Chapter 29
Louise was pissed and didn’t care who knew it. Well, she cared that one person should know it – should be acutely aware of it. Andrew.
The ordeal in the field had only been the beginning – Tomas’ break had been bad. Bad enough she had been unable to move him, only to try and give him some comfort. Not that there was much comfort to be had in the middle of a field as the morning sun beat down on her.
She’d ended up hot, sunburnt and royally angry. Eventually, she’d spotted a young woman at the neighbouring villa, which she would later learn to be a farmhouse and the owners of the villa they’d had destroyed with gunfire. She hadn’t seen her waves, so Louise told Tomas she would back shortly and rushed for help.
It had been a rather embarrassing moment when she’d asked in very loud English, with waving hands, whether or not the young local woman had any wood. When the woman had replied in perfectly unaccented English that she did – and revealed that English and Maltese were the dual national languages of Malta – Louise felt a little bit more like a prick. And embarrassment only fuelled her passionate anger at the whole damn situation.
The woman, bless her, had helped Louise to splint the break, immobilising the ankle and allowing the two of them to drag Tomas across the field to her farmhouse villa. It had been hard work, Tomas crying out whenever they went over one of the rivets in the field until eventually, they ended up in a dusty mess by their private pool.
The woman rushed to get water for them and some paracetamol she had in her bathroom cabinet. Louise knew it would be like calming a steelworks with a spritz of lemonade but hoped some of the placebo effect might rub off on Tomas, who by now was sweating profusely and a bizarre shade of tanned red.
She had asked for an ambulance but the woman had shaken her head. It was only then was she filled in on the events in the next town over. It was only then when looking from their now slightly raised vantage point that she saw the gleaming stone edifice visible amid destruction even from their current distance. It was as though the town were clambering onto the slopes of the giant in the middle – as though that peak had always been there.
She understood – no medical help was coming. No doubt there would be rescue efforts going on amongst the collapsed buildings and somehow a broken ankle would not rate highly on their list of concerns.
She had examined the wound again, disturbed by the faint tinge at the edges of his toes and knew that if he did not get some help soon – things would be far worse. So she called the next best person – she asked for a phone, apologised for the international call and got through to Ruth.
Half an hour later Angel had finally appeared. She heard a clatter of the dishes in the kitchen where the woman had undoubtedly been busying herself. Well, it wasn’t every day that a ten-foot wing-spanned angel landed besides your private pool, looking ashen-faced with the horrors of the day.
“What took you so long?” she snapped, knowing it was unfair but unable to help it.
“There is much destruction,” he answered simply. “What can I do?”
“The idiot here broke his ankle in the daring escape,” she replied, “Normally I would wait for medical attention but I think it’s a complex break and might have snagged or partially blocked the anterior tibial artery. Again, something we could fix in a hospital but considering the crisis going on down there right now, I don’t think we will have the resources. So I’m afraid he’s going to lose his foot.”
“Lose?” Tomas broke through the pain for a moment, “What the hell do you mean ‘lose’? I have great feet.”
“Just a tip, but most women don’t go for the hobbit look, invest in a pedicurist,” she told Tomas, before asking Angel, “Would you be able to…you know?”
Angel nodded and knelt beside Tomas, who seemed suddenly quite apprehensive.
“This is going to hurt at first,” Angel explained, “but when it is over, you will be fine.”
Before Tomas could say or move another inch, Angel pulled apart the makeshift splint. The flesh had continued to swell and press against the blocks of wood – she could see the purplish mess it had been turning into and knew they didn’t have much longer before it was a lost cause. Tomas let out a scream of pain, God only knew what the kind woman whose home they’d invaded was now thinking.
Angel’s hand, already bathed in soft warm white light, glided across the mess of flesh. Slowly Tomas’ scream began to devolve into something far more pleasurable.
“Don’t be dirty,” she chided him with a slap to the shoulder.
“What? It feels nice,” he defended.
Angel’s brow furrowed in concentration, his eyes closed tight. She had witnessed him do this several times and each time she was fascinated. Now though, something else began to tug at her. She realised the look on his face was not only intense concentration there was a touch of pain. It hurt him to heal. He did not scream, he did not cry out but something about the slight beads of perspiration appeared at his Temple and the twitch of his mouth looked familiar. Looked almost to her like a patient, someone trying to mask the pain they were in.
Then it was done with a sigh from Angel and the sounds of pleasured surprise from Tomas. He held his ankle as though new, commenting later that perhaps he would need to shave a little. When Angel’s eyes finally opened and looked at her she realised he was looking tired, a look she’d never seen on his face before. She wanted to ask him if he was okay, to ask if it was normal for him to feel pain when he was doing his healing thing – but part of her was afraid to know the answer.
They were interrupted by the woman of the house, who despite having dropped the potatoes when she had been startled by the winged man; had prepared some food while they waited for the ambulance. Louise was baffled, knowing full well that the same thing would have been true with most women in the North of England except with biscuits and brews instead of tapas or mezze; while the woman was likewise baffled – albeit surprisingly briefly – at the sudden recovery of their young Spaniard.
Feeling guilty, Louise had reluctantly made them all stay to have the food which had been cooked to them – to bask in their host’s hospitality even though all her instincts were to run straight for the nearest vehicle and straight towards where she knew Andrew would be – that flaming pyramid Temple.
While their host continued to busy body in the background, Angel related to Louise the events of the morning – his look clouding further when relating the story of the second Angel, the dark man with the glossy black feathered wings. The man who made the birds fall from the sky and greeted their old friend like, well, an old friend.
When she asked where Andrew was, she had gotten the response that she had feared. Andrew, once he knew she was safe, had elected to remain at the Temple and start to uncover its secrets to perhaps learn more about their new enemy.
If there was one thing Louise hated more than being impolite to a host (mainly because of a touch of the social anxieties she’d developed through, well, all of childhood); it was a feeling of righteous anger being quashed by the cold harsh truth of logic. She knew she was powerless and therefore to have gotten involved in taking down Cyvus and his friend would have been utterly pointless and likely dangerous.
But that didn’t change the fact that she felt like some precious flower, dragged off to be preserved while the men stayed and fought.
She knew that their best chance of finding out anything about this second Horseman, about this dark angel and the upcoming dangers they would face was to have the right people in the right place – i.e. Andrew in that Temple looking for answers.
But that didn’t change the fact that she wanted him to come rushing back to her, ignoring the world and its problems and simply sweep her up in his arms. To put her first.
Yes, she knew everything had to happen the way it had happened because otherwise she would be dead or the world would be far more buggered than it already was. But it didn’t change the fundamental facts of the situation she was in – in many ways she was far more expendable than them.
That was the part which hurt the most.