The Prison of the Angels

by Janine Ashbless

  Egan knocked on the door at the end of the gallery. A wizened old priest came out briefly and they conducted a murmured conversation in Italian. The priest disappeared again and Egan shrugged. “We wait,” he said.

  I strode slowly back along the lines of marble, peering at the ripped torsos and the contorted limbs, frozen in strife. Even the sedate bust of an elderly philosopher was heroically proportioned. “Is this part of the museum?” I asked.

  “Yes. Not a bit open to the public though.” Unable to shove his hands into jeans pockets, Egan crossed them and tucked them into his armpits while he paced slowly about. “Father Giuseppe is a curator in the Vatican Museum, officially.”

  “And unofficially?”

  “He’s more important.”

  “Like, the head of the order?”

  “That’s not something I can discuss.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “He’s an academic by inclination, not a crusader. Which is why he might listen to us. And he is my confessor within the order, so he knows about…us.”

  “Hh.” I poked a dryad’s stone nipple. “Does your Pope know about Vidimus?”

  “And that’s something else I’m not authorized to talk about.”

  I sighed. “Why do you lot have all this stuff?” I asked, derision breaking into my voice. I waved my arms at the gallery and its contents. “It’s all pagan! What’s any of this got to do with the Church?”

  Egan was keeping half an eye on the closed door. “You can look at pagan myths as metaphors for deeper eternal truths. I guess. Human attempts to depict the ineffable.”

  “In my faith we never try to depict the divine in three dimensions, or like realistic people—it is too worldly.” I spun in a circle and laughed. “How can you keep your celibate priests clean of temptation surrounded by this stuff all day? All your nasty half-naked saints? It’s all abs and asses and heaving bosoms, it must drive you crazy!”

  Egan frowned. “It’s just art.”

  “It’s porn!” I crossed to a statue of a goat-legged man grasping a struggling, wide-eyed nymph and I clapped my hand against his bare butt. The statue, labeled Pan and Selene, was certainly dynamic. Pan, apart from his hairy calves and cloven hooves, was handsome in a coarse way and muscled like a wrestler, while Selene’s round breasts seemed to bounce weightlessly despite their marble. I could see the dints his fingers made in the alabaster of her thigh. “Really high-end, expensive porn, okay? And this is pretty violent stuff too. Doesn’t look consensual to me.”

  I had Egan’s attention now. He uncrossed his arms and stalked toward me. “You shouldn’t touch that, Milja,” he said mildly. “It’s hundreds of years old and probably priceless.”

  I wrinkled my nose at him, wanting to provoke. “I’m just trying to grasp an ineffable spiritual truth,” I told him, sliding my hand lasciviously up Pan’s thigh and tickling his heavy ball-sack.

  Egan laughed, half disapproving and half amused. His response fueled the devil in me, and I caressed Selene’s bare bosom, stroking her while I watched Egan’s face. He was close enough now that I could see his pupils dilate, darkening his eyes. “Don’t,” he said softly.

  Is that a dare?

  I ran my fingertips sensually down the long line of the goddess’s arched torso, from erect stone nipple to the curve of her hipbone—and as I dropped my hand away I swept it out and let it graze the black fabric of his cassock. My fingers guessed accurately; there was nothing soft in the bulge they found there, and Egan caught his breath. He went terribly still. He wasn’t looking at the marble assault, he was looking down at me.

  “Milja,” he whispered.

  But he didn’t back away.

  The knowledge of what I was doing to him was like a liquid flame running through my core. I felt like I could have sprouted horns and a tail at that moment. I could have tied his erect cock with a ribbon and dragged him away by it into the fires that never die.

  What I did was let my hand drift back, and use two knuckles to slowly trace the thick, curved ridge hidden beneath his robe and trapped in his pants. It was already more turgid than it had been a moment ago.

  “Ah please, Milja, why?” He pleaded like a man tied helplessly to a wall, unable to escape, unable to defend himself. All he had to do was thrust my hand away, or step out of reach, but somehow he was now closer to me instead, looming over me. Helplessly.

  I stretched up until my lips were all but brushing his. “I want to make sure you have plenty for the confessional,” I murmured.

  “Oh, you have no idea.”

  “Padre?” An elderly voice called from the end of the hall, behind him. Egan quivered with shock and I had mercy, stepping out from behind his black-clad bulk to pace up the gallery, drawing the old man’s eye even if only for the moment.

  Why had I been so cruel? Honestly, I did not know. Even as I walked, the molten bloom in my core was a blaze that almost disguised the needling urge to provoke him. I’d wanted him to kiss me, or get angry, or kick off a raging argument. I’d wanted him to behave badly. To prove that he and all his brethren here were weak and hypocritical, because…

  No, the train of thought was gone. It could not survive the priest’s glare of disapproval. My fire guttered. I was glad that Egan caught up with me and took the lead, sweeping me through the door in his train.

  The high-ceilinged room beyond was clad in graying tapestries like it was trying to muffle the outside world. A horrible room, I thought—too tall, too Spartan, all out of sync with human proportions. A single vast desk like an altar provided the only focal point, and behind that desk sat a man reading a computer screen.

  Lying across the desk was a spear with an iron head. My heart crammed up my throat as I recognized it, and I came to a dead stop a few paces away. They hadn’t even cleaned it. It was absolutely black with dried blood.

  Roshana.

  Egan sensed my shock and turned back to me. He touched my arm briefly, nodding as he caught my agonized glance. He understood, at least.

  Oh God, Egan—it’s the spear. I hadn’t anticipated this.

  You’re okay, his eyes told me.

  I had to force myself to approach the desk.

  The seated man waited until we were right in front of him, watching without a word.

  “Don Giuseppe,” said Egan, dipping his head. “Buonasera.”

  The priest had a round face—the sort of round, bald, elderly male visage that is almost anonymous, it’s so common. He looked like a shopkeeper, except for his clerical vestments. “Father Egan,” he said, not warmly. “You may sit.” Then he waved a hand in my direction. “She was not invited.”

  “She,” I said, trying to ignore the murder weapon in front of me, “is here because what you want to do is tell Egan here a lot of things she probably won’t like, and then he’d come back and tell her and she’d just get mad at him. So she thought it made sense to cut out the middle man.”

  Egan flashed me a covert look, but I couldn’t spare him enough attention to see whether it was exasperation or amusement. I kept my eyes fixed on Father Giuseppe’s face until he was forced to meet my gaze.

  “È che la sua? La strega?” the older man asked, still not addressing me.

  “Si, Padre.”

  “Very well,” he said. “You may stay and listen. Father Egan, you may go and bring another chair.”

  “I prefer to stand, if you don’t mind.” He’d clasped his hands behind his back, his thumbs interlocked, as if keeping his fists out of the way.

  Father Giuseppe used his own hands to wave assent, so I sat down stiffly on the one upright chair provided.

  “So. I have read your report.” He glanced from man to screen. “Since you have seen fit to disobey orders and come here, let us go through it again.”

  Then the interrogation began. The narrative was familiar and the questions too, on the whole, given that I’d already been put through the mill by Vatican personnel back in Saint Paul. I listened closely, wondering if Egan
’s view of the facts differed radically from my own, but Father Giuseppe was more intent on garnering information than giving it out. He asked a lot about Roshana, and what had happened in Minnesota. Then he went back and picked his way through the details of our timeline. Sometimes he’d look at me and ask me to confirm a point. Throughout, Egan answered with his head up, his eyes on the back wall and his voice empty of any emotion whatsoever.

  Just like a soldier, I thought.

  Until we got to discussion of Penemuel.

  “Why did you choose to save her, without asking your superiors? Without communicating the situation with us at all?”

  “The decision had to be made immediately, one way or the other. I was there. I made it.”

  “That is pride, Father. You took a vow of obedience, I remind you.”

  “As I’ve told you all, repeatedly, I thought that it was our chance for a different outcome. A better solution.”

  “Really. She’s very beautiful, I understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was in a state of undress when you came across her?”

  Egan clenched his teeth. “Yes.”

  “And after she recovered, the succubus visited you for the purposes of carnal intercourse?”

  “In Italiano, Padre, per favore.”

  Father Giuseppe looked at me. He possessed the most incredible face for poker, I thought. “Father Egan is embarrassed by your presence.”

  My heart dropped. I looked up at Egan, thinking how excruciating it must be for him. “Should I—?”

  Though he was a little flushed, he only hesitated, then shook his head. “Sure, you’re entitled to hear, I suppose. I…” He sucked his cheeks. “I would rather we were honest with each other.”

  The older priest leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “I wonder how far that stretches?” he said. Which I took to mean, What have you been telling her about us?

  “To the doors of the confessional, Padre—which are of course sealed.” It took me a moment to realize that Egan was the one issuing a warning.

  Father Giuseppe blinked. “Did you have sexual congress with the succubus?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the flesh?”

  “No, only in my dreams.”

  “But was there emission of seed?”

  His jaw was set. “No.”

  “Really? That is most unusual.”

  “I am sure.”

  My own face was burning far brighter than Egan’s. I glared at our bloodless interlocutor.

  “And are these visits on-going?”

  “No. Not for some days now. Not since…” He hesitated and looked down sidelong at me.

  “Since he balled me senseless,” I sniped across the desk. “And there definitely was emission of seed that time, in case you’re asking.”

  Father Giuseppe tapped his fingertips together. “They do not teach modesty where you come from, I see, Miss Petak; but they might have taught you manners.”

  Goddamn! I wasn’t going to let him rebuke me. “I have nothing to be modest about, Father. I have loved one of the Sons of Heaven. I’ve stood on the very tip of the Eiffel Tower and walked at the South Pole. I’ve outwitted archangels and I’ve killed one of the Nephilim with these hands.” And that spear right there. Which I’m not looking at. “Don’t treat me like some stupid little bitch.”

  “Milja.” Egan put a hand on my shoulder, gently.

  Father Giuseppe smiled a tiny one-sided smile that did not engage any of his other facial muscles. “Your alliance with Miss Petak troubles us, Father Egan. You understand that.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your weakness allowed her to seduce you.”

  I shifted in my seat, biting my tongue and clenching my sweaty fists.

  “I have repented my weakness,” Egan said softly. I could see the pulse throbbing under his jaw.

  “Your ties to the Angel of the Written Word give us even more cause for doubt. You have made confession, but there are gaps in your story. Tell me… Here you stand before me, by your own preference, and yet according to your medical reports your legs were very badly broken. You should still be in a hospital bed. There’s no reference to any miraculous intervention in your report. Are the medical records incorrect?”

  “No.”

  “Then what happened?”

  Egan took a deep breath. “The Angel of the Written Word healed me, the first time she visited. I did not confess that because there was no sin on my part.”

  For a moment Father Giuseppe was silent. Maybe that was his version of looking outraged. “Now why should she do that?” he asked, steel in his voice.

  “Gratitude, Padre. Gratitude to me for saving her. She has a sense of honor.”

  “Really? Yet suffering might have kept your mind on your duty. Does it occur to you she might have been bending you to her purposes? Seducing you with gifts? You are a young man still in love with your own physical strength, with this flesh; you are susceptible.”

  Egan twitched, his gaze skidding over the tapestry. “I believe she honestly wished to repay the debt, Don Giuseppe. That she was grateful.”

  “I doubt they are capable of such a thing.”

  For the first time Egan kicked back. “Why not? Aren’t they Sons of God, according to Scripture? Even fallen, don’t they retain something of the Divine Nature, as we do? Just like us, they have virtues as well as vices, from what I’ve seen.”

  “Do tell me.” The older man clasped his palms together. “What virtues are these?”

  “Fellowship. Courage. A delight in beauty and in life. Mercy.” Egan glanced down at me again, though I don’t think he saw me looking back up at him. His eyes were pale and distant; perhaps he was remembering how the cuckolded Azazel had spared us, even in the depths of his rage. “They are certainly capable of love—perhaps not unselfishly, but truly sacrificial. And I would say that they have, like the Divine Father, a keen instinct for justice. Thus they consider their millennial punishment…disproportional to their trespasses.”

  “Be careful what you are saying, Father Egan.”

  “And they know empathy; what it is to suffer. Their brothers are in torment, and it is the aim of the two Watchers to free them.”

  “Because of the pride and rebellion in their nature.”

  “So you say. It may well be true. But can you admit even the possibility that in remembering their own pain, they wish to relieve that of others? That they hurt for their brethren? Why do you think the Fallen are incapable of compassion? They have an intimate understanding of suffering…that I think the loyal Hosts of Heaven do not.” He moistened his lips. “Can not.”

  Something flashed across Father Giuseppe’s face then—something so swift that I couldn’t read it. “Basta!” he said warningly.

  Egan dipped his chin. “I apologize, Padre. But aren’t we taught to pray for those in Purgatory? Must we have less compassion than Lazarus’s dogs?”

  “That’s enough. They are not in Purgatory—they are already damned.”

  “Until there is a Last Judgment, we don’t know that.”

  “Silenzio!” He sat bolt upright and slapped his palms flat on the desktop.

  As for me, I was shocked by this exchange. Spending time with Penemuel has changed him, whatever the hell they got up to. He’d never have given Azazel the benefit of the doubt like that, before now.

  Thinking about it, Egan had barely met my demon lover, and then not in the best or most unhurried of circumstances. They hadn’t ever had the opportunity to come to any sort of understanding.

  Egan went back to his parade-ground at-ease stance. I was starting to see it as somewhat defiant by now. Father Giuseppe hit a few keys on his computer then looked down at his folded hands. “So what is your aim here, Father Egan? Do we defy the edict of the Almighty and set all the Watchers free if they promise to behave?”

  “Of course not. But we have an opportunity, before it’s too late, to talk to two of their leaders about what th
ey will settle for. And—as has been pointed out—” he added uncomfortably, “we do have access to a number of hostages.”

  “You think the archangels will come to the table? What have they got to gain, when they are already obeying the Divine Command?”

  “I can’t say, Padre.” Egan paused. His voice was icy, his words precise. “Perhaps they might have come around to the idea of redemption sometime in the last two thousand years.”

  Church bells began to clang somewhere outside, a muted cacophony that spread across the city. Some service or other was being heralded.

  “Hmph.” The older man pointed at me. “And you? What do you get out of coming here? Father Kansky has sworn that you are no longer the Scapegoat’s puttana.”

  Well, I didn’t need to speak Italian to guess what that meant.

  “The Fallen Angel has set me aside,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster. “But this is not over. I know what you people plan for him and I am here to help Egan find another way—if it’s possible. Because if you have any conscience, you will regret forever what happens if and when it comes to a fight.”

  “He’s a wolf on the run.”

  “But sooner or later a hunted wolf turns at bay, and frankly, Azazel has a bit of a short temper. What if he chooses to do it in a metropolitan area, Father? It’s easy to wipe out millions in a flash these days. What if Azazel does it in Rome, say? Right here in Vatican City?”

  Well that was a shot across the bows—and Father Giuseppe knew it. “Don’t say his name,” he breathed.

  Too late, Father. “Oh, sorry,” I said, deadpan. “Still, it’s important you see that the threat to human life and limb is more than just a theoretical one, don’t you think? You, your Pope, your whole Church—no one is safe now.”

  He looked at me like a man trying to count my cards. “Is this why you brought her here, Father Egan?”

  “Ah, shite,” Egan rasped, forgetting his manners momentarily. “Forgive me, Padre—No, I was not expecting that.”

  I shrugged. I had to tuck my hands in my lap so that the two men couldn’t see them tremble.