taken the secret photo to warn my future self of him should he approach me again, for he had known that I was booked for the Ninth Circle procedure when we last spoke and I was worried then that he might try to exploit my ignorance. The problem was that I had been so eager to latch on to any friend that I had not heeded the warning, and Mephisto himself must have been quite delighted with the change in my attitude.
I had not wanted the Ninth Circle procedure. But I knew I would ultimately have no choice and the safest thing to do was to pretend to go along with it. Most assassins were delighted to accept since it meant a fresh start for them. A life untainted with the guilt that all of us carried but none of us admitted. Like I said — it’s not like James Bond — you can’t really casually kill twenty men in a day and then not see each and every one of their faces that night, no matter how many beautiful women you might have writhing around in your bed to distract you. It just doesn’t work like that. James Bond is a fallacy — killing has never come so easily to anyone, and that holds true even if you do believe you’re doing it in pursuit of a just cause. It’s still killing. It’s still death. Someone who existed that morning no longer does because of you…
I’d felt that I deserved no fresh beginning or second chance. I wasn’t fit to live and circulate with other people. So I set about laying clues for myself, a trail of black and shrivelled breadcrumbs. I chose the name of Gabriel Antaeus because I knew I would try to find out more about the name and I knew the disturbing connotations I would find. I concealed clues in packages and paid Toby to hold on to the disc and deliver the notes, written in Latin so that he would be unable to understand them. I had to be careful, for I knew that the organisation would search the apartment and my belongings to ensure that there was nothing there that would trigger my memories to return. But they never expected to find anything really, because assassins were supposed to want the procedure. What kind of madman would reject the chance of a new life?
‘If your memory has now returned,’ Michael said, gazing at me coldly, ‘then you are aware that you have committed the most wicked series of crimes.’
I nodded silently. I knew now why I had acted with such distinctive horror at having to kill the butterfly that the boy in the park had mutilated. I knew why the sight of blood, even from a steak on a plate, was repugnant to me. I wanted no more to do with death and dying, suffering and bleeding. I wanted to shut those things out from my mind and life for ever. I’d had enough to last me several lifetimes already.
‘Do you know how Anna Sovanak’s body came to be in Budapest?’ I asked.
This was the one part I had been unable to figure out, for I clearly remembered rowing far into the Mediterranean before dropping the crate overboard.
‘Yes, I put it there,’ Michael said steadily.
‘ You? But I thought, Mephistopheles, or Lilith, or some other demon-’
I broke off in surprise at the sneer curling the angel’s lips.
‘ Mephistopheles! ’ He spat the word, as if its very presence in his mouth was distasteful to him. ‘Why do you think he never just came out and told you the truth when he had the chance? Why do you think he purposefully kept you ignorant about your past? Because ignorance itself brings you closer to demons, as truth moves you closer to angels. As your last victim, I had hoped that the sight of her photo in the papers might be enough to break through to your memories.’
Almost, almost, perhaps. But my subconscious mind had been working exceedingly hard to keep those memories buried for ever.
‘She was lost,’ Michael went on. ‘Luckily I found her before Mephistopheles did.’
I thought back to the smashed violin and black fur in Mephistopheles’ hotel room. An angry friend, the demon had said. I’ve lost something of his…
My shoulders slumped with the bitter weight of guilt. Then Michael spoke, for the first time in a voice that was almost kindly, ‘Redemption can only come in the service of God, Gabriel, not demons. It won’t be easy. By its very definition, redemption must involve hardship and sacrifice.’
‘I accept that,’ I replied eagerly. ‘I want to redeem myself. Please, just tell me what to do.’
‘You must take Casey March away somewhere. She can’t have her child in a hospital.’
I nodded, feeling a weight slipping from my shoulders as I gazed at God’s angel stood before me. At last, no more demons, no more lies. Here was Michael, who would guide me.
‘And as soon as the child is born, you must kill it.’
I stared at the angel, my mouth dropping open in horror. ‘We can’t risk the coming of the Antichrist at this time,’ Michael went on.
‘But it’s… it’s just a tiny baby, for Christ’s sake!’
‘Who may grow up to be responsible for mass genocide on a scale never seen before,’ Michael replied sharply. ‘You must take action to prevent this abomination from ever getting the chance.’
‘But… but, Stephomi — I mean, Mephistopheles — said that the baby could be the Saviour too… the Second Coming — ’
‘Yes, but it’s an acceptable compromise,’ Michael said. ‘We have agreed it with the demons.’
‘But I can’t do it,’ I said, desperately. Of all the things I’d done before, all the awful things I’d done, I had never come anywhere near the wickedness of harming a baby. Just think how tiny that coffin would have to be…‘I can’t kill Casey’s son. Oh, please, don’t ask me to hurt her like that!’
Michael narrowed his eyes at me and I shrank back from the anger in his gaze. ‘If the child turns out to be the Antichrist we’ve been waiting for, you will carry responsibility for his actions, because you have a duty to act now, while such action is still possible. ’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said helplessly. ‘I can’t, I can’t.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’ the angel snapped. ‘You’re an assassin. Killing and hurting people is what you do. This is just another job. I fail to see the problem.’
I stared at Michael for a minute. I had continued to work for the government because my soul was already consigned to Hell anyway, and I didn’t want to condemn another innocent person to such a life and such an afterlife. And we were serving our country, the government said. Now the angels wanted me to save the world by killing a baby. My mind went back to something Mephistopheles had once said to me — ‘ Wouldn’t it have been nice if Hitler’s father had killed his son? ’… ‘ Well, of course,’ I had replied tersely. If I had never lost my memory, the horror of killing a child would not have touched me in quite the same way. The justification would have come easier. And surely there were grounds for such justification here. But I could not bear to get any more blood on my already dripping hands.
‘Look, I’m through with killing, all right? I don’t want to do this any more! I’m trying to repent! For the last four months… I’ve had a taste of what it is to be normal. I just want a normal life,’ I said pleadingly.
‘You can’t have a normal life,’ Michael said coldly.
‘But if I… if I dedicated myself to the service of God,’ I said desperately, ‘for the rest of my life… He might forgive me eventually — ’
‘He would not.’
‘Then what the hell’s the point?’ I shouted angrily at the angel. ‘If that’s the way you feel, then I might as well go and join the demon ranks right now!’
‘You are flawed,’ Michael said stonily. ‘There’s something twisted in your soul. I’m not asking you to help so that you might redeem yourself. I am asking you so that countless lives might be saved. This is not about you, Gabriel.’
‘Oh, fuck off, if it’s not about me then it won’t matter if I sod off to America tonight, will it?’ I snapped. ‘I’ve had it with the lot of you, and I won’t stay to be a part of any… any…’
I faltered, for suddenly Michael was no longer there. He was simply gone — vanished like smoke, so that for a brief moment I even wondered if I had imagined him. Had an angel really come to me and asked me to murder a teenage girl’s baby? Or had I now become one of those people who heard the voices of angels or demons or aliens in their minds, believing they were being ordered to commit the vilest of atrocities? While I have been writing, Casey has left a message on my answer phone, saying that her contractions have begun and that she’s on the way to the hospital. ‘ Please come if you get this message’.. But I can’t. I can’t risk the chance of some madness coming over me so that I kill her baby without meaning to… I am not a stable person, perhaps I never have been…
Perhaps, after all, I am already mad. A wandering madman with no idea of who or what I am, seeing things that are not there, hearing voices in my head… It’s unbearable this sensation — as if the world has started to spin the wrong way round. Am I mad? Am I?
1st January (New Year)
