Attack of the Cupids (21 page)

Bruised but happy, breathing hard, Mishamh caught up with Doomsday. He was ready for a rebuke but none came. His chief paced down the corridors of Heaven with the slow majesty of a thundercloud. Lesser angels exploded from his path like frightened doves and gathered to whisper excitedly in the balconies.

‘This asteroid of yours . . .' said Doomsday.

‘Still on course, sir.'

‘Is it? I thought we had decided to divert.'

‘I was waiting until the cancellation order actually came through.'

‘I see. Quite right, as it happens. The Appeal has been decided, on terms that will allow the backlog to be cleared quickly. Once we get back to the office, you had better summon the staff.'

‘Decided? Then . . . do you think Zebukun will actually happen, sir?'

‘It seems so. If that's what the Governors want.'

‘But we know they do, don't we? They set the dead-line. They set the Great Curriculum and the Heavenly Laws. They have to follow their own Laws, sir.'

‘You would think, wouldn't you?'

‘Up, quick,' said a voice.

Muddlespot, dazed and nearly senseless, remembered it from somewhere. ‘Mmmmuuurghghghgh,' he said. He was surprised by his own eloquence.

Square fingers caught him by the nape of the neck. Powerful muscles heaved. The marble floor gathered itself under the soles of his feet. The face of Windleberry appeared before him. Around them the great pillared hallway had emptied, apart from the grey-skinned fiend lying stunned and still.

‘Where – where have you been?' groaned Muddlespot.

‘Never far. You have the arrow?'

‘Uh – two of them, I think.' Still dazed, Muddlespot held out the things he had been clutching to his chest.

Silently Windleberry took the sheaf of papers and dropped them on the floor. Then he took Muddlespot's other hand, prised the fingers open and eased the two arrows from the little fiend's locked, shocked grasp.

‘Now – can you move? This one will be coming round in a moment.'

Indeed the fiend was beginning to twitch where it lay and to make ‘mmuuurghghgh' sort of noises itself. Muddlespot put one foot in front of the other. He swayed.

‘I think . . .' He swayed some more.

‘Come on,' said Windleberry.

Muddlespot put his hand against the marble wall. ‘You go on,' he groaned. ‘I'm done for.'

‘Only if you insist.'

‘That's not very nice!' snarled Muddlespot, lifting his head. ‘Aren't you supposed to say something like “I'm not leaving without you?”'

‘If you like.'

‘I do like.'

‘And then I stun you with one chop of my hand and carry you out of the city on my back?'

‘No!'

‘I could do it.'

He would too, thought Muddlespot. He's so good, he's absolutely bloody ruthless. And that's . . .

. . . that's why I love him.

‘I'll try,' he said.

‘Hurry!'

Muddlespot tried to hurry. Flesh-coloured footprints wove in erratic patterns on the marble floor behind him.

‘Faster!' said Windleberry, flying above.

‘I can't!'

‘You must run!'

‘I can't . . .'

‘THERE HE IS!!!!'

A cloud of cupids, buzzing like angry wasps, wove into the lobby behind them. Some of them had weapons. Among them was a very pink looking cupid with a bandage around his head. And also the cupid who had led Muddlespot to the court. He was
pointing an accusing finger now, down the columnar perspectives of the Great Hall, straight at Muddlespot's heart.

‘
Run!
' screamed Muddlespot, and found that he could.

‘Left at the end!' cried Windleberry. ‘Make for the wall!'

‘Oi-oi-oi-oi-oi!!!!'
called the cupids from behind them.
‘Get them! Trespassers!!! Close the Gates!!!'

‘Tresp . . .' (gasp) ‘. . . passers?' Muddlespot's legs were going like the running wheel of a hamster on steroids. His breath couldn't keep up.

‘Technical . . .' (gasp) ‘term,' said Windleberry, also going as fast as he could. ‘Use it . . . a lot . . . up here.'

‘Where . . . were you . . . anyway? Lost . . . you.'

‘Had to . . . keep out of . . . sight of . . . cupids. Didn't want to be . . . recognized.'

They wheeled out of the corridor into a wide cloister peopled with silent, contemplative robed figures and scattered them in all directions.

‘How are you . . . doing on . . . that, then?'

‘Oi-oi-oi-oi-oi!!!! It's Windleberry!!! Unleash the doves!!!!'

‘May have . . . blown it . . . Left here!'

They crashed through a crowd of praying figures, showering the air with scriptures and prayer mats, caught a couple of mats as they fell and ski-ed across a Pool of Contemplation before the mats could realize what they were doing and sink. A line of battlements blocked their way. Towers loomed over them. From the tops figures looked down, pointing. Bells were ringing. The air flustered with fierce and restless feathers. Behind them, the whole swarm of cupids came hallooing into view. Before them . . .

‘
Jump!
' cried Windleberry.

. . . was nothing but blue air, golden clouds moving, the wall of the city falling to impossible depths beneath them, the sudden, stomach-sickening feeling of being somewhere very very very high up and the signals firing urgently through Muddlespot's brain screaming:
Don't Jump! Whatever you do, don't
 . . .

He already had.

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Thump!
as Windleberry's arms closed around Muddlespot. An explosion of air brakes as his wings battled the terrible pull of gravity. The ground was still rushing closer, closer. Maybe their descent was slowing. Maybe they wouldn't be vaporized by the impact after all. Maybe they would just be turned into something that looked like thinly-spread strawberry jam. Maybe they'd . . .

Touch

‘There,' said Windleberry. That wasn't so bad, was it?'

‘My hero,' said Muddlespot weakly. ‘Where are we?'

‘Period four, it seems. English Literature.'

Muddlespot looked around.

They were standing on a huge, level plateau, broken here and there by large, square-sided outcrops in different colours and surrounded by mountains. Somewhere very far away someone was chanting.

He recognized that voice. That was how Mr Kingsley thought poetry should be read. And how he tried to make everybody in the class read it.

(One of the many bits of advice that Low Command gives its agents on Earth is that the soul is most vulnerable to the little evil whisper when it is under conditions of stress. Therefore, take advantage of this.)

(Muddlespot had often thought he should be able to take more advantage of Mr Kingsley's reading.)

He looked around and knew where he was. The plateau he was standing on was the surface of a table in room C23 in Darlington High School. The square outcrops were the books of the pupils, scattered here and there and in some cases even open. The mountains were the pupils themselves, huge figures compared to Muddlespot and Windleberry. He recognized Billie, doodling angrily on a pad of paper on the other side of the room. He saw Sally, rising high above him, looking as though she was paying attention to every word of the reading. Probably she really was. The sight of her face looming up there made him almost misty-eyed with thoughts of comfort and safety.

‘You go ahead,' said Windleberry. ‘I'm going to meet someone.'

‘Who?'

Windleberry pointed towards the mountain that was Billie. ‘My colleague. Her Guardian.'

‘Ah.' Muddlespot wondered for a moment if he shouldn't warn Scattletail that the twins' Guardians were getting together. But loyalty among fiends is never very strong. At best, it's more an alliance of convenience. And besides, none of this was really about the war between Above and Below. It was more an internal thing on the Above side.

What Muddlespot really wanted right now was to go somewhere where people weren't chasing him, and to get every last spot of flesh-coloured paint off his skin.

‘You wanted the arrows for her?' he asked.

‘Partly.'

‘What are you going to do with them?'

‘Improve things.'

‘I see,' said Muddlespot. ‘Are you going to explain how?'

‘When I get back. And another thing. If I find you've been talking to Sally while I'm out . . .'

‘Would I?'

‘Yes, you would.'

‘Oh, all right. Maybe I would. But just this once, I'll have other things to do.'

‘Like what?'

‘I never thought I'd say this. But I'm going to get washed.'

High upon the battlements of Heaven the Angel of Love walked. She looked down upon the Earth, upon Darlington High, upon two tiny figures making their way in different directions across a tabletop in room C23. Behind her the Celestial clamour had settled down into a more orderly hum. It was an excited, expectant noise. Souls were trickling into the Appeals Chamber with the steady speed of sand through an hourglass. Swiftly their cases were heard, found to be consistent with the New Precedent, and soon the souls were emerging bright-eyed on the far side with their new satchels and their floor plans and their directions to find their lockers and the classrooms of the Department of Love. Thick, purple clouds were gathering over the Towers of Geography, where the Angel of Doomsday was meeting with his team. The numbers of Heavenly exam markers had been doubled to be ready for when the big rush came. Even now the Heavenly Architects were swaying a batch of Celestial
portakabins into place outside the Gates of Pearl to act as temporary classrooms until such time as someone could organize the construction of more permanent facilities. And every one was marked ‘Department of Love'.

She looked her troops up and down. Every off-duty cupid was present and armed to the teeth. Some had their bows and their arrows. Some had brought their harps and fiddles. Others had bombs of carefully primed rose petals. Still others had machine guns, hand grenades, rocket launchers and garrotting wires, all of which were loaded or tipped or edged or generally reinforced at the business end with gold. Someone had even brought out the old wrecking ball. They looked at her, grim-faced.

Angels do get upset. They do get angry. They call it ‘Wrath' but it means the same thing. They don't get much chance to practise it in the normal course of things. But they know how to do it when the time comes.

Let us go, Erry
, the eyes of the cupids pleaded.
Give the word. We'll waste ‘em. There won't be nuffin' left. You can count on that.

Erry looked them up and down. Wrath was in her heart too. Cold, bitter, implacable wrath. It made
her jaw ache and her toenails curl.

‘We will do this my way,' she said softly.

‘The ways of Heaven,' said Windleberry, ‘are beyond human understanding.'

He had returned to the central chamber of Sally's mind. Sally was there, sitting at her desk, but mentally what she was sitting on was not a chair but a large oboe case, which twitched and glowed and occasionally sent out muffled shrieks such as
‘Thief!'
,
‘Guilty'
and
‘Here I am –
Come and find me!'