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  ‘If you lay a hand on me,’ he gasped, ‘I swear I’ll smash your face in.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Ari. ‘That’s not what this is all about.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I’m more a fan of the female species, and one female in particular, not that she’ll have anything to do with me.’ He waved a hand as if dismissing the subject, pushed past Will and went to peer out of the gun slit. ‘Makes you think, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘Our brave lads crouched in here, night after night, waiting for the Luftwaffe to come flying up the river, looking for the lights of the steelworks. They had to give an alert if that happened, sound the sirens, then the ack ack units up the river would start filling the sky with flack . . . you know, it’s a weird thing. It looks so beautiful from down here, but up there . . . absolutely deadly. Like you’re stuck in a biscuit tin with the biggest box of fireworks ever made and you can’t get out until every one of them has gone off.’

  ‘You were in the war?’ observed Will.

  ‘I’ve been in all of ‘em,’ said Ari, matter-of-factly. ‘Not as a participant, you understand. More of a bemused observer. No, I only fought in one real battle and we lost that one, big time.’

  Will sighed. He wondered how they’d managed to stray so far off the subject. He turned and walked back to the exit, stepped outside and took a lungful of fresh air.

  ‘It does look like rain,’ said a voice just above his head and Will jumped a second time, because now Ari was sitting on the roof of the pillbox right above his head. Will glanced back into the gloom, just to assure himself that there wasn’t some identical twin standing in there, but no, the pillbox was empty. He pointed inside.

  ‘You . . . you were . . . how . . .?

  ‘Relax,’ Ari assured him. ‘It’s just a parlour trick, it doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘But you . . .’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Looks pretty flashy, I’ll admit. Thing is, these days I can only manage it once or twice a day. Totally wears me out, I really should try and keep it for emergencies. I mean, now I’ve realised that I’m up here and it’s going to be bloody difficult to get down again. Elbows and knees aren’t what they were, you know. Here, give me a hand, will you?’

  He scrambled around onto his knees and began to lower himself down the front of the pillbox. Will reached up to support him. As he did so, the back of Ari’s coat drooped down, revealing the reason for the oddly humped shoulders. Will glimpsed a mass of white feathers under there. One feather detached itself and came drifting down through the air. Will caught it and stood there staring at it open-mouthed.

  Ari dropped down beside him and turned around with a smile on his face. He saw the feather in Will’s hand and the smile faded.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Now, see, I’d hoped to work up to that more gradually.’

  ‘You . . . you’re not . . . you can’t . . .’ Will couldn’t find any words to express what was in his head. ‘No,’ he said, at last. ‘You couldn’t be!’

  ‘I could, you know,’ said Ari and he stood there with a sheepish grin. ‘This is always difficult,’ he said. ‘But believe me, once you’ve had time to think about it, you’ll realise . . . Oi! What are you doing?’

  Will couldn’t help himself. He had to see, he had to know. He reached up behind Ari’s back, grabbed the collar of the man’s coat and yanked hard. The overcoat came off in one movement and fell to the ground like a discarded sheet. Will’s eyes got very big and round.

  Ari wasn’t wearing anything on the upper half of his body. It would have been particularly difficult to find a garment to fit, what with the wings and everything. They were snow white and they arched up from his shoulders and fell down to just below his knees. You could see that it wasn’t some kind of apparatus he was wearing. The wings sprouted directly out of his flesh like an extra set of limbs.

  ‘Oh. My. God,’ whispered Will.

  ‘I’d really rather you didn’t bring him into this,’ said Ari, ‘I’ve got a bit of a problem with . . .’

  But Will didn’t wait around to hear the rest. A sudden jolt of terror had flared in his chest and suddenly, without even knowing why, he was running frantically back along the riverbank, as fast as his legs would carry him. He didn’t know if Spot was following him but he wasn’t going to wait to find out.

  ‘I’ll be around if you need to talk!’ Ari called after him. ‘When you’ve had a chance to think about it. Only there’s stuff your dad wants me to do . . .’

  Will didn’t stop until he’d climbed the steps back up to the bridge. He turned back, gasping for breath, to see Spot coming up the steps behind him, tongue lolling; delighted by the unexpected run. Will pulled Spot’s lead from his pocket and clipped it to his collar.

  ‘What was that all about?’ he asked Spot and actually waited a few moments, just in case the dog had some kind of answer for him. Then he realised what he was doing and felt even more scared. He finally dared to look back down to the riverbank.

  Of course, there was nobody in sight. Absolutely nobody.

  What’s going on? he asked himself. He was shaking now, the shock of what had happened finally hitting him and when he took a step, his legs seemed barely able to hold him upright.

  Ordinary cars thundered past him on the ordinary road and he looked ahead, to the perfectly ordinary housing estate that lay ahead of him. It all seemed normal enough, but now, he wasn’t so sure.

  He turned and, walking very slowly, he headed for home.

  THREE

  Will let himself in at the back door, hung his jacket in the hall and removed Spot’s lead.

  The little dog went straight to his water bowl and started lapping noisily at its contents. Will gave him a pat and went through to the kitchen. He found Mum standing at one of the worktops, gazing distractedly out of the window. Her auburn hair was tied back from her face and she seemed to be transfixed by whatever it was she was looking at.

  Will went to stand beside her and had a look for himself. He knew from long experience that there really wasn’t much to see out there. The little bit of back garden, now badly overgrown since Mum had stopped bothering to tend it. The garden fence with the loose panel that flapped about whenever the wind caught it. And the back of next door’s house, identical to every other house on the council estate, though not quite in such desperate need of a paint job.

  Nothing out of the ordinary. He noticed that Mum had a potato peeler in her hand and sure enough, a pile of spuds waited on the worktop, looking hopeful, if such a thing were possible, but as yet not one of them had been deprived of its skin. This was nothing unusual. These days Mum was easily distracted.

  Will removed the peeler from her hand and got to work on the first potato. Mum glanced at him as though she’d only just noticed his presence.

  ‘Thanks, love,’ she said. ‘I thought we might do chips, for a change. I know they’re bad for you, but once in a while won’t hurt, will it?’

  Will shrugged.

  ‘Whatever,’ he said. He couldn’t really think about food right now. His head was full of the image of Ari, standing there with those great white wings sprouting out of his shoulder blades. It was impossible. He knew that and at the same time, he knew he’d seen it as clear as day, right there in front of him, close enough to touch. He was terrified. Was he losing his mind? Had his misery over his dad’s death turned him into a raving nutcase?

  ‘And a fried egg,’ added Mum, as she continued to stare out of the window. ‘Sometimes it’s the simplest meals that . . .’ She left the sentence hanging and went back to her thoughts. ‘Somebody should really do something about that loose fence, she said. ‘Your dad would have had it fixed in a jiffy. He was good like that. You know, all his tools are still out in the shed . . .‘

  ‘You’ll have to be careful,’ Will told her, changing the subject as quickly as possible. He hated talking about anything to do with his dad. ‘The chip pan. We had these firemen at the school the other day, doing this demonstration thing? They said that chip p
ans are the most common cause of house fires. They got this one and set fire to it and then they showed what happened when you poured water on it. It was amazing! The flames must have gone twenty or thirty foot in the air.’

  ‘Hmmm?’ Mum looked at him, blankly. It was clear she hadn’t registered a word of what he’d said. ‘You’re a good boy,’ she said. ‘Helping your mother, like this.’

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t think she’d started on the gin yet, but he couldn’t be sure. She didn’t smell of drink, which was a good sign. She did most of her heavy drinking after he’d gone to bed, as though she thought he wouldn’t know about it. Some nights he would lie awake, unable to sleep and he’d picture her down there, the glass in her hand, as she stared at some TV programme she wasn’t even interested in, the level of the bottle going steadily down, down until it was empty. Once or twice, he’d got up in the early hours to use the toilet and he’d realised that she wasn’t in her room. He would find her crashed out on the sofa, insensible, and he would have to help her up the stairs to her bed. It frightened him to see her like this. She was all he had in the world, what would become of him if anything bad happened to her?

  ‘How was the river?’ she asked him.

  ‘Wet,’ he said, hoping he might raise a smile, but she just nodded.

  ‘Did you see anybody down there?’ she asked him.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Deserted,’ he said. He wasn’t about to tell her that he’d met a creepy guy with wings, she’d have him down the funny farm before he had time to blink. He finished one potato and started on the next.

  ‘Mum,’ he said. ‘What would you call a man with wings?’

  Now she did smile.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘What would you call a man with wings?’

  There was a long silence and Will realised she was expecting some kind of punchline.

  ‘It’s not a joke,’ he told her. ‘It’s a serious question.’

  ‘Oh, right . . . I see. A man with wings, you said? Well, I suppose you’d call him an angel.’

  Will nodded. It was the word he’d been thinking of too, but he’d needed to hear somebody else say it. He was painfully aware that people didn’t see angels, not unless they were characters from the Bible or heavily into psychedelic drugs.

  He used the tip of the peeler to carve out one of the potato’s black eyes.

  ‘Do you know anything about them?’ he asked her.

  ‘Angels? Not much,’ she admitted. ‘This for school, is it?’

  ‘Er . . . yeah,’ he said, knowing she’d attach far more importance to it if she thought it was a school project.

  She considered for a moment.

  ‘Well, let me see. They live in heaven, don’t they? They sit on clouds and play their harps. And they have

  . . .’ She gestured with one upraised finger. ‘Those round things hovering over their heads. Halos. Is that what you mean?’

  Will thought about Ari and tried to imagine him sitting on a cloud, strumming a harp. Somehow the image just didn’t fit. More likely he’d be sitting on a cloud of cigarette smoke, blasting power chords from a Fender Stratocaster. He picked up another potato and started peeling, trying to get the skin off in one continuous strip.

  ‘I’m thinking about names and stuff like that,’ he said. ‘Of angels. Have you ever heard of one called Ari?’

  ‘Harry?’ said Mum, making the same mistake he had.

  ‘No, Ari with an A.’

  Mum scowled. ‘There’s a Michael,’ she said. ‘The Archangel. And Gabriel, I remember hearing about him in school. But not a Harry.’

  ‘Ari,’ said Will. ‘With an A.’

  Mum shrugged. ‘Maybe you could look on the internet,’ she suggested.

  Will scowled.

  ‘Oh yeah, I could do that, if I had like three hours to spare.’

  Mum gave him a cautionary look.

  ‘Please don’t start,’ she said.

  They’d had quite a few arguments around this subject already, but as usual Will didn’t feel like letting the matter lie.

  ‘All my mates have got broadband,’ he said. ‘I’m the only one in my class still using a dial-up. It’s like . . . prehistoric. And it’s not like it costs a fortune or anything. Twenty quid a month, that’s all.’

  ‘I’ve already told you. We’ll see.’

  Will grunted.

  ‘Yeah, and we all know what that means, don’t we? It means it won’t happen. It’s not like I’m asking for a new computer or anything.’

  Mum looked decidedly cross. ‘That’s just as well,’ she said. ‘Money is tight at the moment. Very tight. You have to understand, Will, we don’t have your dad’s wage coming into the house any more. I’ve only got my cleaning job so I have to count every penny.’

  The reply came into his head like a swarm of dark flies buzzing and he knew he shouldn’t say it to her, but somehow he just couldn’t stop himself.

  ‘It’s about the same price as one bottle of gin,’ he said and he saw her flinch as though he’d punched her in the face. Tears welled in her eyes.

  ‘Oh, look,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean−’

  But she was already on her way out of the kitchen. He’d expected her to slam the door, but somehow, the way she closed it carefully without making a sound was far worse.

  ‘Fine,’ he said to the door. ‘I’ll just make the bloody tea all by myself, shall I?’ The only answer was the sound of Mum’s feet clumping up the stairs to her room. Will examined the half-peeled potato he was holding. He didn’t feel in the least bit hungry. With a curse, he threw it into the washing up bowl, sending a splash into the air and onto the kitchen floor. Then he turned and went out, heading for the study.

  FOUR

  They called it the study but it was really just a box room where all the junk was stored. Fighting for space in there was a cluttered little desk and chair and the family computer, which was already several years past its sell-by date. Dad had announced plans to buy a swish new replacement shortly before the accident had taken him away and now Will supposed they would be stuck with this thing until it went up in a puff of smoke.

  He switched it on and waited impatiently as it went through its interminable start-up routine, issuing a series of electronic burps, clicks and tics. Finally, it settled down and he was ready to log on to the internet. He sat there grimly as the computer issued the shrill noises that sounded like a car crash in Lilliput and finally, after what seemed an age, he was able to pull up the Google home page. Then he sat looking hopelessly at the search box, wondering what he should write in there.

  After a while he keyed in ‘men with wings’, hit the search button and waited while the system chugged interminably through its routine. When the page settled, he had some pretty uninspiring articles to go through. Most of them issued from America and seemed to have been written by cranks, complete with the inevitable bad spelling and gruesome grammar.

  ‘I was out bye the swamp one nite and I seed a man with wings come out of a spayce-ship,’ announced the first one he bothered to look at. ‘He took me inside the sorcer and told me that he had come to spread the word about his planit, witch was called Nefron.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ murmured Will. ‘Like that really happened.’ But then he imagined telling his own story in that same hillbilly way. ‘I was walking down by the river when I seed a man with wings coming towards me . . .’

  What would people say if he ever told anyone about what had happened?

  Next up was some kind of ‘Strange But True’ site which related the various appearances of winged men back through history, starting with the Greek myth of Icarus who had made wings of wax, but flew too near the sun and ended up plummeting into the Mediterranean, never to be seen again. The site concluded with some supposed sightings of ‘mothmen’ in America in the 1970’s, but there didn’t seem to be a lot in there of any use. Will went back to the search box and, against his better judgement, he typed in ‘Angel
s’. He hit search and settled back in his chair to wait for the results to filter through.

  He was surprised to see there were lots of sites devoted to Angels, ranging from crackpots who believed they had them living at the bottom of their garden to quite serious-looking articles, commenting on biblical references to them and speculation about whether they might actually have existed.

  One particular site caught his eye, mostly because of the extraordinary images; reproductions of classic paintings depicting magnificent winged creatures soaring through the heavens. Also, the text had been broken down into easy-to-follow sections and as he scrolled down the page, he found himself reading one particular chapter with interest.

  Fallen Angels

  In Abrahamic tradition, a fallen angel is one that has been exiled or banished from Heaven, usually as a punishment for disobeying or rebelling against God or for displaying pride, the most grave of the seven deadly sins.

  The most widely known of the fallen angels is Lucifer. Lucifer was the first and most powerful of all the angels; handsome, daring and second in majesty only to God himself. Unfortunately, he became full of pride and ambition and decided to raise his throne to the same level as that of God.

  This unleashed a terrible war in heaven. God’s supporters, led by Michael, the archangel, took arms against the upstarts and after a savage battle, Lucifer and his followers (including Samyaza, Samael (or Satan), Ariel and Azazel) were hurled out of heaven and thrown down to earth, where they were doomed to wander until judgement day, or until they had fully atoned for their sins by practising virtue.

  Only by doing this could they ever hope to become angels once again.

  Will frowned. The matter-of-fact tone of the article gave the impression that the author was talking about a reality, not some half-baked fantasy. But there didn’t seem to be anything in the piece that could possibly link it to the scruffy weirdo he had met down by the river. These angels were supposed to be magnificent, shining creatures, full of power and mystery. And the names! Samyaza . . . Samael . . . Ariel . . .