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  Wandering across the plush blue carpet, I had to suppress the desire to remove my boots and plunge my naked toes into its deep, soft pile. The colour had obviously been chosen to extend the sky through which Lucifer forever plunged. I glanced up at the ceiling admiring the workmanship in the masterpiece. However, it was far harder to admire the subject. Through an indigo sky the Morningstar fell toward Earth, his outstretched hand reaching back toward heaven. His beautiful face was contorted with anger and loss, his wings twisted, blackened and useless.

  I shuddered as I stared at the ceiling. The whole thing was extremely … disturbing. Trying to ignore Lucifer’s obvious outrage, I approached the desk and wondered, not for the first time, how anyone could work below something so sad and yet so threatening.

  Upon the embossed leather writing surface, ink-spotted and distressed, there was an odd assortment of items. Boiled sweets, all red, nestled inside a tiny crystal bowl. A leather coaster supported an empty coffee mug on which the legend “WORLD’S BEST BOSS” stood out in bold black letters. I’d bought it for him as a joke one Christmas. An elegant black and silver fountain pen jutted from a red plastic pen holder, which stood to attention beside an antique curved wooden blotter. I ran a finger idly along the polished wood and wondered how old it was.

  One of the two cathedral-sized windows flooded the room with a pale golden light which stretched in glowing patterns across the floor. Curious, I wandered over and stared through the glass; I’d never had the opportunity to see what lay beyond the office before.

  Classic English countryside stretched far into the distance. The late afternoon sun spread final, soft rays over rolling chequerboard fields of fat wheat and lush grass that undulated in waves as an occasional breeze drifted through the crops. Each well-stocked field was bordered by luxuriant hedgerows that dripped wild roses and fat, ripe blackberries. In the far distance a strip of blue sea could just be seen, occasionally twinkling, as the sun’s golden reflections rippled across its surface.

  A small flock of birds dipped and wheeled above a chocolate box cottage, complete with roses around the door and bull’s-eyes set into the diamond-shaped window panes. I could hear the ducks quacking as they meandered in meaningless circles on a small pond.

  At the edge of the water, a man and a woman sat together. The man, who looked to be in his late 20s, his blond hair unbrushed and dirty, stared into the water as he monotonously, dropped single pebbles into its green depths. The woman, her feet bare and her long dark hair hanging in stringy, dirty locks, rocked backward and forward as she stared expressionless toward the sea. Isolated within their own thoughts, neither spoke. At first glance the scene was idyllic but as I studied the pair a frisson of unease ran along my spine. Curious now, I crossed the room to the other window. ‘And what can we see through the square window?’ I muttered. ‘A happy beach scene, or no, better yet, a family at Christmas standing around the piano with their dog wearing a Santa hat.’ I laughed and leant on the sill. Within seconds I felt sick.

  Peering through the dirty glass, my hands cupped around my eyes, I could just make out a dark, wet street through which the inhabitants scuttled, their thin coats pulled tightly around thinner shoulders. Keeping eye contact between each other to a minimum, they flowed in a steady stream of expressionless sadness in and out of factories and other huge black buildings – row upon row of which formed the horizon. Each chimney breathed putrid smoke into the heavy yellow sky.

  Two teenagers, creeping through ankle-deep rubbish from overflowing bins, had managed to trap a scrawny alley cat; they killed it with disturbing efficiency. I was momentarily reminded yet again of Bakeneko and winced. Was he still in that bin? Other younger children, a small group of six or seven, crept toward the pair. Where they had come from I didn’t know, but it was horrifying to see the desperation on each thin face.

  The fight erupted as each child attempted to possess the dead animal. Eventually, a fat security guard from a nearby factory stepped in and, without even the slightest change of expression, picked up the nearest child by the hair and casually punched her in the face.

  The fight stopped immediately as the unconscious body of the girl was dropped to the gutter. The passers-by didn’t even look up. Stepping over both girl and cat they hurried on.

  I watched the man waddle back to the small sentry box that nestled up against a set of huge black gates. In the moment it had taken me to look away, the children had disappeared but, as I watched, one small boy appeared again. Casting many furtive glances toward the sentry box, he crept forward, grabbed the mangled body of the cat then faded like smoke back into the shadow of the bins.

  ‘There has to be a balance, Joe, especially with extremes.’ The boss’s voice sounded at my right shoulder.

  I jumped and squeaked causing him to laugh. ‘Damn it, Metatron!’ I waited a moment for my heart to slow down. ‘Don’t sneak up on me.’ He did this so often that I was fairly sure he did it on purpose ­– just another of his “amusing” little habits.

  My employer gave me a big smile and, putting his arm around my shoulders, led me away from the windows. ‘Things can only exist in balance. The very bad.’ He waved a hand at the dark window. ‘The very good.’ He nodded toward the country scene.

  I looked back over my shoulder. ‘Your “good” scene doesn’t seem to please those living in it very much.’

  Metatron frowned. ‘Arseholes! Everything is done for them: Everything!’ He ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper mop of hair. ‘Yet they sit there silent and still, stupid carved puppets that have had their strings cut.’ Grabbing the wooden blotter from the desk he pitched it toward the window. It missed.

  Shrugging, he waved a hand at the city scene. ‘Now the others, well, I really couldn’t make things worse for them, yet they strive to make it better. Characters keep popping up, inciting the occupants to work together.’ He shook his head again. ‘I have to keep removing them.’

  ‘You made those scenes.’ I felt a little sick. ‘Why?’

  Metatron gave my shoulders a squeeze. ‘Oh don’t worry, it’s just an experiment. You know, trying to understand how humans think. I like to keep up with the times.’ He laughed up at me. ‘It’s not real.’

  The sick feeling dissipated. ‘So it’s just an illusion then?’ I was relieved. ‘These are just some of your constructs?’ Reaching into my pocket I handed him the bag.

  He gave the contents a cursory inspection, then without even an acknowledgement; put the whole thing into a drawer. Pulling out his chair he sat down, his elbows resting on the desk top. After studying me for an uncomfortably long moment he indicated another smaller chair on the other side of the desk.

  ‘Sit down.’ He picked up his now steaming coffee mug and took a sip. ‘Coffee?’

  It was hard to imagine that this mild-mannered little man was the most powerful angel of the entire Host. His blue eyes, set behind horn-rimmed half glasses, shone. He looked as though he would make an excellent professor. His natural leaning towards tweed, three-piece suits complete with leather elbows and his scruffy grey hair did nothing to dispel the image.

  ‘Sure.’ I sat opposite him and picked up a mug that bore the words, “God’s last name is not dammit”. Taking a sip I tried not to wince; he hadn’t bothered with either milk or sugar. ‘Last night was a little exciting; you didn’t say anything about that box being wanted by demons.’ I tried very hard not to sound reproachful but my neck still hurt. It seemed to be par for the course that I only ever got partial information when I was sent on a pick-up these days.

  Metatron ignored me and, as we sipped coffee, I began to get nervous. My previous visits had been short, unhydrated and usually loud. I waited for the bomb to drop.

  The angel stared at me over the lip of his mug. ‘Just for the purpose of this conversation,’ he said. ‘I want you to answer every question I ask you with absolute truth.’ He raised his slightly fuzzy eyebrows. ‘I promise they won’t be trick questions but I have to make sure yo
u know what’s going on.’

  I nodded and clamped my lips together; this obviously wasn’t the time for my mouth to get me in trouble.

  ‘Who am I?’ he asked.

  Ah, I knew this one. I’d learned it by rote. ‘You are the physical representative of God. You and you alone can withstand the direct word of God and are tasked to relay his orders to those that can fulfil them, that his presence and voice may not cause them pain.’

  The little man nodded then beamed at me, his teeth flashed white between the scraggly hairs that he called a beard. ‘That’s not bad actually, have you been practising?’

  Reaching into a drawer he pulled out a bottle of whisky. Filling a crystal tumbler for himself, he waved the bottle over the desk with an enquiring look.

  Now that was just wrong! Knowing, just knowing this conversation was about to take a serious downturn, I decided that it was definitely better to face whatever was coming from behind a well-padded alcoholic barrier. I nodded and pushed forward my half-empty coffee mug.

  Metatron made a face and gave a huff of exasperation. ‘You really are a bloody heathen, aren’t you?’ He lifted his glass to the light and smiled as he studied the amber liquid. ‘This is a rare whisky, made in two casks. One with delicate rose petal and violet notes the other with pepper, oak and smoke flavours. It’s been standing in the cool darkness for 80 years, before being combined into one special cask by a renowned malt master. It has then stood for another six months to make it almost perfect.’ He frowned over the rim of his glass at me. ‘And you want to stick it in a half-cold cup of coffee.’ Shaking his head sadly, he obligingly topped up the mug. Then, putting the bottle away, gave me an odd look. ‘What do you know about Lucifer?’

  ‘The Morning Star?’ I glanced up at the horrible ceiling. If anything, Lucifer looked in even more pain than when I’d first arrived. ‘Not much to be honest, a tale here, a myth, a legend. All I know is that Christ bound him to Earth at the time of the resurrection but where he is and what he’s doing now …’ I shrugged ‘… I have no idea.’ As far away as possible I hoped.

  Picking up his glass, Metatron climbed to his feet and began to wander about the office. ‘After the crucifixion Jesus’s body was put into Joseph’s tomb and did not resurrect for three days.’

  I hoped he wasn’t going to preach for long. Hell, I knew the crucifixion story as well as anybody. Taking another sip of my fortified coffee, I arranged my features into what I hoped resembled an interested expression.

  ‘In those three days, while Jesus’s body lay in that tomb, his spirit had not yet ascended, nor was it earthbound. This was the only opportunity the Son of God had to bind Lucifer, being between life and beyond. But the first created could only be bound by something very, very powerful. Jesus bound him into his own blood, a substance so pure that it could contain all that evil. The blood that was on the spear of Longinus.

  Despite myself, I was finding the story intriguing. I’d always wondered how it had been done. Despite the feathers, angels aren’t that much like parrots – you can’t just bung one in a cage and say, ‘Stay there’. I nodded. ‘The Spear of Destiny.’

  Metatron snorted. ‘Pfah! “Spear of Destiny”, my arse,’ he said. ‘“The spear of a bored legionnaire who was fed up with death duty and wanted to go home”, it should have been called. Doesn’t really have the same ring to it, does it?’ He took a mouthful of whisky and swilled it expertly around his teeth. ‘Anyway, over the years the spear disappeared.’ Metatron gave an eloquent shrug. ‘Some of the conspiracy theories that you humans make up about it are quite fun actually: The Vatican has it, the Nazis hid it, it’s buried in Glastonbury …’ He shook his head and smiled. ‘Anyway, the spear isn’t my problem, it’s the disappearance of the blood that’s causing my worries.’

  ‘The blood of Christ.’ I nodded.

  ‘No.’ He leant forward and shook a finger at me. ‘The blood of Longinus and Christ.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Longinus was a complete incompetent. He cut his hand on the spear, just before he plunged it into Christ’s side.’ Metatron stared up at Lucifer. ‘Quite a bad cut from what I remember, the two bloods became mixed, which was why Christ failed to completely bind Lucifer. The blood was tainted.’

  Metatron stopped pacing and sat back down. Placing his elbows on the desk, he rested his chin on his fist and stared at me, obviously waiting for some sort of insightful comment.

  I shrugged. ‘I … I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘In Revelations, it is foretold that Jesus would reign for a thousand years, and then Lucifer would be released.’

  I nodded again. Actually, this little bit of prophecy was open to huge interpretation and was already way, way overdue.

  Metatron slammed both fists down on the desk making me jump yet again. ‘Well, we can’t release him if we can’t bloody well find him.’

  As silence fell over the office, I tried, but I just couldn’t stop myself. ‘You’ve lost Lucifer?’

  Metatron pushed both hands into his hair and ignored me. ‘We’re late, we’re very, very late.’ He took a swallow of the whisky. ‘May 21 was the point that everything was supposed to really heat up. That day should have marked the beginning of five months of Hell on Earth and in October the entire unworthy were supposed to be swept away.’ Metatron ran a finger around the rim of the glass and smiled at the pure tone he created. ‘The celestial armies were all tooled up and ready to go, Michael was wandering about with a huge grin on his stupid bloody face and the flaming swords had been handed out. All we needed was for Lucifer to do his part and it would have been a done deal, and where is he? God only bloody knows.’

  ‘God isn’t telling?’ I raised my eyebrows at my irate boss. ‘You are his voice, right?’

  Metatron slowly raised his head and stared at me again across the desk. Clenching his teeth he hissed at me. ‘Yes, I am the Voice of God and no, he isn’t telling because he isn’t speaking any more.’ Sighing, Metatron picked up the bottle of whisky and with a slightly shaky hand, sloshed a good measure into his glass. I hopefully nudged my mug a couple of inches across the desk; he ignored it.

  Taking a gulp, he got to his feet with a wince and began to prowl the office again. ‘Lucifer hasn’t been needed for years.’ He snorted a laugh. ‘Man doesn’t need the Devil to help him on his way to Hell. He’s doing it all on his own and coming up with more inventive ways to be evil than even the Morning Star could imagine. Mankind has gone way beyond just breaking the commandments. Humans have invented a whole modern book of rules and regulations then gone on to break every single one in style. Wars, murders, rape. You name it, they’ve done it and that’s just on a worldwide scale. On a personal level, most humans are just evil through and through and the biggest laugh is that they never actually see it – most of them were upset when the Rapture didn’t happen, most of them really thought they were going to get taken away.’

  ‘So, what’s going on?’ I said. ‘Lucifer’s lying on a beach somewhere, smiling gently and just watching it all happen?’

  ‘No.’ Metatron shook his head. ‘If he was doing that I could find him, he’s just …’ he paused and shrugged, a worried look on his gentle face ‘… nowhere.’

  ‘And God?’ I prompted.

  Again the shrug. ‘I’ve been waiting.’ The angel turned and walked back toward me. ‘These things take time. I haven’t really needed to talk to Him all that much since we culled the Nephilim, I sort of got used to the silence.’

  He sat down again. ‘When the signs started –the floods and the volcanoes – I expected some connection, but there was nothing. So I went looking for him.’ He stared through me, obviously remembering those searches. ‘He just wasn’t there.’ Metatron shook off his worries and focused on me. ‘There has to be a balance.’ He waved a hand at the two windows, both awful in their own way. ‘Christ failed to completely bind Lucifer but he did “reduce” him; it was the human element of the blood that did it, I think. As Lucif
er became less, so God reduced as well.’

  Draining his glass, he finally reached over and refilled my mug. ‘This is where you come in.’ He gave me a big, encouraging smile; I wasn’t fooled for a moment. ‘For years you’ve been working to pay off your sin; you’ve tracked down demons, escaped creatures and renegade angels. Anything, in fact, that needed returning.’ He paused and his smile faded to a slight frown. ‘Well, quite frankly, you’re not very good at it.’ He shrugged. ‘So if you really want to pay off your debt, I need one final job done: I need you to find Lucifer.’

  ‘You have got to be fucking joking.’ For a moment, I forgot who I was talking to.

  Metatron pursed his lips slightly and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Sorry.’ I could feel my heart pounding. ‘But you’re right, I’m really not very good at this – if I was I wouldn’t keep dying.’ I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I think this may be a joke, I’m hoping that it’s a joke.’ I looked up into Metatron’s expressionless face and ignored my little voice that was screaming at me to shut up. ‘I can’t do it.’ I swallowed hard. ‘I won’t even try.’

  The diminutive angel smiled. ‘No?’ He pushed his chair back and got to his feet.

  A line of sweat trickled down my spine. ‘Look.’ I held my hands up in an attempt to hold back the inevitable. ‘You need someone better than me for this job. There’s no point in sending me, I’ll inevitably fail and the whole thing will just become another big clusterfuck.’

  Metatron grew. At about seven foot other changes began to take place. He rolled his shoulders and closed his eyes as his face lengthened; the bone structure, so similar to humans in many ways, became more defined. High, ascetic cheekbones pushed through the stubbly, salt-and-pepper beard which in turn receded, leaving the angel’s skin a smooth, pale gold. Cold, blue eyes stared at me from below slim, straight brows that were currently furrowed over a long patrician nose. His fluffy grey hair straightened and lengthened, turning white as it burrowed over his naked shoulders and down his back. Long legs, encased in a pair of simple white linen trousers, ended in elegant bare feet buried in the soft carpet.