After climbing an astounding 528 steep steps through dark, windowless, circular passages and tunnels so narrow, I doubted Santa Claus could make it, we reached the top of the Great Dome. Or as near to the top as they let visitors. Our destination, the Golden Gallery, an external lookout that wound around the highest tower above the dome, would give us panoramic views of London.
Hardly any tourists made the climb all the way to the top. Most stopped halfway, at the Stone Gallery, so we were alone. We huddled just inside the open doorway, the wind howling in our ears, waiting for instructions from Gavin.
“Remember, keep your back to the wall at all times, and you’ll be safe,” he said.
“You mean, like, safe from a demon swooping by and plucking us off this crazy-high perch?” Hunter asked. Her cheeks were a little pale. It was odd to see her flustered. She was always so tough and in control. I wondered if she had a fear of heights.
“They can’t touch a single part of the cathedral,” he assured us, “nor can they touch you if you’re touching it.”
“And we’re looking for a giant spider?” I asked.
“Aye, a giant spider sculpture. It’s usually perched on a rooftop or next to a building’s entrance. It’s black, and it’s thirty feet tall. So between the three of us, we should be able to spot it, no problem.”
As Gavin had explained on our way up, at the turn of the last century, several prominent art patrons who supported angels had commissioned giant spider sculptures to be placed in key international cities, marking the entrance to Magnificat to help ensure that the safe haven could be more easily found. The spiders were installed in Bilbao, Spain; Seoul, Korea; Tokyo, Japan; Ottawa, Canada; and London. There was an additional army of traveling sculptures that moved around the world as they were needed, from St. Petersburg to Havana, Paris, Washington, D.C., and even Kansas City, Missouri. My home state.
The giant spiders were created by a French sculptor, Louise Bourgeois, and named Maman—“Mother” in her native tongue.
“Am I the only one who finds this vaguely disturbing?” Hunter continued. “Aren’t spiders more of a demon thing? Why would angels want to use them?”
“Well . . .” Gavin started. “In many cultures, they are signs of good luck. They decorate their Christmas trees with spider webs in Germany.”
“Yeah, I’m not buying it,” Hunter replied.
“The spider was really nice in Charlotte’s Web,” I said, trying to help Gavin out. It didn’t work.
“Never heard of it,” she answered.
“You’ve been to Scotland,” Gavin said, trying a new angle. “I know you’ve heard the story of Robert the Bruce and the spider.”
She perked up a little, obviously remembering. “My mum used to tell me that story when I was little.”
“Who’s Robert Bruce?” I asked.
“Robert the Bruce was a great Scottish warrior,” Gavin answered. “One day, he was sitting in a cave in the Highlands, depressed about recent defeats, when he saw a spider try to spin her web in the mouth of the cave. Every time she tried to make a connection between the roof and the wall, she failed. But she never gave up. She just kept trying until she got it. Supposedly, Robert was inspired by the spider and decided to press on. He won several big victories, and was crowned King of Scotland soon after.”
“So the spider is supposed to remind us not to give up?” I looked at Gavin.
“Yes, you’re to stay strong, both of you,” Gavin concluded. “No matter what.”
“No Matter What” seemed like an ominous destination. One I didn’t want to visit.
The Golden Gallery wasn’t golden and was hardly a gallery. Instead of a sightseeing promenade, we stepped out, single file, onto a crumbling stone ledge less than two tennis shoes wide, ringed with a rusted guardrail that reached just above my waist. The wind repeatedly whipped my hair into my eyes, and made the protective fence in front of me wobble. I didn’t feel very protected.
As Gavin and Hunter circled around out of sight, I pressed my back firmly against the wall and gazed out between the two front towers of St. Paul’s—one had a clock in it and the other one just had a big hole where a clock should be. Across the horizon, construction cranes lifted their heads like mechanical giraffes. A massive Ferris wheel pushed its enclosed bullet-shaped buckets on an infinite ride. And a big, brown river I assumed was the River Thames slithered lazily past to my left. I wondered why they pronounced it “Tems,” like “stems,” in Britain, instead of how the word looked. I counted four bridges crossing it; the nearest one, all shiny gray steel, seemed like the newest.
I shuffled my feet a bit to get a better look at the closest bridge. It began at St. Paul’s and swooped across the river to a large building that resembled a factory due to its bland, brown façade, lack of windows, and huge smokestack-like square tower. The bridge itself was narrow. As I squinted, I saw that it was covered with people, not cars.
Why would so many people want to walk from the cathedral to a factory that they would build a whole bridge for it? Then I saw it: an enormous, black, spindly spider statue. Maman! It was perched right next to the factory, rising up from the grass, facing me, practically staring me down. Dozens of people gathered around its legs, taking pictures and pointing. Surprisingly, especially considering my distaste for modern art, I didn’t find Maman to be ugly or scary or particularly villainous. Instead, she was elegant and otherworldly, like she had just crawled out of a fairy tale.
“I found it!” I yelled. “The spider. I found it!”
Gavin called out from my left, and Hunter from my right, when I heard an all-too-familiar screeching overhead. A sudden breeze hit my face, and I closed my eyes, half expecting to be torn off the ledge by demon claws. Instead, Gavin grabbed my hand.
“It’s okay,” he soothed, as I physically flinched. “You’re fine. We’re fine. There’s Hunter. See, everyone’s accounted for.” His voice was calm, but his eyes darted around the sky. There were two of us girls, who knows how many demons, and only one of him.
“Where is it?” he asked.
I pointed. “Over there. By that factory.”
“That’s not a factory,” Hunter said. “It’s the Tate Modern. The museum of modern art.”
It made perfect sense. Where else could you put a giant spider in plain sight? I had thought about the zoo, but as I looked at the towering, black arachnid, I realized it would probably scare the pants off small children. Yes, the modern art museum was perfect. But perfectly far away.
“So that’s it? That’s the entrance to Magnificat?” I asked. “At the Tate?”
“It would seem so,” Gavin said. He was studying something intently, but it wasn’t the spider.
“What?” I asked.
“The bridge,” he said. Unlike the other heavier, squared-off bridges along the river, the bridge to the Tate was all swoopy and loopy, like a treetop bridge supported by giant concrete Ys.
“That’s the Wobbly Bridge,” Hunter declared.
“The what?” I asked.
“Well, technically it’s the Millennium Bridge, since it opened in the year 2000, but it swayed so much when people first walked on it, they had to close it for two years. So we all call it the Wobbly Bridge,” she explained.
I leaned toward Gavin. “The quickest way to the Tate is over that bridge, isn’t it? And it’s an open-air pedestrian bridge. We’ll never make it across,” I concluded.
“I’m not sure,” he answered. “But I know how to find out.” He ushered us back inside and down the stairs.
We stopped at the last observation deck before the floor: the Whispering Gallery. This balcony was inside the dome, but still close to one hundred feet up. It held a ring of seats behind a safety rail so you could sit and ponder the art on the inside of the Great Dome without getting dizzy and falling to your death. Gavin led us both to a seat.
“Why is this called ‘The Whispering Gallery’?” I whispered.
“Because if you face the wall and whisper, someone clear across on the other side can hear you,” Hunter answered. “At least that’s what the guidebook I read today said.”
“Get out your iPhone, please, Hunter,” Gavin interrupted.
“How’d you know I have an iPhone?” she asked, eyes wide.
“Because I read ‘sent from my iPhone’ on the bottom of your text last night,” he answered.
She took it from her pocket and handed it to him, no longer impressed. “It’s out of battery.”
“I know, but we can fix that,” he said. He flipped the phone over and pried off the back cover. He proceeded to remove all sorts of electronic plates, and I could sense Hunter’s fear that he was permanently wrecking her phone. He found the battery and slid it out of the case.
“Hands out, palms up,” he said to Hunter. He then placed the remains of her phone into her hands, clutched the battery in his, and stood up. “I’ll be right back.”
Her face registered total dismay. I shrugged. I had no idea what he was doing. We watched as he walked back toward the door, where two young guys had just entered. He nodded a greeting and spoke to them. One of the guys handed him something and he took it, ducked back into the stairwell, and disappeared.
Less than five minutes later, Gavin reappeared. He tossed a small object back to the guy, nodded in thanks, and came toward us. He took the back piece of Hunter’s phone from her hand, popped the battery back in, reassembled all the layers, and snapped it shut. He turned it over, hit the power button, and it miraculously blinked to life with a full charge.
“How did you do that?” Hunter asked, her voice tinged with genuine amazement.
“Let’s just say you can do a lot of things with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter,” he said, flipping rapidly through colorful screens, “including charging dead batteries and blowing your face off. Thankfully, I only managed the first one.”
He held out the phone to Hunter. “I’m going to need you to put this down your shirt.”
“Um, what?” She leaned away from him a bit.
“I need you to stick this on your chest. We’re going to record your heartbeat.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Humans have a distinct heartbeat that demons and angels can hear,” he explained. “It’s harder to hear in some places, like large crowds. I want to see if the demons outside can hear your heartbeat if you’re crossing the Millennium Bridge.”
“So you’re going to send me across like a guinea pig, and you want my heartbeat recorded as a souvenir?”
“No, I’m going to send someone else across the bridge as a guinea pig, with your heartbeat in their pocket. I downloaded an app that uses the microphone to record your heartbeat. We’ll record it, and then set your phone to replay it very quietly. I’ll slip it in the pocket of those guys over there, and we’ll go back up and watch what happens.”
“How do you know they’re going to the Tate?” Hunter asked.
“They told me,” he said. “Now hurry up. I don’t want to keep them waiting.” He tapped the phone a few times to set it up, then handed it to Hunter. She held it under her shirt, over her heart, and we waited silently. When Gavin nodded, she pulled the phone out. He clicked the screen a few more times. He held it up, and we could see an animated heart pulsing. “Can you hear it?”
We both shook our heads. It must not have recorded correctly.
“Perfect,” he said. “It’s working, but I’ve got the volume low enough that humans can’t hear it. Now to darken the screen, and done.” He stood up and headed off after the guys who had just left the Whispering Gallery. When he returned, he motioned for us to follow him up the stairs.
Back on the windy Golden Gallery, we slid along the outside wall to the left, together this time, positioning ourselves in front of the Millennium Bridge.
“There they are!” Gavin said. He pointed to the young men as they walked across the St. Paul’s courtyard and approached the bridge. So far, so good. They were pushing each other on the shoulders and goofing around. One of them lit a cigarette, and offered to do the same for his friend. They entered the bridge, both of them now smoking and chatting away.
We watched as they crossed, unharmed.
“I guess we’re clear, right?” Hunter spoke too soon. A giant birdlike creature streaked across the sky and dove down toward the bridge. It grabbed one of the guys in its claws, let out a high-pitched scream, and then disappeared in the clouds. It happened so quickly and was such a blur, no one else saw it except for me, Gavin, and Hunter. The guy’s friend didn’t even know what had happened. He ran to the edge of the bridge and called down to the water, as if his friend might have been blown off.
I glanced at Hunter, who was three shades of pale and had her mouth hanging open. My own heart was pounding against my chest. I turned to Gavin.
“That guy . . . he’s . . . he’s gone. The demons . . . Did you see that?” I stuttered. The poor guy. I couldn’t believe it. Gavin just stared straight ahead. “I . . . I thought you weren’t supposed to kill humans?” I finally spit out.
“He’s not dead . . . yet,” Gavin answered. “And besides, he should know better than to smoke.”
“Wh—” I started to protest, but he kept talking before I could get a full word out.
“I’m joking, I’m joking!” he added quickly, still not looking away from the bridge. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move!” He climbed onto the railing, stood straight up, and jumped. He plummeted down out of sight.
“Ga-a-a-av-i-i-i-i-n!” I shrieked, lunging forward. I hit the rail just in time to see him gliding away over the edge of the roof, wings outstretched. A second later, he shot upward in a burst of speed and was gone, leaving only the faintest trail of cloudy wisps behind him. I looked out over the Millennium Bridge, breathless, waiting. I felt Hunter at my side.
“Holy crap!” she whispered.
BOOM!
The noise was so loud, and so unexpected, we both nearly jumped out of our skin.
“What was that?” I grabbed Hunter’s arm. It sounded like thunder, but the only clouds in the sky were lazy, low-lying white ones.
BOOM! BOOM!
We saw a flash in the sky to the right of the bridge, like the afterglow of a fireworks finale.
“Look!” Hunter pointed. “I can see them! They’re fighting!”
Far above, what appeared like two birds—one light and one dark—dove in and out of the clouds. But Hunter and I knew better. They circled and swooped around, occasionally diving directly at each other. Whenever they made contact, an audible crack tore through the air, followed by a burst of light. I hoped Gavin was winning, imagined him punching the demon with otherworldly strength.
The next impact was the loudest, and my heart leapt. Maybe the fight was over. The two shapes parted, but while the dark one rose, the light one was falling with alarming speed toward the ground. Gavin!
The darker shape suddenly swung around and sped in our direction. I slammed back against the outside of the dome, pulling Hunter with me. I wished the doorway back inside was closer, but I didn’t want to risk running toward it in case I could somehow be lifted off and carried away—maybe when I was airborne off the protective cathedral for just the slightest second in between steps . . .
“It’s coming straight at us!” Hunter screamed.
The demon hurtled toward us in a streak of dark smoke, like a heat-seeking missile, at a terrible speed. Maybe the demon isn’t going to try and take us, I thought. Maybe he’s going to smash into us at a million miles an hour and kill us that way.
I closed my eyes and braced for impact. The high-pitched screaming soon filled my ears. I spread myself as flat against the stone wall as I could, wishing I could liquefy and slip into the cracks toward safety.
A whoosh of air fluttered past my cheeks, and then . . . nothing.
I opened my eyes a tiny bit and saw that the demon was hovering an inch from my face. He wasn’t technically touching me, but he was as close as he could possibly be.
In total shock, I opened my eyes all the way, and found myself staring straight into his. His eyes were dark, almost black, but long lashes curled around them, making them unexpectedly beautiful. He had a handsome human face with sandy, reddish hair. He grinned at me—wickedly, and yet somehow flirtatiously. The smile of a confident guy who could get anything he wanted and liked what he saw. He inhaled deeply, sucking in the scent of me, like a lion getting his first taste of an upcoming dinner via the wind. The rest of his body looked human as well, except for the tail flicking between his legs, his large batlike wings—thin, tissue-y, and covered in veins—and his scaly red claws. He was wearing all black, from the pants to the shirt over his muscular torso, and I wondered if his entire body was covered in scales.
I heard a soft groan and saw that the cigarette guy was slung over the demon’s right elbow like an unstuffed teddy bear. The demon looked down and, as if remembering the boy was only a useless decoy, opened his arm. The guy fell stomach-first onto the railing and lay suspended there, unconscious, his feet dangling toward the roof.
The demon swung back to me with a blast of hot wind. I could taste his breath in my mouth. He licked the corner of his lip with the forked tip of his tongue, slowly, disgustingly. I clenched my lips closed, trying not to vomit.
I saw the demon’s head contorting to the side before I saw why. Even though it happened at light speed, almost too fast to see, for me it played out in slow motion: Gavin’s foot flying in from the left, smashing into the demon’s face, knocking the demon a hundred feet away; Gavin following with fists and kicks and airborne fighting maneuvers that looked more like a graceful acrobatic dance than a deadly attack. But it was a deadly attack, for after Gavin landed a ferocious punch on the demon’s neck, the creature’s wings stopped flapping, and it fell straight down like a rock.
As soon as the demon’s body hit the cathedral’s roof, it began sizzling, bubbling, and then melting until it disappeared, leaving nothing but a black smudge in its place. I noted all the other black marks on the cathedral’s surface, marks I’d thought were signs of pollution and time, and wondered if they were also demon residue.
I couldn’t stop my body from shaking. Even my teeth chattered as I physically reacted to the supernatural carnage. Gavin appeared and hovered in front of me, his gorgeous white feather wings a welcome, calming sight. He cupped my face in his hands and looked deeply into my eyes.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he said. “I promise you will come to no harm as long as I have breath. Do you believe me, Maren?” I nodded. He smiled. “You have to say it.”
“I . . . I believe you,” I stuttered.
“Good.” He drew his fingertips from my cheeks, picked the cigarette guy off the rail, and threw him over his shoulder. “I’ve got to get this chap back to his friend, but I’ll be back in a flash, okay?”
I nodded again, and he shot off toward the bridge. I turned to Hunter. “Are you all right?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she hit the ground.