literature

Fallen Angels chpt 25

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Into These Blood Red Skies

"What do we do now?" Jake shouted.

Andy took a minute to glance downwards. Carolyn was standing with the Outcasts painted like him. Even she was made-up in the paint. His dark eyelashes were very becoming on her. He might have lost her, had it not been for the black hat with the large feather that she always wore. She nodded to him and he replied; "Alright! C.C; you deal with those throwing things. Make sure there aren't any left in working order. And destroy the palaces in Heaven – but leave the Temple." C.C nodded and flew away. "Jinxx, I want you to do your best to protect the Outcasts. Do whatever you can, by any means. I know we might lose some, but we've got to try!" Jinxx hesitated. "Jake, clear the path. Just try not to hit one of us." Jake smirked, and dropped down towards the battleground. Jinxx still waited.
"What are you going to do?"
"I've got to get into that Temple, Jinxx. We've got to stop its heart, before it stops ours." He flashed his shadowed eyes towards it and added in a mutter, "And there are those I need to set free."  
"We can do that. If we work together." Jinxx smiled. "We'll make it through."
Andy nodded and smiled faintly back. "Then let's go."

------------------------------------------------

Ashley was very much enjoying his job. The Outcasts were carrying his flames to the rooftops; street after street of the city was being lost to ash and he loved it. The flames sprawled over the city, and as Ashley flew closer, it poured up the hill, closer and closer to the borders. He rubbed his hands, and they glowed.
C.C zoomed high up into the sky, over the blaze and into the clouds. The clouds were alive with electric currents. They buzzed around him a moment, before he broke back down; heading straight for Heaven's defences. Lightening cracked its whip at the ground as he took his first aim. He missed the catapult, but caught one of the missiles. In an instant it shattered in mid-air, raining down on the fighting Outcasts below in tiny burning red embers, like a dying firework. There were at least ten catapults lined along the borders and buffering the Temple wall. It seemed that the Invasion were good at filling them and firing quickly. He missed them several times. He did his best to obliterate the missiles, only he couldn't get all of them alone.
Jinxx flew nearby. He was a great help; with his fingers to his temples, the star in his palm facing outwards, he was throwing the missiles off course. Using his mind he cast them as far as he could. They crashed down on the further slums of Hell. They rocketed into the neighbouring hills, still burning. One hit the river, sending a fountain of water straight up to the stars. When it came down again, it splashed out into the city, soaking the struggling beings down below.
The riverside, when they looked back to it, was very changed. Its key feature, the Gunsling was gone. Just an empty space was left in its place… At least, that's how it appeared. While Andy, Jake and C.C had gone to Carolyn's morgue, Jinxx had pulled as much power as he could into hiding it. They had left the young children, the elderly (all be them very few and far between) and the sick there; safely hidden under Jinxx's powerful shelter.   
Meanwhile, Jake was down close to the ground. It was easy to spot him from above, for whole teams of Heaven's army were going up in smoke – the familiar sparkling black smoke; pretty but deadly. Their skeletons were dropped on the cobbles of the street, and Jake passed over them as an indifferent shadow.
Then there were the Outcasts themselves. The angels' foot soldiers. Watching their battle was like watching a disturbed ants' nest, or a kicked hornet's hive. There was movement everywhere.
They were pushing against the border. There was a slight pause in the struggle when with a great screeching noise, equal to the scratching of nails down a slate; the first of the machines of war fell to the angels. Jinxx and C.C tore it apart. Jinxx tossed it up, off the ground and hurled it into the distance. The fires were leaping over the checkpoints; Ashley's columns of fire scorching down along the fortified pass. The monks who had joined the defences scattered under it and Ashley chased them, burning through the hems of their clothes and down to the skin.

They were pushing, pushing… and the border broke. The Outcasts poured into the streets of Heaven, in amongst the abandoned palaces. Most of them had never seen those streets before.

"Do you think Ronnie's here somewhere?" Rex shouted over his shoulder to Carolyn, as he aimed his gun. Carolyn shrugged, as she sprang over Jake's discarded skeletons. A bolt of flame shot down at her feet, and she gave a screech. Turning her eyes upwards, she saw Ashley perched on the edge of a marble veranda. He laughed as she swore up at him. He gave her a wink, and then disappeared back into the shadows.
"He does my head in!" She cursed, breaking one of the boards off the door of the nearest house. Ronnie stopped to help her. "Even at a time like this he taunts me!"
"I think you'd make a good pair if you tried." Rex replied. He stopped to help her. They dragged the wooden boards away until there was a gap big enough for Carolyn to slide through. "What are you doing anyway?"
"I want to get to that balcony!" She shouted. "I have to see what's going on!"
"Are you crazy?" Rex exclaimed. Carolyn shrugged again, and slipped her legs through the hole. Despite his shock, he helped her climb through, stopping to free her skirts from the splinters in the wood.
"Get to the jail." She said briskly. "If Ronnie's anywhere – that's where he'll be!"
They shook hands over the opening, and then Rex raced away; gun pointed.
Carolyn turned around. She was in the blackened out, sealed up shell of an aristocrat's palace. The only light was coming through from behind her. It tinged the untouched hallway  slightly orange. She could just make out a sloping staircase that was lined by a sweeping curved banister. Carolyn reached out her hands, and stumbled forward. Hands gripping the stairs, she ran upwards into the darkness. Outside, she could hear the crashing and clatter of the crowds. The shouts; the screams. She thought once that she picked out Jake's voice, as he swept past the doorway. The balcony was two floors up. She squeezed along a narrow hallway and up onto another flight of steps. The balcony was at the back of a room right in front of the top stair. Light was poking through the boards at the frame. She ripped them from the walls, and clambered out onto the balcony.
She put her hand first of all to the spot where Ashley had paused. It was still warm, even though he had only been there a couple of seconds. She cast her eyes out. She couldn't see him now. She did spot Ronnie slipping and sliding his way through to the other side of the wide street. He raced down into an alleyway with determination. Carolyn was searching for any sign of the one family she had left, but she couldn't see the doctor anywhere either. Loads of Outcasts and loads of the Invasion.
One thing she did see though was a figure crouching on one of the rooftops opposite. She thought at first glance it was just one of the roof decorations – an elaborate gargoyle or a weathervane. Then the wind blew the spikey hair from his face. Andy curled his wings around himself more and stared down into the street. The moon was turning slowly crimson behind him. He didn't seem to notice her.
She was so busy watching him, watching how still he was except for his hair that the wind teased out, that she forgot to look back towards the borders. The checkpoints and guard posts were engulfed now in flickering orange and it was jumping from roof to roof… She first notices when there was a crack in the roof somewhere in her building. A ceiling beam had burned through. The flames were coming.
She leaned over the balcony. She couldn't jump down; she was too high up, and she'd only fall on danger. The smoke was curling in the air before her eyes. She hitched up her skirts and sat on the edge where Ashley had been. She stretched her foot out to reach a distant windowsill. Clutching the wall she spread apart her legs until she could get the two across. She gripped the guttering of the roof to stabilise herself. She managed to get to a lower part of the roof from the sill, and she stood at the corner of the slates. The drop was just as big as before. She looked back. The fire was right behind her, taking over the house. The flames were as keen as their master, it seemed. Just as keen and dangerous.
The battle raged on in the street below. In the sky, the catapults were being pulled to pieces. Her foot began to slip…
She didn't know how he'd gotten across the street so fast, but she was so thankful he was there. Andy had her now in his arms, holding her to his chest. "Now don't you go dying on me, Carolyn." He whispered. He smiled. "You were looking at me."
"No, I wasn't."
"I saw you." He chuckled.
"No… You couldn't have. Because I wasn't!" She tried in vain to cover it up. Andy just smiled, his blue eyes calm, and he dropped her down comfortably in a side street. "Have you seen my dad?"
"No, I'm sorry." He replied. His eyes were distant again. "I have to leave you now."
She sighed. "Fine. I'll find him by myself." She wrinkled her nose and turned and ran. Andy remained standing alone on the street, feathers curling around him. At first he was startled by her actions, but he smiled again. She was running with such conviction, even when she didn't have a clue which way to go. He shrugged his shoulders, and lifted himself back up into the air.
He narrowly missed a bolt of Jake's poison as he scrambled back to the roofs, although he knew it wasn't meant for him. His heels clipped the roof edge and he sprinted along them, jumping over the chimneys as they came to stand in his way. The fires were racing behind him. He kept going until he was close enough to the Temple walls…


There was a curve in the hill just before the Temple gates. It obscured the Invasion's vision. They didn't spy the fire until it was too late; until it was lapping practically at their heels. They stopped firing. The air was heavy with smoke, but the sky that broke through just above it was blood red; the dawn creeping tantalizingly close to their rescue.

At first, there was a silence.

Then the Outcasts appeared, outlining the street in black. The Invasion remained at their weapons, but the strange faces approaching from the other end of the street frightened them somewhat. They still carried their torches. It was hard to tell any of them apart. At a safe distance they stopped.

"I believe," said a low, whiskey-toned voice, "you're looking for us."
  
The Invasion turned around and cries were sent upwards. There were a couple bodies hanging limply between the battlement castellation; freshly dead. They were running red on the sandstone-coloured bricks. Seated up on the same walls, staring down over everything, the angels had come together again. Andy was standing right up on the edge of the drop; his wings spread out wide just to keep his balance. Around him, Jake, Ashley, Jinxx and C.C smirked downwards. Their porcelain faces had suffered barely even a scratch. Jake's hand was hovering over one of the fallen defenders, and his fingers were running with their blood. There was a narrow trickle running down from the corner of Ashley's mouth, as though he'd been drinking it and carelessly let a drop spill. Jinxx reached out his hands and held them levelly in front of him. The stars in his palms were glowing, but their effect was slow to take hold.

The acrid smoke seemed thinner once again. Over the whole city came a deathly hush, as though they were suddenly falling into a state of sleep-walking. It effected everyone, whether they were outside in the street, or inside in the Temple. Carolyn felt her legs shudder and go limp. She was half way across the Prison house courtyard when they gave way beneath her. She tossed her sigh over her shoulder. She could see them on the wall. "What are you doing, Jinxx?" She hissed under her breath as she sprawled flat on the flagstones.
Rex had been stumbling into the darkness of the prison's corridors. He had managed to ignore the stench but now the nausea swept over him and he had to lean up against the door of an open cell. He slid down onto the floor, and gazed hazily into the wall opposite. He didn't know that Ronnie had escaped from that door only a short while before.
Now however, he was with Grimm, Seth and the Doctor, just entering the Temple walls. The passage of time had been lost in the passageway with them anyway, but they were surprised to discover when they reached the other end it hadn't followed them out again. Everything appeared in slow motion. There was a tremor from elsewhere inside the body of the Temple; a cry of fury from a god on the losing team.
"What is going on?" Seth hissed.
Almost in answer words radiated through the bricks.
"That's Andy!" Grimm exclaimed. "Listen!"

"So you thought you could keep us beaten, did you? Thought that would get you ahead? Did you think nothing would come of your cruelty? That nothing would answer back? For years I've watched you in your palaces built on bones. You even tried to twist one of my own against me. You failed. For all his swallowing of scripts here he is with your regime lying at his feet. PATHETIC."  Andy smirked. "You like your gospels, don't you? Here's a gospel for you… We are the Unholy. We are the bastard sons of your corrupted culture. Our minds, eyes and bodies were born of your exclusion. An illusion you hide behind… YOU DON'T LOVE A GOD. You love your comforts. To you we are filth, we are dirty AND SO BE IT!"

"I think I just soiled myself." The Doctor muttered.

"We ARE dirty and unclean; A CONGREGATION OF THE UNSEEN! AND TOGETHER WE HAVE SET YOUR WORLD ON FIRE! THIS IS OUR NEW RELIGION! AMEN!!!!!"

Carolyn dragged her deadened legs to the side, to get under some form of shelter. She curled up like an infant and covered her head in her arms. Andy's tone had chilled her straight through to her heart and now she knew something bad was about to happen.
Andy didn't stop shouting. The cry went on and on until it became a full and deafening scream. He felt that sensation again; the tingling all over his body, and the sound just rolling from his throat without any control of it. He felt Ashley fire rage up beside him. Jinxx turned his hands downwards, towards the petrified Invasion. Andy closed his eyes. Thunder cracked above their heads and clashed shoulder-to shoulder with the coming dawn. It was a pub-brawl of god-like proportions.

Deep down, behind this strange persona the Black Veil Bride had created, Andy was terrified. By this. By everything.

This was the first time they'd used their powers together.

Carolyn felt the world give a violent lurch, and she plastered her hands out against the walls of her shelter. It rocked back and fore. She scrunched her eyes tight. There was so much noise that for a while it felt like the world would never be silent again. Her thoughts and words were swallowed up into it and disappeared as though they had simply left her body. She had managed to survive several moments (or were they hours? Days, possibly?) in that loud silence before her ears began to adjust. There was something more in it than just noise. She could almost pick out each part. A thudding base. The thunder drumming away at the plates of the Earth. A running , tripping, rising, wailing pair of notes rippling playfully over the ground. And an outraged heart letting vent up into the heavens. She took her hand away from her ears and listened. She wondered if the Outcasts could hear it the same way she could. It was something she was sure the Invasion could never hope to hear. And she was quite glad of that.
She laughed (at least she felt her mouth form that way) and opened her eyes. She blinked furiously, but nothing changed. She was sure she was awake, but all before her was black. A terror spread at the thought that she had been blinded, or even worse killed, but when she looked up, she could see stars appearing.
And it was the same for everyone.

The night had beaten back the dawn. Daylight was on its knees.
Just what I need after spending a day writing essay and doing hard and depressing 'employability skills'.

Some literary ass-kicking.

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andypurdy's avatar
YES KILL 'EM GUYS!