by Rebecca Lim
K’el gazes at me with his liquid gold, burning eyes, and I see something at war within him. He wants to tell me; but something — some stricture, some pronouncement, some fatal consequence — prevents him. And he’s struggling with it.
But my bewilderment, my absolute sorrow, is genuine, and his gaze softens, though his hand upon me remains like iron. ‘Once friends, yes, though in time I almost came to … hate you and was glad when you … left us.’
I frown at his words, the things left unsaid in the pauses, and he adds softly, ‘I see that you don’t understand, don’t even remember that day. Nothing’s ever been the same, for any of us, since then, did you know that?’ He leans forward and smooths a strand of long hair out of my eyes, so gently that I barely feel his touch. ‘It’s better this way. There’s nothing in that memory for you but grief, and it’s best if …’
His voice falters, and I see that he’s trying to say the right thing, choose the right words, the less hurtful words.
‘It’s better this way,’ he repeats more firmly, gripping my narrow shoulders. ‘You don’t want to remember what happened. It would only destroy you all over again.’
I find myself trembling, and K’el’s fingers tighten on me as if he’d like to pull me close. ‘Luc’s no good for you, he’s never been good enough,’ he murmurs, looking down into my upturned face with his glorious eyes.
I close mine, thinking he will wrap his arms around me at last. But then he gives a small, hard laugh and lets go of me, almost pushing me away.
‘And that’s got to be the understatement of all time,’ he snarls. ‘But you’ve always had this ability to … unsettle me and I see that you haven’t lost that power. I came here to warn you. That’s what I’m here for.’ His tone is self-mocking.
Feeling strangely bereft, I wail, ‘But I still don’t understand what I did wrong! Why was I cast out?’
K’el’s beautiful mouth twists a little and he paces away, as if standing too close to me might be dangerous. ‘You did nothing but fall in love with the wrong one,’ he says, suddenly refusing to meet my eyes. ‘You picked Luc when you should have picked … Raphael. Well, that’s the accepted wisdom, anyway.’ His voice is bitter.
I recoil at his words. ‘That’s it? For something so simple I was … banished?’
He hesitates. I can see him struggling for the right words, the right way to frame an explanation I’ve waited aeons to hear.
‘You were guilty of being young and overly … malleable,’ he says finally. ‘You let passion be your guiding principle. You let Luc twist you, let him change your character from everything that was light — all the bright, good things that were in you from the moment you were first created — to a creature motivated by cruelty, perversity, vanity, the principles of pleasure without thought or care of repercussion. Together, you and Luc were a divisive force, and so destructive. More devastating even than life forms like these.’ He gestures at my human face, my human shape, dismissively. ‘Raphael would have been a more fitting companion for someone as high-spirited, as strong-willed, curious and questioning, as you were,’ he says, his eyes never leaving mine for a moment. ‘He would have strengthened you in beauty, in wisdom, in compassion, in every way that matters. Any one of us would have been a better match for you than Luc. Even me.’ His mouth twists again.
I feel my face flush with angry blood. As if alone I was nothing. I was only something when I was someone’s companion, someone’s consort.
‘The heart will have only what it wants,’ I spit. ‘And so I was judged and cast out because I was young and foolish? Because I chose the wrong one?’
My voice flies up the scale, breaking on the words, and K’el’s eyes darken with something like disgust.
‘Not for us, that “lifelong partnership” that’s said to unite mortal woman and mortal man in heart, in mind, in body. We are elohim, Mercy. We were created first among angels; first among all things that were created. Some of us were sworn to protect the holy throne; some to govern the order of the universe and all life within its boundaries; some to bear witness, to keep history, to mark the passage of time; some to fill the skies with glory, to sing praise even when there seems little reason to do so. Everything in its place, or else it is chaos. It is our creed.’
For a single, disorientating moment I’m Lela Neill again, hearing Sulaiman/Gabriel telling me the same thing, and I feel the same fury. Know your place. What kind of stupid creed is that?
K’el’s voice is low, almost menacing. ‘We were created to maintain control, not surrender it. You were so far out of line that you threatened us all.’
‘Ah yes, the “line”,’ I say bitterly, staring at my feet with strangely stinging eyes.
I’m feeling a strong sense of déjà vu, as if I’ve been admonished in just this way before. By K’el, by others.
‘You’re all the same,’ I snap. ‘And you wonder why I chose Luc over any of you?’
K’el moves closer almost reluctantly, tilting my chin up to draw my gaze back to him, his eyes curiously intent. ‘We’re not supposed to love just one other, to the exclusion of everything else — duty, fellowship, faith, principle. We are love — for each other, for all things. An impartial love, it’s true; we can’t hope to do anything more than maintain a rough equilibrium.’ His eyes flash and there’s something like loathing again in his expression.
‘You changed everything,’ he says accusingly. ‘When you saw Luc for the first time, things were never the same again.’
‘And yet everything changes, everything evolves,’ I argue hopelessly. ‘Why should we remain forever rigid and unchanging when even the universe itself does not? Nowhere is it written that it’s a crime for one such as I was to fall in love!’
‘Yet we were created to be eternal and perfect and changeless.’ K’el’s voice is bitter. ‘You never would have looked at me, at any of us, the way you looked at him. You were obsessed. As he was with you.’
I close my eyes briefly, feeling Irina’s face flame in memory of the way we were together, Luc and I. Like two suns colliding. Who wouldn’t want a love like that? Who couldn’t survive on the embers of such a love, for centuries, if one had to?
So they’d all thought Luc was wrong for me, that together we were a colossal, destructive mistake. And no one had ever told me. They’d just arranged for me to be summarily removed from everything I’d ever known, because I’d become inconvenient and embarrassing, not quite up to par.
‘So I was exiled by committee, with no recourse to anyone? Given no avenue of appeal? I had no chance to defend myself before you cast me out!’ I cry.
K’el’s gaze is troubled as he replies slowly, ‘That’s not the way it happened; don’t go putting words into my mouth. What’s happened to you — the way we have been forced to keep you hidden — was born of necessity. It was the best we could do, given the circumstances — can’t you understand that?’ There’s another odd pause. ‘Luc knew of our disquiet. And he chose not to tell you. Instead, he isolated you, kept you away from us deliberately. What does that say about him?’
For a second, I’m pierced by a vision of Luc and me entwined in each other’s arms within a living bower of flowers, the air heavy with the fragrance of a thousand different blooms that no human hand could possibly have put together. It was our place, our world, the hanging garden he created for me alone. Dust now, ashes.
‘It wouldn’t have changed anything,’ I answer in grief, in defiance. ‘I wouldn’t have given up a second I spent by Luc’s side. He’s what’s sustained me, all this time, in the wilderness that is this earth. My only true friend, my constant companion.’
K’el’s lip curls as he crushes my upper arms so tightly in his hands that I gasp out loud.
‘Then, foolish creature,’ he roars, and his voice has a steely, ringing edge to it, ‘you do not need an explanation for this eternity of drifting — in which you claim you’ve had no friends, no sustenance, no support of any kind. In making your ch
oice, you damned yourself to countless lifetimes of human misery. Your fault, all of it. Free will — that thing you hold in such sacred regard — always comes at a price.’
He raises his right hand, glaring at me with his preternatural lion eyes, and I’m suddenly very afraid, remembering that our kind may only kill and be killed by each other.
As if he’s reading my thoughts, K’el gives a bitter laugh and rakes his tawny hair with his gleaming upraised hand before letting it fall harmlessly to his side.
‘Many times over the years I’ve wished you dead, if only to throw the burden of you off my back. You’ve been a millstone about the neck of many, Mercy. I will not lie. For each life you “live”, one of us must watch over you — as though we have nothing better to do than witness you blundering through the human world, stirring echoes enough for Luc to follow. I wanted to forget you, more than anything. But I haven’t been permitted to do so.’ He scowls. ‘You were dangerous then, and you’re even more dangerous now, only you don’t know why. But I didn’t come here today to destroy you.’
He looks away, then back at me. ‘Michael’s on his way, but he’s been … delayed. He sent a messenger, one of the malakhim — though a malakh unlike any I’ve encountered before, one that was strangely weak and formless. I was asked to deliver Michael’s message to you, in person. And that’s never happened before, Mercy; do you appreciate the seriousness of the moment? Even while we stand here, idly conversing on this city street, the game plan is changing all around us. In life after life, the one whose task it is to watch over you has never been allowed to reveal themselves to you. But here we are, face-to-face, on Michael’s orders. These are interesting times, are they not?’
I don’t tell K’el that the rule has been broken before, and recently. By Uriel — who’d appeared to me when I was Carmen. By Gabriel — who’d appeared to me when I was Lela. One law for the lion. Though even amongst lions, it seems equality is in scarce supply.
‘Interesting times indeed,’ I reply more coolly than I’m feeling. ‘And the message?’ After all this time, Michael himself — the Viceroy of Heaven, the Commander of the Army of God — has a message … for me? There’s a sudden tight feeling in my chest, a terrible anticipation.
K’el’s face is grim. ‘His message? Not all of the Eight will be gathered here before Luc arrives. But as many of us as are able will keep you from Luc, or die trying, and that is no lie. Whatever you do, do not touch Luc, do not go to him, do not go with him, or allow yourself to be taken by his forces. I cannot speak more plainly than that. Everything turns on it.’
‘Or what? What happens?’ I ask, still strangely breathless.
‘Hell happens,’ K’el says, so quietly that I think I must have misheard him, until he adds, ‘Everywhere. Not just on earth. Everywhere.’
I frown, unable to process what I’m hearing. From what I’m able to recall, Hell is a place for unruly souls who don’t pass Azraeil’s test for admittance to the sweet hereafter. It’s a way station for the imperfect, a holding pen for those without the right stuff.
‘Who cares if Hell happens?’ I say slowly. ‘The ghosts of the mortal dead would hardly pose a threat to any of us. They’re just light and shade, fragments of emotion and memory that have become stuck in an endless fugue and refuse to die.’
K’el is silent for a long time and though he’s close enough to touch, he seems very far away. ‘Things have changed a lot since you’ve been … gone,’ he replies finally. ‘These days, Hell is run by the Devil and his legion, the daemonium. At its core is his lethal personal guard of one hundred demons; every single one of them beautiful, evil and more powerful than you would believe possible. Our opposites, both in attitude and appetite. We maintain, they destroy. That’s roughly how it works. The defining difference between us and them is that the Devil and his lieutenants permit themselves the act of … creation.’
My eyes widen at his words and K’el nods.
‘Yes,’ he says softly. ‘The creation of new “life”. Something we are forbidden to do; it is the right of only one, the maker of us all. Yet they,’ K’el seems to shudder, ‘create such monstrous parodies of life that we …’ His voice dies away. ‘We elohim may outnumber the Devil and his strongest demons something like nine to one, but some days it feels as if the daemonium may yet overwhelm us all.’
I rack my brain for what little I know of Hell and the Devil.
‘Do they really exist?’ I challenge. ‘To the living here on earth, Hell is more a figure of speech these days, a curse word: Hell yes, Hell no. And “the Devil”? Is he even real? When the universe was young, we were there, but no “Devil”, no “demons”.
‘Isn’t the Devil just a figure made up to frighten small children?’ I say. ‘Just a name, a concept, something folkloric, not real?’
K’el’s reply is sharp and swift. ‘The way most mortals think of us, you mean?’
‘Isn’t “the Devil” just a convenient name for the very darkest aspects of human nature?’ I insist stubbornly. ‘Something to pin the unimaginable upon?’
K’el sighs. ‘If that’s what you believe, then you’ve been too long on this earth — as the Devil himself has been. He was banished not long after you left us, and confined to this world as eternal punishment, together with one hundred of our number —’
‘Those demons you spoke of,’ I interrupt, comprehension dawning. ‘The very strongest daemonium? They were once elohim? Archangels?’
K’el nods. ‘The self-same hundred who chose loyalty to the Devil over a place in Heaven. Finding resistance on earth, but no resistance in Hell, the Devil set up his “kingdom” there with the help of his faithful. Together they built a legion of daemonium — not born of light, as we were, but of absolute evil. But the Devil longs for dominion over the world of the living, too, and you see the results of his dark longings in “the news”, daily. For what use is an army without an empire? Moment by moment, his reach grows longer, his power greater. The underworld is no longer enough for the Devil; he must march on the overworld, this world, and at long last, make it his.’
K’el spreads his arms wide to indicate the bleak city street we are standing in, the frozen figures of the men behind us. For a split second, I recall that terrible dream in which I glimpsed a jumble of technicolour horrors — human wars without number, acts of genocidal madness, death on a scale so large that I gasp, ‘Someone is actually responsible for those things?’
K’el’s voice is sombre. ‘The Devil both rules and emanates that which mortals call “Hell”. You’re right in saying that when we were made, there was no “Devil”, no “demons”. But neither were there unquiet spirits, fell creatures, monstrous things, events, catastrophes, wars. These came after us. Now there’s more evil on this earth than there are elohim or malakhim to deal with it. Those tormented fragments of memory and emotion, light and shade you speak of? They may be manipulated and controlled, used to create an army both animate and foul. And I’ve seen it. It exists.’
I know Irina’s eyes are suddenly huge in her pale face. ‘But why?’ I mutter. ‘Why would such a thing even be … necessary?’
‘Let’s put it in human terms you’ll understand,’ K’el says impatiently. ‘The Devil and his legion are bent on a “hostile takeover” not only of this realm, but of Heaven itself. Which, of course, has always been the goal.’
‘But what does the Devil have to do with me?’ I whisper, feeling strangely fearful.
K’el looks at me with great sadness in his eyes. ‘I’ve told you all I know. It’s up to you to put the rest together, if you dare. But be careful what you wish for. You don’t want that missing puzzle piece. Take it from me.’
‘Have you ever considered that this elaborate plan that Raphael came up with for me is just a form of revenge?’ I say quietly. ‘Just payback for me choosing Luc over him in the first place?’
K’el steps back from me in dismay. ‘Over centuries, over millennia, it has taken all Eight — physically
gathered together — to wrestle your rebellious energy into each and every one of the human vessels we have procured for you. And every time Raphael has argued that you have learnt your lesson, that there must be some other, kinder, gentler way to protect you from Luc that will not involve twisting you out of true. And now Raphael — who loved you best, who only wanted your happiness — is missing. Taken while on his way to meet the others, taken before he could help them place you inside the body of a young woman called Irina Zhivanevskaya …’
I recoil in disbelief. ‘But there are few as powerful as Raphael in all of creation. How could he be taken?’
‘Believe it,’ K’el retorts, eyes flashing. ‘He was taken almost the instant Gabriel drew you forth from the dying body of Lela Neill and called the others here to Milan to meet with him. But Raphael never arrived, and the others could not wait; for when you aren’t coiled like a sleeping serpent inside the body of a human host, your spirit is like a beacon: detectable to those who know how to look for it. And not only is Raphael missing, but Selaphiel, too — gentle Selaphiel, the most unworldly of us, concerned only with the mysteries of creation, the regulation of the stars, suns, moons, planets. He vanished almost a year ago — taken just before you were placed inside a mortal woman called Ezra. For countless years, it has taken the might and power of all eight to hide you, though it’s only ever taken one to draw you out again. But now, now there are only six to do the work of eight …’
Ezra. The girl who’d fled an abusive marriage and changed her name. The one who came before Susannah, Lucy, Carmen, Lela. I realise now that I must have begun to awaken when I was her, because memories suddenly return: of me throwing her things into a car and driving away in the dead of night, the mark of her husband’s fists upon her face. I must have these memories of Ezra because there were just seven to place me into her life and her body, instead of eight. And now there are only six, and I suddenly find myself able to speak Spanish and Russian, when before I could recall speaking only English. And Latin — the language of empire builders, slave masters, ecclesiasts.