The Ninth Circle

by Alex Bell

  And then I saw them - Michael and Mephistopheles - hovering just above the tower opposite us, biting, tearing, clawing at one another as if they would pull each other apart if they could. They were both almost unrecognisable to me. Their bodies flashed between the familiar human forms I was used to and something altogether different. Michael was once again lit up with a light so bright that I could hardly make out his features at all - as if he were simply too close to the sun or some other light-emitting force for me to look at him. But I could clearly see his powerful, feathered white wings spread out behind him as the two angels flew round, over and above the cathedral’s towers, striking out viciously at each other. Every now and then, a white feather would flutter down from the sky to be stained by the blood already on the ground around us.

  Casey was sobbing now, and I dragged my attention away from the angels and back to her. I must not let them distract me. I must stay focused. When, at last, the baby was born, I took a penknife from my pocket, cut the umbilical cord and shrugged off my coat to wrap the infant up in an effort to protect it from the freezing night. I was filled with relief as I looked at the baby in my arms. For she was human. A tiny, perfect, human little girl . . . not angel or demon as I had seen in my dreams . . . not one of those creatures fighting so viciously above us. And there was no aura around Casey or her daughter now. The swirling clouds of shining gold and dripping black had gone.

  ‘She’s . . . amazing,’ Casey whispered, gazing at her daughter in my arms. ‘Isn’t she beautiful, Gabriel?’

  I couldn’t believe how fragile she was, how vulnerable. I mean, she couldn’t even hold up her own head!

  ‘Do you want to hold her?’ I asked.

  Casey started to nod and then froze, a confused expression on her face, one hand trailing down to her stomach.

  ‘There’s a second baby,’ she whispered.

  ‘Second baby?’ I repeated stupidly, gazing round as if expecting to see one lying on the ground somewhere.

  ‘Twins,’ she groaned. ‘I never went to any scans so . . .’ She trailed off and then, to my horror, started to cry. ‘Oh, Gabriel, I don’t want to do all that again! I’m so tired ! It’s so unfair!’

  ‘You’re doing really well, Casey,’ I said, equally horrified by the revelation that she was carrying twins but trying not to show it. I realised now that the aura I’d thought for a moment had gone, was still clinging about her. It was fainter than before but still that strange, unnatural mixture of gold and black. ‘You’re halfway through it now; halfway through.’

  ‘But I didn’t ask for this! I don’t want to have children like this! I always thought there’d be a husband here with me or at least a boyfriend; someone who loved me, someone who was going to share this with me! Last . . . last week I saw this young guy holding his baby in a . . . in a restaurant, and when I got home I couldn’t . . . I just couldn’t stop crying! I know feminists would hate me for this, but all I ever wanted was the white picket fence. A house and a family that loved me unconditionally. My . . . my Mom and Dad . . . didn’t—’

  ‘I love you unconditionally,’ I said at once. ‘And you can still have the house and the fence and the family. But first you have to have this baby. You’ll love your children. And you’ll find the husband later. But until you do, I’ll look after you, because I really do love you unconditionally, Casey, and I promise I always will. You’ve got one beautiful daughter already and now you’re going to have another. Just a little bit longer and then you’ll be the mother of twins. Won’t that be wonderful?’

  I was relieved to see her start to try and smile as I spoke - looking at me through her tears for a moment like I was the most amazing person in the world. At last she nodded. ‘Okay, Gabriel.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  I looked up sharply as the bell began to ring out loudly in its tower. Was this another phantom tolling that the celebrating Hungarians below would be unable to hear? Could all this really be invisible to their eyes? Could people really be so very ignorant of all that went on around them? The entire cathedral was being ravaged by the battle over our heads, and the bell continued to toll deafeningly. Half the building was on fire - including the tower nearest us. The other tower and the rest of the building was shining and glittering with a coat of ice three feet thick. Lightning, frozen from the sky by Mephistopheles, had fallen to the floor of the observation level, splintering into sharp, golden shards which crackled and fizzed with electrical energy as they slowly melted into the snow.

  Although I didn’t want to put the baby down, I needed both my hands and I was afraid of dropping her if I tried to keep her cradled in my arm. So I wrapped the coat about her more securely and put her on the ground beside me before turning back to Casey. Although the second baby was also correctly positioned, I could tell that this time something was wrong. There was too much blood, much more than there’d been last time, and I realised Casey must have torn something inside. It was clearly hurting her more and blood was pouring out over my hands, making it difficult to keep hold of her second baby. I couldn’t think what to do, for there was no way to heal whatever had torn. All I could do was concentrate on the second child and try and get it delivered safely.

  The bell ceased to ring the moment Casey’s second daughter was born, and a rain of fireworks burst into the sky as cheers were heard from below, and I realised that midnight had come and gone: we had all just passed from one year into the next.

  ‘Gabriel,’ Casey whispered. ‘I . . . I don’t feel so good.’

  I didn’t know what to say to her. It was painfully clear that Casey was bleeding to death. I wouldn’t have thought she had that much blood in her to begin with. It was on my hands, my clothes, lying in glistening pools across the stone floor, freezing in the gaps between the flagstones. The aura had gone now. There was no black or gold, no beauty or repulsiveness around Casey or either of her daughters. I shifted her second baby so that she lay cradled in only one of my arms, and then took her hand with my free one, not wanting her to feel alone.

  If I could only get her to a hospital for a blood transfusion . . . But I would never get there in time. She would be dead before I’d even carried her down the Basilica’s stairs. I had never in my life felt so helpless, and the frustration of it tore at me agonisingly.

  ‘Can you see them?’ she asked, visibly struggling for breath now. ‘Those demons up there?’

  The dying see demons . . . That was what Mephistopheles had told me, wasn’t it?

  ‘No!’ I cried with a sob. ‘Not demons, Casey. Please not demons! ’

  I strained my eyes into the night and for moments I was sure I could see scores of them up there, vast armies both angel and demon, tearing and shredding at each other with their bare hands, fuelled by a truly limitless and ancient hatred.

  ‘Gabriel . . .’

  I looked back down, Casey’s second daughter still cradled in my left arm as Casey held my right hand and spoke to me for the last time - words that meant more to me than expressions of love or friendship or thanks ever could. ‘I forgive you.’

  She met my pathetic attempt at a smile for a brief, timeless moment before her grip went slack in my hand and she stopped breathing. I could see that she was dead even before I felt for a pulse. I know what dead bodies look like - after all, I’ve seen enough of them.

  ‘No!’ I screamed. ‘No, no, no!’

  She still looked beautiful to me, despite the fact that her brown skin was streaked with sweat and her dark hair was disorderly, the lengths of coloured blue and pink hair shining brightly in the light of the fireworks and the fires that still clung to the cathedral.

  The two angels above, realising that Casey’s children had been born, fell back down to the observation level of the dome, one on either side of us. They each retained shreds of their human appearance but their clothes were torn and stained with blood, and I could see the ethereal outline of the wings folded back behind each of them.

  ‘Is she dead yet?’ Michael
asked coldly, indicating Casey.

  ‘No, she fucking isn’t! ’ I screamed at him. ‘I’m here to save her! She’s not dead! She’s not!’

  ‘Of course she is!’ Michael said impatiently. ‘And the child must follow her.’

  I covered my eyes with my trembling hand, trying to block everything out. But it didn’t work. There was this terrible ache . . . deep within me. Perhaps isolation, after all, was the better way in such a world . . . I actually felt the moment when something snapped . . . then I alarmed even myself with the raw despair in my sobs . . . How very naïve I’d been to think I could feel no more pain. This was what it felt like to lose someone you loved. This was what Anna’s children had felt because of me. This was what I had done to people every day. God was punishing me. Punishing Casey because He knew how much I’d loved her.

  ‘It’s because I don’t have a costume, isn’t it?’ I wept. ‘You can’t be a real superhero without the spandex suit and the mask and the fucking cape! I promised her, I promised her. Why did I do that? Why?’

  ‘Don’t make the promise lightly, Gabriel.’ That’s what she’d said to me. ‘People can get hurt that way.’

  And then there was a comforting hand on my shoulder. Someone kneeling beside me, talking consolingly in a soft voice. ‘You kept your promise, Gabriel,’ Mephisto said. ‘You said you’d be there and you were.’

  ‘I was supposed to . . . save her . . . at the last moment—’

  ‘You’re not still comparing yourself to a superhero, are you?’ Mephisto asked. ‘You mustn’t do that, you know. After all, superheroes only ever fought super-villains, not angels. If nothing else, at least you were there for your friend when she needed you.’

  ‘But what difference does it make when she’s dead?’

  ‘All the difference, Gabriel.’

  ‘I should have taken her to a hospital myself.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have mattered. She’d still have died.’

  ‘How can I believe you?’ I asked, turning to look at him at last. ‘When all you’ve ever done is lie to me?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. There was the odd bit of truth in there sometimes, wasn’t there?’ he asked with a smile.

  He shouldn’t have been able to comfort me, he was a demon. But still, in that moment, I was grateful to him for trying.

  ‘You didn’t kill her, Gabriel,’ Mephisto said softly. ‘I know you quite enjoy blaming yourself. But not everything can be your fault all of the time. Sometimes God takes all the credit, I’m afraid. And maybe it’s for the best. Life is about pain. Death is about the end of pain.’

  My hands were so cold, up there at the top of the cathedral, so high above the city . . . To think that I had come here before and felt safe, closer to God . . . and now tragedy shrouded the icy cathedral, the bell was silent in its frozen tower, and bleak misery settled on me softly like ash - ash from the remnants of something that had once been so precious to me . . .

  ‘You must kill the child,’ Michael said firmly.

  ‘Yes,’ Mephistopheles agreed, standing up. ‘Throw her from the tower, Gabriel, and finish this.’

  ‘Don’t you mean throw them?’ I snapped, looking round to where the second baby was . . . or should have been. I froze, staring at the empty bloodstained coat she’d been wrapped in only minutes before. ‘Where’s—?’ I began, and then froze in horror as I saw Lilith dancing around on the wall once more, her black wings spread slightly, gazing down dreamily at Casey’s first daughter wrapped in her arms.

  Michael and Mephisto followed my gaze and I heard Michael’s sharp intake of breath. ‘There are two of them?’

  Mephisto swore softly under his breath. ‘Lilith,’ he began, taking a half-step towards her. ‘Please don’t do anything stupid.’

  I wanted to jump to my feet, run to Lilith and wrestle the baby back from her. But I forced myself to stay kneeling on the ground, somehow sensing that if I made any move towards her at all, she would leap from the wall, fly away, and I would never see that baby again. Michael, too, seemed to sense that the best chance of stopping Lilith was to let Mephisto talk to her, for he was still as a statue, the only movement coming from the steady dripping of blood from one of his wings.

  ‘Give her to me,’ Mephisto said softly. ‘She’s not one of yours.’

  Lilith looked at him sharply. ‘They’re all mine,’ she hissed. ‘All of them.’

  And then she stepped backwards off the edge of the wall. I was back on my feet with a cry of horror within moments, but in the seconds it took me to reach the wall, she and the baby had disappeared and I knew that Lilith had taken her back to her own realm. The guilt I already felt intensified so painfully that I was only dimly aware of Michael shouting at Mephisto behind me. My head was throbbing unbearably, like it was about to split open, and all I wanted was to crawl into some dark, silent place until this nightmare ended.

  ‘Shut up!’ I screamed, whirling back round to face Michael, who was still shouting unbearably loudly. ‘Shut up, shut up!’

  ‘Well said, Gabriel,’ Mephisto remarked mildly, looked quite unruffled by the angel’s anger.

  ‘How dare you speak to me like that!’ Michael snarled, looking very much like he wanted to hit me. I almost wished he would, for it would have given me an excuse to hit him back. But, of course, if he broke my neck, I wouldn’t be able to snap it back as Mephisto had done - and there was no way that I was going to let go of Casey’s second daughter, even for a moment.

  I was pleased to see that Michael’s wings were covered with streaks of slick scarlet blood, staining his white feathers and sticking them together where the blood had dried there. I inwardly applauded Mephisto for managing to physically hurt Michael. I hated that angel and I could only feel glad at the sight of him bleeding.

  ‘You must throw that thing from the tower as you should have thrown its twin!’ Michael snapped.

  ‘I will never—’ I began, pressing the baby closer to me.

  ‘Give her to me, then,’ Mephisto said. ‘I promise I’ll look after her, but not here. If I take her from this world, she won’t be able to destroy it. Trust me, Gabriel.’

  ‘No, you must give her to me,’ Michael insisted. ‘Demons already have one of them. It is only right that angels should have the other.’

  For a few moments, I gazed at the two angels, paralysed by an awful uncertainty, as if I were a child again myself. When I gazed up at the night sky, I thought I saw those shadowy outlines of angelic and demonic armies, no longer fighting each other . . . but simply staring down at me in silence from their ranks. Staring, staring, waiting . . . All this over one tiny little baby . . .

  I was taken aback by the savagery of the desire when it rose suddenly inside me, as I glanced down at the city so far below us, and felt the strong longing to follow Lilith. To fling myself from the top of God’s cathedral . . . He would not catch me, oh no, I knew that now . . .

  . . . Darkling I listen . . .

  But it hardly mattered when everything precious to me had been shattered, even my illusions . . .

  . . . and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful death . . .

  How I envied Casey the ease of her death! Why did no such release come for me? I didn’t want to do this any more. All there ever seemed to be was pain . . . Hadn’t I earned the right to die by now? I don’t know where it came from, or indeed whether anyone else heard it, or if it was ever even really there . . . but I’m sure I heard the sweet song of the nightingale there at the top of St Stephen’s Basilica, even as further verses from Keats’ ode to the bird flew unbidden through my mind:

  Now more than ever seems it rich to die . . .

  What was there for me here now anyway? Nicky and Luke were gone, and their loss seemed no less painful for the fact that they’d never been real to begin with - they had been real enough to me. And now Casey was gone as well . . . I was so tired of it all. I had tried; God knows I had tried to do the right thing. Casey was dead. I hadn’t killed h
er. This one at least was not on my shoulders. But what difference did it make? What difference did it make to Casey? The dry sob alarmed me and brought my mind back to reality and the two angels watching me and waiting, waiting for my decision . . . I couldn’t make it. I wasn’t fit to decide what was best for anyone, much less the entire world. I mean, Christ, if I made the wrong decision, that could lead to global apocalypse and I didn’t want that kind of guilt. Wasn’t it bad enough that I had spent my life murdering people for a living? I glanced again at the low wall round the edge of the tower.