‘Did you come to their funeral?’
‘Of course I came. The rest of your family were there to support you too but you, ah… weren’t well, you see, and I had to take your place with the pallbearers.’
I felt shame at that, of course, but at the same time I felt incredibly lucky to have someone like Zadkiel Stephomi in my life, and the gratitude I felt towards him in that moment was something I would never have been able to express with words.
‘Thank you,’ I said, trusting he could hear in my voice what his friendship meant to me. ‘I’m so sorry for the way I treated you before, Stephomi, when you wouldn’t tell me what had happened-’
‘Don’t apologise to me,’ Stephomi said hastily. ‘Please, Gabriel. I know you would have done the same in my place.’
Now that I know the truth, I feel worn out. Burned through. But, at the same time I feel better than I have since all this began. It’s exhausting, coming to terms with the truth like this. But now at last I know, and it is a relief to know, to hit rock bottom knowing I won’t stay there. Not with a loyal friend like Stephomi to help me up again. Nicky and Luke are gone. There’s nothing I can do to bring them back. Now that I know about them, I can move on. And I don’t need to fear myself any more. There’s nothing sinister about me. I’m a writer, an academic… that’s all. Now I know who I am, where I stand and why, I am free to continue with my life.
11th October
Oh, God, to look at what I wrote in these pages yesterday. If only it could all be as easy as that. I felt at peace when I went to bed last night. The ghosts of my wife and son saddened me but I had decided to say goodbye to them and start again. And now grim foreboding has settled upon me like a cloak that I can’t shake off.
Last night I had the most disturbing and unsettling nightmare. I dreamed that Casey was giving birth at the top of the snow-covered bell tower of St Stephen’s Basilica. She was lonely and afraid but I was with her, helping her, reassuring her, keeping her safe. When the baby was born, a tiny, perfect little boy, I reached for a white blanket to wrap him in; but when I turned back, the baby had become a writhing black demon, sticky with blood, tiny batlike wings furling and unfurling as it thrashed around, lashing out with its claws, hissing and spitting and baring its sharp, pointed teeth at me. I shrieked and suddenly there was a dagger in my hand and I knew what I must do. My teenage neighbour screamed with horror as I drove the knife into her Hell-spawn baby, staining the white blankets with thick, sticky, black blood.
I looked up, gasping for breath, and the burning man was stood there staring down, the usual orange flames blazing all around him, the shimmering red light of the condemned, his fierce blue eyes taking in the weeping mother, the murdered remains of the twisted black newborn devil on the ground, and me hunched over it with the dagger in my hand, thick, black demon blood still dripping from the blade.
‘Welcome back to the Ninth Circle, Gabriel,’ the burning man said steadily, staring down at me with quiet approval.
I woke up screaming, quite sure that the heat from the blazing man’s flames was still scorching my skin. I had leaped from the bed and was out of my apartment and in the main corridor, hand raised to start hammering on my neighbour’s door before I checked myself hastily, forcing myself to stop. It was the middle of the night. I was wearing only a t-shirt and shorts. I couldn’t knock on her door at this time of night, I’d frighten her. She might even call the police. But I had to see her. I couldn’t wait until morning to see if she was all right. I thought of a hasty excuse and then knocked on her door as loud as I dared. I didn’t want to risk waking the whole building. After a few moments, I heard movement from within the apartment. The walls were thin and I clearly heard the girl sharply telling her brother to go back to his bedroom and stay there. Another moment later, the door opened on the security chain and Casey was peering out suspiciously. She looked surprised when she saw me, and not entirely comfortable.
‘What is it?’
Her words threw me for she had spoken in English, although she quickly corrected herself and repeated the question in Hungarian. I suppose, having been woken up in the middle of the night, she had used her first language unthinkingly.
‘Aren’t you Hungarian?’ I blurted out in surprise.
‘American,’ she said, staring at me.
‘I’m English,’ I said, feeling pleased.
‘Oh… Okay, then. Well, goodnight.’
And she started to close the door.
‘Wait!’ I said quickly. ‘You remember me, don’t you? My name’s Gabriel Antaeus, I’m your neighbour, you helped me when I had a migraine attack the other day. Look, I’m really sorry to disturb you at this time of night but I just got up to go the bathroom a few minutes ago and I saw someone outside the building next door being mugged. There’s no credit on my mobile and I have no phone in my room, so I was hoping to borrow yours to call the police.’
She was still gazing at me a little suspiciously. I suppose helping a neighbour in broad daylight was something altogether different to letting him into your home alone in the middle of the night.
‘Or perhaps you could call them, if you wouldn’t mind,’ I said to reassure her.
‘How good is your Hungarian?’ she asked.
‘I’m fluent.’
‘Then you’d better do it. I only really know enough to get by.’ She closed the door and I heard the chain being pulled back, then she swung the door open and held it back for me.
‘The phone’s just over there,’ she said as I walked in.
Her apartment was similar to my own in terms of layout and design, but smaller. There did not seem to be a lounge, but rather the kitchen was a little bigger with an old couch in the corner, letting the room serve as a living room as well. While my apartment was furnished with good quality and expensive furniture, in addition to the couch, hers only had a couple of cheap chairs round a table, and a threadbare rug lay on the damp floorboards. The phone stood on the kitchen worktop and as I crossed over to it, one of the doors leading off from the room opened and a boy stuck his head out. His eyes widened when he saw me and he turned to his sister uncertainly.
‘Casey-?’ he began.
His sister turned sharply to him. ‘Go back to bed, Toby! Everything’s fine. Mr Antaeus is just using the phone and then he’s leaving.’
‘I’m sorry about this,’ I said with an apologetic smile.
She smiled back at me uncertainly and took a cigarette from a packet on the worktop, watching me carefully as she lit it, before checking herself and putting the cigarette out with a regretful sigh. I dialled the number for the police and then reported the so-called mugging in the street. I altered the details, though — slurring my words, I told the police I thought I’d seen a man being mugged in the street outside by invisible goblins. The officer I was speaking to brusquely told me to lay off the bottle and go to bed and then he hung up.
As I spoke, I glanced surreptitiously at Casey. She was wearing a large, oversize nightshirt and was leaning against the kitchen worktop, fiddling with the cigarette box, still watching me closely. She seemed quite unharmed. Seeing her in such a way relaxed me and helped chase away the clinging shreds of my nightmare. I wanted to ask her if she had anyone to help her or whether she was alone here. I wanted to ask if she had made arrangements for when the baby came and what was going to happen to her brother while she was in hospital. I wanted to tell her not to go out into the city late at night. I wanted to ask her if there was anything I could do. I wanted to plead with her… beg her to let me help her. But I had to be careful. In a world such as this, she would be a fool not to suspect ulterior motives from such a stranger. And the last thing I wanted to do was frighten her. The world doesn’t make it easy to be kind.