The Ninth circle

25th December (Christmas Day)

Today was beautiful to begin with. Casey and I went to a Christmas service in St Stephen’s Basilica in the morning. The heavy snowfall during the night had dressed the city in a frozen, fine white robe of Christmas finery that sparkled at us as we walked through the streets to the cathedral.

People seemed more friendly than usual, and every family we passed stopped to wish us good morning and a merry Christmas. It was odd, really, and I wondered what made the day so special, so magnificent, for those who were not religious. For me the day was sacred for marking the time when Jesus Christ was born, but I couldn’t understand what made the day anything other than ordinary for non-believers.

The sun shone radiantly through the stained-glass windows of the Basilica, the holy music of Christmas hymns lifted to the great arched roof, and sculptured angels gazed down upon us in virtuous approval. We ate out for both lunch and dinner, since neither of us knew how to go about cooking a Christmas meal. I didn’t want Casey to be sat on her own in her apartment all day thinking about her family, so I tried to fill the day with things to keep us busy. I’m sure she appreciated the effort but I know she couldn’t help thinking of her parents and her brother, and the Christmas she had been having with them just this time last year. But for me, having someone to share Christmas with was wonderful. I had not been condemned to spend the hallowed day sat in my apartment staring at the walls thinking about Nicky and Luke after all.

‘Do you miss Luke?’ Casey had asked me at one point.

I looked at her in surprise. ‘I don’t remember him.’

‘But do you miss him anyway?’ she persisted.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Does that sound crazy to you?’

‘No,’ she replied with a smile. ‘I love my baby and I’ve never even met him. I don’t even know where he’s come from! That’s crazy, isn’t it? How can you love someone so much when you don’t even know them at all?’

When we returned to our apartment building late after dinner, Casey invited me in for a glass of hot mulled wine. Of course, I gladly accepted since I hadn’t given her her present yet, not really wanting to do it in front of everyone in the crowded public restaurants.

We walked in to Casey’s drab little apartment, and I thought as she heated the wine that I really should look into moving both of us to better accommodation in a nicer part of the city. She had decorated her apartment for Christmas even though she was alone. She told me that she had bought the few cheap decorations and strings of ribbon at one of the open-air Christmas markets with her last pay cheque. I loved her for the small, rather pathetic Christmas tree that stood on the kitchen worktop, decorated with grubby bits of ribbon, and for the cheap wreath she had hung on the door.

‘I hope today hasn’t been too hard for you,’ I said, as I watched Casey arranging mince pies on a plate.

She shrugged. ‘I really miss my family,’ she admitted. ‘All of them. Even though I know that the way I remember them is a lie. My parents… hurt me so much that I know they couldn’t have been the people I thought they were, because those people would never have dreamed of hurting me the way they did. So when I miss my parents, I know I don’t really miss them, I just miss the people I thought they were. Does that make sense?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid it does.’

‘Thank you for being there,’ Casey said, turning to look back at me. ‘You don’t know what a difference it’s made.’

‘I’ll always be here when you need me,’ I promised, and I had never meant anything more in my life. I would follow her to hell and back if I had to.

Casey smiled at me, handed over a mug of mulled wine and put the plate of mince pies on the table. Then she sat down herself and placed a small wrapped package before me.

‘What’s this?’ I asked stupidly.

‘A Christmas present, Gabriel,’ she said, laughing. ‘What do you think it is? I didn’t use the money you gave me,’ she added quickly. ‘It really is from me. I sold a few things to get it.’

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ I said, upset by the idea.

‘They were only things I didn’t need any more anyway,’ she said, brushing it aside. ‘Open it, then. I hope it’s okay. You’re not very easy to buy for.’

In all honesty, if I had unwrapped it to find a slice of stale bread I think I would have treasured it like a holy relic until the end of my days. We had been strangers before. Look where I had brought us. Casey wanted me in her life now. She trusted me. I wanted to freeze this moment, for it seemed impossible that I could ever be happier than I was right then.

When I folded aside the Christmas wrapping and the white tissue paper beneath, a shining black object on a silver chain fell out onto my hand. It was a carved black onyx crucifix glinting with tiny flecks of gold. I adored it at once. Surely Nicky herself could never have bought me a gift so perfect.

‘I got it from the Christmas market in Vorosmarty Square,’ Casey said. ‘People used to believe the crucifix would protect them from evil. You’re going to think I’m being stupid but… would you mind wearing it? Under your shirt or something? I know it’s silly but I’d just feel better if I knew you were wearing it.’

I looked at her, a stupid grin on my face. ‘You worry about me.’

Why did that please me so much?

‘Of course I worry about you, Gabriel. We’re both in this up to our necks, aren’t we? Don’t you feel frightened sometimes?’

Not for myself. It was clear that my own life had ended when my family had died. But here, now, this had become something more than friendship, hadn’t it?

‘We’re all the family each other’s got,’ Casey said softly. ‘I’m frightened that something might happen to you. You will look after yourself, won’t you, Gabriel? Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t get involved in any fights or anything like that. Just… stay here with me. I can’t shake the feeling that something might happen to take you away, and I can’t do this on my own.’

‘Casey,’ I said gently, unable to prevent a smile, ‘I’ve already promised to be there for you whenever you need me.’

‘But what if you recover your memories one day and go back to your old life?’

‘You know I don’t have one.’

‘So no matter what you remember, you won’t leave me?’

‘No, I promise.’

‘Don’t make the promise lightly, Gabriel. People can get hurt that way.’

‘I promise,’ I said again, and with all my soul I meant it.

I already knew from Stephomi that I had nothing of any value to return to anyway — everyone I cared about was dead. But regardless of what Stephomi had said, I knew that there was nothing I could possibly remember — nothing anyone could possibly tell me — that would take me away from Casey. There is a limit to how much you can love another person, and I know I couldn’t care for anyone more than I care for her. But if, for argument’s sake, I did have to go somewhere or do something, then I would take Casey with me; and if I couldn’t take her then I wouldn’t go, simple as that. I told her as much, willing her to understand how deeply I meant what I’d said.

‘And you don’t need to worry about me,’ I said. ‘You know that I can take care of myself. But this crucifix is beautiful, Casey, thank you. And of course I will wear it. In fact, I’ll put it on right now. Are you reassured?’

She nodded and gave me a grateful smile. When I took the present I had brought from my bag, and handed it to her, she told me with smiling exasperation that the shopping we had done at the Luxus Department Stores was supposed to have been her Christmas present.

‘No, that was for the baby,’ I said. ‘I don’t think those little woolly hats would fit you, somehow.’

I could see from Casey’s face how delighted she was when she unwrapped my gift. ‘She’s perfect, Gabriel,’ she said, smiling at me.

During one of my afternoons in the city, I had come across a tiny little shop, owned by an elderly Hungarian man, that was stuffed full of wooden carvings, most of them religious in nature. The old man told me he made them all himself with the help of his brother and nephew. Some of the carvings were painted, some were left as they were — the naturally pale golden hue of the wood the craftsmen used. Everything in there was extremely expensive due to the time and skill involved in making even the smallest piece.

The figure I had chosen for Casey was a small, unpainted statuette of the Virgin Mary, head humbly bowed, a long shawl clasped about her shoulders and falling gracefully around her slender figure to her feet. It really was a beautiful piece and seemed particularly appropriate for Casey because of her fatherless baby — and she had told me herself that she found pictures and images of the Virgin Mother comforting.

‘What’s that on your hand?’ I suddenly asked sharply as I noticed the thin streaks of scarlet trickling over her palm.

‘What?’ she asked, glancing up at me.

I looked down at the white tissue paper lying on the table in which the figurine had been wrapped. It was stained with red.

‘Can I see that for a minute?’ I asked, snatching it from her grasp.

Then I gazed at the thing in horror. The tiny statue was weeping. Scarlet tears of blood were soaking into and staining the soft wood, and trickling over my fingers as I held the figure.

‘What is it?’ Casey asked.

I glanced at her and then held up the statuette. ‘What do you think of this?’

‘I love her, Gabriel, really. She’s perfect.’

I felt my mouth twisting into a grimace as I realised she couldn’t see the bloody tears, and my mind raced for an excuse. I could not possibly leave this thing in Casey’s possession. It might be dangerous.

‘I’m really sorry, Casey, but they seem to have given me the wrong one,’ I said apologetically. ‘The one I picked out for you was much better than this. I’ll take it back to the shop as soon as it opens after Christmas and get them to exchange it.’

Casey protested that she really was delighted with the one I was holding in my hand, but I was firm. The fine lines and details of the carving’s face were virtually imperceptible now, so covered was the figure in its own scarlet tears. Then I made the mistake of looking up at the kitchen worktop and saw Casey’s hateful little Black Madonna standing there, also weeping tears of blood, and I knew I had to get out of the apartment fast. That same raw, desperate revulsion was rising up in me at the sight of the dripping blood, just as strong as the day I had sunk my knife into the rare steak, and it took everything I had not to leap to my feet with a cry of disgust and bolt from her apartment to the safety of my own.

I stood up abruptly, walked round behind Casey in the pretence of putting my mug in the sink, and snatched up the Black Madonna, stuffing it into my pocket without Casey noticing. Somehow I managed to thank my young neighbour for a lovely day and for the gift she had given me, before saying goodnight and returning to my apartment where I flung the Virgin Mary and her black counterpart onto the kitchen table and stared in trembling fear at the blood that was all over the palms of my hands. The sight stirred something inside me. It tugged at a memory that refused to come to the surface, for which I was grateful. But I knew in that moment that this was not the first time I had had blood on my hands. It wasn’t the first time. This had happened before. Something really, really terrible…

I didn’t realise I wasn’t alone until Stephomi spoke. ‘You’re late tonight, Gabriel. I’ve been here for hours.’

I spun round with a startled yell, making Stephomi jump himself. ‘How did you get in here?’ I asked hoarsely.

‘I hope you don’t mind. I just came to tell you, well, to warn you

… But I see you already know-’

‘Know what?’ I managed, willing my body to stop shaking. It was all the more disturbing because, even if something deep inside me remembered, I had no conscious recollection of what I was so scared of.

‘It’s begun,’ Stephomi said, with a nod towards the furthermost wall of the room. On it was hung a painting of Jesus, and I could see even from here that he was weeping. Tears of blood ran down the canvas, staining and marking the picture horribly. ‘Your neighbour will give birth this Sunday — six days from now. Every religious picture or statue in the city is weeping like that. Eerie, isn’t it?’ he said, with a glance of distaste at the carvings on my kitchen table, now floating in a pool of their own blood.

‘What is this?’ I asked, holding up my bloody hands.

Stephomi frowned at me. ‘I just told you. Every painting and-’

‘No, no, what is this? What is this?’ I asked again, gesturing with my hands. ‘Why do I remember this?’

‘What do you mean?’ Stephomi asked, looking puzzled. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Did I hurt someone?’ I asked, afraid of the answer. ‘I did something, didn’t I? I did something really, really awful to someone.’

Something was tugging at me. I needed to remember something that had only happened a few weeks ago. Something that had been wrong though I hadn’t realised it at the time… Something Stephomi had said to me that hadn’t been right… He had contradicted himself; he had lied to me… If I could just remember what it was, I could confront him with it and he could give me the logical explanation that I knew must exist. I glanced at the weeping statues and painting again, hating them. They were doing this to me! Along with those devils in my head. It wasn’t me, it was them!

‘Make them stop,’ I pleaded. ‘They hate me! They want me to be insane like them! Don’t you understand? They’re trying to destroy me! They want me to forget again!’

Calmly, Stephomi picked up a kitchen towel and handed it to me. ‘Clean that blood off your hands,’ he ordered.

I did as he said; glad to have someone telling me what to do. At the same time, Stephomi turned the painting of Jesus round to face the wall, then took the towel from me and dropped it over the bloody virgins on the table.

‘No more blood,’ he said. ‘All right? Do you feel better now?’

‘ The rest of your family were there…’ I said, remembering at last.

‘What?’

‘When I asked you if you came to Nicky and Luke’s funeral, you said yes.’

‘What of it?’

‘And then you said that the rest of my family went to support me.’

‘So?’

‘So I don’t have any other family. I said so in that letter I wrote my aunt before she died. There wasn’t anyone else apart from Nicky and Luke. You’re not still lying to me, are you, Stephomi?’ I was almost begging him.

I saw him hesitate and then I knew for sure, and it made me feel sick. With myself as much as with him… I was so tired of having to rely on other people to tell me who I was. How many times was I going to have to go through this miserable uncertainty? It was starting to make me feel like a shadow rather than a real person.

‘Why did you lie about the funeral?’ I demanded. ‘How much of what you told me about that day was true?’

Stephomi sighed. ‘None of it.’

‘ None of it?’

‘Gabriel, you have to understand; I lied only because I knew the truth would hurt you. You weren’t all that stable and I thought these stories might help you to become more grounded. Make you feel more normal.’

‘More normal?’ I almost whispered.

‘If I’d told you the truth, you might have done something stupid. You hated yourself for everything that’d happened.’

‘I killed them, didn’t I?’ I said, almost to myself, realising what Stephomi was going to say. ‘I killed my wife and son somehow. That car crash was my fault, wasn’t it?’

‘There never was any car crash,’ Stephomi said quietly.

I stared at him, felt my heart begin to lift. ‘You mean… Nicky and Luke… are alive?’

‘No. They, er… they never existed.’

Never existed…? After a moment I laughed, sure that he must be joking. But Stephomi didn’t laugh. For once, he wasn’t even smiling.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said, staring at him. ‘I have the documents that prove they existed. I have their death certificates and our marriage certificate and-’

‘Forgeries,’ Stephomi said.

‘Rubbish! If they never existed then why do I miss them so much?’

‘Because you love the idea of them,’ Stephomi said, with a shrug.

I shook my head, torn between amusement and irritation, ‘All right, humour me. Where is my real family?’

‘You don’t have one,’ Stephomi said simply. ‘You’ve never had one.’

‘Oh, I see. You mean, I was miraculously conceived as well?’

‘You were orphaned.’

I gazed at Stephomi — for the first time realising what a pathetic person he was. How could I ever have relied on him the way that I had? Well, I had Casey now. I didn’t need him any more.

‘I don’t think we should continue to see each other,’ I said stiffly. ‘It’s quite clear to me that you have a compulsive lying disorder. It probably relates to some kind of repressed childhood trauma. I’ve read about these things, you know. It’s all psychological. I would advise you to seek help. All you’ve ever done is lie to me. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard about this so-called religious War or the Antichrist from anyone but you; I’m half inclined to believe that you were making it all up to impress me.’

‘That would be a very dangerous thing to do,’ Stephomi warned, quietly.

‘You’re jealous of her, aren’t you?’ I said, realisation dawning.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Stephomi asked, watching me with a strange look on his face.

‘You’re jealous of Casey.’

‘Why should I be jealous of her?’ he asked me patiently, like someone humouring a madman.

‘Because of me!’ I said gleefully. The thought gave me this happy, selfish little glow inside. ‘I really needed you before I met her, didn’t I? You just loved it, didn’t you? All that attention. I relied solely on you for companionship, advice, answers about my past

… And then I started spending more time with Casey and less with you, and you decided you’d come round here and tell me another story about my past to get me interested again. It’s not a dead family this time, it’s a lonely orphan. How stupid do you think I am? You need me far more than I need you now. I’m not interested in the past any more, Stephomi. I know that my family were real. I can feel it. I don’t need anyone to prove it to me. And there’s nothing you can say that’s going to make me doubt that.’

‘Have it your own way,’ Stephomi said, shrugging easily. ‘But don’t be too quick to dismiss me, my friend, for you might need me in what’s to come, and then you might regret what you’ve said.’

‘What’s to come!’ I repeated derisively. ‘Assuming that there is anything to come, I will just pray to God if I need help.’

‘ Prayer! ’ Stephomi practically spat the word. It was the first time this evening that I had seen him show annoyance. ‘Christ, Gabriel, how can you be so naive? When has prayer ever worked? Do you know what happens to people when they pray? They draw attention to their own sins and God punishes them. He sends plagues, He sends floods — ’

‘You’re still doing it! You’re still lying!’

‘I don’t need to lie about God to make Him sound like a cruel, selfish bastard!’ Stephomi snapped. ‘People suffer and die pointlessly every day, Gabriel, every day! I tell you it would be a relief to go to Hell after this; it would be a relief! What about Noah’s Ark? The whole world had been praying for salvation and how did God reward their prayers? By drowning them all. Apart from Noah, of course, but then he had to live with what he’d seen and done for the rest of his life, and he ended up wishing he’d died with the rest of them. It’s the same tired old story — you pray to God, you get kicked in the fucking teeth. Anyone who can pledge allegiance to a God like that disgusts me! You’re just a lot of fucking brainless sheep! You can’t even conceive of the possibility that God’s a sick, selfish bastard, can you?’

‘Shut up!’ I said angrily, finding my tongue at last. ‘Shut up, shut up! ’

To my surprise, Stephomi fell silent — breathing deeply, collecting himself, as if he’d said more than he’d meant to. I’d never seen his control waver like that before. It unsettled me. What kind of a person could talk about God in such a way anyway? Just hearing it made me feel like twisting his damn head off.

‘I’m… I’m sorry, Gabriel’ he said with an effort. ‘I didn’t mean to be disrespectful to your faith. I’ll go if you want. But I’m telling you the truth about yourself, however much you might have preferred the lies. Nicky and Luke were a beautiful dream, but that’s all they ever were.’

‘All right, all right,’ I said, waving my hand dismissively, just wanting to be rid of him. ‘Look, you were there for me when I needed you and I won’t forget that. So I’ll help you with this, okay? This lying disorder you have. We’ll go and see a psychiatrist or something. Together we can… we can…’ I faltered, my attention caught by the large mirror on the wall across from me. The burning man was there, staring out at me, his blue eyes blazing as fire rained down about him. And then, in another moment, he was gone and a name appeared written in fiery gold on the mirror’s surface: Stephomi. Unable to help myself, I glanced at my friend, who turned his own gaze sharply towards the mirror; but it seemed that Stephomi was not a party to this particular mirror vision for he turned back to me with an exasperated, ‘What is it now?’

I forced my gaze back to the mirror and, as I watched, the letters of my friend’s name rearranged themselves until at last there was an altogether different name burning like fire on the mirror before me: Mephisto.

I turned back to the man standing in front of me, horror written all over my face, determined to speak, to question, to demand an explanation as to why the letters of his surname were an anagram of the name of one of the most notorious demons of all time: one of the Seven Princes of Hell, and the Devil’s second in command himself. But the expression on my face must have given me away, for it was Mephistopheles who spoke first.

‘Oh dear. I believe Michael might have just taken matters into his own hands and exposed me. I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that, Gabriel, as if you hardly knew me at all.’

‘Why?’ I managed, staring at the demon with revulsion. ‘Why the pretence and the lies and the deceiving? Why pretend to be my friend like that?’

‘What deception?’ Mephistopheles asked pleasantly. ‘There has been no pretence or lies from me.’

‘Get away from me, you filthy… you disgusting creature!’ I spat, instinctively staggering back a few steps.

I saw the demon’s mouth tighten angrily. ‘Now, Gabriel, let’s not react too childishly about all this,’ Mephisto said coldly. ‘I’m the same person I was before. I like you, you know — even if you can be a self-righteous, pompous pain-in-the-fucking-arse at times — always whining about morality or Godly virtues or Lucifer or anything else you can fucking think of. But to my surprise, I have enjoyed keeping you company. I kept Captain Hosenfeld company too — you remember him, don’t you? Szpilman’s brave rescuer. Do you know how God rewarded his bravery, Gabriel? By sending Russians to capture him and torture him for years and years after the war ended, until at last he died in a cold, miserable little cell, broken, alone and unwept for. That’s hardly fair, is it? The only kind words he ever heard during those seven years were spoken by me.

‘As for this imminent apocalyptic problem we’ll soon have, I’m sure you’ll do the right thing when the time comes. I’ve never known a person so constantly inwardly preoccupied with morality. I will just remind you, though, that the disgust you feel for me now didn’t exist before you found out I was one of Lucifer’s angels. I had nurtured a faint hope that if you came to know me with no prejudices clouding your mind from the outset, you might come to feel a little differently about the angel/demon divide. After all, if my kind really were so vile, you would think you would have seen through me, whatever form I happened to be in.

‘You were forsaken by God and his army. When you were here in Budapest, friendless and alone, did any of God’s angels come to your aid? Did they make any effort to take the edge from the loneliness that was tearing at you from the inside? Like it or not, Gabriel, it was Lucifer, not God, who sent an angel to you to pull you back from the brink of madness. You owe the Devil your sanity, my friend. How does that feel?’

I stared at him, feeling like I was going to be sick. How had this happened? How had this happened? How had I let myself be tricked by him? The idea that I had eaten and drunk with a demon; that I had welcomed a demon into my home as a friend… The very idea sickened me and my stomach shrivelled nauseatingly at the horror of it.

‘Get out!’ I whispered — a mixture of shame and disgust making my whole body shake.

Mephisto narrowed his eyes at me and for a moment I could clearly see the demon there — the malice, the hatred and that dreadful cold nastiness… Then he flashed me a sudden smile and gave an easy shrug, striding towards me.

‘Oh, well, all friendships must have their final goodbyes. No hard feelings?’ he asked, holding out his hand.

I shrank back from him in instinctive revulsion. ‘I will never shake hands with a… with a-’ I began, but even as I spoke, Mephistopheles grabbed my arm with one hand and gripped my hand with the other, forcefully shaking it in a terrible charade of friendship. I flinched at the coldness of his touch but was too afraid to try and resist him as he stood there shaking my hand, gazing at me with an amused expression on his face, one eyebrow slightly raised as if in challenge.

‘Goodnight, Gabriel,’ he said suddenly, dropping my hand abruptly. ‘Merry Christmas.’

I remained where I was, rooted to the spot as Mephistopheles strode from my apartment, the door banging shut behind him. Silently, I held up my shaking hand and saw that the demon’s handshake had left glistening splinters of ice embedded in my palm, a raw frost burn outlining the shape where his long, slender fingers had touched my skin.

I should have known. I should have worked it out for myself long before this. Stephomi… Mephisto. It was right there before me, a flaunting arrogance and recklessness that was in itself astounding. And I had been too stupid to see it. Even his stolen first name, Zadkiel, was a taunting clue, for Mephistopheles is the dark twin of the archangel Zadkiel.

And the burning man… Mephistopheles had called him Michael. As in archangel Michael? Leader of the angelic armies and God’s most trusted servant? When I had prevented Mephistopheles from being beheaded by him, it had been at Michael’s church. The angel had been dispelling the demon from his own church. I’d thought that Stephomi’s wound had healed so quickly because the sword had been abnormal, not the man… Oh, God, why did I intervene? It had been the fire. That was what had thrown me. It’s surely understandable to associate fire with Hell and its devils. But now that I look more closely at the books and paintings I own, I see that angels are indeed often associated with the blazing brightness and warmth of fire, while demons are connected with cold, blistering ice. I recall too that in Dante’s Divina Commedia, the Ninth Circle of Hell — the one reserved for the most depraved and wicked of sinners — consists of a perfect sphere of ice in which these sinners are condemned to eternal, freezing agony, inwardly cowering at their hideous proximity to the Devil himself.

The Ninth Circle… I know that the Ninth Circle is responsible somehow for all my misery. After Mephistopheles left my apartment, I stood rooted to the spot for some moments until I looked up and glanced over at the mirror again to see more letters written on its surface in shining fire: CIRCLEIX. Circle. IX. Roman numerals for the number nine. Circle 9. I glared in mounting anger at the mirror and in a sudden outburst of rage, I picked up the kitchen chair and threw it into the glass, smashing it with a grim, deeply pleasing satisfaction — showers of glass exploding out towards me and skittering across the floorboards in sharp, sparkling pieces.

Right now I feel I hate all angels, whether God’s or Satan’s. They’re a bunch of bastards, the lot of them, and the terrible bitterness of it was that Mephistopheles was right. The one person to be a friend to me over these past months was one of Lucifer’s devils. No merciful angel of God had come to explain what was happening to me, to comfort me, to be a friend to me, to take away my fear. On the few occasions that Michael (if that really was the identity of the burning man) had appeared to me in dreams and visions, his appearance had served only to frighten me… He hadn’t helped me. Stephomi… that is… Mephisto had come to me like a man, speaking in clear words, coming to my world rather than exploiting the fact that I could see through to his. And now once again Michael was being cryptic, ambiguous, enigmatic, and I could not even guess what the message written in fire on the mirror meant. Surely the angel must know that I had no idea what the relevance of the Ninth Circle was? He must know that I had asked Mephistopheles about it and researched it and wracked my mind for hidden memories but to no avail. The Ninth Circle surrounded me, trapping me with lies and agendas and my own self-imposed ignorance.

But I won’t be used as a puppet. The strange message — CIRCLEIX — continued to appear as I prepared for bed. I saw it blazing above me in the bathroom mirror and scorched into the wooden footboard of my bed. But I ignored it. I didn’t understand it anyway, and I wouldn’t do anything about it if I could. I felt I hated the angels — or whoever was responsible — for tormenting me, for forsaking me and for putting some truth into Mephistopheles’ words by refusing to explain clearly to me what the hell it was they fucking wanted.