Where Angels Fear (novel)

Where Angels Fear was the seventy-eighth Virgin New Adventures novel. It featured a return of Clarence (who was depicted on the cover) and the start of the "Dellah Gods" arc.

Publisher's summary
"Do you believe?"

Something very odd is happening on the cosmopolitan planet of Dellah, home to Bernice Summerfield, famed archaeologist, adventurer, raconteur and barfly. A long-ignored religion is rapidly gaining recruits. The faithful rejoice and talk of their God walking the land once more. And in secret rooms on campus, arcane arts are practised with dangerously successful results.

Behind these seeming absurdities, something far darker is going on, something that has consequences for everyone. The most powerful races of the universe are running scared, withdrawing to their own strongholds, and leaving the lesser races to their fate.

But what can have warped reality in this way? And why? Or has the time of the gods finally come? As Bernice and her friends begin to investigate, they soon realise that in the terrible conflict to come each of them will have to choose sides.

Chapter titles

 * Prologue
 * Chapter 1: Questions Raised
 * Chapter 2: A Day in the Life
 * Chapter 3: The Many-Coloured Valley
 * Chapter 4: It's Fun Finding Out About Cults
 * Chapter 5: War, War is Stupid
 * Chapter 6: Light and Shade
 * Chapter 7: Flight Begets Understanding
 * Chapter 8: New Deals
 * Chapter 9: Departures
 * Chapter 10: Perfect Victims
 * Chapter 11: We Meet Again
 * Chapter 12: Deus Ex Machina
 * Epilogue

Plot
After God withdraws the People from the Milky Way for undisclosed reasons, Clarence asks Benny to return with him to the Worldsphere for her safety, but she declines. She meets with Braxiatel in the Witch and Whirlwind and learns from James Harker that there has been a surge in membership of the Church of Maa'lon, which Braxiatel credits to reported sightings of Maa'lon on Dellah. The Grel arrive, pointed in Benny's direction by Emile Mars-Smith, and offer to exchange facts on Maa'lon, which she realises would be useful. After the bar closes, Benny returns with Braxiatel to his study and learn that the Time Lords have retreated and he refused to join them.

Braxiatel is stalked by John, who belongs to a species that he recognises, and asks Renée Thalia to spy on him. He also becomes aware of the Sultan of the Tashwari having set up a New Moral Army and encouraging others to embrace religion, in part by refusing residency permits to students without one. When Renée tells him that John was strange during their meeting, he plants micro scanners in John's building which are soon disabled and later has Renée join the New Moral Army against her will in order to gather information. She soon starts recruiting people to the Church of the Grey.

Benny agrees to join the Grel and Harker in visiting the Hut'eri and tasks Emile with investigating the murder of captain and thirteen passengers of the Joanna as well as a customs officer. He finds that the bloody messages written at the scene are in several different languages and refer to several different religions, indicating that they were written by the victims, and decides to join each of the cults on Dellah for a maximum of two days. He starts with the Church of Ahriman the Great, but accepts Adnan's offer of joining a cult which hopes to gain godlike powers and successfully conjures an imp.

Benny, Harker and the Grel meet Maa'lon and witness his miracles, which include saving a girl from death. After several Hut'eri are apparently killed by the N'a'm'thuli, Maa'lon ends his peaceful rhetoric and the town becomes a boot-camp for several days before the people march to the lands of their enemy, which is demarcated by impaled corpses. There is a battle during which Harker attempts to kill the nameless god of the N'a'm'thuli, but Maa'lon reveals that the nameless god is actually an aspect of himself and that the battle was a test of faith. Maa'lon kills one of the Grel for not believing in him and Benny and Shemda, another Grel, flee.

Emile sneaks into Adnan's house to steal The Grimoire of Atheron the Mage, which Adnan agrees to let him take due to him having risked his life for knowledge. Adnan also tells him that Emile was only asked to join the cult because the augury predicted so. Using the grimoire, Emile summons the imp once again and makes it an offer that it cannot refuse in return for the location of the murderer, which the imp tells him is the spaceport.

After Solomon Merrick is burnt to death for working on a Saturday despite being Jewish, Braxiatel barges into John's home and demands answers. John tells him that something has been released and is angry upon learning that Benny has left, saying that she is much too important and storming out. Braxiatel attempts to get Renée out of the New Moral Army, but she is content there and refuses to join him and several other academics in leaving Dellah. At the spaceport, he trips over Emile and agrees to help him cast a spell to make everybody evacuate the building. The spell is successful, but Emile remains inside to find and defuse the bomb and is caught in the explosion.

On the Worldsphere, Clarence is approached by B-Aaron and joins him in investigating why God has summoned all of the People. After speaking with Sara!qava, they go to Whynot and enter the Mind of God where they learn that forces were imprisoned within Dellah because of the Dellahans' worship of inanimate objects, but that the forces proved able to influence the population into believing in gods. God finds Clarence and B-Aaron inside its mind and teleports them out before they can find out what said forces were.

Benny and Shemda find themselves caught between Maa'lon's followers and the worshippers of the triple-god Anoouki. John arrives and saves them from being killed as he does not believe that the gods have any power over him, knowing what they are and how they came to be here. This proves not to be the case, however, as he is indeed scared of the gods' power; Maa'lon blinds him and strips away his flesh, revealing that he has multiple hearts. Demka then has his spacecraft orbiting Dellah destroy Benny and Shemda's skimmer. Benny sends Braxiatel coordinates from John which belong to the site of a fleet of ships and is saved from another god by B-Aaron and Clarence, who was manipulated by God into coming to save Benny. They return Shemda to his ship.

Whilst leading the refugees to the ships, Braxiatel is captured by Renée and the New Moral Army and due to be executed. However, when the Grey God arrives, Renée says that the Church of the Grey believe that their god will never be found and kills him, admitting to Braxiatel that she had to deceive him for her plan to work. Braxiatel, Renée and the refugees get to the ships and, pursued by the Sultan's troops, are forced to take off without waiting for Benny.

Clarence flies Benny above Dellah and explains what he has learnt to her; the gods were the deities of the People before they created God, after which they were imprisoned beneath Dellah as part of a secret treaty, the planet having been chosen due to the Dellahans not believing in any gods. It transpired, however, that the gods were able to influence religion and begin to take the form of the Dellahans' deities to gather followers and truly free themselves. God was unaware of this due to the treaty with the Time Lords keeping him from having a presence on Dellah, hence why he was interested in Benny, and he gave Clarence his angelic form to temporarily break the spell of the gods' followers.

Shemda cancels the request for help that Demka sent to Grellor in order to gain Maa'lon more believers and sends out a buoy to join the human ones already released to inform potential visitors that Dellah is in lockdown. On one of the refugee ships, Elspeth is upset by how she sacrificed her atheist beliefs out of fear. She sees Emile, whom she was told was dead, and is delighted to see him. She hugs him and he asks her if she still believes.

Characters

 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Irving Braxiatel
 * Clarence
 * God
 * B-Aaron
 * Adnan
 * Be'tha
 * Bree'tha
 * Curtis
 * Demka
 * Elspeth
 * Fec
 * Grenke
 * Ham'tha
 * James Harker
 * Colin Hay
 * Jalal
 * Joe
 * John
 * Kalten
 * Kor'no
 * Maa'lon
 * Emile Mars-Smith
 * Salmon
 * SaRa!qava
 * Shemda
 * Lorna Stewart
 * Sultan of the Tashwari
 * Kerish Taan
 * Tan'a
 * Renée Thalia
 * Travis
 * Uraz
 * Adam Wantman
 * Watt
 * Wolsey

Groups

 * The Obscene Topiary Interest Group built a park outside of the Worldsphere's spaceport.
 * B-Aaron is a member of the Apocalyptic Religions Interest Group.

Individuals

 * Harker was given a copy of the Maa'lon Code by an aunt.
 * Professor Mordechai works for the Theatrology Department.
 * The Followers of Maa'lon's religious code forbids the wearing of footwear because it disconnects them with the godly earth. As such, Benny is forced to take her shoes off and walk around barefoot most of the time, causing her much discomfort and injury. She also sprains an ankle trying to jump down a hole because she lacks shoes to cushion her fall.
 * As a result of a skimmer crash Benny shatters an ankle and crushes both her feet. They are later bandaged to aid her healing, but she writes that her swollen ankle looks like a boiled egg someone tried to open with a sledgehammer.
 * Benny befriends Shemda, a member of the Grel.
 * Following a brush with a firing squad, Renée Thalia's breasts touching Irving Braxiatel's naked chest (he was tied to a post in the open air) make him feel human for a few moments.
 * John is Benny's chain cigarette smoking informant. He gets squeezed to death (his eyes pop out).
 * Emile Mars-Smith dies, but, before his death, makes a demonic pact with an imp.
 * Clarence sweeps in and saves Bernice at the last moment.
 * God used Benny's presence on Dellah to keep an eye on the god situation.
 * B-Aaron is a Very Aggressive Ship, and was a friend of !Ci!ci-tel and WiRgo!xu.
 * SaRa!qava is still in male form and still has feelings for Bernice.
 * Solomon Merrick is killed.

Locations

 * Matelon‟s Spear is the highest point on Dellah at 3,524 metres above sea level.
 * SaRa!qava still lives in iSanti Jeni.

Planets

 * A murdering policeman comes from Tyler's Folly.

Religion

 * James Harker is a priest in the Church of Maa'lon. The faith began in Tal'een.
 * James Harker meets Maa'lon (or something doing a very good impression).

Species

 * The Grel consider Benny a "fact catalyst" and seek her out to discover what exactly is happening on Dellah.
 * The People recall all their agents to the Worldsphere, as do the Time Lords to Gallifrey.
 * Fec is a Cham'di.
 * John has two hearts but is not a Time Lord.

Vehicles

 * Irving Braxiatel has his "craft" recalled by "his people".

Continuity

 * The concept of the People imprisoning their foes inside planets was introduced in PROSE: Down.
 * Emile Mars-Smith last appeared in PROSE: Deadfall.
 * John (Benny's chain smoking informant) appeared previously in PROSE: Another Girl, Another Planet.
 * A student at St Oscar's is Oolian. (PROSE: Original Sin)