel’s been … missing for a while now.’
‘Missing?’ Ryan queries sharply.
I hear his frustration as he struggles to piece together the little I’ve seen fit to offer.
‘Taken,’ I clarify bleakly. ‘All three of them, by Luc’s forces. K’el was just a stand-in; he was out of his depth, and his reward was an unjust death. He was singular and perfect, Ryan. And he will never be made again. I think that’s all I want to “trade”. You don’t need to know the rest.’
Ryan grips me by the upper arms, turning me to face him with a hard shake. ‘Why can’t you trust me?’ he growls. ‘Don’t underestimate me. Don’t treat me like I’m something less than you are — I don’t deserve that. Who is he, Mercy? The one who was threatening you? He’s the reason K’el’s dead, the real reason Raphael and the others are missing, right? The reason the Eight have had to hide you for so long, inside so many people? I’m not as stupid as I must seem to you.’
I begin to tremble as if I’m in the grip of a killing fever. Don’t make me tell you, Ryan. Please.
‘Who is he?’ Ryan insists. ‘That … archangel,’ he stumbles over the word, ‘who looks just like me? If he isn’t one of the Eight, then who is he?’
Trust Ryan to cut to the heart of it, of me.
He gives me another shake. ‘He was hurting you and I tried to kill him. Kill him!’
I hear his disbelief. He is wide-eyed now at the memory. I know that he’s seeing what I’m seeing: Luc suspended sixty feet in the air, arms outspread, flames enveloping his living form, laughing wildly.
‘He was on fire,’ Ryan shudders, ‘but he wouldn’t die. And I wanted him to die because he was trying to hurt you. Tell me who he is!’
I look at Ryan again, really