Chapter 14: Romeo and Mary Sue

Miss Smallbone sat on MY chair, in MY kitchen, paid for by MY money, thanks to a deposit given me by MY parents, looking as if she was chewing a wasp. We stared at each other. I cracked first. ‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘David Tennant told me to trust you, but why should I? He killed my husband.’

‘We don’t have time for you to get hysterical,’ said Miss Smallbone, primly. ‘David killed Gavin because Gavin was a demon, and you should be grateful.’

‘Are you, “The Teacher”?’

That stopped her in her tracks. ‘Did Sir Connaught take you to Centrepoint?’ she asked tersely. I nodded. ‘There’s no fool like an old fool,’ she sighed. ‘So, you’ve seen headquarters. It’s more than I ever have.’

‘We only just escaped.’ Miss Smallbone looked shocked. ‘There was a fight. Didn’t you know? You were betrayed.’ I turned on the television, and flicked to News 24. There were pictures of Centrepoint, smoke gushing from high windows, and a reporter saying that ‘initial reports of a terrorist atrocity,’ now seemed less likely than a ‘Russian mafia gunbattle.’

‘Was anyone hurt?’ whispered Miss Smallbone.

‘I didn’t see.’ I turned to her. ‘Please tell me what all this is about. I feel like I’m going mad.’

‘I know,’ said Miss Smallbone. ‘I’m sorry.’ She pointed weakly at the screen. ‘David was certain we’d been infiltrated somehow, and this proves it. We have no time to waste.’

‘David Tennant said I was the Chosen One,’ I said. ‘What does that mean? It’s insane. You must have made a mistake.’

‘I’m sorry to be the person to tell you this, Miss Park, but you are not who you think you are. You never have been. If you went to Centrepoint, perhaps someone told you about the great battle, seventy million years ago, and how we ended up on earth?’

‘Trevor McDonald told me.’

‘Well, the one thing that is eternal about us, apart from the fact that we live forever, is that those of us who have come to be called Angels hate the Demons, and vice versa. There is an ancient prophecy, like always in these cases. It says that one day a Demon will love an Angel, and a child will be born. This child will be the Chosen One, for good or ill. The Child will be the only one who can slay the Master, who is the main Demon.’

‘Why don’t the Demons just kill me?’

‘Because the Chosen One, if she joins the Master, can open the Gates of Hell. We don’t know what that means, precisely.’

‘It sounds bad,’ I said.

‘It certainly does.’

I was calm now, much calmer than I had been at any point since David Tennant had cut off my husband's head. ‘You’ve made a massive mistake. My parents aren’t Demons and Angels. They’re a Korean historian and an English teacher. I’m really sorry to have wasted your time, but I totally look like both of them.’

‘Call them up.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘I don’t have time.’

My mother, as she had earlier when I spoke to her briefly about what had happened with Gavin, tried desperately to sound calm, for my sake, and I loved her even more than usual, which was basically impossible. I said I was sorry I was being abrupt, and that I was going to ask her an extraordinary question, and that I didn’t want her to get angry with me for asking, but it was suddenly unbelievably important that I did, even though it was ridiculous. By the time I got this far, I could hear her starting to cry. ‘I knew this day would come,’ she said.

‘You know what I’m going to ask?’

‘I can’t do this over the phone. I’ll get in the car now.’

‘No!’ I yelped. ‘No, mum. I’m sorry, I can’t explain, but nothing you can ever say will stop me loving you. But I need to know right now.’ There was a long silence. ‘I promise I’m okay, but I have to know.’

I heard her take a huge breath. ‘Your father and I tried for a child for several years. It didn’t work, and we decided we wouldn’t spend our lives trying. We wouldn’t let it define us, or be bitter. And then, the very next day, we found you on our doorstep.’

It felt like a horse had kicked my stomach. ‘But,’ I said. ‘But I look like you. I look like you both.’

‘When you arrived, you were a little white girl with red hair. Over the first two months, your skin darkened, your eyes changed, and you came to look like us. You were like a miracle. You are a miracle.’

It took my mother and I half an hour to say goodbye, and we only managed it because we were in protective shock. I wanted to call her straight back, but Miss Smallbone said, ‘No. I’m sorry. If Centrepoint is compromised, we have to get you somewhere safer than this. And you have to remember, you cannot trust anybody.’

‘That isn’t true,’ I said. ‘I have old friends. I know them. I looked out of the window at Sergeant Rollo Price, who I had such a crush on eight years earlier. ‘I can trust Rollo.’ Miss Smallbone shook her head. ‘Of course I can.’

‘Wave at him,’ she instructed. I attracted his attention, and did so.’ Miss Smallbone cocked her head for a moment, reached into her pocket and passed me a small earphone. ‘Directional microphone,’ she said, and touched her brooch. ‘Attached to this.’

She pointed it at Rollo just as Rollo’s partner said to him, ‘I can’t believe you’re being so friendly to her. She obviously knows something about that poor bastard who was killed.’

‘Softly, softly, catchee monkey,’ said Rollo out of the side of his mouth. ‘She used to be in love with me.’

‘You sure it wasn’t mutual?’

‘Oh please,’ said Rollo, as he carried on smiling up at me. ‘Mary Sue’s a bright girl who could have done some good with her life, but decided to be a parasite. It’s exactly what the world doesn’t need.’

‘So why are you playing nice?’

‘If I keep softening her up, she’ll crack by this time tomorrow,’ Rollo said smugly.