Qualia

by Marie Browne

  Stretching like a man awakening from a very deep sleep Lucifer unfolded them, bringing them up as high as he could then snapping them downwards with a deep smile of pleasure. His little dusty worshipers jumped and span, flattening themselves against the floor only to leap high a moment later.

  I noticed that his shirt and boots had disappeared and, as he gripped the stone floor with his toes, the stones beneath the sand buckled and cracked.

  Without another word, he walked away from us into the darkness, wings spread wide, chest bare save for a slight sheen of sweat.

  ‘What do we do?’ Carly, after making sure Parity was all right, came and stood beside me.

  I shook my head – I had no idea. I don’t think any of us really thought we’d get this far and now that we had, well, what happened next was completely out of our control. We’d done exactly what we’d said we’d do. We’d unleashed Lucifer and brought him home. It didn’t really matter what he was going to do next because, quite frankly, this incredibly powerful ex-angel could do anything he damn well liked and there wasn’t a thing we could do about it.

  Belial, his wings wide, pushed us aside and headed for the doorway.

  ‘Father!’ Carly screamed. ‘Don’t!’

  Belial ignored her and, with sword drawn, rushed after Lucifer. He ended up across the passage, against the far wall, in a heap of smoke and feathers. His sword clattered to the floor; he had literally bounced off the darkness.

  ‘Embarrassing.’ Keril, finally warm enough to function again, stood beside Belial and reached down a hand to help him up.

  I pushed at the darkness –, it pushed back. Gently holding my fingers to the barrier, I stroked it, there seemed to be some give. Reaching for my knife, I concentrated hard then, pushing so gently I was hardly moving at all, I inserted the tip of the blade, pulled it downward and, using the knife to keep the long tear open, I stepped through.

  ‘Joe!’ Carly tried to follow me through the rip I’d created but was thrown into her father’s arms. Both hit the wall and down they went again in yet another pile of feathers.

  Farr regarded me from the other side of the barrier. ‘He’s done this on purpose, you know,’ he said. ‘It’s only ever you he talks to. It’s only ever you he needs a reaction from.’ He cocked his head to one side and regarded me curiously. ‘Why is that do you think?’

  I shook my head. I didn’t know why and I didn’t want to know. I could feel my memories beginning to crack every time I studied them. All I knew for certain was that the past was a place I did not want to revisit.

  ‘You be really, really careful in there,’ Keril said, joining Farr at the doorway.

  I still had the knife stuck in the darkness and, moving slowly, I reached back to take the large torch that Parity offered me. It seemed that it was only inanimate objects and me that the darkness would allow entry.

  ‘Well, thanks for that.’ I looked around at the group. They stood together like 15-year-old girls at their first disco, nervous and uncertain. Even Una was staring at me with a hopeful look.

  Twenty steps in and the torch was completely useless. All I could see were the stones beneath my feet – there was nothing else but darkness. The room through which I slowly walked was huge and empty. The space around me pressed down and I found myself having to deliberately place one foot in front of the other to keep moving. My brain was telling me to lie down and crawl.

  ‘Joe, thank God.’ A well-known voice whispered in my ear.

  ‘Metatron?’ I jumped and turned to find my ex-boss standing behind me.

  The little angel nodded. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Who?’ I knew full well “who”.

  ‘Lucifer’. Metatron was sweating, his eyes darting left and right as he peered into the absolute darkness.

  I shrugged. I really wasn’t sure what was going on. ‘In here somewhere, I expect.’

  ‘You’ve changed, Joe.’ Metatron peered up at me. ‘Really taken charge – and you’ve managed to get this far. I’m so proud of you.’ He gave me a huge smile. ‘I’m so sorry I had to do this to you but you had to do this of your own free will. But look on the bright side, you’ve paid your debt in full. You are completely free of sin.’ He paused, obviously waiting for me to start celebrating.

  Something didn’t feel right. ‘I haven’t done anything except run,’ I said.

  He laughed. ‘Oh, you’ve done far more than that.’ He put an arm around my shoulder. ‘Hell’s torn down, Belial’s back in the inner circles and Lucifer …’ He stared around at the darkness, ‘… well, he’s back where he’s supposed to be. Really, really well done. I knew I could rely on you.’

  I nodded. Well, that wasn’t really what I’d aimed for, but I supposed when it was put like that … I shook my head, a little nagging voice somewhere deep inside was telling me that all of this was way too convenient.

  ‘You tried to kill me. You sent Michael to kill me.’

  ‘No!’ The little angel laughed. ‘He’s a good actor though, isn’t he?’ Metatron smiled; his hand was still on my arm. ‘Michael’s job was to act as sheepdog. He needed to chase you through purgatory and get you over the river.’

  ‘Oh.’ I guess that sort of made sense …

  As I stood there in the darkness I had an image of Michael being attacked by goats; the way he’d dragged himself, battered and bruised away from Zephaniah’s god to chase down Belial; standing in the cathedral kicking Zephaniah as she lay on the ground in front of the altar. The wet thump as the head of that lad that had opened the door to him hit the floor, smoking and looking surprised. The look on Raphael’s face as he’d walked through the door.

  Metatron tightened his grip on my arm. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. You have a life to live now. What are you going to do first – now that it’s all over?’

  I looked down at him. His eyes had completely lost that maniacal glint I’d become accustomed to over the years. Indeed, he seemed relaxed and happy.

  I smiled back. ‘I honestly don’t know. I’ll have to think about it,’ I said.

  Metatron nodded and grinned. ‘Come on, we’ll think about it together.’ He turned and stepped back the way I’d come. ‘Come on,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘I have a really great single malt we can work our way through.’

  I laughed and moved to follow him. ‘Did you ever forgive him?’ I called toward his back.

  ‘Who?’ The angel glanced back over his shoulder.

  ‘God. For the whipping you received when that visitor to Heaven stated you must also be a deity.’

  ‘Oh yeah, of course.’ Metatron carried on walking. ‘That’s what we do: forgive.’

  As I stepped up behind him with my knife in my hand I felt a slight regret. It would have been so nice to just play along with the charade. If I’d lasted long enough I might have got that holiday to Hawaii I was always promising myself.

  As the blade slid smoothly into his back Metatron screamed. The scream continued on and on echoing around me until it just switched off. The sudden silence was unnerving.

  The impaled angel turned. The knife met no resistance, just seeming to cut through his body until, as he faced me, it was embedded in his chest. He looked down at the knife then up at me. He smiled. ‘It seems you know Him better than I these days.’ The figure before me began to fade until I was left standing alone, my knife in my hand.

  Silence and darkness. I continued forward; with no sort of landmark, I could only hope I was heading in the right direction.

  ‘What are you doing, Joe?’ A voice off to my left, gentle and questioning, made me jump. I twisted around and thrust the torch toward the sound. No movement – just motes of dust hanging in dead air. ‘Why is it always you they call upon to do their dirty work?’ The voice paused as though thinking and then continued. ‘But it’s not just theirs, is it?’ A low laugh. ‘It’s everybody’s.’

  I forced myself to keep walking, one slow, rhythmic foot in front of the other. Eyes fixed on the edge of th
e torchlight. ‘Keep counting.’ I whispered into the darkness, ‘1 … 2. 1 … 2 …’ I kept step to my counts – not too fast and not too slow. Just try to stay in a straight line.

  ‘Do you like being everyone’s lackey, Joe?’ The voice now came from my right. ‘Should we change your name to Igor?’ A laugh from behind me and a sibilant ‘Yeth mathter.’

  I concentrated on my steps.

  ‘Is it hard to think for yourself? Following orders all the time? The perfect little servant – lose one master and find another.’ The voice fell silent for a moment, then with a sigh continued. ‘It’s pathetic how much you need to be guided and controlled. Everything you’ve ever done was forced upon you by someone else and you love it.’

  ‘1 … 2. 1 … 2 …’

  ‘All that free will.’ Another voice, deeper and ahead of me. ‘Free will that you were allowed to keep – all of you disgusting creatures, you mud walkers, you fornicators, you hypocrites.’ The voice hardened and rose in volume. ‘Allowed – no, encouraged – to aspire and grow. Look at what you’ve managed to achieve, and in such a short time. Almost total destruction; everything you touch turns to shit and decay.’ The voice dropped away.

  I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt compressed and it took every ounce of willpower I had to just keep moving.

  ‘You have no master now, Joe. Even if that wasn’t Metatron you just skewered, you still severed any tenuous links to a relationship.’ A female voice right by my left ear made me jump and stop for a moment, but only a moment. I pressed on, my head pounding, my eyes burning from staring ahead into the pitch black. I could feel tears running in a continual stream down my cheeks. My heart seemed more sensible than I and, without permission, was working itself up into getaway frenzy. The darkness pressed ever closer, causing my circle of light to contract. I could feel its physical presence, like an oil slick, flowing around a small island. The pressure became painful.

  My knees buckled and I felt stone beneath my hands. As the torch rolled to a stop only inches away I felt the darkness pressing on my back – my own personal demon, deep, silent and uncaring. My chest heaved and I heard a sob. I wondered who was crying so hard.

  ‘Poor Joe.’ A child’s voice from just in front of me.

  I raised my gaze from the floor but there was nothing but darkness.

  ‘What will you do now? What will you do when you have to take responsibility for your own decisions – for your own actions? There’s no one to blame except yourself now.’ A pause. ‘Do you like it?’ The voice changed to an old man’s, querulous and hoarse. ‘It’s not good, is it, not as good as in the old days.’ Another pause. ‘I’ll do you a favour. I’ll take it all away and you can release yourself to my care. You won’t have to make a single decision. I can make you do such things and you won’t have to take responsibility for any of them – just do them in my name.’

  I had a huge lump in my throat and couldn’t swallow. My eyes were glued shut. The effort to even try and open them was just too much.

  ‘Metatron made a mistake when he gave his own power to you.’ The voice drifted to my left. ‘You’re so scared; all that power and you don’t use it. You don’t need me, you could take him on all by yourself. Let me teach you how.’

  I felt stone on my forehead, then the same cold on my chest and thighs as I lay down and just listened to the offer.

  ‘Work with me and think of all you can do. You know what it would take for humans to properly grow – to give up their vicious ways. All you would have to do is tell them how. You could be in charge and I can guide you. They’ll bow down to you and you bow down to me. Everyone’s happy.’

  It was a good offer; just do as I’m told and life would be easy. I liked an easy life – it was all I’d ever wanted. I hated having no direction; I could never be sure if what I was doing was right – better to leave the decisions to those greater than I. The darkness put its boot between my shoulders and pressed me to the floor. I smiled.

  ‘We’ll do wonders, you and I.’ The old man was gone, replaced by someone young and vibrant, sexless and enthusiastic. ‘We don’t even need the humans to obey. Together we’ll rid the world of its parasites and start again. This time we’ll do it right and you’ll be there at the beginning, watching me wipe out the old and you’ll be there to welcome the new!’

  I nodded. He was right of course. ‘Yes, Metatron.’

  ‘No!’ Pain lanced through my shoulder down my spine. I screamed then hugged the floor again. ‘I think we need to start with the basics. That angel, that secretary, that unimaginative pawn.’ The words were spat into my face. ‘He will be your first target. You can make him scream – I can give you that whip that God used on him. After I’ve finished with him there will be nothing left to name. We’ll wipe it from everyone’s lips – his name will be proscribed. You of all people should understand how that feels.’

  I tried to hang on to the hazy aftermath of my discipline. I deserved it; I deserved more. I tried so hard to agree. I nodded and sank flatter onto the stones, abasing myself, trying desperately to keep my inner eye away from the sickening mental image I had of myself, prostrate in front of yet another psychotic angel that wanted to use me as a weapon.

  Lucifer was right: I really had no willpower at all, but – try as I might – I just couldn’t seem to get into that master-servant role that I so desperately thought I needed. I tried to imagine my life as he described it: adored and worshiped. Well, that would be nice. The faces of all those I knew stared at me. Carly, no fight left, would just do as she was told – she’d never twist my ear again. Keril, I could get Arden and Alice back for him, re-create their old world somewhere. They’d be happy, they’d never need to work or worry. I almost laughed as I imagined the Drekavak’s reaction if I made that sort of suggestion. Michael, prostrate before me and Raphael … In my mind’s eye he just looked disappointed.

  No, this was never going to work. It all sounded good in theory, but in the end, if I followed this path, I’d be alone – unloved and despised … I’d be Metatron.

  The darkness lifted from my back and, sighing, I stood up. Dusting myself off I reached down for the torch. I was in a dark room – a dark, dusty room – and quite frankly I was sick of it. I was sick of my life; I was sick of being used and there was nothing – nothing – that Lucifer could do to punish me that was worse than what he’d just offered as a reward.

  I looked around at my little ball of light – the only thing keeping the darkness at bay. Looking back over my shoulder I couldn’t see the door beyond the torchlight, but I hoped that Carly could see me. I blew her a kiss then, taking a deep breath, turned the torch off. Let the darkness come; let him do to me as he would. I just didn’t care any more, but I wasn’t going to be used again. ‘Thank you, but no,’ I spoke calmly into the void.

  I stood in the darkness and waited. There was no pressure, no voices and no hope.

  Ahead of me a figure appeared, tall wings reaching toward the unseen ceiling. Lucifer sat on the fabled tourmaline throne and studied me. The light increased and I could finally see the whole room; it really wasn’t that big at all. About 30 square foot, a chunky, dusty cave, every surface showing vertical ridges where tools had cut deep into the rock. I studied the crystal formation and decided that I was wrong. The cave was natural – every surface black tourmaline; the ridges were a natural property of the crystal.

  In the very centre of the cave, a huge black block thrust in blunt hexagons toward the ceiling. Lucifer sat, as though on a comfortable sofa, staring at me from a vast seat, worn shining and slick from unimaginable eons of use.

  He nodded and raised an angular eyebrow at me. ‘Man has changed.’ He gave a small shake of his head. ‘No, scratch that, man hasn’t changed at all.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘But you have.’ He smiled – the first real smile I’d seen since I dragged Graham Latimer down from his crucifix in Metatron’s office. ‘Somewhere over the last huge number of years you’ve managed to pick up a spine from somewher
e.’ He laughed. ‘Did you steal it or did you grow your own?’

  ‘Flat pack from Spines-R-Us.’ I wasn’t going down in silence.

  He laughed. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Lucifer, Morning Star, The Antichrist, Lord of Lies actually managed to look a little regretful. ‘I don’t really need you. I’ll still change the world and I have the horrible feeling that you might just be the one thing that could stand in my way.’ He stood up and stretched. ‘I genuinely like you, Joe and I really don’t want to get rid of you. We had some good times together.’ He gave an elegant shrug. ‘But there you go, choices, choices – and you don’t remember them anyway.’ He stretched again. ‘There has to be a balance, but if it’s going to tip one way or the other, I want to make sure everything goes my way.’

  Reaching over my shoulder I pulled out my knife. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. The weapon hummed in my hand. This was the knife that Metatron hoped would annihilate Lucifer. I hesitated. If I went through with this, would I be doing Heaven’s will or Metatron’s, or Lucifer’s, or just mine? They seemed to have become all mixed together.

  Lucifer moved so fast. Before I even had the knife fully in my hand, he had captured my wrist and twisted hard; the knife flipped out of my hand and careered across the floor. I watched as it bounced and clattered, cartwheeling and rolling, changing direction as it hit every lump and bump on the ground.

  ‘Sorry, I really don’t want that thing anywhere near me.’ He frowned. ‘You, on the other hand, are susceptible to all sorts of methods of murder and, despite any recuperative powers that Metatron imposed upon you, this time, I don’t think you’ll be coming back.’ He stretched out a hand toward me.

  My mind a complete blank, I shut my eyes and waited. I wouldn’t even dare to hope that he might not be able to do what he promised. I just hoped that whatever came next was over quickly and my future existence was dark and quiet. I waited for the end … I waited and waited. Eventually I got bored and cracked open one eye wondering why nothing had happened.