Alan Campbell - Iron Angel

“You must be ready to catch this,” he repeated, holding out the bladder.

Rachel felt the weight of the glass blade in her hand. She knew the position of the artery in the child’s neck. In her mind she watched herself throw the dagger, saw it flash across the room and bury itself into his flesh. She imagined the jetting blood, the wet, gurgling sounds he would make as he fell. It would be an easy throw, over in a heartbeat. Then she’d be free, and able to help Dill.

The child had been tempered, hadn’t he? He was one of them.

Rachel threw the knife.

Dill had not slept. The phantom battle-archon had remained outside his window all night, tapping his cutlass against the glass. This simple persistence had evidently taken a lot out of the intruder, for his body had faded as the night wore on, becoming more gaseous and more insubstantial with each blow. When dawn finally came, the ghost had returned to the abyss, then little more than a shadow of his former self.

But he had managed to make a crack in the window.

Dill studied the broken pane for the hundredth time, and with mounting apprehension. Shades should not be able to affect the physical world around them, and certainly not the blessed glass that protected the Church of Ulcis. In fact, no spirit had damaged the temple in three thousand years. Yet this dead warrior had managed a remarkable feat, seemingly determined to reach Dill at any cost.

But why?

And there was something else worrisome. Of all the ghosts Dill had seen that night, this armoured phantom was the only one to have now returned to the abyss.

Now Dill was exhausted, and the crimson mist outside was growing dark again. The chain-and-burr cuffs cramped and chafed his wings, sending jolts of pain through his shoulders whenever he moved. Broken feathers now covered the floor of the cell.

Time passed, yet nobody came to check on him, or to bring him food or water. Once he thought he heard a child crying out somewhere below him, but it might just have been a rook squawking. He must have slept because it was suddenly much darker. The tall windows shone dully, bathing his cell in a queer red radiance. Outside, the ghosts were again rising from the abyss: more of them this time.

And then the phantom archon returned.

He floated outside Dill’s room, his huge wings entirely filling the window frame. His body was solid, more corporeal again, and his eyes gleamed with malice. He raised his cutlass before the cracked pane and struck it hard.

The glass finally shattered.

Dill instantly heard a howl, like a powerful gale. The archon’s form warped and faded until it became as thin as a plume of smoke. Curling and twisting, the smoke then began to flow through the broken window into the room. In a dozen heartbeats, the ghost had re-formed. His wings unfolded behind him, trailing wisps of red mist, and he stared down at the young angel with terrible eyes.

“You should have opened the window,” he said in a voice like leaves blowing through a forest. “And that way saved us both some pain. This meeting has cost me dearly.”

Dill did not realize he’d been backing away until own his wings brushed against the wall. He stammered, “Who are you?”

The battle-archon’s eyes narrowed. “My name is Silister Trench,” he said. He exhaled slowly, releasing drifts of red smoke from his nostrils. “I am the champion of the First Citadel and commander of Hasp’s Archons.” He gave a small bow, and his hand settled on the hilt of his cutlass. “I am your great-grandfather’s great-grandfather, or something similar-the exact details of our family connection are not important. Needless to say, I am one of your ancestors, and your ancestors have need of you now.” He started towards the young angel. Crimson vapors rose wherever his boots touched the floor.

“Wait,” Dill cried. “I don’t understand. Why…?”

“I require your wings, your heart, and your blood,” Trench said. “My own form would soon fade under Ayen’s sun, and yet I have an urgent message to deliver to one in your world.” He held out his gaseous hands and peered through them at the other angel. “You see? This body is too insubstantial to survive here for long. It will only last long enough to provide a vessel to carry your own soul back to the Maze.”

Dill glanced frantically about for escape. Grinning, the battle-archon bore down on him, his intangible armour wreathed in bloody vapor. There was nowhere to run to. The young angel dropped to his knees and cowered.

“That’s it,” Trench said. “This will only hurt a little.”

“A foolish and desperate maneuver.” The Adept peered over the lath of his crossbow, aiming the weighty stone tip of a bone-breaker at Rachel’s abdomen. “You might have killed the child.”

Rachel looked up at him from the floor of her cell. “He moved at the wrong moment.”

“Your skills have waned,” the other assassin remarked. “Any ordinary Cutter could have thrown the blade more accurately.”

Her glass knife had caught the lad’s ear, grazing him just enough to draw blood. If the Adept had known that this was exactly Rachel’s intention, he might have been less dismissive of her skills. The boy had, of course, dropped the water bladder and run back to his masters. Subsequently, the Adept who’d brought her here had been forced to visit.

“Why do you pretend you’ve been tempered?” Rachel asked. “Why keep up the facade?”

“I do not pretend,” he snapped.

She laughed. “Are you so afraid of the procedure?”

“Be silent.”

“I used to yearn for them to temper me,” she said, “but my brother wouldn’t sign the consent forms. He did this to hurt me. He knew I couldn’t cope with the strain of what my Spine masters expected me to do. I could never kill children. Yet you don’t seem to have a problem with morality, do you?” Suddenly she thought she understood him. “That’s why you don’t want them to temper you. The procedure would strip away your desires, deprive you of the joy you get from your work.”

“My master died on the night he was due to temper me,” he said with a cruel smile. “Quite suddenly, and inexplicably. With all the recent confusion, the destruction of the city, nobody thought to confirm that he’d actually carried out the procedure.”

“Bravo,” Rachel said. “It couldn’t have been easy to kill a Spine master.”

The man inclined his head. “Over the years he had built up a resistance to every poison we stocked. I was forced to use less subtle methods.”

“I’m impressed. What’s your name? It isn’t often I get to meet an Adept who actually remembers it.”

“Culver.”

“So, Culver, are you going to shoot me now, or take me away to be tempered?”

He lowered his crossbow. “You’ll go under the needles eventually,” he said. “We need all the battle fodder we can get. Unfortunately we have rather a long backlog to work through.”

“A shame,” she muttered, “because I’ll be dead by tomorrow.”

Culver’s hard eyes narrowed. “Suicide is against Codex law. Any attempt would be punished by-”

“By what? Death?”

He did not answer.

Rachel snorted. “Save your sermons. I’ve no intention of killing myself. Look over there, corpse face.” She gestured towards the broken pane, the glass she’d smashed to make her knives. Already there were ghosts rising through the dark red mist beyond. It would only be a matter of time until one of them noticed and came to investigate. “I’m afraid it broke,” she said. “Quite suddenly and inexplicably.”

Culver cursed. “You stupid bitch. Did you want to get yourself possessed? The whole room will have to be blessed now.” He dragged a hand through his short hair, thinking for a moment, before he looked back at her. “Sod the waiting list,” he said. “We’ll temper you and the angel tonight.”