I looked at my teacup.
"Go on-" he gestured at it-"I want to watch you enjoy it."
"As though you haven"t seen people doing this for centuries."
"Millennia. But I"ll never tire of it. I like to wonder what it must be to take pleasure in something so short-lived."
I took a sip. "Let me ask you something."
"Of course." He reseated himself with a magnanimous tilt of his head.
"It"s obvious you haven"t liked telling me this part of your"- I fumbled for a moment-"background. So why do it?"
I had a strange sense then-the same one I used to have as a boy when I ran up the bas.e.m.e.nt steps, chased by shadows-that coalesced into this thought: Were his compatriots here? Did they know, and would they approve of his coming to me like this? Were his compatriots here? Did they know, and would they approve of his coming to me like this?
"Are you with him now?" I added, on impulse.
"What, this minute?"
I nodded.
He gave me a queer look. "Are you serious? Oh, you are. No, of course not. Like you-and like him-I can be in only one place at a time. Really, you watch too much television." He glanced at his watch, seeming to weigh the time.
A surge of anxiety streaked toward my heart. But the demon, normally so well tuned to my discomfort, seemed to be in conference with his own thoughts. Finally, he crossed his arms. "When people talk about this story, they make it so idiotic: "Lucifer was proud, he wanted to be like G.o.d. When he rebelled, a third of the angels followed him." I"ve heard all the stories-yes, even in your churches. But you have to understand: We were all all proud. And Lucifer-he was the governor of the mount of G.o.d. So how natural and right it seemed that when he held out his hands like a liege accepting fealty, we would give it. proud. And Lucifer-he was the governor of the mount of G.o.d. So how natural and right it seemed that when he held out his hands like a liege accepting fealty, we would give it.
"For a moment-whatever that can be without the boundaries of time-we forgot El. And I heard Lucifer"s thoughts then as clearly as if he had exercised his voice, raised up his fist, and shouted. And why shouldn"t you praise me? Why not bow down? Am I not your perfect prince, with strength a thousand times a thousand of you, with beauty a thousand times greater, with power beyond measure? Watch now! I will go up to heaven. I will raise my throne beyond the stars of El. I will sit upon the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the clouds of glory. I will make myself like the Most High!" And why shouldn"t you praise me? Why not bow down? Am I not your perfect prince, with strength a thousand times a thousand of you, with beauty a thousand times greater, with power beyond measure? Watch now! I will go up to heaven. I will raise my throne beyond the stars of El. I will sit upon the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the clouds of glory. I will make myself like the Most High!"
His gaze had left me again, and I knew that a part of him was back in that place, in Eden then. then. There was a curl to his lips, but the smile was not congenial. There was a curl to his lips, but the smile was not congenial.
"A moment, an eternity earlier, I would have known known it for blasphemy, for d.a.m.ning ambition, independent of Heaven. I would have known! But in that instant his logic was perfect. How could anything less come from such a creature? In the shadow of Elohim, he seemed worthy to do it. He seemed like a G.o.d. His glamour was so great; I wanted him to it for blasphemy, for d.a.m.ning ambition, independent of Heaven. I would have known! But in that instant his logic was perfect. How could anything less come from such a creature? In the shadow of Elohim, he seemed worthy to do it. He seemed like a G.o.d. His glamour was so great; I wanted him to be be G.o.d." G.o.d."
Lucian picked up the tea ball and stabbed it into his cup, sloshing water into the saucer.
"Did he know it?"
"How could he not? The a.s.sumption was-unspoken, of course, but put forth in suggestive and sultry thought-that those of us who followed him would be something greater as well. He would be a G.o.d, and we would become like him.
"The bulk of the Host stood stunned at the discordant thunder of this break. Still, I bowed to him, as did many others like me. And with that, the fate of a legion was set in motion. Time, not yet created, had begun its phantom tick for us alone. Not that we knew it then; we were caught up. We rushed the throne of Lucifer in all its shining estate there in Eden. It was the seat of a government outgrown, and we rose up, ready for our new order. And we seized the throne, determined to move it. I can remember the feel of it in my hands still. Can you understand, Clay? No, of course you can"t!"
Before I realized what he meant to do, he grabbed my hand, his skin tingling against my palm. I started, but as in the bookstore, his grip tightened. I couldn"t pull away.
"The gold of it was hot, burning glory-the glory of Lucifer. It branded me the moment I touched it"- he squeezed my hand tighter-"melding flesh with metal like skin melting on an iron. But instead of letting go, I clasped it tighter, reveling in the white-hot burning of my flesh, the happy cost of my metamorphosis."
The tingling in my hands turned to pain. His palms seemed inhumanly hot. And then I felt it: a rush of power, thudding through my veins like adrenaline. The drum of my heart roared in my ears, faster-faster. In another minute I was sure I would have a heart attack.
Or that I could run a marathon.
I heard the demon from a distance now: "I, too, would become something more than the mere angel I was. And this this would be my transfiguration. This searing was not pain but would be my transfiguration. This searing was not pain but alchemy! alchemy!"
The track lighting, the fliers on the wall, the bins full of exotic teas faded into my periphery. Once, back in college, when I had torn a groin muscle while running hurdles, simple shock and the rush of blood to the injury had caused me to nearly black out. I felt the same way now, except that I was not nauseous, and my vision had not narrowed to a tunnel. In fact, it had expanded, pushing reality to the fringes of my consciousness like curtains sliding into the wings of a stage.
Now came a distant rustle. It grew in volume into the beating of a thousand wings, as though I had entered an aviary ten miles wide, crowded with giant, winged creatures, the bodies too dense above and around me to see anything but intermittent shards of light. Voices deafened my ears, galvanized my heart.
Lucian"s voice came to me: "Our fervor intoxicated me. We would have another G.o.d, one who walked among us, granted favors-one of our spirit kind risen to the third heaven where he was permitted but never resided. And we, the interlopers, would rise up with him and set up his throne there. We would come into the presence of our new G.o.d, walk upright and proud at his side."
With demon-induced vision I felt, more than saw, a singular form, his span gigantic over the din. He did not blot out the light as he should have but against all logic seemed to intensify it. And now I realized that the giant form radiated its own brilliance down onto the horde like mirrors reflecting the sun.
Lo, the light of Lucifer!
I was elated, high on a rush different from any recreational substance I had ever dabbled in at college. No designer drug, no hit of pure cocaine could begin to compete with it.
And then the hand clasping mine let go. I snapped like a retracting cord-back to the table, to myself-with a jolt that made me gasp. I sucked air into my lungs like a swimmer surfacing from near-fatal depths. The electric lights in the tea shop seemed as severe as surgical lights in an operating room, and I felt pinned by an abnormal gravity to the hard chair beneath me, my limbs as stiff as they would have been after days in traction. I felt the inexplicable urge to weep; I was too aware of my human sh.e.l.l, the conflated emotions-human and otherworldly-roiling in my gut.
Across from me, Lucian dredged the tea ball through his cup.
"What-what was that?" I demanded when I knew I wouldn"t vomit on the table.
"A memory. History. What once was," he said, waving his hand.
In the frame of my pathetic human sh.e.l.l, I could still feel the elation, see the body emanating light like spots in my eyes after a flash. I was out of sorts. Dismantled. The urge to weep became contempt. I felt toyed with. As though I had been slipped a drug without my permission-one that had taken me to a state that my human condition could never support or ever hope to reach again except through him.
"I do apologize. I needed you to understand, to know, to feel what my kinship with him meant."
That"s what it was, that intoxication. I shuddered. If what he said was true, I had just vicariously experienced communion with the devil. I pushed up from the table, st.u.r.dier on my legs than I expected. I shuddered. If what he said was true, I had just vicariously experienced communion with the devil. I pushed up from the table, st.u.r.dier on my legs than I expected.
Lucian spread his hands. "Oh, come now."
But I picked up my jacket and walked resolutely out the door.
Out on the street I wondered if I was being foolish-if, like a lover ending an argument in a huff, I should turn around and go back. What if this was the end? Maybe I would be rid of him, of this entire thing.
That thought brought me no relief. In fact, it conjured panic. If this was the end, it would close the portal to something, something, some greater context, containing answers to questions I had not known to ask. Worst of all, I would never know what this had to do with me-a question that had begun to eat at me. Would I wander around half-cooked after this, knowing there was something more, the access to which I had thrown away? And would I be haunted by his words-the words that cycled through my mind at night until I wrote them down simply to rid myself of them-indefinitely? some greater context, containing answers to questions I had not known to ask. Worst of all, I would never know what this had to do with me-a question that had begun to eat at me. Would I wander around half-cooked after this, knowing there was something more, the access to which I had thrown away? And would I be haunted by his words-the words that cycled through my mind at night until I wrote them down simply to rid myself of them-indefinitely?
I returned to the tea shop, unsure what I meant to do or say. But the back table was empty, one of the girls from the counter already gathering the cups, the pot of water, the discarded tea b.a.l.l.s onto a tray.
As I left again, his words pursued me in his absence, a specter at my back whispering visions of heaven, of the devil, in my ear.
5.
My hands burned, seared by the throne that threatened to blind my vision and melt down my wings, but still I held on. I was strong strong and weightless, as though I had come from a place with five times the gravity of this one. And there was Lucifer, spanning the heavens above me, his light so bright now that the wings of the others were nearly translucent with it, their bodies white conflagrations so that I thought, We, too, are transformed. We, too, are transformed. And I was broken by grat.i.tude that I should feel kinship with that splendid creature. It was a new and marvelous ident.i.ty that swelled my immortal chest. And I was broken by grat.i.tude that I should feel kinship with that splendid creature. It was a new and marvelous ident.i.ty that swelled my immortal chest.
I wasn"t the only one. I clamored with equally awed seraphim and archangels, their hands grappling with mine. We had witnessed his glory. We had bent the knee. I could no sooner turn back than I could annul the oath of my allegiance. I had undone the contentment of my prior existence with words and acts irrevocable.
We sped heavenward, drawn up after Lucifer like a magnet, inspired by a single will-Lucifer"s. The cosmos had shrunk to this: the expanse of his wings blotting out the sky, his brilliance diminishing the stars, the great power of his ascent piercing its way to heaven.
But then something happened. The higher we flew, the closer we approached the summit of the mount of G.o.d, the more a sense of inevitability crept over me. It crawled like plague over my body, settled like ache in my bones. I told myself that I was simply in unfamiliar territory; only Lucifer himself had ascended so high, to stand in the throne room of the Almighty.
But no, it was more than that. Something was wrong. I felt naked, even in glory.
Now, with the corporate thrum of our wings loud in my ears, I noticed strange things: seraphim regarded me jealously. One of them even pulled at my hands to wrest them from the throne. I knew what he was doing, and I was filled with rage. That seraph would seek higher favor with Lucifer by a.s.suming my better hold on the throne! It didn"t matter that he was my superior-this was the anarchy of ambition, and I felt no loyalty to rank order. I hated him, and though somehow certain I had never before raised a hand against anyone, I tore at his wing, ripping it.
He clawed at me, face contorted with rage, fingers biting like talons until I let go with a howl, unable to match him. But I was insane with anger and pursued him, clinging to his feet, pulling at him, wanting him to fall. I cursed him with new and foreign words. Unholy words. And now the others around us were clamoring, too, each determined to find favor above his fellow with this new G.o.d, jealous of those closest to him, resentment plain in their eyes. Revolt, glorious to us before, had sprung full-grown and hideous from our hearts. Our fervor, our ambition, careened into violence. And the higher we ascended, the worse it became, until there wasn"t an angel without menace on his face, no seraph without pride in his better strength, no archangel without possession in his eyes.
We had found a new order, appointed our G.o.d, and brought chaos to the world.
The stars wouldn"t abide it. Before we could ascend beyond the second heaven, the sky flashed. I felt anger again, but it wasn"t mine. This anger was righteous, so different from that chaos permeating our knot of rebels. The Host was upon us. I recognized faces I had once loved. In the dream I knew them. And I was struck by their pure, sanctified power. They outnumbered us, and for the first time I felt the force of their strength-a strength I had once been a part of. I saw the hands of kin raised against me, and I feared for myself.
And then I feared even more because I had never before been afraid.
The throne fell from our hands and dropped through the tangle of our arms and wings and heads, plummeting away, a radiant speck in a blackening sea. I watched for a horrified moment, the bellow of Lucifer loud in my ears, as the golden throne grew smaller and smaller until it was gone, fallen back to Eden.
And in the dream I was so familiar with early Eden that I could picture the throne there, shattered in glorious shambles among the shining stones of forgotten harmony, the physical wreck of our plan. But no-when I looked, Eden, that land of brightness, had gone dark. I could see no mote of light there at all. Careening from those heights, fleeing for the lower heavens away from the hands of the Host arrayed before the third heaven, I realized that the only source of light at all was Lucifer. Where were the bright stones of that garden, the great refracted brilliance of our prince, even from this distance?
I had never seen the earth from so far away, had never looked down on it like this. Even so, I knew something was horribly wrong. And then I saw black engulfing the shadowed land, covering it like ink, rising up over it and creeping across the earth until it had seemingly digested it whole, the garden drowned by a sea of pitch.
My world had gone as dark as a planet covered by a shroud, the black cloak of what we had done blotting out everything else.
Lucifer veered away from the onslaught of the angels, and I woke as the rebels, having nowhere else to go, took after him. I saw him, through the loosening fibers of sleep, leading them away: a bright light trailing stars, a comet and its sparkling tail.
IN THE s.p.a.cE OF a night, the ambition for heaven and darkness of Eden had become more real to me than my own home, than the tangled sheets of my bed. The face of that seraph was more horrific than any terror conceived of my own mind. I smelled the brine of sweat, felt its grime on my arms. Never had I experienced emotion in such terrible, pure form. Not even in the torture of facing an unfaithful spouse.
Perhaps this was his revenge for my walking out of the tea shop. If it was, I had no way to confront him, no knowledge-if I had ever had any-of when I would encounter him again.
The next morning, as I sat at my desk, erratic script emerging from my pen, I was seized by a thought. Opening my laptop, I turned it on and pulled up my schedule.
10:30 p.m.: L. L.
12:00 a.m.: L. L.
And again, in blocks between 1:00 a.m. until 4:00 a.m.: L.
L.L.
6.
Bodies flowed around me in Park Street Station like water around a stone. Some regarded me with pa.s.sing curiosity. Some of them looked me directly in the eye. I stared back, half fearful that I would find recognition in their eyes, half afraid that I would not.
I"m going crazy.
A woman in her fifties paused to a.s.sess me. "Are you lost, hon?" she asked with frank kindness. "Do you need some help?"
Is that you, Lucian, you devil? I sought the dark glint behind her eyes-that hint of shadow-but jerked away when she might have touched my sleeve. She shook her head and left me there, even as my attention landed on a man in a trench coat. Was he wearing an expensive watch? Or there-that young mother with the curly haired toddler. Or the tourist studying the I sought the dark glint behind her eyes-that hint of shadow-but jerked away when she might have touched my sleeve. She shook her head and left me there, even as my attention landed on a man in a trench coat. Was he wearing an expensive watch? Or there-that young mother with the curly haired toddler. Or the tourist studying the T T map. . . or that woman with the circles under her eyes. Her hands were cracked. Perhaps she worked as a maid in one of the inns off Newbury Street. She looked tired and worn. Was she ever visited by demons? map. . . or that woman with the circles under her eyes. Her hands were cracked. Perhaps she worked as a maid in one of the inns off Newbury Street. She looked tired and worn. Was she ever visited by demons?
I eventually became aware of a young man studying me from several feet away. The faint hint of a moustache dirtied his lip. He was as pale as a computer junkie; he had that fueled-by-Fritos-and-Red-Bull look about him. A brown, stubby ponytail spurted from the back of his head, half-obscured by the rumpled collar of his long, open jacket. It hung loosely on his shoulders, oversized on his thin frame. Skinny, dressed straight from a thrift shop, he should have looked like a charity case, but he managed to come off grunge-band cool, his unflappability as much a part of his ensemble as his faded Animals Taste Good Animals Taste Good T-shirt. I had been intimidated by that brand of tattered-jeans confidence in others when I was his age. As he dragged an appraising look up and down over me like a store checkout scanner, I found that the feeling carried over into adulthood. I suddenly felt grossly inadequate-not to mention pretentious-in my Eddie Bauer jacket and loafers. T-shirt. I had been intimidated by that brand of tattered-jeans confidence in others when I was his age. As he dragged an appraising look up and down over me like a store checkout scanner, I found that the feeling carried over into adulthood. I suddenly felt grossly inadequate-not to mention pretentious-in my Eddie Bauer jacket and loafers.
"Are we going to stand here all day?" he asked.
I searched for a witty comeback, but I hadn"t had one when Jake Salter had picked on me in high school, and I didn"t have one now. I followed him up the stairs, onto Tremont.
"And you needn"t worry any more about Jake." His speech and the slight, strange accent were at weird odds with his human mundane. "He died a few years ago."
I had been on the verge of railing at him for hijacking my dreams but faltered at this news.
"I didn"t know." The Jake Salters of the world still seemed untouchable to me, their flannel shirts and army boots armor against a society in which the greatest peril was a white-collar eventuality.
The demon shrugged. "Why would you?"
"How?" I envisioned a drug overdose, alcohol poisoning, a motorcycle crash. A knife fight.
He c.o.c.ked his head toward the same invisible horde of insects I had noticed that first night at Esad"s. I shuddered.
"A boating accident. On the Missouri River. He drowned and left a wife. Ah, and three children. Would you like to know more?"
"No," I said, numb, and then again, "No." Family. Kids. Even Jake Salter had his act together. I couldn"t even stay married five years. Family. Kids. Even Jake Salter had his act together. I couldn"t even stay married five years. And then I felt guilty. Act together or not, Jake was dead. Why did it always seem to happen like that? And then I felt guilty. Act together or not, Jake was dead. Why did it always seem to happen like that?
"It always does seem to happen like that," he said, far too young in human years to utter such words, far too dispa.s.sionate regardless of his true age.
"Stop it! Stop reading my mind! And what was that with the dreams? How dare you!" A couple stopped to stare as I turned on him. I had become one of those people I always steered clear of.
"Do you think I could have done that differently? I couldn"t have. I need you to know. know. It was the only way." He had said something similar that first night at the cafe. I heard the echo of it now, bits and pieces of that first conversation flitting along with it. It was the only way." He had said something similar that first night at the cafe. I heard the echo of it now, bits and pieces of that first conversation flitting along with it.
"How about just telling me next time?" I said over the iteration and counterpart of our first conversations, as someone shouts with headphones on. I clutched at my head, realized with belated awareness that I was close to hysteria. I hadn"t slept well. I had lost enough weight in the last two weeks that my pants were loose-something I would normally be glad of but under the circ.u.mstances found slightly alarming-and was so behind at work that I had started to wonder if my job might be in jeopardy. It had been well over two months since I had brought any proposals to the editorial committee, and I was behind in getting the ones that had made it through ready for the publishing board with sales and marketing. The slush pile on my desk-the queries and ma.n.u.script samples sent in by agents and would-be writers-had grown to such a proportion that I had been forced to clear a s.p.a.ce on my bookshelf to accommodate what wouldn"t fit on my credenza. I had more than a hundred e-mails in my in-box and fourteen voice mails that I repeatedly resaved under the delusion that I would return them before week"s end.
To top it all off, I just noticed this morning that I had begun to sprout b.u.mpy hives on my chest, underarms, and back.
"I have so much to tell you, Clay. And we"ve so little time," he said, the echoes of prior conversations subsiding with this statement. There was nothing youthful in the shake of his head.
"You"re obsessed with time, you know that?"