breath in surprise. I knew this man too. It was Zadkiel Stephomi. There were scorch marks on his clothes and blackened ash and soot stained his skin. One hand was pressed over the deep gash slashed across his lower ribs, blood running through his fingers alarmingly. Cursing, he tore a piece of fabric from his shirt and tried to quell the bleeding with a trembling hand. Then he glanced up at me, brushing sooty hair from his eyes and leaving more smears of grime on his face in the process.
‘Gabriel? What are you-?’ he began hoarsely.
‘What was that thing?’ I interrupted, kneeling down beside him. ‘What happened to the fire?’
‘The fire was never really there.’
‘But there’s ash all over your clothes! I saw the church in flames! What was that thing with the sword?’ I asked again, somehow dreading the answer.
Stephomi hesitated for a moment before replying. ‘He was a devil, Gabriel.’
Welcome back to the Ninth Circle, Gabriel…
‘ What? What did you say?’
‘You heard me.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘Ha, ha. Mad. Yes… perhaps I am…’
He swayed suddenly and I caught at him in alarm.
‘Are you all right?’
His breathing sounded shallow, sweat was running down his face, and I could feel that he was trembling.
‘All right?’ Stephomi choked out a disbelieving laugh. ‘Only you would say that to someone who’s just been hacked at with a fucking huge sword, Gabriel!’
‘You need to get to a hospital,’ I said, glancing at his bloodstained shirt. ‘We’ve got to get you to the nearest one right now!’
‘No, no, no. Don’t start panicking.’
‘ Panicking? That wound needs to be stitched or you’ll-’
‘Does it?’ Stephomi asked. He removed his hand and I stared in disbelief, for the skin beneath was already starting to heal where the sword had pierced the skin. Although it was now blistering and burning in a most painful looking way, it was no longer bleeding. ‘Demon swords don’t create permanent injuries.’
‘How… how is that possible?’ I demanded. ‘That wound… I mean, the sword went right through!’
‘Never mind the wound — it’ll just be a scar by morning,’ Stephomi said dismissively. ‘It’s the blood loss that’s the, er… that’s the problem right now-’
‘But it was deep before!’ I protested. ‘Just two seconds ago it was an open, bleeding-’
‘Just shut up and listen, this is important! I’m, ah… going to pass out. Don’t want you to freak out and do something stupid. I just have to find back… get back home, okay? Just unconscious, Gabriel, not dying. Please… no hospitals… all these awkward questions. Afterwards I’ll explain… tell you… explain it all, I promise…’
And then, with a sudden shudder, he crumpled against me, getting blood all over my once clean shirt.
I have to say the whole thing completely pissed me off. He’d put me in a really awkward position. The Castle District wasn’t far away in a car but it would take far too long to walk there uphill, and we couldn’t get on any of the late night buses looking like this. The only thing I could think to do was phone for a taxi and ask that it pick us up from the hotel just a few minutes walk away, relying on the dark to disguise the large amount of blood on Stephomi’s clothes.
‘My friend here’s had too much to drink,’ I said to the taxi driver in a lame attempt to explain why I was virtually carrying him. ‘He’s, er… he’s getting married tomorrow.’
The taxi driver grunted as if this explained everything, and drove us to the Hilton in silence. I shook Stephomi hard when we got there and after a moment, to my relief, he groaned and tried to push me away.
‘Come on, we’re at the Hilton!’ I hissed, shaking him harder. ‘Wake up! I can’t drag you through the reception area like this, bleeding all over the place! Stephomi — ’
‘All right, all right, I’m awake! Stop shaking me, damn you! Christ, Gabriel!’
I hauled him out of the car before the taxi driver could catch on to the fact that anything was amiss, and was relieved when the car at last drove off.
‘You’re going to have to help me,’ Stephomi muttered.
I glanced round and saw that he was leaning against the wall, looking like he was about to throw up. I stripped off my coat and handed it to him.
‘Put this on,’ I said. ‘It’ll hide your shirt. Hopefully no one inside will notice your hands if we move through the lobby quickly. They’ll just think you’re drunk. And dirty,’ I added, glancing at the soot in his hair.
Stephomi eased himself stiffly into one of the armchairs once we were at long last back upstairs in the suite.
‘I need a drink,’ he said, waving his hand in the direction of the well-stocked bar.
‘What do you want? Water?’ I asked, walking over to it.
Stephomi scowled and ran his hand through his hair. ‘Gabriel, if you bring me water, I’ll throw it at you.’
I glanced at the many bottles lined up on the shelf and took down the whisky. It seemed like quite a good idea so after I’d poured Stephomi’s, I turned round holding a second glass. ‘Do you mind?’
He shrugged. ‘Not at all.’
I poured myself a drink and then walked back to the chair and handed him the whisky, but I hadn’t even sat down before he’d knocked it back and was holding his glass back out to me.
‘Again.’
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ I asked.
‘Just get me the damn drink, Gabriel. On second thoughts, bring me the bottle.’
‘Look, you can get drunk later!’ I said irritably. ‘But right now you owe me an explanation! And no lies! I want the truth.’
‘You don’t want much, do you?’ Stephomi snapped. ‘You know what, Gabriel? I feel fucking awful and the last thing I feel like doing right now is having this particular conversation with you. I’ll do it because I said I would, but you are going to have to shut up and give me a minute, all right? Now either get me that bottle or bugger off.’
I opened my mouth to carry on arguing but checked myself when I looked at him, for he did still look awful — hunched awkwardly in the chair covered in blood and ash and wearing a coat that was too big for him, his face horribly white. If I hadn’t been so upset by what I’d seen that night, I’m sure I would have been more patient. As it was, if ever a man looked like he needed a drink it was Stephomi, and I could afford to wait a few minutes.
‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
I handed him the bottle and bit my tongue for the next few minutes. The alcohol quickly returned some of the colour to his face and it wasn’t very long before he set his empty glass down on the table and said, ‘What do you know about the Antichrist?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘It’s a simple question.’
‘Well, the Antichrist is supposed to be… Jesus’ adversary,’ I said.
‘Yes. Mysteriously mentioned in the Bible only as the “Beast” and prophesied to appear just before the end of the world. Well, he’s coming. In fact, he’ll be here any time now.’
‘And how could you possibly know that?’ I scorned.
‘Raphael told me.’
‘Oh, I see. You’re on speaking terms with the seven great archangels, are you? Tell me, do you chat with them often?’
‘No, not often,’ Stephomi said with a smile, ignoring my sarcasm. ‘Only when necessary. They’re very busy, you know. What with the War and all.’
‘Angels don’t go to war!’
‘Of course they do, Gabriel. Theirs is the first War. God’s team against Satan’s. It’s been raging for millennia.’
‘Satan doesn’t have angels, he has demons,’ I said sharply.
‘Whatever. It’s all the same, really,’ Stephomi replied with a shrug.
‘It’s not the fucking same!’ I snapped.
