Ruthven was still leaning on Varney, his face and hands puffed and blistered, his hair hanging over his forehead in dusty tangles. Cranswell was vaguely surprised to see how long the front actually was when he hadn’t got it combed straight back. The disarray made him look somehow younger, his odd eyes huge. Varney was in slightly better case, but only slightly. Cranswell himself had the world’s worst headache and a nasty sunburn, and his hands still tingled and buzzed with the reverberation of the saber’s impact.
The dim red glow thrown by the emergency lights was drowned out entirely by the white glare from the hovering ball of light over Samael’s shoulder. It was as bright and merciless as a floodlight at a crime scene: Cranswell could very clearly see two more dead Gladius Sancti sprawled in a heap, and a little farther onward Greta Helsing kneeling, bent over something that looked like a crumpled pile of old clothes. The sounds she was making were terrible, involuntary, violent.
The clothes looked … very familiar. That thought drove the singular question of what the hell she was doing down here, she was supposed to be staying safely out of this from Cranswell’s immediate consciousness.
He said something under his breath and took a step forward, aware of Ruthven and Varney doing much the same, but Samael held up one perfect hand and they halted at once. He walked closer to the woman crouched on the floor, the globe of light staying where it was, and Cranswell realized that Samael himself was actually giving off visible light. The white silk suit seemed to glow.
“It doesn’t, you know,” he said, more gently than Cranswell would have thought possible. His voice was not loud, but somehow it cut through Greta’s choking sobs as if he’d shouted.
She twisted around, revealing a face drawn into an ugly mask, red and wet with tears and snot, and looked up at Samael. “W-what doesn’t?” she managed, breath coming in hitches. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Peace,” he said. “It passeth not understanding. Anyone who believes that hasn’t tried hard enough.” The faint but visible nimbus of light around him faded slightly. “My name is Samael, and for the purposes of the current situation it’s probably best if you think of me as the Devil.”
He took a step around Fastitocalon’s limp body and knelt down on his other side, the beautiful white silk trousers taking no stain from the pool of blood. Cranswell only caught the edges of the gaze he had turned on Greta, but even so he blinked and had to shake his head to try to clear it. Instead of bright red cabochons, Samael’s eyes were now the eyes of an ordinary man—except that the irises were a shade of brilliant, iridescent, shimmering butterfly-wing blue.
“He’s dead, don’t you get it?” Greta said thickly. “Leave him alone.”
Samael paid her no attention, turning that blazing blue gaze down to Fastitocalon’s face. He bent closer and cupped one hand to the slack grey cheek. “Oh, Fass,” he said, again so terribly gently. “Fass, why didn’t you tell me you were this ill, why didn’t you come home and let us renovate you properly, you stubborn old reprobate, why did you let things get this bad? It’s enough to make me go all fucking despondent.”
He leaned down to kiss Fastitocalon’s forehead very lightly, leaving a brief point of light where his lips had touched. Then, with the air of someone rolling up his sleeves in preparation for a difficult and time-consuming task, Samael sat back on his heels, shut his eyes, and brought his hands together palm to palm. When he spread them slowly apart, a web of gossamer threads of light stretched between them.
Greta drew back, wincing at the brightness, instinctively scrambling out of the way. The web of light drifted down over Fastitocalon’s body, first outlining and then appearing to sink into him, vanishing beneath clothes and skin. Samael placed his crossed hands on Fastitocalon’s chest, closing his eyes.
There was a sense of collectively held breath, of something gathering its strength for an unknowable effort, and then there was a kind of silent thunderclap as every golden curl on the Devil’s head stood out straight in a brilliant aureole with bluish sparks dancing at the tips. Blue fire rippled over Fastitocalon’s still form. Through all the confusion Greta felt a flicker of coldness touch her spine at that blue light, but it wasn’t the bright actinic blue of the thing in the glass bulb. This was a softer, somehow kinder shade, a blue that brought to mind the shimmer of peacock feathers or the shifting glow caught in the depths of a moonstone.
Then it was over. The light cut off abruptly, as if it had never been there, and something like the smell of burned tin filled the tunnel. Samael sat back, panting, as if he’d just run a couple of wind sprints instead of putting on a light show; when he opened his eyes they were that blank bright red again. He took his hands away and shook them briskly, with a little wince.
And Fastitocalon opened his eyes.
“Ow,” he said. “That … really stings.”
“Serves you right.” Samael’s hair was rearranging itself, coiling back into its proper curls. He shook his head to settle them, looking tired. The globe of light, which had been huddling near the ceiling for the past few minutes, returned to hover over his shoulder. “Why you let matters get to this state is entirely beyond me. You were practically worn to nubbins before you used up what was left trying to free those two idiots in Benedictine drag.”
Greta was still frozen, staring, as Fastitocalon propped himself up on his elbows and stared at the white-suited figure beside him. The terrible hollow place in her mind, like a bleeding socket, was filled again. He was back.
“Sam?” he said.
“Well done, that demon. Full marks for observation.”
“What … happened? Why are you here?”
“Because, you utter ass, you summoned me,” Samael said, with what sounded like fond exasperation. “I don’t think you actually meant to, but you did, and then you died, which was a little hard to ignore.”
“You can’t have been … paying attention to me. Of all the demons.”
“It’s the falling-sparrow thing. I know where all of you are, every last one of you. Makes for an unavoidably noisy head at times.”
“Mmh.” Fastitocalon poked at his chest, experimentally, and then seemed to become aware that they had an audience; he looked up at the three who were standing, and then over at Greta, who hadn’t moved. Her breathing was still coming in those juddering gasps, although the tears had stopped.
“Greta,” he said. “What the hell are you doing down here? How did you get in?”
She didn’t think she had ever been this angry. Her voice was thick and clogged, when she managed to make it work. “You … I thought you were dead, Fass, goddamn it I thought you were dead, you fucking bled out and you died and I couldn’t do anything to help you and I was all alone—”
“I’m terribly sorry,” he told her, and sat up, wincing a little, looking sheepish. “I didn’t intend to, you know. Die, I mean. I think this suit has had it.”
“Fass,” she said, and scooted closer through the mess of feathers, close enough to take him by his shoulders and shake him violently. Samael got up, white silk knees showing no evidence of bloodstains or any other filth, and glanced over to the three observers.
“If you would care to join me,” he said, “I think I can explain at least the outlines of what’s been going on.”