Chapter 60: Best Laid Plans

Before David Beckham had finished his smug little speech, the small red-haired angel was firing at him and the bullets were spattering back off a transparent wall. ‘Bulletproof neopropylene,’ he said. ‘I’m not a complete idiot. Now, as you can imagine, you are covered by a variety of my men who are out of your sight but who will kill you as soon as I ask them to, so please put down your weapons.’ One of the other angels took another shot at the clear plastic wall and crumpled instantly, riddled with bullets. That left eight of us. ‘Please don’t do that again,’ said David Beckham. ‘Honestly, we’d rather not kill you.’

‘Why?’

‘We’re not barbarians, Miss Park, whatever your so-called-friends have tried to make you believe. We do not enjoy killing, and we do not, or most of us do not, think if humans as irrelevant or worthless. All we wish is to return, after long millions of years, to our birthright. If you remembered seeing, and walking, but you had been paralysed and blinded for fifty years, would you not yearn for you sight and your legs? Is it not natural? It would not mean you hate the blind. Now, put down your weapons.’

‘What if we refuse?’

‘We will shoot you all,' and here he raised his voice to speak to his unseen companions, 'WITH TRANQUILLISERS.’

‘But…’

David Beckham nodded, a dull shot barked, and another angel fell, this time with less in the way of sickening finality. ‘I really do not want to do it,’ he said. ‘It’s messy, undignified and unnecessary. So, please?’ We put down our guns. ‘Knives too, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Especially you, Red. Now walk away from them, and round there, and towards me, and you see that door in the neopolypropylene, yes there, come through that and join me.’ When she was ten feet from him, the red-haired girl leapt at David only to thud off another invisible wall. David smiled, ‘It really is incredible stuff,’ he said, ‘Non-glare. The French have some outstandingly good scientists, and some of them are even human.’ I was at the back of the group, and as I walked forward, an almost invisible door was swung shut behind the others but in front of me by a grey-jacketed man who had suddenly appeared. The door was the only relatively visible piece of the cage.

‘How did you know we were here?’ said the red-haired girl, staring at Johnny. ‘How were you waiting for us?’

David laughed. ‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m sorry, precious angels, but you surely knew from very early on that we had spies in your camp? You surely knew as soon as Centrepoint? Well done, Johnny. You’ve done a sterling job.’

Johnny Depp stood with a stunned expression, open-mouthed, but also not quite part of the group, who were all close enough to touch each other, but none of whom was close enough, quite, to touch him. I sensed the angels tense, instinctively preparing to tear him apart. Johnny said,

‘He’s lying. It’s a lie.’

‘But why would I lie, Johnny? You can join us now, can’t you, because we said that’s what would happen at this point! Because we are your true friends, aren’t we? All you need to do is, oh, wait, I see, I’ve clumsily mentioned this just AFTER I put you in the bullet-proof box where we can’t protect you. What a mistake! I could get that door opened, but how would you get to it in time with Red in the way!’ David Beckham smiled and walked to the clear wall where he stood face to face with Johnny Depp, and said, ‘I suppose I must have subconsciously have been thinking that your usefulness to the Master is over now, and that…’ He tailed off, and shrugged. There was a violent flurry, a set of movements I couldn’t follow, at the end of which two angels were nursing themselves while two others held down Johnny and the red-haired girl had her foot pressed on his throat.

‘This isn’t true, Red,’ he gargled. ‘None of this is true!’

‘None of it?’ said David Beckham. ‘Not even the part where we contacted you and Vanessa and told you that if you joined us you would finally be able to be together for all time, rather than being constantly separated by death? And you both officially scorned us, but our people saw you weaken, because you are weak, and so we met up with you privately and explained that as soon as the Gates of Hell are open, all this fighting will be over, and it will be just you and Vanessa forever, and all we asked you to do was get as close to the Chosen One as you possibly could, and tell us of the Teacher’s plans for thwarting us. And here you are, and we were waiting.’
Johnny Depp turned his eyes to me and he said, ‘This is a lie, Mary Sue. You know it is. He’s trying to divide us.’

‘Hmm,’ said David Beckham. ‘But didn’t he get very close to you? Didn’t he?’

He had done, but he said there was nothing in it, really, except it had been hard to… And there had been… I looked at him lying there, and how had David Beckham known about this? Johnny saw what I was thinking, and he looked at me with a betrayed face, then he twisted his eyes back up: ‘You know me, Red!’ he said. He was trying to speak calmly, but there was desperation in his eyes. ‘Think! Why would he be saying this while I’m in here? It would have been easy for me to go in last and stay outside the box.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose so,’ said David Beckham. ‘If we’d told you as much about our plans as you told us about theirs. You’re a traitor, and although we’ve used you because we didn’t want to risk any action that might have harmed Mary Sue, we really don’t like traitors. So you stay in the box.’

‘It’s not true. Think, Mary Sue! You were in their house, you know what they’re like! They’re liars, don’t sink to their level! You know they’re liars! They're trying to divide us!’

‘I have no reason to lie any more, Johnny. We’ve won. We’ve got the Chosen One, and she’s safe at last, safe from your precious Teacher. Although she always was safe once the Teacher decided you were the one he could trust to kill her if it became necessary.’ It took a moment for this to register, and then I looked at Johnny on the floor, and then I looked at David Beckham. ‘Oh, come now,’ said David. ‘Surely you realised that the Teacher would have ordered someone to kill you if everything went wrong? To stop the Gate opening? Surely you didn’t think he would take any risk? Johnny was the man, but I dare say that when he didn’t do it, one of the other bright sparks, Red maybe, would have taken matters into their own hands. Wouldn’t you, Red? Just like she’s taken control of the situation now. She’s a warrior. Warriors kill their enemies, and Johnny is most assuredly that, my dears.’ He flicked his eyes upwards, and ran his hands through his hair with a gentle smile. ‘He has led you to the end of all your hopes. It’s time for him to die.’

‘No!’ said a calm, high voice behind me, and Miss Smallbone stepped out from behind a gleaming console, and felled my grey-jacketed guard with a touch of her hand to his side that left him writhing in pain. ‘You are lying. Johnny Depp is not a traitor!’ Her voice was calm, but I was close enough to see that her hands were trembling and her knuckles were white.