Ethan wasn't wrong about it being a rocky ride.

I clung to him as the floor opened up beneath us, a deep, dark chasm that sucked voraciously on my skin and made me close my eyes in fear it might also attempt to take my eyeballs, as the air grabbed at my face with invisible hands.

The first time we resurfaced, it was onto unsteady feet – mine, not his – inside what looked like a basement in an abandoned factory. Above us, great holes ravaged the ceiling where heavy-duty industrial machinery had been ripped from the flooring on the next level and the ground beneath it was peppered with pigeon droppings, like a thick, dust-choked carpet of white and grey.

Grabbing my hand, Ethan led me up a metal staircase that rattled alarmingly beneath our feet and juddered in its fixings against the wall as if any more weight and it might collapse. Up into the next level we went, avoiding the huge holes in the floor and the rats that scattered into the dark corners, their long wormy tails dragging behind them in the dirt. Outside, I squinted in the glare of the winter sun, having just enough time to see the murky waters of the docks nearby and a graffiti-caked wall in front of us, which I was sure Ethan was going to run us directly into until he raised his hand and pulled, brick peeling away to become a black, empty nothingness.

Running headlong into the void, he grabbed my waist as we slipped from my world into his, tugging me against him once more as I screwed my eyes tight shut and buried my head into the crook of his neck.

More ground juddered beneath my feet, this time a cobbled, narrow alley with hardy tufts of weeds bursting from the cracks in the uneven stones. Tenement buildings rose high on either side, lines of drying laundry zig-zagging across the gap. Through one of the open windows, I heard laughter and voices – French, I think – and the smell of freshly-baked bread, strong and pleasant, filled the narrow space, making my stomach grumble with want.

With his finger held against his lips, Ethan motioned for me to follow him and we crept passed a doorway, where flour dusted the floor and honey-coloured loaves cooled on racks. Poking his head around the doorway just enough, Ethan reached in and grabbed a small oat-topped loaf and handed it to me with a grin, before pulling me away again. I held it to my nose as we ran, savouring the smell, before taking a small bite that tasted a little bit like Heaven.

At the end of the alley, I froze.

A small set of steps led downwards into what looked like a bottomless pit of swirling, indigo chaos and I grabbed at the handrail, petrified at the sight of the dark maelstrom Ethan seemed intent on throwing us into. With a not-unkind roll of his eyes, he smiled reassuringly and held out his hand. I looked at like it might be a snake intent on wrapping itself around me, before counting to three and clutching onto it, wrapping myself around him instead, as he stepped out into the vast drop below us.

Although none of the journeys took more than a few seconds, the next one seemed slightly longer and even more tumultuous than the ones before, but it wasn't the rollercoaster ride into Hell that made my legs weaken, but the heat that awaited us at the end when everything had stopped shaking and I'd dared to open my eyes.

It hit hard, an oppressive fire that wrapped its claustrophobic shroud around me, knocking my breath from my body, exactly like walking from the cool confines of an air-conditioned building, out into the blistering heat. With the sun blazing above, my hoodie, jeans and boots felt heavy and constrictive. In the distance, I could see the white buildings of a small town in the foothills, a minaret rising amongst them and behind us, a small settlement of crudely-built one-storey houses with terracotta roofs baked under the burning sun.

I stood staring at the landscape, turning a full three-sixty to take it all in, the dust and dirt crunching under my boots. Sweat dampened my back. My lungs still felt like they were struggling to recover, but I had a feeling it was more stunned awe now, than the heat.

'We're a bloody long way from Kansas, Toto,' I whispered.

'Come on,' Ethan said. 'It's never a good idea to linger too long here.'

'Why?' I said, wide-eyed, following him as he began to walk towards the nearest house.

'They seem to have a knack here for knowing I'm not what I appear to be.' He rubbed self-consciously at his neck, where a small silvery scar puckered the skin just under his jawline. 'And they also tend to be very skilled with knives.'

Rounding the back of the building, a flurry of movement that kicked dust up into the air made me squeal as a herd of goats crowded the space between the houses, pushing their way through the narrow gap. One with twisted horns and long shaggy brown fur matted with seeds and grass nudged at the bread in my hand and grabbed it from me, almost taking my fingers with it, and I shrieked and shrank back against the wall. The goat, unbothered by my reaction, managed to chew up the loaf within seconds, crumbs and crust sticking in its long beard as the bell around its neck clacked loudly.

'Watch out,' Ethan said, leaning closer, his eyes mischievous. 'Rumour has it that's the deadliest goat from here to Amman. It'll gut you if you so much as mention anything about trolls and bridges.'

I glared at him, my cheeks flushing. 'I thought you said you weren't much of a joker?'

'Hmm,' he replied, his brow wrinkling in amused contemplation. 'Seems like you bring out the comedian in me. Who'd have thought, eh?'

'Don't go getting all excited. I don't think you've found a new career as a stand-up,' I said dryly, side-eying the goat that remained nearby, clearly expecting me to magically conjure up more bread. 'Bloody thief.'

'Don't worry, I'll get you something better to eat when we get there.'

'Will it be roast goat?'

He laughed softly, grabbing my hand again, a gesture I was strangely no longer tempted to shrug off so hastily. 'Of course not, we'll have pasta. Without the goat.'

'Pasta?' If my stomach had been growling before, it was practically howling now.

Ethan winked. 'When in Rome, Casey Brogan. When in Rome.'

He pushed open the door of a small out-building that seemed to be more corrugated iron than brick.

The stench practically attacked me, and I recoiled, clapping my hand over my nose, nauseated by the smell.

'Oh, you have got to be kidding me,' I groaned, staring horrified at the ominous hole in the raised wooden block.

'What?' he said, doing his best to look innocent. 'I never said travelling with me was going to be glamorous.'

When he grabbed at the air and ripped it open, the floor falling away beneath us, I don't think I'd ever been so glad and so willing to be swallowed whole by the dark void as I was right then.

*

I'd always wanted to go to Rome, but I'd buried the idea like it was another dirty little secret, another shameful thing I daren't speak out loud, because people like me didn't want to go to Rome, did we?

Fuck culture. Fuck architecture. Fuck doing the tourist tours, ooh-ing and aah-ing at the frescos and the churches and the Renaissance art. You could take your Colosseums, your Basilicas and your Pantheons and shove them straight where the sun doesn't shine, mate. Give us your party islands. Your Ibizas. Your twenty-four-hour raves, banging dance tunes and fucking on the beaches. Give us your pills and your powder. Give us the raging tornado in our veins. Give us the hurricane and the magic and the highs so powerful that you could take the world in the palm of your hand and just fucking own it.

Why would someone like me want Rome when I had all that?

Looking out the window at the city, the view from Gianicolo Hill left me breathless, speechless, like someone had reached in and stopped my heart with one squeeze of their hand. It was like I couldn't function, I couldn't think, I couldn't feel. All I could do was look.

I was looking at a painting. I had to be. I was standing in a gallery and looking at a painting because nothing – nothing – could be this beautiful. It was impossible.

'Your pasta will get cold.'

I turned, reluctantly, holding onto the view for as long as I could, feeling the pull of it as strongly as Ethan could pull on the air. He was already seated at the high dining table, forking penne arrabiata into his mouth as if his life depended on it.

I hitched myself up onto the stool, resting my feet on the rung and pulled the bowl of still-steaming pasta towards me. It wasn't getting cold at all. Curls of parmesan had already begun to melt on the top and I savoured the smell for a moment, defying the growl in my stomach and the empty hole that begged for me to feed it.

I stabbed at a few pieces of penne and started to eat, unable to stop myself from smiling as the taste hit my tongue.

'So,' I said finally, between mouthfuls. 'How comes we can stay here, in this apartment? Why not in one of your... dimension thingies?'

He took a swig of beer from the bottle in front of him. 'It's risky enough that we're even in Rome, without me setting up shop here too. I've got a window of opportunity where I can just about throw a shield around us here to keep out the prying eyes, but it won't last long. Opening up a dimensional hole would take more time, not to mention more energy and the last thing we have is time and the last thing I want to do is to alert every Watcher in the vicinity that I'm here. And in Rome, it's practically teeming with those bastards.'

'Why?' I asked. 'Is it because of the Vatican?'

'Ah, connecting the dots, are we?' He smiled and shoved in another forkful of food before continuing, wiping over his mouth as he swallowed. 'If you want to talk about the epicentre of Angel activity on Earth, then right now, we're in it. Slap bang in the middle of the Divine Council's Grand Central Station.'

'That's why you were so reluctant to come here?'

Ethan held the bottle to his lips once again and drank, this time a longer swig that drained much of what was left. When he'd done, he put the bottle down and held it between both hands, his fingers toying with the edges of the label, peeling it slowly from the glass.

'I was reluctant to come because I don't want Oscar to have the thing he's asking me to get.' He rubbed at his eyes with the palms of his hands and slouched a little on the stool.

Since we'd arrived, the joviality he'd displayed during our earlier adventure had all but disappeared, and I had gotten a sense of the tension he'd been trying so hard to hold under the surface. A tightness around his mouth. A weariness in his eyes. Something in his posture that seemed to swing wildly between alert soldier and battle-tired warrior.

Here I was, feeling exhilarated by being in Rome and Ethan wanted to be anywhere but here.

'And yeah,' he added, softly. 'I don't much care for being in a city that is covered in so many tripwires and traps that I can barely take a step left or right, forwards or backwards. I'm taking a big risk coming here, in more ways than one, and Berith knows that too. In fact, if I didn't know him better, I'd say he'd been waiting for just this moment, planning for when he could turn the screws a little tighter and get me to dance to his fucked-up tune.'

'But he didn't know you were going to offer to take me?' I frowned as I remembered Oscar's look of sheer fury when Ethan had stepped into the fray. 'He said no. If he'd planned this whole thing, just to get you to come here, surely he wouldn't have been so against the idea of you taking me?'

Ethan looked up at me. 'Berith's whole life in your world is an act. He gets by every day by pretending to be something he isn't, and you never once suspected a thing. No one did. No one could have. Nothing about what he did back there in the club was genuine so don't go making the mistake of thinking that it was. Even if he didn't know what I was going to suggest, you can bet your last penny that he was already formulating his plan as he was telling me no. He knows me, Casey. He's had centuries to get to know me. He's no benevolent guardian, looking out for me whenever I get myself into trouble. Oh, he likes to make out that what he does is in honour of my parents, he tries to pretend he's playing at godfather, keeping an eye on me, taking care of me, but not once has he ever done anything for me without asking for something in return. Not once.'

I let that sink in. I wasn't sure why I'd been willing to accept that Oscar just might think enough of Ethan that he'd be watching over him out of the kindness of his heart. Oscar's heart was a cold, black stone that he'd take out and bludgeon you over the head with if he could. My last meeting with him where his hand had left a mark on my thigh hot enough to scar had told me that. It was almost as if he'd been waiting for me to fuck it all up, just so he could take whatever he wanted.

'But he was a friend of your parents?'

'Their best friend,' Ethan replied. 'Their closest confidante. Well, in most matters anyway.'

'And they trusted him?'

'Like I said, with most matters yes, but not everything.' By now he'd scraped off most of the label from the bottle and had absent-mindedly gathered the tiny pieces of paper into a small pile. 'He was a different Berith back then, but not so different that they didn't know that there were some things best kept to themselves.'

I swallowed another mouthful of pasta and reached for the bottle of beer he'd given me. 'Is that why they didn't entrust this thing to him? Because that's it, isn't it? This thing, whatever it is he now wants so badly that he's willing for you to risk everything to get it, it was something that belonged to your parents and it's been hidden somewhere in Rome for a really long time. The Angels have it and now he wants you to get it back from them.'

Ethan's gaze locked with mine, his eyes widening a little. When he smiled, it was tinged with a sadness that made me wish I hadn't said anything, because it seemed like a sadness that weighed heavy on him. I could almost see the way in which his shoulders slumped even further, like someone had just pushed down on them, pushed down on him.

'You know something?' he said, almost bitterly. 'Every hour with you seems to bring a new revelation. For someone who's spent much of the past few years high as a kite, you don't miss the detail in anything, do you?'

I bristled at his words. 'You know, your self-imposed exile has left you needing to work on your people-skills. Maybe you could take a training course or something? Pretty sure the local college will have something right up your street.'

I slammed the bottle back down on the table-top harder than I'd meant to. It juddered, rolling on its base and began to topple, but just as my hand went to reach for it, I felt the air move, like the gentlest of breezes and the bottle stopped on an impossible slant, suspended in its fall.

My gaze whipped towards Ethan, who was still hunched over the table, except now one of his hands was pointing palm outwards towards the bottle. With one small flick of his fingers, he pushed the bottle back into its upright position on the table.

I inhaled deeply. 'Cute party trick. Bet the girls love that.'

'I wouldn't know,' he mumbled. 'Not exactly one for parties.' He reached for another bottle, his eyes flitting warily to me as he did so. 'Look, I'm sorry, okay? You're right. My people skills probably do suck, but I'm not used to talking to anyone about this shit. In fact, I've not really been used to being around people for a long time. And the truth is, I underestimated you. I had you down as a...'

'A useless, zombified addict with a coke-addled brain?'

'No. Never that. It's just...' He trailed off, his cheeks spotting red. 'Okay, yeah alright, maybe a little. But I've been around long enough to know what addiction is, and Berith has told me enough about you and Davey and the drugs for me to know it's not exactly recreational use we're talking about here.'

It was my turn to flush red now and I pushed the bowl away from me, getting up from the table and turning to look at the view again, which did nothing but make me feel worthless and shit. It was beautiful out there and I was standing here ruining it all, a dirty smudge on the landscape.

'Casey...' Ethan said. 'Look, I'm not judging, okay? I'm the last person who... fuck.'

I glanced back to see him running his fingers through his hair, pushing it back in exasperation.

'I'm sorry,' he said again. 'I'm a total shit, okay? This is what I do. I'm pretty sure a shrink would call it deflection or some other psycho-babble bullshit. It's easier for me to throw crap at others rather than talk about all this. And I did underestimate you, but it was clear to me very early on that you were never the person I'd assumed you to be. You're... different... stronger.'

'Me? Strong?' I shook my head. 'You must have me confused with somebody else. I'm weak, Ethan. Always have been.'

'You're still here, aren't you?'

'I'm here because of you. Because you saved me.'

Ethan took a swig of beer, swishing it around his mouth before swallowing. 'Well, now you must have me confused with somebody else. I'm nobody's saviour. Besides, we've barely just met, and you were doing pretty fine before I came along.' He sniffed and gestured towards the stool with bottle. 'Please, sit down, yeah?'

I moved back towards the table, slowly unwrapping my arms from around my torso and climbing onto the stool again.

'You were right about my parents,' he said, after a few moments of awkward silence. 'They didn't trust Berith enough. He was their friend, I'm not going to deny that, but sometimes, there are things in this world so powerful, that even your closest ally needs to be protected from it.'

'Protected? I don't get it? If they knew they couldn't trust him completely, how were they protecting him?'

'They were protecting him from himself. Because to see Berith fall would have destroyed them.'

He looked past me, through the same window I had just stood by, his eyes scanning the same view that I had marvelled at, but in his gaze, I didn't see the same awe, the same wonder. I saw troubled seas, a storm brewing over the waters.

'Power corrupts, Casey. It always has, always will. It's a poison that worms its way into your veins. Even the strongest can't deny it. I've seen cities fall, great empires crumble, all because they've been corrupted by the promise of power. I've seen the purest among us do twisted, terrible things, until they're just a shadow of what they once were, all because of power. And when we're talking about this kind of power – world-changing power – would you really entrust it to your closest friend if you knew in your heart that it would make them betray you, betray everything you have worked your entire life to protect?'

'He's betraying them now,' I said.

Ethan nodded. 'Just as they always knew he would.'

I scraped my bottom lip with my teeth, thinking about what Oscar had said. 'But he knows where it is. He mentioned the vaults. If he does know, why doesn't he just get it himself?'

'Because he can't. I told you I'm good at what I do, remember?' he replied. 'In fact, I'm so good that I'm the only one of us who's ever been inside those vaults. No one's even gotten close to them except for me. Berith's joking, by the way, when he says it's been locked away in some dusty vault and forgotten about. We're talking high security here, maybe the highest possible.'

I stared at him, goose-bumps prickling my skin. 'The vaults are in the Vatican, aren't they? There's no place in the whole of Rome more secure than the Vatican. I read somewhere that they even have their own Gendarmerie.'

Ethan grinned wryly. 'Oh, fuck, the Gendermarie are nothing, trust me. They'd still be scratching their arses in confusion by the time I've been and gone.'

'But the vaults are in the Vatican?'

'The Vatican has many vaults,' he said. 'But the particular vault we're talking about, is underneath it, and by that I don't mean the basement.'

'A dimensional vault?' I gasped.

'Yep. One created by the Angels in which to store all their dirty little secrets. All the things they don't want anyone to find. The things they can't let anyone find. It's guarded by the eternal Erelim, the many-eyed ones who never sleep, and by an elite army of Powers, the Keepers of History, warrior Angels sent to protect the Divine Council's greatest secrets.'

I was buzzing, but not in the same way as any high I'd ever experienced.

'Fuck, Ethan,' I whispered. 'What the Hell is this thing they've got locked up in there?'

'Hell might just be the right word for it. At least as far as the Angels are concerned.' His eyes were drawn back over my shoulder as if he couldn't help but search it out.

'It's a book,' he said. 'A book so powerful they need to bury it in a vault to keep it hidden from the world.'

'How can a book be that powerful?'

'A book alone isn't powerful. I mean, what is a book but paper and ink? It's the words that bring the power. The story contained within those pages.'

'A story? The Angels are scared of a story?' I said, confused. 'What's it about?'

Ethan smiled as he looked down at his hands, where he'd peeled the label off the bottle again, this time somehow managing to peel it off in one piece, his fingers tearing a shape out of the thin paper.

'It's a story about one of their own,' he said. 'The first Angel to fall. The first one to question. The first one to defy. The one who started it all. It's a Gospel, but not one that was ever going to make the final cut. The book is the Gospel of Lucifer.'

I sucked in a breath, felt my stomach flip, my muscles weaken. I stared at him, was unable to take my eyes off him.

When I spoke, my voice trembled. 'Why did your parents have that book, Ethan?'

Placing the paper shape onto the table, he touched two fingers lightly on top of it and pushed it across to me.

'Because my mother wrote that book,' he said, finally looking up to meet my gaze. 'That's why.'

It was an angel. A small, white paper angel with wings outstretched.

'She wrote it about my father.'     

****