The Ninth circle

11th October

Oh, God, to look at what I wrote in these pages yesterday. If only it could all be as easy as that. I felt at peace when I went to bed last night. The ghosts of my wife and son saddened me but I had decided to say goodbye to them and start again. And now grim foreboding has settled upon me like a cloak that I can’t shake off.

Last night I had the most disturbing and unsettling nightmare. I dreamed that Casey was giving birth at the top of the snow-covered bell tower of St Stephen’s Basilica. She was lonely and afraid but I was with her, helping her, reassuring her, keeping her safe. When the baby was born, a tiny, perfect little boy, I reached for a white blanket to wrap him in; but when I turned back, the baby had become a writhing black demon, sticky with blood, tiny batlike wings furling and unfurling as it thrashed around, lashing out with its claws, hissing and spitting and baring its sharp, pointed teeth at me. I shrieked and suddenly there was a dagger in my hand and I knew what I must do. My teenage neighbour screamed with horror as I drove the knife into her Hell-spawn baby, staining the white blankets with thick, sticky, black blood.

I looked up, gasping for breath, and the burning man was stood there staring down, the usual orange flames blazing all around him, the shimmering red light of the condemned, his fierce blue eyes taking in the weeping mother, the murdered remains of the twisted black newborn devil on the ground, and me hunched over it with the dagger in my hand, thick, black demon blood still dripping from the blade.

‘Welcome back to the Ninth Circle, Gabriel,’ the burning man said steadily, staring down at me with quiet approval.

I woke up screaming, quite sure that the heat from the blazing man’s flames was still scorching my skin. I had leaped from the bed and was out of my apartment and in the main corridor, hand raised to start hammering on my neighbour’s door before I checked myself hastily, forcing myself to stop. It was the middle of the night. I was wearing only a t-shirt and shorts. I couldn’t knock on her door at this time of night, I’d frighten her. She might even call the police. But I had to see her. I couldn’t wait until morning to see if she was all right. I thought of a hasty excuse and then knocked on her door as loud as I dared. I didn’t want to risk waking the whole building. After a few moments, I heard movement from within the apartment. The walls were thin and I clearly heard the girl sharply telling her brother to go back to his bedroom and stay there. Another moment later, the door opened on the security chain and Casey was peering out suspiciously. She looked surprised when she saw me, and not entirely comfortable.

‘What is it?’

Her words threw me for she had spoken in English, although she quickly corrected herself and repeated the question in Hungarian. I suppose, having been woken up in the middle of the night, she had used her first language unthinkingly.

‘Aren’t you Hungarian?’ I blurted out in surprise.

‘American,’ she said, staring at me.

‘I’m English,’ I said, feeling pleased.

‘Oh… Okay, then. Well, goodnight.’

And she started to close the door.

‘Wait!’ I said quickly. ‘You remember me, don’t you? My name’s Gabriel Antaeus, I’m your neighbour, you helped me when I had a migraine attack the other day. Look, I’m really sorry to disturb you at this time of night but I just got up to go the bathroom a few minutes ago and I saw someone outside the building next door being mugged. There’s no credit on my mobile and I have no phone in my room, so I was hoping to borrow yours to call the police.’

She was still gazing at me a little suspiciously. I suppose helping a neighbour in broad daylight was something altogether different to letting him into your home alone in the middle of the night.

‘Or perhaps you could call them, if you wouldn’t mind,’ I said to reassure her.

‘How good is your Hungarian?’ she asked.

‘I’m fluent.’

‘Then you’d better do it. I only really know enough to get by.’ She closed the door and I heard the chain being pulled back, then she swung the door open and held it back for me.

‘The phone’s just over there,’ she said as I walked in.

Her apartment was similar to my own in terms of layout and design, but smaller. There did not seem to be a lounge, but rather the kitchen was a little bigger with an old couch in the corner, letting the room serve as a living room as well. While my apartment was furnished with good quality and expensive furniture, in addition to the couch, hers only had a couple of cheap chairs round a table, and a threadbare rug lay on the damp floorboards. The phone stood on the kitchen worktop and as I crossed over to it, one of the doors leading off from the room opened and a boy stuck his head out. His eyes widened when he saw me and he turned to his sister uncertainly.

‘Casey-?’ he began.

His sister turned sharply to him. ‘Go back to bed, Toby! Everything’s fine. Mr Antaeus is just using the phone and then he’s leaving.’

‘I’m sorry about this,’ I said with an apologetic smile.

She smiled back at me uncertainly and took a cigarette from a packet on the worktop, watching me carefully as she lit it, before checking herself and putting the cigarette out with a regretful sigh. I dialled the number for the police and then reported the so-called mugging in the street. I altered the details, though — slurring my words, I told the police I thought I’d seen a man being mugged in the street outside by invisible goblins. The officer I was speaking to brusquely told me to lay off the bottle and go to bed and then he hung up.

As I spoke, I glanced surreptitiously at Casey. She was wearing a large, oversize nightshirt and was leaning against the kitchen worktop, fiddling with the cigarette box, still watching me closely. She seemed quite unharmed. Seeing her in such a way relaxed me and helped chase away the clinging shreds of my nightmare. I wanted to ask her if she had anyone to help her or whether she was alone here. I wanted to ask if she had made arrangements for when the baby came and what was going to happen to her brother while she was in hospital. I wanted to tell her not to go out into the city late at night. I wanted to ask her if there was anything I could do. I wanted to plead with her… beg her to let me help her. But I had to be careful. In a world such as this, she would be a fool not to suspect ulterior motives from such a stranger. And the last thing I wanted to do was frighten her. The world doesn’t make it easy to be kind.

‘Thanks,’ I said, turning from the phone once I’d replaced the receiver in its cradle.

She nodded again and I could tell that she felt vulnerable now, that she was probably regretting ever letting me in and that perhaps she now feared that she wouldn’t be able to get me out. So I abandoned any half-formed plans of staying and talking to her for a while, deciding that the best thing would be to leave at once, having been allowed to use her phone as I had asked.

‘Again, I’m sorry to have disturbed you so late. Thanks for your help.’

She smiled then, in relief I suppose, as she saw that I really was leaving. ‘Goodnight, Mr Antaeus,’ she said, accompanying me to the door.

‘It’s Gabriel,’ I said, stepping out into the corridor. ‘Good night, Casey.’

I want to get closer to God. I feel safe inside churches and other holy buildings. I couldn’t sleep after checking on Casey. I was too scared that the nightmare might return. So I took my coat and stepped out into the cool night air. It was about three o’clock in the morning and dew sparkled on cobbles and mist hung about the streets in ribbons, as if the city had been decorated by phantom hands during the night in preparation for some ghostly wake. As the metro and tram lines would not be open for almost two hours yet, I had to call an all-night taxi service and order a taxi to pick me up outside the apartment block.

The driver had most likely been expecting to take me to the airport, and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by asking otherwise. So I explained that I was going on holiday with some friends and was meeting them at their house where we would then be driving to the airport together in my friends’ car. I directed the driver to a street near Margaret’s Island, paid him and then watched him drive out of sight before turning and striding off in the direction of Margaret Bridge.

I paused when I reached it, looking down at the angelic sculptures that adorned its columns, painted silver by the moonlight. They were old, these angels — created by the great artist Adolphe Thabart during the nineteenth century. I wished I could get close enough to touch them — close enough to trace one of those great, feathered wings with my fingers. I was suddenly painfully aware of this powerful yearning to be near angels, near Heaven, near God.

I trudged slowly across the quiet, moonlit island, feeling miserable and alone, missing my family even though I’d never known them. I thought of Margaret herself, condemned to this place for her short, cheerless life. Then I thought of Wladyslaw Szpilman hiding in his attic on the outskirts of Warsaw, desperately lonely while at the same time knowing that if any people did come his way his very life would depend on hiding from them. In his memoirs, he compared his existence to that of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and pointed out that Crusoe at least had the cherished, precious hope of coming into contact with another human being. A hope that kept him going day after day. Whereas Szpilman, hiding in his tiny attic and longing for human contact, knew he would have to stay hidden from any passers-by if he were to live. There was not even that miniscule drop of hope in the sea of utter loneliness in which he found himself drowning.

The island was beautifully quiet at night. I could even hear the faint sloshing of the Danube as it lapped against the banks. The smell of lush, living greenery filled the air with its healthy scent as I walked on in the semi-darkness. I was halfway across the island before I noticed the flames. They rose far above the treetops, a huge cloud of smoke billowing out over everything. I couldn’t understand how I could have been unaware of it for so long as the flames seemed to light up the whole island and the smell of ash was strong even from here.

I started to run, crashing through the trees — the cold, empty eyes of stone busts telling me exactly where I was, and which building was on fire. By the time I stumbled out into the clearing, Michael’s church was engulfed in spitting fire, smoke pouring out from gaps in the pointed roof. The heat was sending up fierce convection currents that rocked the bell in its tower, making it ring out in agonised peals.

I skidded to a halt before the church, staring at the old building in horror as flames leaped and roared against the still darkened sky. With the noise the old bell was making, it would surely not be long before other people arrived on the scene — after all, the island’s hotel was only a few minutes away.

Then I realised that I’d better leave — and quickly. I didn’t want to be found alone here with a blazing church. I would be jailed for arson within seconds. Even as I thought how lucky it was that this should have happened at night when there were no people inside, the wooden front doors burst open in a shower of sparks and two men tumbled out, falling in the dust on the ground. My mouth dropped open in pure horror as I realised that one of the unfortunate men was on fire! I hunted round manically, looking for something with which to put him out. I couldn’t see anything so I stripped off my jacket, hoping it would be enough, and started to run towards the two men. And then stopped short in astonishment. One of the men was still hunched over stiffly on his knees, but the other had risen to his feet. The man on fire was simply standing there, silently, gazing at his opponent. There were no screams of agony; he was not writhing on the ground as surely he should have been with those flames caressing his skin.

And then I realised that I recognised him, although up until now I had only seen him in dreams. I had seen him in a dream less than two hours ago, looking on while I killed the newborn devil in the bell tower of the Basilica. He looked just the same now — enveloped in flames yet seemingly unaware of it, his blue eyes burning with a fierce light of their own.

He was holding a long, bejewelled sword in one hand and as I watched he approached the other man, still huddled on his knees on the ground, head bent. And then the burning man started to raise the sword over his head and I ran forward unthinkingly with a yell of horror. He looked up in alarm as he heard me and I saw his eyes narrow angrily. I reached out, grasped the kneeling man by the shoulder and yanked him back, ignoring his cry of pain. And then darkness fell like a cloak and I blinked in surprise as orange flashes winked before my eyes. The fire was gone, as if snuffed out like a candle, and the suddenness of the darkness left flaming imprints on my eyeballs. Amazed, I reached out a hand and brushed the wall of the church. It was cold to my touch. There was not even the slightest hint of warmth. It was as if the building had never been alight at all.

As my eyes adjusted to the watery light, I turned my attention to the man beside me and sucked in my 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.

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-’

‘Yes, yes I know the theology of it,’ I snapped. ‘But there’s something more to it, isn’t there? There’s some other reference. Something of this world.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Stephomi said, gazing at me curiously. ‘What makes you say that?’

I hesitated, but then shook my head and said it was nothing. I didn’t want to tell him of the note I had received. ‘Well? Is it true?’

‘Is what true, Gabriel?’

‘Are there really nine circles of fiery, torturous Hell?’

Stephomi gave a slight shrug. ‘I have never been there, my friend, I couldn’t tell you. Perhaps you should ask Keats.’

‘ Keats? The poet?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What’s he got to do with it?’

‘Keats longed for Hell,’ Stephomi said in a strange, soft voice that sent chills down my spine.

‘John Keats wrote of beauty,’ I snapped. ‘He wrote of joy and life and-’

‘Yes, yes, joy and life, very nice. But he also wrote of Hell,’ Stephomi said, his mouth twisted in a smile. ‘He rather seems to have enjoyed it.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ I virtually shouted in an effort to drown out what he was saying. Why was I so angry? What was it about Stephomi’s suggestion that frightened me so badly?

‘ On a Dream?’ Stephomi prompted. I am sure there was something of maliciousness about the way he looked at me as he spoke. ‘Aren’t you familiar with that particular sonnet, Gabriel? Keats wrote it after he dreamed of visiting the Second Circle. I think I’m accurate in quoting the great poet when he said that, “ The dream was one of the most delightful enjoyments I ever had in my life — ”’

‘ No! No, no, you must be wrong! Keats was an artistic genius! He wrote of love and… and beauty and-’

‘Who’s to say that Hell itself is not beautiful, Gabriel? Can you really be so sure it isn’t?’

I could feel my mouth twisting in a grimace of revulsion at the disgusting suggestion and, turning on my heel, I started to stride towards the doorway but paused and turned back when Stephomi called out to me over his shoulder, ‘I don’t think I’ve said thank you.’

‘What? What for?’

‘For saving my life, of course,’ Stephomi replied, twisting slightly in his seat to glance back at me, with that amused expression on his face once again. ‘I think I might have been prematurely parted from my head had it not been for your fortuitous arrival. What where you doing on the island, anyway?’

‘Oh. I couldn’t sleep,’ I said, staring back at him. ‘Would that thing really have killed you?’

‘Of course,’ Stephomi replied with a wry smile. ‘Did you not see the large, impressive sword?’

‘What can we do about all this?’ I asked.

He looked at me incredulously. ‘Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?’ he asked. ‘This is an angelic war, Gabriel. There’s nothing you or I can do about it. Oh, wait…’ he said, and I looked at him hopefully as a thoughtful look came into his eyes. ‘Do you have a spaceship?’ he asked after a moment.

‘What?’ I said blankly.

‘A spaceship. If you’ve got one then perhaps we could pack some Kendal Mint Cake, go to another galaxy and leave the angels to squabble over this one. What do you think?’

I scowled my annoyance at him, irritated that he was mocking me at such a time. ‘What were you doing on Margaret’s Island?’ I asked.

‘I could not sleep either,’ Stephomi said lightly, turning back in his chair.

The metro stations re-opened for the day at 4:30 a.m. so I was able to get one of the underground trains back to my apartment, stopping to pick up the morning paper from an early vendor outside. I’d had less than three hours’ sleep but I didn’t feel tired as I let myself into my dark apartment.

I was not at all happy about what I had learned from Stephomi that night. The burning man that I had thought a product of my imagination was, in fact, real. And tonight he had tried to kill the one friend I had in the world — if I could continue to call Stephomi a friend, for he had been less than truthful with me from the very beginning. But I was not afraid of angels or devils, for I had nothing they’d be able to take from me. Except my memories, I suppose… but that is why I have this journal.

What Stephomi had said about Keats disturbed me greatly. I don’t know why I found the idea so intolerable. Perhaps because I respected Keats for his ability to recognise beauty; an ability that allowed him to see something beautiful, something of value, in misery itself. But to associate any kind of beauty with Hell disgusted me beyond words, and it seemed the most dreadful contradiction that Keats could have seen such a thing. For Stephomi was right. I found the poem the next day in one of the collections on my shelves. Keats did indeed dream of visiting the Second Circle after time spent reading about it in the fifth canto of Dante’s Divina Commedia. The Second Circle: where the lustful are punished for their sins by being blown and driven about by fierce eternal winds of misery.

I was reminded forcibly of Giuseppe Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata and his claim that it was a poor reflection of the beauty the Devil had been able to wring from the violin in his dream, for Keats too maintained that the inspired poem really was no comparison to the delight of the dream itself. Nothing but a pale reflection of the beauty the Devil had brought with him to the sleeping minds of artistic geniuses…

I don’t know why the poem upsets me so much. It’s true that Keats described the dream as one of the most ‘delightful enjoyments’ of his life, and expressed the desire to return there every night… Every night, oh God, the grotesqueness of such a desire! At the end of Canto IV, Dante himself faints (the only occasion he does so during his whole journey through the Circles) out of horror and fear at the things he sees within the Second Circle. That anyone, much less a poet of the most astounding ability, would wish to visit this place… I can’t think about it, for it disturbs me too greatly and I feel that there must have been something, after all, quite flawed and twisted within Keats’ soul.

But all this nonsense about angels fighting each other… that can’t be right. Surely Stephomi isn’t still lying to me? Am I being paranoid now? Truth be told, I think I am predisposed towards paranoia. But as the saying goes, even the paranoid man has enemies.

I did not like the idea that a demon had invaded my home and my dreams. Stephomi had said that dreams themselves were a place of the In Between, neither truly one reality nor the other, a merging of the possible and the impossible. And I had seen the demon in mirrors too, I remembered. I had seen him and the mystery woman in the mirror of the bathroom, both of them in flames… I started, appalled as I thought back on it. At the time I had dismissed it as a semi-waking dream, a nightmare, a hallucination. But now… I realised what this must mean. The woman, the lost woman of Budapest had indeed been found. By a devil! A devil who had taken her straight to Hell! Fuck!

Horrified, I picked up the telephone and dialled Stephomi’s number, very much relieved when he answered. I proceeded to tell him what I had surmised. And then noticed that he was very quiet on the other end of the phone and another truth burst savagely into my mind. ‘You already know, don’t you?’

‘Yes, Gabriel, I know. I’ve seen her too.’

‘What can we do?’

Stephomi sighed down the phone. ‘We can do nothing, Gabriel. You must get this into your head. You can’t fight angels and devils. It’s not a question of taking kung fu classes — this isn’t Buffy, you know. Look, lost souls have always been rich pickings for hunting demons, that’s just the way it is. Have you seen the morning paper?’

I replied that I hadn’t had the chance yet.

‘Then I suggest you go and look at it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I really must go-’

‘Wait!’ I said. ‘I’ve been thinking about it and that day I came to see you in the morning at the hotel… Your room was a mess and so were you. You’d had a demon in there, hadn’t you?’

Stephomi hesitated. ‘A demon, yes.’

‘Well? What happened? Did you kill it?’

‘No, Gabriel, I didn’t kill it,’ he said, patiently. ‘That would have been a very foolish thing to do indeed’

‘But… why the hell did you have a demon in your hotel room anyway?’ I demanded.

‘Look, as I’ve already said, there aren’t many people who can see them. Demons and angels know who we are and I think it unnerves them to have humans who can see into their own worlds. They don’t like it. They preferred it when people like us were burned at the stake. But sometimes they need a human agent here on Earth, and that’s when they come to us.’

I paused for a moment, a grimace of distaste twisting my mouth. ‘You’ve served the whims of demons?’

‘Angels too, Gabriel,’ Stephomi said, an amused tone in his voice. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve done nothing I should be ashamed of.’

‘But… but, they’re devils! They’ll have ulterior motives!’

‘Everyone has those, my friend. Even angels. Anyway, sometimes we mortal men have little choice in the matter. The world belongs to them, really. God gave it to them to squabble and fight over. That’s why everything’s such a mess. Anyway, I really have to go. I suggest you go and read the paper. Page six. And I assure you I had nothing to do with it.’

Nothing to do with it? Those ominous words still ringing in my ears, I hung up the phone, walked back to the kitchen table, sat down and spread the newspaper out at page six. And then my heart missed a beat and my breath caught in my throat as I looked at the photo and the caption on top of the small article. As I sat and stared, growing more horrified by the moment, there was a soft, slicing sound from just behind me and the page was suddenly covered with splattered drops of blood, blotting and soaking into the page, mixing and swirling with the black ink used to print the dreadful story.

In horror, I leaped from my chair and whipped round to stare behind me, half expecting to see some devil with a dripping carving knife. But there was nothing. The kitchen was completely deserted. I raised a hand to my face, wondering if a spontaneous nosebleed had caused the newspaper to become spotted with blood. But it wasn’t me who was bleeding. At a loss, I turned back to gaze at the newspaper but, to my astonishment, the page was quite unmarked. There were no longer any swollen beads of blood staining the article. Cautiously, I picked up the paper and ran my hand over the surface. It was bone dry. Once again, I felt that terrible tugging sensation from within — as if laughing, mocking devils were tugging at my sanity, madly determined to have it from me.

With an effort, I sat back down at the table and re-read the article. The mystery woman now had a name. And she was also now dead. Her body had been found yesterday morning in a seaweed- and barnacle-covered crate left beneath the Holocaust Memorial during the night… ‘ Neville Chamberlain’s Weeping Willow is weeping still ’ …

When people had noticed the box yesterday, bomb diffusers had been called for in the fear that the box contained explosives. But as soon as the crate had been prised open, a mass of water had rushed out and with it, the body of a woman. Her name was Anna Sovanak and she was a scientist working on developing new medicines in Budapest. She had disappeared a few months ago, back in June, while holidaying with her family in Italy. There had simply been no trace of her, not a single clue for the authorities to build a case upon. She had just gone for a walk on the coast after storming out of the villa, having argued with her husband, and had not been seen again. Eventually, it was assumed that she must have decided to go swimming and had been overcome by savage currents that had swept her out to sea.

The paper confirmed that the water from the crate had indeed been salt water and that the unfortunate woman had most likely been in this crate at the bottom of the ocean since her death, which was estimated to have taken place in June soon after her disappearance. She had died from a precisely applied stab wound to the neck, which would have killed her virtually instantly. Anna Sovanak was from a long line of Jews and, together with the fact that her body had been left beneath the Holocaust Memorial, police had officially concluded that this was a simple anti-Semitism inspired killing. An isolated incident of prejudice and hatred. They were following several leads and were sure to catch those responsible soon… very soon… How very comforting…

I gazed at the article incredulously for some time. Why would anyone go to the trouble of concealing the body in the Mediterranean, only to bring it up months later and somehow transport it to Hungary, without anybody noticing, to leave it beneath the Holocaust Memorial? How could this even remotely be classed as a straightforward, isolated incident? Were the police utterly incompetent? And what of the journalists? Why was such a story toiling away on page six with no more than three or four paragraphs? Surely this was front-page news? Was I in the middle of some huge conspiracy that everyone else was in on?

And it was horrifying that she had been dead since June, for I had seen her just last month in Budapest. Was I truly losing my mind? I thought back over it all and realised triumphantly that I was not the only one to have seen her. We had both been attacked by muggers that night… But had they seen her or had they just seen a man running through the streets on his own? I had seen men step out behind her. But I had not seen them touch her, or speak to her, or step towards her, or acknowledge her presence in any way. When it was all over, she had been gone, faded softly from the alley like some wandering ghost.

But, no, there had been one other. The boy at the Basilica. The dying boy, I realised with a sinking heart. The child whose body was disease-ridden, causing his hair to fall out and his skin to turn grey. A pale shadow like me, not even really here. A person of the In Between himself.

I took her photograph out of my pocket. The photo that had been stitched into the lining of the antique Italian volume of Hell and its devils with the reference to the Holocaust Memorial on its back. And now this Jewish scientist had turned up, stuffed into a box, beneath the Weeping Willow memorial created in memory of all those who had gone before. Had the reference to a weeping willow been a clue? A premonition? A warning? Who was it who was playing these games with me? Who tormented me in such a fashion? Sending me the smallest snippets of information with maddeningly cryptic quotations that could not be unravelled until it was too late.

I pulled out the second photograph — the one that had been hidden in the case of wine from France; the one that showed Stephomi and me facing each other across the hotel room, the vast, stunning cityscape of Paris spread out through the window behind us. And the quote from Robert Kennedy on the back: ‘ Forgive your enemies, but do not forget their names. ’… Do not forget their names… The implication was clear — that Zadkiel Stephomi was an enemy and not to be trusted. That he must be kept at arm’s length and closely watched. But whatever Stephomi was to me, he had been more forthcoming and open than this cursed letter-sender, and in those moments I felt a powerful, unreasoning hatred against that person. That unknown person, out there somewhere, deliberately taunting me, pushing me to the edge of madness itself. God, how I hated them!

And, whoever they were, they were now here in Budapest. They had pushed the last note under the door with their own hands rather than sending it disguised in the mail. They knew where I lived. They knew that I could read and understand Latin. I took this note out too and lay it on the table beside the photos and the newspaper article to re-read it:

The gates of Hell are open night and day;

Smooth the descent and easy is the way.

And then, added beneath:

The Ninth Circle will not hide you much longer.

Yes. Someone was surely trying to drive me insane. The Weeping Willow reference on the back of Anna Sovanak’s picture strongly suggested that this was the same person who had deposited the Jewish woman’s body beneath the Holocaust Memorial. Which meant that I did indeed have a most dangerous enemy: a ruthless and twisted killer; a clever lunatic. But I wouldn’t let him beat me. I’d set a trap for him — catch him like the rat he was.

I went into Budapest today and purchased a very expensive, top of the range video camera, so tiny as to be hardly noticeable to the casual glance, which I fixed over my doorway. If anybody puts anything else under my door, I will know about it. I will see, once and for all, who is behind these dreadful games.

I have always been a fervent and devout Christian. I know this because of the worn out, heavily annotated Bible by my bed, but I can also feel my faith burning inside me. I accept God in my soul. I know that the Bible speaks the truth and I need no miracles to persuade me of this. I have always known that angels and demons are real. But I didn’t realise that they were so close to us before.

The knowledge alarmed me, for Stephomi had said that angels and demons didn’t like us — we few who could see them — but nonetheless, when there was something that they wanted, they might come and ask things of us. I knew that I needed to be protected against such an event. If an angel asked something of me, I knew I would gladly comply; but I vowed that I would not follow in Stephomi’s footsteps and acquiesce to any demonic request that might be put to me — even if the decision cost me my life. I meant it, too. A person has to have something of heroism in them to be prepared to die for what they think is right, don’t they? I can be proud of my convictions. It’s more than Stephomi is willing to do. Not that I can really blame him. I realise that there can’t be many of us who have such an inner selflessness.

In order to prepare myself, I reluctantly took out my many books on demonology once more and read up on the fallen angels, from the Watchers to Lucifer himself and his seven Princes of Darkness. I read of Beezlebub, so called ‘Lord of the Flies’ because of the insect swarms that lingered around his bloodstained altar. I read of Belphegor — the champion of lust — and Moloch, who demanded the sacrificing of children in his honour. And so the list went on: Mephistopheles, Belial, Samael, Asmodeus, Mastema, Nisroch… each demon with their own despicable tale of sin and wickedness. I learned as much about each of them as I could so that I might recognise them if they came to me.

I studied the repulsive paintings in the antique Italian book, noting with distaste the lunatic expressions on the faces of these demons. But there was one painting in particular that disturbed me more than all the others. It was a picture of Mephistopheles by an unknown artist. The book explained that the painting had been discovered in Italy in the 1500s and the precise age of the picture was difficult to estimate. What so unnerved me about it was the distinct lack of any madness in the demon’s intelligent gaze. His thin, twisted form was undoubtedly that of a demon, but something of the angel hung about him still. The large, bedraggled wings that were curved round him like a bat had not quite lost all their white feathers. He was perched on the edge of a mountain, his feet gripping the boulder like claws as he stared down hungrily at the world spread beneath him.

It was thought that Lucifer had bitterly missed God and longed horribly for Heaven for many centuries after falling from grace. But not Mephistopheles, who had promptly followed Satan from the Heavenly realms, revelling in his newfound freedom without even the slightest twinge of doubt or regret or uncertainty.

I thought back to the way Mephisto had so cleverly turned Faust’s thirst for knowledge and self-improvement against him, and felt disgusted by the demon and his methods — to twist something good and admirable in such a way that, in the end, it completely undoes the man who once entertained notions of nobility and integrity.

I closed the book then and moved on to another, finding of all the demons it was Mephistopheles I feared meeting the most. With the other demons, even Lucifer himself, I felt that as long as I was firm in my adherence to Christianity and Godly values, they would not be able to touch me. But with Mephistopheles, it was those Godly values themselves that turned into weapons in his masterly hands to be used against the helpless men who became so inextricably entwined in his grasp.

The other thing that disturbed me was the idea that some demons are the ‘dark twins’ of angels. Two brothers on opposite sides of the bloody War. I dislike anything that connects angels with such vile creatures. Of all the angels, I like Michael the best. Head angel after Lucifer’s fall, Michael is often portrayed with sword and armour and is said to have led the heavenly army against the rebel angels and is destined to do so again in the battle that will take place at the end of time. It’s also said that Michael fought Satan for Moses’ body after his death. So I suppose Stephomi was right — angels do fight, after all. With such an infestation of demons, what other choice do they have?

The Cherubim, second highest choir of angels, were said to have been formed from the tears that Michael shed over human sins. It would seem indeed that he is a powerful force to be reckoned with, and his existence comforts me in the wake of hours spent reading of powerful, reckless devils.

I am glad that I started this journal. It is a focus; it grounds me in some sense of reality, of stability. It is an anchor for my soul, not allowing me to become too detached. I sometimes worry that all my research into angels and their fallen brothers serves only to further distance me from those around me; to further sever the already tenuous link I have to this world and bring me closer to theirs.