Stephomi grinned, easing himself into a more comfortable position. ‘You never did like the idea, did you? What’s this grudge you have against Lucifer’s angels anyway? Do you know what Samuel Butler once said? “ An apology for the Devil: it must be remembered that we have heard only one side of the case; God has written all the books. ” Come on, Gabriel, don’t look at me like that. I promise you I’m not a devil worshipper. Just devil’s advocate, perhaps. Did it ever occur to you that there may be good and bad devils as there are good and bad men? Devils are scapegoats, that’s all. Blamed by the angels for all of Earth’s failings. We need scapegoats like we need oxygen, to ease the guilt and the shame of being human.
‘Politicians seem to be the prime choice nowadays. Poor bastards. I’d sooner nail my own hand to a railway track than be the President of the United States at the moment. Can’t win, no matter what he does, can he, poor sod? It’s never black and white, although I admit that if it was, things would be a hell of a lot easier. What of Wladyslaw Szpilman and the courageous Captain Wilm Hosenfeld?’ he asked, a ghost of a sneer curling his lip.
‘And what of Hitler himself? He wanted to be an artist, you know. He tried, without success, to get into an art college in Vienna. An art college! If only they’d let him in, eh? He might have lived an inoffensive life of beauty then. He might have left paintings behind when he died instead of all those graves and slaughterhouses. Wouldn’t that be nice? I mean, if there had been just one man at that art college who had seen something promising in Hitler’s application and argued his case, Hitler might be remembered today for his contribution to the art world instead of for how many people he murdered. Should it really be so dependent on chance, where we deserve to go once we’re dead? Hitler liked animals as well, you know. He befriended a little stray terrier while he was serving in the First World War, which he doted on, apparently. And when Hitler put a gun in his mouth, his new bride, Eva Braun, killed herself too rather than face a world without him. What do you think that means, Gabriel?’
I gazed at Stephomi feeling sickened. ‘I can’t believe you’re really suggesting Hitler wasn’t evil.’
‘Evil is a tricky word,’ Stephomi said with a slight shrug. ‘Evil people don’t scare me because I’m free to hate them. And hatred is so easy, isn’t it? Much, much easier than love. Did you know that Hitler was regularly beaten by his father as a boy and was once even put into a two-day coma by him? Wouldn’t it have been nice if he’d just killed him instead?’
‘Well, of course,’ I snapped. ‘But what has this to do with anything? You’re getting off the point.’
‘It doesn’t matter, really. What does matter is that the battle between the angels has escalated.’
‘Why?’
‘I just told you — because the Antichrist is coming. Did you know that Nostradamus predicted it would happen around this time? Devoutly religious man, Nostradamus. He published hundreds of prophecies, all in quatrains. I have to say the language of the Antichrist prophecy is a little vivid for my taste. It goes like this:
The Antichrist three very soon annihilates,
Twenty-seven bloody years his war will last.
The heretics dead, captive, exiled.
Blood human corpses water red hail cover the Earth.
‘You know, it’s that last line I really don’t like the sound of, Gabriel,’ Stephomi said quietly. ‘The Antichrist War lasts twenty-seven years and after that — ’ he snapped his fingers ‘- blood. Human corpses. Red water. End of the Earth. All over.’
I glanced at him and, despite the lightness of his words, for once there was no amusement on his face. I even thought I caught a faint spasm of fear before he quickly hid it.
‘But what makes you think that this will happen now?’ I asked, hoping for reassurance. ‘Nostradamus wasn’t right all the time, was he? Or perhaps his prophecy has been misinterpreted?’
‘It’s a little difficult to misinterpret this one since, unusually for Nostradamus, he gives specific dates. The years 2007–2008 in Century X, quatrain seventy-four, as well as the 2008 Olympic Games, are highlighted by Nostradamus as marking the beginning of the end, so to speak. The last two lines of the quatrain refer to the end of the world, Judgement Day itself:
Not far from the great millennium,
When the dead will leave their graves.
‘Chilling thought, isn’t it? But anyway, forgetting Nostradamus for the moment, I know that this is all beginning to happen because Raphael told me so. Nostradamus believed the future was fixed, immutable, but luckily angels don’t think that way. They’re not ready for Judgement Day yet. They’re trying to delay it. So are the demons.’
‘ Delay Judgement Day?’ I repeated incredulously.
‘That’s right. Angels don’t like being judged either, you know. But, er… there is one little problem. Apparently, there’s some uncertainty as to whether this person is indeed the Antichrist or, well… effectively Jesus’ second coming.’
‘ What? How can there possibly be any uncertainty over which it is when the two are so different?’
‘Are they so different?’ Stephomi asked sharply. ‘It all comes down to greatness, doesn’t it? Angels can sense greatness but they don’t know what form it will take, that’s all.’
‘What rubbish!’ I protested. ‘Good and evil are opposites.’
‘No, not really,’ Stephomi said mildly. ‘Hot and cold are so-called opposites, but haven’t you ever touched something so scalding that for a moment you think it’s freezing? When you get to extremes, the brain confuses the two, can’t process them properly, mixes them up. Or perhaps it’s just that they’re really not that different to begin with.’
We lapsed into silence for a moment as I thought about what he’d said and tried to twist it into something I could make sense of. Devils… angels… wars… prophecies… I would have thought it was all some kind of practical joke if I hadn’t seen the demon with my own eyes.
‘How do you know all this anyway? Who are you that you can talk to angels?’ I asked suddenly.
‘Ah, well, that’s the question, isn’t it?’ Stephomi sighed. ‘Did you know that babies can see angels, Gabriel? They’re innocent, untainted by the world. So they’re close to angelic realms and can see angels all around them. They lose this ability as they grow up. The world strips people of their innocence before long, one way or another. But there are some rare adults who can see the angelic and demonic realms which overlay our own. You should count yourself lucky you live in this time. We’d have been accused of witchcraft in the past and been burned at the stake by a pious, Christian mob of killers. That fire you saw at Michael’s church… most people wouldn’t have seen it. And they wouldn’t have heard the bell ringing either.’
‘Then why can I?’ I asked, very much fearing the answer. ‘Why can you?’
‘Well… sometimes it’s possible to catch glimpses of angels and demons in places of the In Between. Graveyards — because they’re places that belong to both the living and the dead. Churches — places of both the mortal and the divine. The moments before sunrise and sunset where the Earth belongs to both the night and the day. Mirrors that reflect reality the wrong way round and dreams that allow both the impossible and the possible all at once… There are some people
… who are themselves people of the In Between, neither truly one nor the other. And this allows us to see things that others can’t. As I understand it, the insane and the dying can see the devils around them, just as the newborn can see angels. But the reason is not always quite that extreme.
‘Take me, for example. I used to give lectures on religious philosophy. Guest lectures at various universities and religious functions. Because of the… passionate nature of my teachings, my lectures always seemed to be filled with either the zealously religious or the fiercely atheist. The clash of the two extremes between faith in God’s existence and an equal faith in his non-existence caused a spark somehow, with me at the centre. My teachings themselves are a place of the In Between.’
‘And what about me?’ I asked fearfully.
Stephomi frowned. ‘There are many professors of religion out there like me who aren’t people of the In Between. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. With you, Gabriel, who knows? You never told me and I assumed you didn’t want to talk about it.’
I ran my hands through my hair in frustration, an unreasoning fear building from within me as I paced agitatedly. ‘What is the Ninth Circle?’ I threw at Stephomi, rounding on him suddenly.
‘Ninth Circle?’ he repeated in genuine bemusement. ‘I… well, according to Dante, the ninth circle of Hell was the-’
