didn’t come here today to destroy you.’
He looks away, then back at me. ‘Michael’s on his way, but he’s been … delayed. He sent a messenger, one of the malakhim — though a malakh unlike any I’ve encountered before, one that was strangely weak and formless. I was asked to deliver Michael’s message to you, in person. And that’s never happened before, Mercy; do you appreciate the seriousness of the moment? Even while we stand here, idly conversing on this city street, the game plan is changing all around us. In life after life, the one whose task it is to watch over you has never been allowed to reveal themselves to you. But here we are, face-to-face, on Michael’s orders. These are interesting times, are they not?’
I don’t tell K’el that the rule has been broken before, and recently. By Uriel — who’d appeared to me when I was Carmen. By Gabriel — who’d appeared to me when I was Lela. One law for the lion. Though even amongst lions, it seems equality is in scarce supply.
‘Interesting times indeed,’ I reply more coolly than I’m feeling. ‘And the message?’ After all this time, Michael himself — the Viceroy of Heaven, the Commander of the Army of God — has a message … for me? There’s a sudden tight feeling in my chest, a terrible anticipation.
K’el’s face is grim. ‘His message? Not all of the Eight will be gathered here before Luc arrives. But as many of us as are able will keep you from Luc, or die trying, and that is no lie. Whatever you do, do not touch Luc, do not go to him, do not go with him, or allow yourself to be taken by his forces. I cannot speak more plainly than that. Everything turns on it.’
‘Or what? What happens?’ I ask, still strangely breathless.
‘Hell happens,’ K’el says, so quietly that I think I must have misheard him, until he adds, ‘Everywhere. Not just on earth. Everywhere.’
I frown, unable to process what I’m hearing. From what I’m able to recall, Hell is a place for unruly souls who don’t pass Azraeil’s test for admittance to the sweet hereafter. It’s a way station for the imperfect, a holding pen for those without the right stuff.
‘Who cares if Hell happens?’ I say slowly. ‘The ghosts of the mortal dead would hardly pose a threat to any of us. They’re just light and shade, fragments of emotion and memory that have become stuck in an endless fugue and refuse to die.’
K’el is silent for a long time and though he’s close enough to touch, he seems very far away. ‘Things have changed a lot since you’ve been … gone,’ he replies finally. ‘These days, Hell is run by the Devil and his legion, the daemonium. At its core is his lethal personal guard of one hundred demons; every single one of them beautiful, evil and more powerful than you would believe possible. Our opposites, both in attitude and appetite. We maintain, they destroy. That’s roughly how it works. The defining difference between us and them is that the Devil and his lieutenants permit themselves the act of … creation.’
My eyes widen at his words and K’el nods.
‘Yes,’ he says softly. ‘The creation of new “life”. Something we are forbidden to do; it is the right of only one, the maker of us all. Yet they,’ K’el seems to shudder, ‘create such monstrous parodies of life that we …’ His voice dies away. ‘We elohim may outnumber the Devil and his strongest demons something like nine to one, but some days it feels as if the daemonium may yet overwhelm us all.’
I rack my brain for what little I know of Hell and the Devil.
‘Do they really exist?’ I challenge. ‘To the living here on earth, Hell is more a figure of speech these days, a curse word: Hell yes, Hell no. And “the Devil”? Is he even real? When the universe was young, we were there, but no “Devil”, no “demons”.
‘Isn’t the Devil just a figure made up to frighten small children?’ I say. ‘Just a name, a concept, something folkloric, not real?’
K’el’s reply is sharp and swift. ‘The way most mortals think of us, you mean?’
‘Isn’t “the Devil” just a convenient name for the very darkest aspects of human nature?’ I insist stubbornly. ‘Something to pin the unimaginable upon?’
K’el sighs. ‘If that’s what you believe, then you’ve been too long on this earth — as the Devil himself has been. He was banished not long after you left us, and confined to this world as eternal punishment, together with one hundred of our number —’
‘Those demons you spoke of,’ I interrupt, comprehension dawning. ‘The very strongest daemonium? They were once elohim? Archangels?’
K’el nods. ‘The self-same hundred who chose loyalty to the Devil over a place in Heaven. Finding resistance on earth, but no resistance in Hell, the Devil set up his “kingdom” there with the help of his faithful. Together they built a legion of daemonium — not born of light, as we were, but of absolute evil. But the Devil longs for dominion over the world of the living, too, and you see the results of his dark longings in “the news”, daily. For what use is an army without an empire? Moment by moment, his reach grows longer, his power greater. The underworld is no longer enough for the Devil; he must march on the overworld, this world, and at long last, make it his.’
K’el spreads his arms wide to indicate the bleak city street we are standing in, the frozen figures of the men behind us. For a split second, I recall that terrible dream in which I glimpsed a jumble of technicolour horrors — human wars without number, acts of genocidal madness, death on a scale so large that I gasp, ‘Someone is actually responsible for those things?’
K’el’s voice is sombre. ‘The Devil both rules and emanates that which mortals call “Hell”. You’re right in saying that when we were made, there was no “Devil”, no “demons”. But neither were there unquiet spirits, fell creatures, monstrous things, events, catastrophes, wars. These came after us. Now there’s more evil on this earth than there are elohim or malakhim to deal with it. Those tormented fragments of memory and emotion, light and shade you speak of? They may be manipulated and controlled, used to create an army both animate and foul. And I’ve seen it. It exists.’
I know Irina’s eyes are suddenly huge in her pale face. ‘But why?’ I mutter. ‘Why would such a thing even be … necessary?’
‘Let’s put it in human terms you’ll understand,’ K’el says impatiently. ‘The Devil and his legion are bent on a “hostile takeover” not only of this realm, but of Heaven itself. Which, of course, has always been the goal.’
‘But what does the Devil have to do with me?’ I whisper, feeling strangely fearful.
K’el looks at me with great sadness in his eyes. ‘I’ve told you all I know. It’s up to you to put the rest together, if you dare. But be careful what you wish for. You don’t want that missing puzzle piece. Take it from me.’
‘Have you ever considered that this elaborate plan that Raphael came up with for me is just a form of revenge?’ I say quietly. ‘Just payback for me choosing Luc over him in the first place?’
K’el steps back from me in dismay. ‘Over centuries, over millennia, it has taken all Eight — physically gathered together — to wrestle your rebellious energy into each and every one of the human vessels we have procured for you. And every time Raphael has argued that you have learnt your lesson, that there must be some other, kinder, gentler way to protect you from Luc that will not involve twisting you out of true. And now Raphael — who loved you best, who only wanted your happiness — is missing. Taken while on his way to meet the others, taken before he could help them place you inside the body of a young woman called Irina Zhivanevskaya …’
I recoil in disbelief. ‘But there are few as powerful as Raphael in all of creation. How could he be taken?’
‘Believe it,’ K’el retorts, eyes flashing. ‘He was taken almost the instant Gabriel drew you forth from the dying body of Lela Neill and called the others here to Milan to meet with him. But Raphael never arrived, and the others could not wait; for when you aren’t coiled like a sleeping serpent inside the body of a human host, your spirit is like a beacon: detectable to those who know how to look for it. And not only is Raphael missing, but Selaphiel, too — gentle Selaphiel, the most unworldly of us, concerned only with the mysteries of creation, the regulation of the stars, suns, moons, planets. He vanished almost a year ago — taken just before you were placed inside a mortal woman called Ezra. For countless years, it has taken the might and power of all eight to hide you, though it’s only ever taken one to draw you out again. But now, now there are only six to do the work of eight …’
Ezra. The girl who’d fled an abusive marriage and changed her name. The one who came before Susannah, Lucy, Carmen, Lela. I realise now that I must have begun to awaken when I was her, because memories suddenly return: of me throwing her things into a car and driving away in the dead of night, the mark of her husband’s fists upon her face. I must have these memories of Ezra because there were just seven to place me into her life and
