Qualia Page 13

  ‘Joe?’ Carly’s voice cut through my cycle of impending doom and stopped the laughter short.

  I didn’t bother to get up; I just opened my eyes and rested my chin on my hands. ‘Hi, Carly.’ I suppressed another urge to giggle. ‘I’m here to rescue you.’ I frowned as I took a good look around the room.

  Carly was sitting cross-legged on a huge red sofa – so soft she had actually sunk into it and was resting her knees on the bulging cushions either side of her thighs. In front of the sofa a low, heavily carved wooden table held a silver tray on which a tall stoneware jug sat alongside a plate of small pastries. A book, face down, spine broken and pages well thumbed showed that my rather sudden entrance had definitely disturbed “quiet time”. She stared at me curiously over the rim of a large mug, the contents of which steamed and filled the room with the scent of cinnamon and cream.

  Getting to my feet, I dusted myself off. It was a set from an Ideal Home exhibition. A calm, sea-green carpet stretched around the room, thick and warm. Shining wooden bookshelves, filled with well-read titles, graced one long wall and on the other was a heavy wooden desk upon which stood an ancient manual typewriter.

  Well, well, here was someone else that had lied well and completely fooled me. I really ought to receive an award – possibly “Gullible Incompetent of the Year”.

  With all these thoughts whirling around my head I didn’t really feel like talking. Ignoring Carly, I wandered over to the huge bay window and perched on the upholstered seat that ran elegantly around the sill. The market below us bustled with shoppers and performers. Beyond the market the city marched away in all directions.

  It was surprisingly large. Buildings and streets stretched, in no sane pattern that I could determine, off into the distance. There appeared to be a forest along the horizon and I wondered how it would feel to walk there, in the silence, to be going nowhere and to be responsible for nothing but yourself … It sounded pretty good to me.

  ‘What are you doing here, Joe?’ Carly’s voice broke through my thoughts and I jumped, tangling myself in the long curtain ties that hung from the heavy green and gold swags framing the window.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I shook my head and swallowed to clear the lump in my throat. ‘I thought I did but I really don’t.’ I turned to look at her. ‘So what are you doing here?’ I gestured around the grand room. Was that a Gainsborough hanging on the wall? ‘You seem to be a very contented victim.’

  ‘Oh, Joe.’ Carly wandered over and reached out to give me one of her normal hugs. She looked hurt when I held up a hand to keep her away. ‘You aren’t supposed to be here, you were just supposed to get the box and deliver it, not actually turn up all bloody Rambo and try and break me out.’ She ran a hand through her hair, wincing as it snagged on her fingers before springing back into its usual chaotic spirals. ‘How did you get in here anyway?’ She laughed. ‘I’ll bet Nessus had a hissy fit when he saw you.’

  Finally the pennies started to drop. ‘These are your rooms.’ I gazed around at all the clues: the little wooden figures that nestled among the books, the huge mirror over the fireplace with tickets and pictures stuck into the sides of the frame and the paintings – a couple were Carly’s own.

  I had an odd feeling at the back of my neck – a tightening, contracting feeling which spread to my shoulders and chest as though I was a tightly wound spring. I couldn’t stop swallowing and was fairly sure I had developed a twitch.

  I rounded on Carly who squeaked and took a step back. That twitch must have been more exaggerated than I thought. I remembered as much as I could of my past. As the images flashed past they created a colourful but strangely sad home movie. Each short clip centred on the irrefutable fact that, for as long as I’d been alive, I’d been used and lied to. Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit, I was the ultimate fucking mushroom.

  Taking a deep breath I waited until the fairly murderous feelings had calmed a little. ‘Do you have another mug?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’ Carly frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘I want a drink.’ I managed to get the words out through my gritted teeth. I walked over to the table and sniffed at the jug. ‘This smells nice and I want a drink, what is this?’

  ‘Chai.’ Carly kept a close eye on me as she skirted around the edge of the room toward a tall wooden bureau. She took out a clean mug then, crossing the room she came to a halt as far away as physically possible. She leant over to place the mug carefully and quietly onto the table. ‘Joe, we need to talk, there’s a lot you don’t understand –’

  ‘Shh.’ I put a finger to my lips and glared at her. She promptly snapped her lips together and stood in silence. ‘I quite like chai.’ I studied the mug. Abstract art’ The quote flowed around the rim. A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered. ‘Funny,’ I muttered and filled it.

  ‘Joe.’ Carly reached for my hand. Once again I silently stepped out of reach. Her hurt look pulled at my heart and she dropped the hand to her side. ‘You don’t understand,’ she whispered.

  Maintaining that hard shell was difficult, especially as I wasn’t sure it was designed to keep her feelings from affecting me or mine from exploding outward. ‘I think I understand enough.’ Pushing the tray away I perched on the edge of the table and sipped at the tepid liquid. ‘Let’s see.’ I paused long enough to get my thoughts in order. ‘For the last thousand or so years I’ve been working really hard to make up for a crime I don’t remember committing. I’m informed that mine was the ultimate sin but, as I’m told this by an angel who has continually lied to me for the whole of that time I’m not sure I believe him. But whatever my crime was, it doesn’t matter because whether I like it or not I don’t’ really have a choice in what I do because I can’t stand against a being that is so much more than I am.’

  Carly drew a breath. ‘So much more than you are?’ She had her teeth gritted and her fists clenched at her sides. ‘Joe, Metatron’s nothing but a traitor and a murderer.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m not that much better, am I?’ I smiled and shrugged. ‘Where was I? Oh yes, so, I’m told that I’m doing God’s work by killing demons, which I do to the best of my ability. Luckily, it turns out that I’m actually very bad at it but I think that my boss,’ I couldn’t help spitting the word out, ‘actually enjoys watching my pain. That’s why he gave me the gift of immortality – just so he could watch me die over and over again.’

  ‘Yeah, how did he actually do that?’ Carly stood up and began wandering about the room. ‘I can’t see how he accomplished it, bestowing immortality on a human should have been impossible.’

  ‘Ah, ah, ah!’ I shook a finger at her. ‘Questions at the end. So I’m wandering about wondering how much help I have to give Heaven to receive my final reward and it turns out that I’m actually aiding some xenophobic megalomaniac bring on the apocalypse and destroy anyone that’s going to stand in the way of his interpretation of God’s big plan.’ I took a moment to take a breath. ‘Which means that basically I’m compounding any sin I committed by murdering, stealing and generally turning a blind eye to what’s actually going on.’ I gave Carly a frosty look, my stomach churning; now that I’d actually admitted it to myself I thought the chai was going to make a sudden and explosive re-appearance. ‘How am I doing so far?’

  Carly pursed her lips and sighed. ‘Actually, you’ve only got about half of it.’

  I nodded. ‘That makes sense, there’s obviously got to be way more to this than just some mad angel torturing me for the fun of it.’ My stomach churned harder. ‘Please enlighten me.’

  With a big sigh Carly sank cross legged to the floor. ‘Firstly, and just to slot the final puzzle piece into place, how did Metatron make you immortal?’

  ‘Blood.’ I couldn’t really see the point in holding anything back any more but that episode was so painfully bright in my memory I still shuddered whenever I thought of it. ‘I came around in his office after I’d died the first time …’

 
‘What year was this?’ Carly interrupted.

  I made a big show of counting on my fingers then, as my memory did its usual fuzzy blank out, I shrugged. ‘A very, very long time ago.’

  ‘What about before that?’ Carly pressed. ‘Before you died that first time?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’ I frowned. There was something there but it was just feelings and colour – no actual memories. I gave up and shrugged. ‘That’s my first memory. I know I woke up feeling like crap, I remember not being able to move.’

  ‘I bet you did.’ Carly rolled her eyes. ‘Probably because you’d been kept on ice for about a thousand years.’ She shrugged and indicated for me to continue.

  I ignored her. I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with cute exaggeration. ‘Anyway, this huge angel, complete with all the special effects of singing flames and booming thunder, basically lays it all out for me about why I was there and what God wanted me to do.’

  Carly snorted.

  ‘Then he cut his own wrist and mine and joined the two together.’ My stomach heaved as I remembered the moment the two bloods flowed together. ‘I was on fire, I burned, my skin dissolved. I’ve never felt such pain and it seemed to go on for ever.’ I stopped and clapped a hand to my mouth as I heaved. There was no way the contents of my stomach were staying where they were put.

  ‘Through there, quick.’ Carly leapt forward and, grabbing my arm, dragged me over to a door. Kicking it open she pushed me through. I had just enough time to register that it was a bathroom before my stomach, once again, emptied itself.

  After a while, with nothing left to get rid of, I groaned and looked around for a towel.

  Carly, who had been holding my hair, handed me a damp cloth.

  ‘Sorry.’ I apologised to Carly who rolled her eyes.

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’ She took the cloth and rinsed it at the sink returning with a small cup of water. ‘I was just supposed to watch you, not make you cake, give you dinner and laugh at your jokes.’ She waited until I’d finished with the water, then as she turned away she said, ‘I definitely broke the rules when I found out that I really liked you.’ Pulling me to my feet she guided me back to the sofa. ‘You weren’t anything like I expected.’ She stared at me for a moment then, with an obvious effort, returned to the subject at hand. ‘So he made you part angel – well, that makes a lot of sense.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Concentrate.’ Carly snapped. ‘Are you good at your job?’ She picked up my hand; this time I didn’t feel any urge to pull away.

  ‘No, not at all, I don’t enjoy killing things. I’m a fairly inept fighter and, quite frankly, it’s frequently me that ends up dead.’ I paused as something she’d said finally sank in. ‘What do you mean, “part angel”?’

  ‘Didn’t you ever wonder about that?’ Carly shuffled closer and looked up at me earnestly. ‘Didn’t you ever wonder why he kept asking you to do things even though you were so bad at completing tasks? Didn’t you ever ask: why me?’

  I shook my head and had to admit to myself that no, I never had. In fact I’d been very careful never to ask myself that question. In fact I’d never questioned anything; my motto had been: keep your head down.

  ‘As lives go, mine was good, I always had money in the bank however much I spent, I had somewhere to live, a fair amount of free time, at least in the early years.’ I leant forward and pushed a strand of her long hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. ‘Then things changed, I got moved to Birmingham and this woman moved in next door and my life became even more normal. I made the mistake of allowing myself to dream.’ I leant forward intending to kiss her.

  ‘Bleaugh.’ She pulled back with a smile. ‘I think you need to clean your teeth.’ She squeezed my knees and stood up. ‘I also think you need all the facts before you make any moves, so hold on, Casanova.’

  Making sure she had my full attention she began to pace around the room. ‘I’m sorry but it’s actually far worse than you think. Metatron has Lucifer’s vessel?’

  I nodded.

  ‘In that box, we think, is the original spear of destiny blade. Metatron knows you don’t like killing but will happily put something out of its torment. When you next see Graham Latimer he will be in such torment that the only thing someone like you could do would be to kill him – it would be a mercy.’

  My brain turned over: what the hell was happening to that man? What was Metatron doing to him that would be so bad that I’d have to kill him?

  ‘We think he’s hoping to goad you into stabbing Graham Latimer with the cursed blade. That blade will release Lucifer as it destroys the Host, but it will also destroy the Morning Star – this time for good.’

  ‘I see.’ I tried to think of the implications of all this. ‘So what? Lucifer’s gone and he’s been gone for millennia – what difference will it make?’

  Carly began to pace the room. ‘You have to be the most stupid man alive,’ she said. ‘You just don’t think things through, do you?’ Taking a deep calming breath she closed her eyes as she spoke. ‘There has to be a balance. If you kill Lucifer, there is no Adversary and without an Adversary God can’t exist; the balance would tip too far in one direction. Metatron’s counting on this. With God gone he can become the power he’s always wanted to be.’

  This didn’t make any sense at all. ‘But there’s still no Adversary, so the balance would still be off. That can’t work.’

  Carly dropped to her knees again and leaning on my knees she stared up at me. ‘The Adversary will be you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You committed a huge sin.’ Carly squeezed my knees again making sure I was focused. ‘You have spent years committing atrocities, even if you didn’t know they were atrocious.’ She licked her lips. ‘If you destroy Lucifer, you destroy the balance, you destroy God. An angel, even a part angel that destroys God will have fallen so far he will become the next “adversary”. Lucifer only fell, because he tried to take over Heaven. You will be far worse: you will be the ultimate traitor and you will have actually killed God. Making you a far more powerful Adversary than Lucifer ever was, which, because of “the balance”, will make Metatron far more powerful as well. He’ll destroy worlds just because he can.’

  I shook my head. ‘So killing an angel before coming here probably wasn’t a good move then?’

  Carly bit her lip and sighed. ‘No, definitely not. A new Adversary that works for a new God. Metatron gets everything, including his revenge.’

  ‘Revenge?’ I couldn’t think. Carly’s words just kept flashing through my head. I felt as though I was going to explode.

  She gazed at me with an odd look. ‘I’d have thought you of all people would know the story.’ She settled back on her heels and began reciting: the Talmud says that Elisha ben Abuyah entered Paradise and saw Metatron sitting down taking notes – he was a scribe at the time. But sitting is something only God can do. He therefore looked to Metatron as a deity and said heretically, ‘There are indeed two powers in Heaven!’ It was proved to Elisha that he was wrong. Metatron received 60 “strokes with fiery rods” to demonstrate that he was not a god, but an angel, and could be punished.’

  Carly frowned. ‘Well, it’s postulated that he felt, possibly rightly, that this was grossly unfair. He was only doing his job and just because some priggish visitor gets the wrong idea, Metatron gets the snot kicked out of him just to prove a point.’ Shrugging, she put a hand on the pot of chai. ‘This has gone cold.’ Walking over to the desk she pressed a button on the intercom and spoke crisply into a little black box. ‘Could I have some more tea, please?’ She turned and looked back at me. ‘Of course we’re only guessing all this but it does seem to fit.’

  ‘But I brought the box here.’ I wanted to cry. I was pretty much backed into a corner and couldn’t get out. ‘Nessus has the box with the blade in it, so Metatron can’t use that and, if I stay here, he can’t use me either, can he?’

  Carly shook her head. ‘It really doe
sn’t matter any more. Even if you don’t kill Graham Latimer, your actions so far …’ She paused for a moment and stared at me. ‘An angel? You killed an angel?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Well, all this has got you marked as the next Adversary. OK, without that final act you and Metatron won’t be quite so powerful but it will all still go the same way.’

  She pressed the button on the intercom again. ‘Can someone please ask Nessus to come in?’ She turned and stared at me. ‘You need to somehow put this right.’

  ‘How can I put all this right? And who the hell are you?’ A little question that had niggled at me for a while circumvented all the big questions and popped out.

  ‘Half-human,’ she said. ‘Pretty much your opposite, I suppose. Originally we’d have been called Nephilim.’

  ‘So half-demon,’ I sighed. Half-angels, angels, demons, other worlds; I couldn’t take it all in.

  ‘Argh! You don’t get it, do you!’ Carly stamped across the floor. ‘There are no such things as “demons”. The closest are the fallen angels that came with Lucifer all those years ago. A third of the Host sentenced to rot in Hell for following Lucifer. Lucifer, who I might add, who managed to get himself locked up in a human Host and abandoned his followers to suffer God’s torment. The rest of them are just from different places, like the Drekavak. Metatron has just labelled us all demons. To him, anything that isn’t host is either human, and they exist just to be got rid of because God loves them more than him, or they’re something else: demon.’

  A knock on the door interrupted her tirade. A small man, dressed in black and carrying another silver tea tray strutted into the room. He stared at me for a moment then, after placing the tray carefully on the table in front of me, he returned to whisper in Carly’s ear.

  ‘How long?’ she asked.

  The man glanced over at me again with a frown. ‘Less than a day.’ He gave her a short bow and disappeared through the door.