Angel Stations Read Free Page B

had merely slammed him across the back of the head, presumably with the gun butt.
    He was distantly aware of the two other men, still measuring a crate of powder into those little bags. One of them glanced briefly in Elias’s direction with an expression of amused contempt.
    ‘Heard everything, Murray: you meetin’ with police, passin’ information. So bad, bad. You tell police, London, everything want know about Mala Pata, about Arcologies. What you get for that, Murray? What price they give you, even when you know anyone fucks with Mala Pata, always end up dead? So don’t lie to me, Murray. I know everything.’
    His head still throbbed, but at least he could think again. He rolled slightly over to one side, trying to keep alert. He could see the case still clasped in Mik’s small sweaty hands; enough Blight contained in it to waste half of Europe.
    ‘When did the Mala Pata start dealing in biological warfare, Josh?’ Elias asked from where he lay. ‘You must know what’s in that case. They call it the Blight.’
    ‘And it better in your hands?’ Josh scoffed. ‘I told you I’d give you the information you wanted. And you got it, though it’s not much use to you now. You think stuff in that case be better in hands of London Authority? Or in hands of people it came from? You think they make any better use, huh? Least if we all gonna die, Mala Pata get a little reward on way. This your reward, Elias. You told me who kill Mia, and I grateful, really.’ The gun had been hanging by Josh’s side, but now he levelled it at Elias’s head.
    ‘Killing me is no way to thank me,’ Elias protested. ‘Killing me isn’t going to fix anything.’
    ‘Other part of reward is, Murray, you die quick, not long and drawn out like you would do otherwise. Gettin’ tired talkin’. What say we finish this?’
    And then, it came to Elias. If he only had the strength . . .
    ‘Mia,’ Elias said, and Josh frowned.
    ‘What you say?’ said Josh, staring angrily at him. ‘You want die slow?’
    ‘It’s Mia,’ Elias said, most of his attention seemingly focused elsewhere. He didn’t know if he could do it, didn’t know if he had the power. Always, before, he’d touched them, like Trencher had done, laying the hands on and feeling the light spill out. But Mia was in another room, and that made things very different. But having a gun pointed at your head, he was finding, tended to encourage remarkable levels of motivation.
    Something shifted and banged in the room they had left only seconds before, and everyone around Elias froze on hearing it. The only thing in the room the noise had come from was Mia – and Mia was very, very dead.
    What was it like, reaching in again, into that terrible place for a second time, finding the thin, delicate cord that led from this world into the abyss beyond life, somehow still connecting Mia’s spirit to her body? Like burying your face in wet, greasy compost and breathing in, he thought. It was the taste and the scent of death, the sensation of a dead soul being pulled back from the brink one more time, back into the light.
    It’s lucky I don’t believe in God , thought Elias, or I’d burn in hell for this .
    Mik and Josh now had their attention firmly fixed on the room with Mia’s corpse in it. The two men at the table had also moved towards the room door, picking up the two rifles that lay on the table. Nobody, for a few seconds at least, was now paying any attention to Elias. Mik was still standing transfixed directly in front of him, only a few feet away. Elias propelled himself forward, finding it easy to push the kid over onto his back, pinning him down with his knees pressing the metal case into Mik’s chest. Mik’s eyes grew wide with surprise and fright, and could not even look behind him and see what Josh and the other two men were up to.
    What happened next lasted only seconds. In his struggle to escape, Mik let go of the case. Elias snatched it up and flung it, hard.