by Alex Bell
I felt shame at that, of course, but at the same time I felt incredibly lucky to have someone like Zadkiel Stephomi in my life, and the gratitude I felt towards him in that moment was something I would never have been able to express with words.
‘Thank you,’ I said, trusting he could hear in my voice what his friendship meant to me. ‘I’m so sorry for the way I treated you before, Stephomi, when you wouldn’t tell me what had happened—’
‘Don’t apologise to me,’ Stephomi said hastily. ‘Please, Gabriel. I know you would have done the same in my place.’
Now that I know the truth, I feel worn out. Burned through. But, at the same time I feel better than I have since all this began. It’s exhausting, coming to terms with the truth like this. But now at last I know, and it is a relief to know, to hit rock bottom knowing I won’t stay there. Not with a loyal friend like Stephomi to help me up again. Nicky and Luke are gone. There’s nothing I can do to bring them back. Now that I know about them, I can move on. And I don’t need to fear myself any more. There’s nothing sinister about me. I’m a writer, an academic . . . that’s all. Now I know who I am, where I stand and why, I am free to continue with my life.
11th October
Oh, God, to look at what I wrote in these pages yesterday. If only it could all be as easy as that. I felt at peace when I went to bed last night. The ghosts of my wife and son saddened me but I had decided to say goodbye to them and start again. And now grim foreboding has settled upon me like a cloak that I can’t shake off.
Last night I had the most disturbing and unsettling nightmare. I dreamed that Casey was giving birth at the top of the snow-covered bell tower of St Stephen’s Basilica. She was lonely and afraid but I was with her, helping her, reassuring her, keeping her safe. When the baby was born, a tiny, perfect little boy, I reached for a white blanket to wrap him in; but when I turned back, the baby had become a writhing black demon, sticky with blood, tiny batlike wings furling and unfurling as it thrashed around, lashing out with its claws, hissing and spitting and baring its sharp, pointed teeth at me. I shrieked and suddenly there was a dagger in my hand and I knew what I must do. My teenage neighbour screamed with horror as I drove the knife into her Hell-spawn baby, staining the white blankets with thick, sticky, black blood.
I looked up, gasping for breath, and the burning man was stood there staring down, the usual orange flames blazing all around him, the shimmering red light of the condemned, his fierce blue eyes taking in the weeping mother, the murdered remains of the twisted black newborn devil on the ground, and me hunched over it with the dagger in my hand, thick, black demon blood still dripping from the blade.
‘Welcome back to the Ninth Circle, Gabriel,’ the burning man said steadily, staring down at me with quiet approval.
I woke up screaming, quite sure that the heat from the blazing man’s flames was still scorching my skin. I had leaped from the bed and was out of my apartment and in the main corridor, hand raised to start hammering on my neighbour’s door before I checked myself hastily, forcing myself to stop. It was the middle of the night. I was wearing only a t-shirt and shorts. I couldn’t knock on her door at this time of night, I’d frighten her. She might even call the police. But I had to see her. I couldn’t wait until morning to see if she was all right. I thought of a hasty excuse and then knocked on her door as loud as I dared. I didn’t want to risk waking the whole building. After a few moments, I heard movement from within the apartment. The walls were thin and I clearly heard the girl sharply telling her brother to go back to his bedroom and stay there. Another moment later, the door opened on the security chain and Casey was peering out suspiciously. She looked surprised when she saw me, and not entirely comfortable.
‘What is it?’
Her words threw me for she had spoken in English, although she quickly corrected herself and repeated the question in Hungarian. I suppose, having been woken up in the middle of the night, she had used her first language unthinkingly.
‘Aren’t you Hungarian?’ I blurted out in surprise.
‘American,’ she said, staring at me.
‘I’m English,’ I said, feeling pleased.
‘Oh . . . Okay, then. Well, goodnight.’
And she started to close the door.
‘Wait!’ I said quickly. ‘You remember me, don’t you? My name’s Gabriel Antaeus, I’m your neighbour, you helped me when I had a migraine attack the other day. Look, I’m really sorry to disturb you at this time of night but I just got up to go the bathroom a few minutes ago and I saw someone outside the building next door being mugged. There’s no credit on my mobile and I have no phone in my room, so I was hoping to borrow yours to call the police.’
She was still gazing at me a little suspiciously. I suppose helping a neighbour in broad daylight was something altogether different to letting him into your home alone in the middle of the night.
‘Or perhaps you could call them, if you wouldn’t mind,’ I said to reassure her.
‘How good is your Hungarian?’ she asked.
‘I’m fluent.’
‘Then you’d better do it. I only really know enough to get by.’ She closed the door and I heard the chain being pulled back, then she swung the door open and held it back for me.
‘The phone’s just over there,’ she said as I walked in.
Her apartment was similar to my own in terms of layout and design, but smaller. There did not seem to be a lounge, but rather the kitchen was a little bigger with an old couch in the corner, letting the room serve as a living room as well.While my apartment was furnished with good quality and expensive furniture, in addition to the couch, hers only had a couple of cheap chairs round a table, and a threadbare rug lay on the damp floorboards. The phone stood on the kitchen worktop and as I crossed over to it, one of the doors leading off from the room opened and a boy stuck his head out. His eyes widened when he saw me and he turned to his sister uncertainly.
‘Casey—?’ he began.
His sister turned sharply to him. ‘Go back to bed, Toby! Everything’s fine. Mr Antaeus is just using the phone and then he’s leaving.’
‘I’m sorry about this,’ I said with an apologetic smile.
She smiled back at me uncertainly and took a cigarette from a packet on the worktop, watching me carefully as she lit it, before checking herself and putting the cigarette out with a regretful sigh. I dialled the number for the police and then reported the so-called mugging in the street. I altered the details, though - slurring my words, I told the police I thought I’d seen a man being mugged in the street outside by invisible goblins. The officer I was speaking to brusquely told me to lay off the bottle and go to bed and then he hung up.
As I spoke, I glanced surreptitiously at Casey. She was wearing a large, oversize nightshirt and was leaning against the kitchen worktop, fiddling with the cigarette box, still watching me closely. She seemed quite unharmed. Seeing her in such a way relaxed me and helped chase away the clinging shreds of my nightmare. I wanted to ask her if she had anyone to help her or whether she was alone here. I wanted to ask if she had made arrangements for when the baby came and what was going to happen to her brother while she was in hospital. I wanted to tell her not to go out into the city late at night. I wanted to ask her if there was anything I could do. I wanted to plead with her . . . beg her to let me help her. But I had to be careful. In a world such as this, she would be a fool not to suspect ulterior motives from such a stranger. And the last thing I wanted to do was frighten her. The world doesn’t make it easy to be kind.
‘Thanks,’ I said, turning from the phone once I’d replaced the receiver in its cradle.
She nodded again and I could tell that she felt vulnerable now, that she was probably regretting ever letting me in and that perhaps she now feared that she wouldn’t be able to get me out. So I abandoned any half-formed plans of staying and talking to her for a while, deciding that the best thing would be to leave at once, having been allowed to use her phone as I had
asked.
‘Again, I’m sorry to have disturbed you so late. Thanks for your help.’
She smiled then, in relief I suppose, as she saw that I really was leaving. ‘Goodnight, Mr Antaeus,’ she said, accompanying me to the door.
‘It’s Gabriel,’ I said, stepping out into the corridor. ‘Good night, Casey.’
I want to get closer to God. I feel safe inside churches and other holy buildings. I couldn’t sleep after checking on Casey. I was too scared that the nightmare might return. So I took my coat and stepped out into the cool night air. It was about three o’clock in the morning and dew sparkled on cobbles and mist hung about the streets in ribbons, as if the city had been decorated by phantom hands during the night in preparation for some ghostly wake. As the metro and tram lines would not be open for almost two hours yet, I had to call an all-night taxi service and order a taxi to pick me up outside the apartment block.
The driver had most likely been expecting to take me to the airport, and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by asking otherwise. So I explained that I was going on holiday with some friends and was meeting them at their house where we would then be driving to the airport together in my friends’ car. I directed the driver to a street near Margaret’s Island, paid him and then watched him drive out of sight before turning and striding off in the direction of Margaret Bridge.
I paused when I reached it, looking down at the angelic sculptures that adorned its columns, painted silver by the moonlight. They were old, these angels - created by the great artist Adolphe Thabart during the nineteenth century. I wished I could get close enough to touch them - close enough to trace one of those great, feathered wings with my fingers. I was suddenly painfully aware of this powerful yearning to be near angels, near Heaven, near God.
I trudged slowly across the quiet, moonlit island, feeling miserable and alone, missing my family even though I’d never known them. I thought of Margaret herself, condemned to this place for her short, cheerless life. Then I thought of Wladyslaw Szpilman hiding in his attic on the outskirts of Warsaw, desperately lonely while at the same time knowing that if any people did come his way his very life would depend on hiding from them. In his memoirs, he compared his existence to that of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and pointed out that Crusoe at least had the cherished, precious hope of coming into contact with another human being. A hope that kept him going day after day. Whereas Szpilman, hiding in his tiny attic and longing for human contact, knew he would have to stay hidden from any passers-by if he were to live. There was not even that miniscule drop of hope in the sea of utter loneliness in which he found himself drowning.
The island was beautifully quiet at night. I could even hear the faint sloshing of the Danube as it lapped against the banks. The smell of lush, living greenery filled the air with its healthy scent as I walked on in the semi-darkness. I was halfway across the island before I noticed the flames. They rose far above the treetops, a huge cloud of smoke billowing out over everything. I couldn’t understand how I could have been unaware of it for so long as the flames seemed to light up the whole island and the smell of ash was strong even from here.
I started to run, crashing through the trees - the cold, empty eyes of stone busts telling me exactly where I was, and which building was on fire. By the time I stumbled out into the clearing, Michael’s church was engulfed in spitting fire, smoke pouring out from gaps in the pointed roof. The heat was sending up fierce convection currents that rocked the bell in its tower, making it ring out in agonised peals.
I skidded to a halt before the church, staring at the old building in horror as flames leaped and roared against the still darkened sky. With the noise the old bell was making, it would surely not be long before other people arrived on the scene - after all, the island’s hotel was only a few minutes away.
Then I realised that I’d better leave - and quickly. I didn’t want to be found alone here with a blazing church. I would be jailed for arson within seconds. Even as I thought how lucky it was that this should have happened at night when there were no people inside, the wooden front doors burst open in a shower of sparks and two men tumbled out, falling in the dust on the ground. My mouth dropped open in pure horror as I realised that one of the unfortunate men was on fire! I hunted round manically, looking for something with which to put him out. I couldn’t see anything so I stripped off my jacket, hoping it would be enough, and started to run towards the two men. And then stopped short in astonishment. One of the men was still hunched over stiffly on his knees, but the other had risen to his feet. The man on fire was simply standing there, silently, gazing at his opponent. There were no screams of agony; he was not writhing on the ground as surely he should have been with those flames caressing his skin.
And then I realised that I recognised him, although up until now I had only seen him in dreams. I had seen him in a dream less than two hours ago, looking on while I killed the newborn devil in the bell tower of the Basilica. He looked just the same now - enveloped in flames yet seemingly unaware of it, his blue eyes burning with a fierce light of their own.
He was holding a long, bejewelled sword in one hand and as I watched he approached the other man, still huddled on his knees on the ground, head bent. And then the burning man started to raise the sword over his head and I ran forward unthinkingly with a yell of horror. He looked up in alarm as he heard me and I saw his eyes narrow angrily. I reached out, grasped the kneeling man by the shoulder and yanked him back, ignoring his cry of pain. And then darkness fell like a cloak and I blinked in surprise as orange flashes winked before my eyes. The fire was gone, as if snuffed out like a candle, and the suddenness of the darkness left flaming imprints on my eyeballs. Amazed, I reached out a hand and brushed the wall of the church. It was cold to my touch. There was not even the slightest hint of warmth. It was as if the building had never been alight at all.
As my eyes adjusted to the watery light, I turned my attention to the man beside me and sucked in my breath in surprise. I knew this man too. It was Zadkiel Stephomi. There were scorch marks on his clothes and blackened ash and soot stained his skin. One hand was pressed over the deep gash slashed across his lower ribs, blood running through his fingers alarmingly. Cursing, he tore a piece of fabric from his shirt and tried to quell the bleeding with a trembling hand. Then he glanced up at me, brushing sooty hair from his eyes and leaving more smears of grime on his face in the process.
‘Gabriel? What are you—?’ he began hoarsely.
‘What was that thing?’ I interrupted, kneeling down beside him. ‘What happened to the fire?’
‘The fire was never really there.’
‘But there’s ash all over your clothes! I saw the church in flames! What was that thing with the sword?’ I asked again, somehow dreading the answer.
Stephomi hesitated for a moment before replying. ‘He was a devil, Gabriel.’
Welcome back to the Ninth Circle, Gabriel . . .
‘What? What did you say?’
‘You heard me.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘Ha, ha. Mad. Yes . . . perhaps I am . . .’
He swayed suddenly and I caught at him in alarm.
‘Are you all right?’
His breathing sounded shallow, sweat was running down his face, and I could feel that he was trembling.
‘All right?’ Stephomi choked out a disbelieving laugh. ‘Only you would say that to someone who’s just been hacked at with a fucking huge sword, Gabriel!’
‘You need to get to a hospital,’ I said, glancing at his bloodstained shirt. ‘We’ve got to get you to the nearest one right now!’
‘No, no, no. Don’t start panicking.’
‘Panicking? That wound needs to be stitched or you’ll—’
‘Does it?’ Stephomi asked. He removed his hand and I stared in disbelief, for the skin beneath was already starting to heal where the sword had pierced the skin. Although it was now blistering and burning in a most painful looking way, it was no
longer bleeding. ‘Demon swords don’t create permanent injuries.’
‘How . . . how is that possible?’ I demanded. ‘That wound . . . I mean, the sword went right through!’
‘Never mind the wound - it’ll just be a scar by morning,’ Stephomi said dismissively. ‘It’s the blood loss that’s the, er . . . that’s the problem right now—’
‘But it was deep before!’ I protested. ‘Just two seconds ago it was an open, bleeding—’
‘Just shut up and listen, this is important! I’m, ah . . . going to pass out. Don’t want you to freak out and do something stupid. I just have to find back . . . get back home, okay? Just unconscious, Gabriel, not dying. Please . . . no hospitals . . . all these awkward questions. Afterwards I’ll explain . . . tell you . . . explain it all, I promise . . .’
And then, with a sudden shudder, he crumpled against me, getting blood all over my once clean shirt.