by Kim Wilkins
“Rise, then, Anne. I shall perform the magic.”
Rise? She knew she could not stand. Her knees would buckle underneath her the instant he touched the hem of her skirts.
“I do not wish to stand,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “What if the cure upsets my balance and I fall?”
“I do not think you will —”
“I shall lie back,” she said quickly. “I shall lie back and you shall perform the magic while I watch the stars.”
He bowed his head. “As you wish it, Anne.”
She lay back stiffly. The grass was cool beneath her, the cloudy sky dull white above, stars glimmered through clear patches. She could see drops of rain clinging to leaves.
“Forgive me,” he said quietly as he lay next to her and his hands moved to her skirt. “Forgive me, Anne, for this indignity.”
She tried to speak, to reassure him, but could not. Language had failed her. Instead she let her eyes drift heavenwards. She felt her skirt inching further and further up her leg, felt his warm fingers brush her skin accidentally. Her body was consumed by a twitching, pulling feeling, and she shivered deeply.
“Are you cold, my Anne?” Then before she could answer. “It won’t take long.”
But how long would it take? He seemed to be relishing the slow advance of her dress up towards her thighs. Did he move so slowly so as not to startle her? It was unbearable. His hand pressed under her waist, lifting her gently so he could clear her skirts from beneath her. Although she kept her eyes fixed steadfastly on the clouds, she knew that she was now exposed below the waist, that her most private place was open to the summer breeze, to the drizzling clouds and the pale stars, to the angel’s eyes.
“Please, do not feel embarrassed,” he said. Embarrassment? No, this was the most liberating, thrilling sensation she had known. Again, he lingered. His fingers spread unhurriedly across her hip, pressing into the side of her buttock. She realised she had not breathed a few moments, and took a breath which shuddered down into her lungs like the foundations of a building quake when the earth trembles.
“I must administer the magic now,” he said softly.
“Yes,” she managed to say, but it came out sounding like a breath of desperation.
“Here, Anne.” His hot mouth was on her skin, his fingers pressed firmly as if to hold her down should she startle and try to escape. For twelve feverish seconds his lips rested upon her hip, then he pulled away. Her centre had moved. Everything — pulse, thoughts, breath — emanated from between her legs. She waited for him to sit up and move away, waited for the awful cold tug of his relinquished touch. But he did not move. He lay next to her still, not touching her. Her lower body was still exposed to the elements. To her surprise, he groaned softly.
“Oh, Anne. Anne.”
“What is it? Are you ill?”
“It is like a sickness, but I am in no danger of dying. I feel something, Anne. Something I should not feel.”
“What do you feel?” Her heart hammered in her chest.
“I cannot.”
“Please. Tell me. I shall die.”
Once again his warm hand was cupping her hip. His other pressed the grass on the right side of her body. His arm rested right over her quim. A warm looseness began to open up inside her. “Please,” she said.
“I cannot love you for I am an angel.”
He loved her? She could not speak.
“I cannot love you,” he said again, more forcefully, raising his body up on his hands and covering her side with his, “because I am an angel.”
Speak. Speak. Say something. He will think you do not care. The words, the words he had freed with his kiss so many months ago, came to the surface as though they had always been fated to be spoken. “I care not if you are angel or man. I would have you love me.”
“Do not trifle with me, Anne.” He sounded so stern, so harsh. She was almost afraid.
“I do not. It is true. For I have loved you as long as I have known you. And if you love me in return, then there is no impediment to our cause. We shall love each other.”
“Anne, Anne.” His lips descended and she was awash in kisses. She pressed her face to his fervently, felt his hands moving upon her body and did not care. For he loved her. He loved her! His fingers reached her core and passion exploded inside her. “May I, may I?” he said over and over, a little boy’s voice, importunate, soft.
“You may do with me whatever you wish,” she said, and she meant it so passionately that she repeated it. “Whatever you wish.”
She heard the sounds of his clothes being removed, and she did not care. She wished for the whole world to see as she opened herself to him, as he entered her with his hard, ample prick. She wished for her Father and Betty and her sisters and all the guests at the party to gather around and witness her love, his love, their love.
Together as they were meant to be.
Eyes aching and hands cramped from writing in the candlelight, Deborah finally put aside Father’s manuscript and decided to sleep. The party still continued downstairs, though it was deep into the night. She had heard the toll for two o’clock a short while ago, and still Father played the harpsichord downstairs. His elevated spirits, she knew, proceeded from his delight with the newly rewritten parts of his poem. If only she could feel happy for him, and not fearful that he was being used by Lazodeus.
She massaged her fingers against each other. Footsteps approached from the staircase. Mary finally coming to bed. She got up and peered out of the closet. Anne was bent over her dresser, pulling a nightdress from the drawer.
“Anne?” she said, surprised. Where was her uneven gait? Coming up the stairs, her feet had sounded as regular as her sister’s.
Anne turned around. She was flushed, her hair was loose and flowing around her shoulders. “Sister,” she said, “you startled me. Good evening.”
“Good morning, more like. Have you been enjoying the party?” Deborah felt her eyes drawn to Anne’s feet, but she would not move them.
“I am tired and wish to sleep,” Anne said, not meeting her eye.
“Go to bed, then.”
“I shall. Why are you watching me?”
“Can I not watch my sister?”
“I feel you are suspicious of me.”
Moments ticked by and neither of them moved. Finally, Deborah said, “I heard you, Anne. I heard you come up the stairs.”
Anne threw her hands in the air. “Very well! Very well, look you.” She strode, unimpeded, from one side of the room to the other. “You were right, are you satisfied?”
“Oh, Annie,” Deborah said, leaving her closet and moving towards her sister. “What have you done?”
“What business is it of yours what I have done?” Anne said, surprising Deborah with her vehemence. “Yes, I can walk now, see. I can run, I can skip, I can twirl …” She demonstrated to Deborah with a neat pirouette. “And I know you know how it came about, and I don’t care that you know. I don’t care for your opinion or anyone else’s any more.” She cast her eyes down. “Though I shall fain my limp around Father and Betty a while longer. They will ask difficult questions otherwise.”
“You ask me why I care, why it is my business?” Deborah said. “I care because I fear that the angel may want to harm our family.”
“Harm us!” Anne strode over and grabbed Deborah by the shoulders, her voice dropping to a vicious whisper. “You know nothing of him, Deborah. You know nothing.”
Deborah felt her blood grow hot. “I know more of him than you do.”
“You do not.”
“I suppose you love him. I suppose, like Mary, you have lost your silly heart to him.”
Anne released Deborah’s shoulders and flung her hands in the air. “Do not speak about love, thus, as though it were a trifle. And do not compare me to Mary. She is fickle, I am constant, and I am the one the angel loves.”
Deborah shook her head. “No, Annie, no. He has not said he loves you, surely?”<
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“Yes, he has, though I shall beat you if you mention it to Mary.”
“He says it to manipulate you. He says it so that he may make you do things which are not in your nature to do.”
“How dare you suggest it? Are you so jealous that finally somebody loves me? Loves me enough to help me walk and talk, when everyone else has only jeers and scorn for me?”
“But, Anne, already he persuaded you to harm the exorcist —”
“Who was trying to kill my angel!” Anne cried. “Do you not see?”
“Do you not see? For I have seen, I have seen something which terrifies me and …” She trailed off. Perhaps this was the wrong way to tell Anne about Lazodeus and the meeting with Lucifer she had witnessed. Not in anger. Not in a fight. Anne would hold it against her, refuse to believe her.
“What, what are you about to say?”
“Anne, do not trust him.”
“It is you I no longer trust, Deborah.”
“I have seen things …”
“Then tell me what things you have seen.”
Deborah took a deep breath. She could not let this love between her sister and the angel develop any further. “Lazodeus gave me a scrying mirror, long ago. ’Twas his attempt to win my favour. I have lately learned how to turn it upon him. While watching him —”
“You have spied on Lazodeus?” Anne had drained of colour, and Deborah felt a fear grip her heart. What was her sister afraid Deborah had seen? How far had she taken the expression of her love with the angel?
“Why does it bother you so?”
“Because … because …”
“Are you in so deep, Anne, that you wish me not to see you with him?”
“It is private.”
“I have not spied on you,” Deborah said evenly.
“Then what have you seen which makes you so vexed?”
Deborah quickly explained the scene she had witnessed, all the while feeling her heart sink. For Anne shook her head rapidly throughout the whole story.
“No, Deborah, you lie.”
“I do not lie.”
“Then you are mistaken.” Anne’s expression clearly said that she still believed Deborah lied.
“Anne, what cause would I have to fabricate this story?”
“I know not. Jealousy, mischief, revenge.”
“Revenge? For what?”
“I know not, Deborah. All I know is that I no longer trust you. You told neither Mary nor me about your demon key, you learn secret arts from somewhere and keep it all hidden from us. Your motives are a mystery.”
“I shall show you, then!” Deborah cried. Her voice was shrill with weariness and frustration. “I shall get my mirror and show you.” She knew it was madness. The possibility of Lazodeus meeting once again with Lucifer was surely nil. But if luck were on her side, she would overhear him speaking with another angel, or see him making a plan, or something which would incriminate him.
“Very well, I shall see this magic mirror,” Anne said, “but I am confident you will not prove to me his untrustworthiness.”
Deborah hesitated. Of course, if Anne saw something she didn’t like she would simply say it was a magic trick. “Perhaps not …”
“Oh? You change your mind so quickly? Did you not think I would say yes?”
Deborah shook her head. “Wait here. I shall fetch the mirror.” While Anne waited, Deborah returned to her closet. She found the mirror and the trencher she had used previously. On her return to the bedroom, she filled the trencher from a jug on the dresser and plunged the mirror into it.
“Come here, Anne,” Deborah said, lying the trencher on the dresser.
Anne joined her. “Go on, then.”
Deborah passed her hand over the mirror. “Show me Lazodeus in mortal form.”
The picture formed and Deborah heard Anne gasp. Lazodeus sat with two other angels — neither as beautiful as him, but still far beyond the mortal notion of beauty — around a stone table. The pale, ghostly shape of a great building rose up behind, and the dark maze-like streets sprouted in all directions around them. The place where they sat was an open area, like a market place or agora.
“Can he see us?” Anne asked.
“No, I have the mirror in water to cloak my viewing.” Deborah passed a hand over the water once more, this time her fingers were trembling. “Let me hear what he says.” They were conversing. Deborah’s breath caught in her throat; she willed him to mention his bargain to the other angels.
“… for I do not believe it is possible,” one of the angels was saying.
“I believe it is and I shall show you,” Lazodeus replied.
“When?”
“When I am not so drunk on happiness.”
Anne took a deep breath. “He is drunk on happiness, Deborah. You see? I was right.”
Deborah turned to her sister. “What do you mean? How do you know of what he speaks?” The voices continued from the bowl of water, idle chatter and boasting.
Anne smiled shyly. “He has just been with me.”
“You were at the party.”
“Indeed I was not. I was in the park. We …” She trailed off.
Deborah was horrified. “Anne, what have you done?”
Anne shook her head. “Your experiment has failed, has it not?”
“We shall listen further.” Deborah bent her head once more to the scrying mirror, but it soon became apparent that Lazodeus was merely indulging in the equivalent of mortal drunken revelry. His friends were speaking now, and he sat silent listening. They spoke of angels with names she had never heard, they spoke of places they had visited, and nobody mentioned a word about Lazodeus’s arrangement with Lucifer.
“Deborah, I feel disloyal spying on him,” Anne said after a few minutes.
“If we wait and listen —”
“What? Listen until he says something you may construe as harmful to us?”
“But Anne, I swear to you —”
“Be careful what you swear, sister, for you may find you poison old bonds of love.” Anne looked away, arms folded in front of her chest.
“Anne, you don’t mean it. Haven’t we always been close? Haven’t I always stood by you?”
“You try my patience. With your magic mirror and your false accusations.”
“It is truth, Anne. This is an instrument of truth.”
“It is an instrument of lies, of disloyalty, of your jealousy and your will to control me.” Anne flung her hand out and upended the dish. The mirror clattered to the floor. “There, I hope your stupid mirror is broken into a million pieces.”
“It cannot break for it is magic.” Deborah picked the mirror up, realised too late that the water was no longer covering it. Lazodeus’s head jerked up, and suddenly he was looking back at her from the glass with an expression of sneering rage. She made a quick move to pass her hand over it, but before she could it exploded in a flurry of silvery shards. She shielded her face from the flying glass, and felt the sharp slivers graze her fingers and wrists.
“Magic? Unbreakable? I think not.”
“Anne, you must understand —”
“I shall call Liza to sweep up the mess. Take yourself to bed, sister, I am listening to you no more.” Anne flounced out, slamming the door behind her.
Deborah sat a few bewildered moments amongst the debris of the mirror. A little blood trickled down her wrist and on to the floor. Lazodeus had seen her spying on him. Did he suspect how much she knew?
And if he did … There could no longer be any doubt that they were enemies.
17
Growing Up to Godhead
“Have you brought the demon key?” Amelia was eager to see her, standing at the front door with a cat cradled over her shoulder.
“Yes. But I need your help with a matter of urgency.” Deborah followed her inside. The normally tidy house was messy and smelled of cats.
“Gisela is away until Wednesday,” Amelia said in explanation.
“Oh.�
�� Deborah had always thought that the lovely smell and inviting surfaces were something inherent about Amelia. Not so. She brushed cat hair off a cushion and sat down.
“Let me see the key.”
Deborah reluctantly pulled the chain over her head and handed it over to Amelia. If she wanted Amelia’s help against Lazodeus, she had to share the demon key’s new power.
Amelia’s fingers closed over the bar of tarnished metal. “Oh, yes. I feel it already. Leave it in my keeping for a few weeks, Deborah. I shall experiment with it and then return it to you.”
“But —”
“If not for me, you would not have it in the first place,” she snapped, laying the chain and the key carefully on a dusty chest nearby. “And so, what help do you need?”
“I have seen the angel’s real intent. He is in contract with Lucifer to tempt my sisters into patricide.”
“Patricide! It is impossible, is it not? Your sisters are not capable of so great a crime.”
“I know not to what lengths they will go to please him. They are both in love with him.” Deborah was irritated. “And why are you not surprised to hear of his contract with Lucifer?”
“I have heard rumours of such things, but never had them confirmed. Advancement through the ranks of Principalities, Thrones and Dukes is sometimes possible if an angel can fulfil a task which Lucifer names.”
“Why did you not warn us?”
“As I said, they were rumours. I have not had confirmation until now. And I certainly did not know that these tasks could involve a trade in souls.”
“But you are not even surprised to find a fallen angel is wicked. Last time I was here you were still reassuring me about Lazodeus.”
“Perhaps you witnessed part of a larger conversation, or misunderstood what you heard.” Amelia frowned. “I cannot be expected to know everything.”
“You are reckless with knowledge.”
“And you are overly cautious.”
“It seems to be that more caution would have been a good thing in this situation.”
“Do not argue with me!” Amelia shouted, shocking Deborah into silence. “I am your mistress, you are my apprentice. Do not argue with me.”