Sarwat Chadda - Devil’s Kiss

All the lights had vanished, all except the dull glow of the single bulb above her head. Kay lay on his back, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, panting like he’d run a marathon. His body dripped with sweat and his white hair lay plastered against his scalp. He forced himself up, though his legs looked like they were about to give way. He gazed about him, utterly lost. Elaine stared at him, eyes wide with shock. She touched Kay’s face, checking he was OK, then slapped him. A row of thin red welts rose on his cheek, but Kay hardly noticed.

Around them the engraved wards glowed an intense red, like bricks just out of a kiln, then dulled and, with a hiss, cooled back to their usual brown clay. Billi’s ears echoed with the sudden silence.

She’d been wrong. She’d thought that power no longer existed. Billi looked at Kay as he swept his hand through his sweaty hair. Their eyes met, and his burned with feverish excitement. In four hundred years no one had picked up so much as a radio signal with the Mirror. No one since Dee, the Templars’ greatest Oracle.

Greatest, that is, until now.

‘I just don’t believe it,’ said Elaine. Her hands were still shaking when she poured out the tea. ‘Those wards should have held.’

They’d retreated upstairs into her living room. It was the complete opposite of the ramshackle shop below. The furniture was modern, plain wood with no frills, as if she’d just bought it from Habitat. The lights were a row of spots that sparkled in the clean white ceiling. The only decoration was a menorah, a seven-branched candelabra, on the window sill, and two large reproduction paintings. The first was a Caravaggio, of Abraham about to sacrifice his son, Isaac. An angel on his left stays the knife hand. Billi was caught by the mix of terror and determination in Abraham’s face. What must he have felt, asked by God to kill the one he loved above all others? The second was Islamic calligraphy, the name of Allah entwined to form a circle.

‘My mum had a picture like that,’ said Billi.

‘It is your mother’s,’ said Elaine. Then, catching Billi’s curious look, ‘What? We were friends, you know.’

Elaine handed a mug to each of them, and pulled out a stiff-backed dining chair.

‘What just happened?’ asked Billi. She took the mug and realized it wasn’t just Elaine’s hands that were shaking.

‘Kay opened the portal to the Ethereal Realm,’ said Elaine. ‘And almost let something through.’

‘But what?’ asked Kay.

‘What do you know about the grigori?’ asked Elaine. Billi hadn’t thought it possible for Kay to become any whiter, but she was wrong. He went ashen.

‘The Dark Angels,’ he said. ‘The Watchers.’

‘They’re mentioned in the Book of Enoch.’ Elaine looked at them both. ‘You heard of it?’

Kay gave a slow, thoughtful nod.

‘It’s one of the apocryphal texts,’ he said. ‘Early Christian lore deemed… too dangerous to go in the Bible.’

‘Not long ago you’d have been burned at the stake for even reading it,’ said Elaine.

‘Why?’ asked Billi.

Elaine continued. ‘It discusses the true nature of angels. There are three classes of them.’ She pointed to the Caravaggio. ‘The malakhim, the Messengers. They’re led by Gabriel and the most common form of Ethereal being. But there are two others. Each given their specific role in testing mankind.’ Elaine looked at Billi. ‘Did your mother ever tell you the Islamic story about Satan? About Iblis?’

Billi frowned. She’d spent the last ten years learning to be a Christian and here was Elaine asking her about her Muslim past. There were hundreds of stories, though she could barely remember some of them. But there were others deep in her bones.

‘When God created Adam, God asked all the angels to bow down before the First Mortal. Satan, or Iblis in the Quran, refused. He said he bowed only to God.’

‘Very good. Satan showed both his disobedience and his loyalty to God. He was then given the role to tempt mortals, to test them.’ Elaine raised her head. ‘He took with him other angels who likewise thought mankind didn’t deserve its special status as first among God’s creatures. Those angels became the devils.’

‘And the third class of angels? The grigori?’ asked Kay.

‘The Watchers.’ Elaine glanced at the door as though she half expected someone, or something, to burst in just because she’d spoken their name. ‘They were the Judges. Sent to Earth to teach man righteousness and to punish him should he transgress. They were… are led by the Angel of Death himself.’ She got up and walked over to the Caravaggio. She drew her finger round the face of the young boy, arms held behind his back, the look of utter terror on his face as his father raised his knife, ready to slit his throat. ‘The grigori are the most terrible of God’s angels. Two hundred of them descended on Earth. It took only three to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. It was they that unleashed the Flood. And it was the Angel of Death who walked Egypt and delivered God’s most fearful judgement, the tenth plague. The death of every firstborn child.’

Billi shivered at the thought. ‘What happened to them?’

‘They were summoned back to Heaven,’ answered Kay. ‘But not all went. Seventy rebelled. They turned their back on Heaven and cut off their wings.’

Elaine smiled, impressed. ‘They’d grown too fond of the Material Realm. And why not? Beautiful, powerful, immortal, they were in every way superior to humans. They thought they should remain on Earth and rule over us. They became monsters, tyrants. Feared. Loved. Worshipped.’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Billi.

‘No. Bloody Earth. The Watchers ran amok. Righteous justice became righteous slaughter. They threatened to turn the Earth into a charnel house.’ Elaine left the painting and crouched down in front of Kay. ‘It was King Solomon that eventually defeated them. Given perfect wisdom by God, only he was strong enough to trap the grigori.’ She drew a circle in the air between them. ‘In the Cursed Mirror.’ She shook her head. ‘And that’s where they are, to this day. All of them that is, but one.’

‘The Angel of Death,’ said Kay. ‘The Right Hand of God.’

Elaine nodded. ‘Too powerful for even King Solomon to bind, he alone escaped. Vastly weakened, to be sure. But not in the Mirror like his brethren.’

‘So that’s who we saw, wasn’t it? The banished Watchers?’ asked Kay. He sank his head into his hands. ‘Oh my God. I thought I’d just try to make contact with the Ethereal Realm. Just see if we could hear something.’

‘Oh, we heard something all right,’ said Billi, her anger spilling out over her fear. ‘I told you not to do it, but you didn’t listen. You thought you’d just show off. For God’s sake, Kay, you could have freed them.’

He looked up, his face drawn. ‘But I didn’t, did I? Nothing escaped. The wards -’

‘Are apparently useless,’ snapped Elaine. ‘I should have checked, but I never suspected you’d be that strong.’ She put her hand on Kay’s shoulder and Billi caught the mixture of awe and dread in the old woman’s face. Even she looked at the boy through new eyes. Kay, who used to be afraid of shadows, now able to contact agents of God Himself. He had powers they couldn’t measure or imagine. Elaine was right to be afraid. They should all be afraid.

‘ Lot, the last Oracle, carved those wards, and I assumed he’d done a half-competent job.’ She looked out of the window, eyes narrowed as though searching the darkness beyond. ‘But no, nothing got out. I’m sure of it.’