And, clear and unbidden, as if in response, from some deep layer of memory, arose her mother’s voice. “People with destinies,” it said, “shouldn’t make plans.”
“Oh my goodness!” came a perky trill from one of the embarrassing newscasters, drawing Eliza’s attention back to the row of TVs. Something was happening. The Pope had turned aside to issue orders to underlings, and now, lugging cameras and microphones, a news team approached at a lurching run.
“It looks like the Visitors are going to make a statement!”
10
TILT TO PANIC
The angel wore a helmet of chased silver topped with a crest of white plumes. It resembled a Roman centurion’s helmet, with the addition of an overlong nasal guard—a narrow strip of silver that projected from the visor all the way to his chin, effectively bisecting his face. This concealed his nose and all but the corners of his mouth, while leaving his eyes, cheekbones, and jawline exposed.
It was a strange choice, especially considering that the rest of the host was bareheaded, their beautiful faces unobstructed. There were other odd things about the angel, too, but they were harder to assess, and his statement was soon to eclipse them all. Only later would the analysis of his posture begin, and his oddly bloated shadow, his mushy, lisping voice, and the whispering that was audible in his long pauses, as though he were being fed lines. Details would start to catch up with the general impression of wrongness he made—like a sticky residue on your fingers, except that it was on your mind.
But not yet. First, his statement, and the instant worldwide tilt it precipitated: straight to panic.
“Sons and daughters of the one true god,” he said—but… he said it in Latin, so that very few people understood him in real time. Around the whole sphere of planet Earth, amid prayers and curses and questions uttered in hundreds of languages, billions scrambled to find a translation.
What is he saying???
In the lag time before translations went wide, the majority of the human race experienced the angel’s message first by witnessing the Pope’s reaction to it.
It wasn’t comforting.
The pontiff paled. He took a stagger step backward. At one point he tried to speak, but the angel cut him off without a sideward glance.
This was his message for humanity:
“Sons and daughters of the one true god, ages have passed since we last came among you, though you have never been far from our sight. For centuries we have fought a war beyond human ken. Long have we protected you in body and soul while shielding you even from knowledge of the threat that shadows you. The Enemy that hungers for you. Far from your lands have great battles been fought. Blood spilled, flesh devoured. But as godlessness and evil grow among you, the might of the Enemy increases. And now the day has come that their strength matches ours, and will soon surpass it. We can no longer leave you innocent of the Shadow. We can no longer protect you without your help.”
The angel took a deep breath and drew out a pause before finishing heavily.
“The Beasts… are coming for you.”
And with that the riots began.
ARRIVAL + 12 HOURS
11
BREEDS OF SILENCE
Akiva stood stoic. The words he had just spoken seemed to hang in the air. The atmosphere in the wake of his pronouncement, he thought, was like the pressure in the path of the stormhunters’ plunge—all air siphoned toward an onrushing cataclysm. Arrayed around him in the Kirin caves were two hundred and ninety-six grim-faced Misbegotten, all that remained of the Emperor’s bastard legion, to whom he had just made his unthinkable proposal.
Pressure was building, the weight of the air defying the thin altitude. And then…
Laughter. Incredulous and uneasy.
“And will we all sleep head to toe, beast-seraph-beast-seraph?” asked Xathanael, one of Akiva’s many half brothers, and not one he knew well.
Beast’s Bane wasn’t known for jokes, but surely this was a joke: the enemy coming to shelter with them? To join with them?
“And brush each other’s hair before bed?” added Sorath.
“Pick their nits, more like.” Xathanael again, to more laughter.
Akiva suffered an acute physical memory of Madrigal sleeping by his side, and the joke was not funny to him. It was all the less funny here, in the echoing caves of her slaughtered people, where, if you looked closely, you could still make out the blood tracks of dragged bodies on the floor. What would it be like for Karou to see that evidence? How much did she remember of the day she was orphaned? Her first orphaning, he reminded himself. Her second was much more recent, and his fault. “I think it would be best,” he replied, “if we kept separate quarters.”
The laughter faltered and gradually faded. They were all staring at him, faces caught between amusement and outrage, unsure where to settle. Neither end of that spectrum would suit. Akiva needed to bring them to a different place altogether: to acceptance, however reluctant.
Right now it felt very remote. He’d left the chimaera company in a high-mountain valley until he could make it back to bring them to safety. He very much wanted to bring Karou to safety—and the rest of them, too. This impossible chance would never come again. If he failed to persuade his brothers and sisters to try it, he failed the dream.
“The choice is yours,” he said. “You can refuse. We have removed ourselves from the Empire’s service; we choose our own fight now, and we can choose our allies, too. The fact is that we’ve shattered the chimaera. These few who survive are the foes of yesterday’s war. We face a new threat now, not just to us, though indeed to us, but to all of Eretz: the promise of a new age of tyranny and war that would make our father’s rule look soft by comparison. We must stop Jael. That is primary.”
“We don’t need beasts for that,” said Elyon, stepping forward. Unlike Xathanael, Akiva did know Elyon well, and respected him. He was among the older of the bastards left living, and not very old at that, his hair barely beginning to gray. He was a thinker, a planner, not given to bravado or unnecessary violence.
“No?” Akiva faced him. “The Dominion are five thousand, and Jael is emperor now, so he commands the Second Legion as well.”
“And how many are these beasts?”
“These chimaera,” replied Akiva, “currently number eighty-seven.”
“Eighty-seven.” Elyon laughed. He wasn’t scornful, but almost sad. “So few. How does that help us?”
“It helps us eighty-seven soldiers’ worth,” said Akiva. For a start, he thought, but didn’t say. He hadn’t told them yet that it was true the chimaera had a new resurrectionist. “Eighty-seven with hamsas against the Dominion.”