Rebecca Lim - Fury

Inside, the building is blazing with light. As the sliding doors open to emit a rush of hot air, my eyes take in — almost at once — too many things: multiple TV screens filled with reams of flight numbers listed as Delayed or Cancelled ; queues of people at ticket offices and telephone booths; people asleep on almost every available surface, some with luggage, some without. It’s a vast and toxic ocean of bodies, of colour, of noise, of smells, of energy. Uriel and I almost reel backwards in a kind of psychic shock.

I’d expected the place to be empty, but it’s teeming with people, and I know that Uriel is right. Luc has begun some terrible process that only I might be able to contain to this realm, this world. This is just one airport amongst thousands. Only Luc would be capable of setting the very earth upon a course of rebellion that affects so many places, so many people, at once.

I can’t see Ryan anywhere.

‘Multiply what you see by life universal ,’ Uriel says acidly, ‘then tell me you have any other choice but to quit this sphere.’

‘Can you see him? Ryan?’ I ask despairingly, and Uriel shoots me a look of revulsion as he moves forward into that clamouring sea of people.

He looks awkward in the human form he’s assumed; like a smaller version of himself but with a floppy, college-boy haircut, thin steel-framed glasses, and wearing preppy clothes like those we saw on the giant advertising billboards we flew past to get here. It took him more than a few tries to get the look of his skin right, but there’s no telltale gleam now on the surface of his neck, face or hands. He’s getting more than a few glances because he looks too perfect, almost too neat, clean, handsome, but he definitely passes muster as some uptight, matchy-matchy rich kid on his way home from an overseas holiday. Beside him, I look incredibly dowdy in my usual human get-up of black down jacket, black sweater, grey jeans and boots, hair slung back in a messy ponytail.

‘I look ridiculous,’ Uri says through gritted teeth. ‘Remind me again what he looks like, this Ryan?’

His expression turns to shock as I say distractedly, ‘He looks like Luc … like Luc if he’d been born human, and kind, but with dark hair, dark eyes …’

My voice trails away as something catches my eye. It’s so small, so very faint, just one light among millions, but it’s moving in an erratic fashion, winding in and out of the screaming Christmas decorations and glowing airline insignias, moving up the sides of crazily lit-up vending machines and roving across the faces of the sleeping, as if it’s searching for something, or someone. But then it vanishes into a bank of flickering TV screens and doesn’t reappear. Maybe I imagined it. This place is lit up like an amusement park.

‘Let’s split up,’ I say, indicating the half of the room that I want Uri to take. ‘It’ll be faster.’

I’m already walking away before Uriel’s had a chance to answer me. I want to get to Ryan first, because I don’t want Uri to see me with him. There’s nothing I can truly call mine in this world except Ryan, and I’m about to let him go. What I have to say to him doesn’t require a witness who possesses perfect recall; recall eternal.

I concentrate on all the disparate energies in the room, trying to pick Ryan’s. But there’s so much noise in here, so much distraction, that I’m having trouble tuning it out. Every braying laugh, snore or angry conversation pulls my focus from place to place.

Uri’s well out of sight when that small, coin-sized gleam of light reappears at my feet like a puppy anxious to please. The malakh I first met on a street corner in Australia is so weak now, so dissipated, that I no longer feel any fear or uneasiness around it. It’s so near death now that if its last act in life is to seek me out, then who am I to deny it?

‘If you know where he is,’ I plead, ‘take me to him?’

The light seems to regard me steadily for a second, before oscillating, as if in response. It leads me without hesitation through a multitude of slumped or sleeping bodies towards a bank of empty luggage carousels, the steel conveyor belts silent and still. Rounding the edge of one, I see the familiar backpack first, then the tall young man leaning against it, playing with his mobile phone.

Ryan looks up and sees me, and the smile that lights his face stops me in my tracks.

‘Mercy!’ he cries gladly and leaps to his feet.

As he does, the malakh , as if startled into flight, darts up the face of the giant advertising poster on the wall and disappears.

Ryan pulls me to him, but then sees my expression. ‘What’s wrong?’ he says instantly, his smile dying, his arms tightening about me like a vice.

I lay my head against his shoulder and the feel of him — his familiar energy and clean, male smell — brings on another fall of tears. They spill onto the battered leather of his jacket, gleaming there momentarily like the embers of a dying fire.

‘I love you.’ I’m sobbing, hardly coherent. ‘I love you, and I’m so sorry.’

There, I’ve done it, I’ve finally said the words, and just like that, all the time we ever had together is gone, it’s over. We’re into overtime now, penalty time. Any moment, Uri will tap me on the shoulder and I will never see Ryan again in this life.

Ryan forces me to look at him, and his hands move to either side of my face. He smears the tears away with the pads of his thumbs as fast as they come.

‘Hey,’ he says, ‘ whoa . I missed you, too. But I didn’t mind, it hasn’t been that long. I would have been happy to wait longer. I’m just glad you’re back.’

He pulls me into him again, breathing me in, kissing my hairline, breathing out all his anxiety, his tension.

‘I love you, too,’ he murmurs joyously, looking down into my eyes. ‘And there’s nothing to be sorry about. We got there in the end, right? It wasn’t so hard to say.’

‘You don’t understand,’ I wail softly. ‘Uriel is here, with me. He says this is it. It all ends now, for you and me. I came to say goodbye. This is goodbye .’

‘What?’ Ryan’s dark brows snap together as he scans the arrivals hall feverishly, before returning his gaze to me. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

I shake my head, and my fiery tears fall and fall as if they will never end. ‘Uriel’s here to make sure that I do it — that I leave. So I’m finally telling you now: that I love you, and that I’ll always miss you, and that I’m sorry.’

Ryan’s gone rigid in my arms. I can feel his horror in the way he’s suddenly stopped breathing, in the way he’s completely speechless.

‘Get yourself … home,’ I say haltingly, pulling back from him so I can see his face. ‘I’ll make Them watch over you, over Lauren, every single day. I’ll make sure Luc never has the opportunity to go after you. They have to do that much for me. They have to. You’ve been through enough.’

I give him a false, tremulous smile and say pleadingly, ‘Find a nice girl — you can do way better than me, better even than that Brenda. And have a great, great life .’ A sob rises again in my throat.

‘I’ll see you again,’ I insist through my tears. ‘ I’ll see you again . It will seem like today has been … just a lengthy wait in an anonymous arrivals hall somewhere. But I’ll find you, one day, and maybe then we can be together for always.’

Ryan’s opening his mouth but no words are coming out, and he tips his head up for a moment, just gazing up at the ceiling. When he finally looks at me, his eyes are red-rimmed and his voice is harsh. ‘Mercy, I —’

But then a gloved hand grips his shoulder.