I hurried us out quite quickly after that, anxious to get back to the safety of my apartment. We walked back across the square through the traditional Budapest Christmas Fair that always sets up there — a gathering of Hungarian craftsmen and artists selling their wares. I’d been a few days before and found it very festive, with the food carts selling hot wine and sausages and a musical carousel for the children. This time I just wanted to get home. The sudden craving for solitude was such that people’s eyes seemed to burn into me like acid.
But as we walked back through the Christmas market set up in Vorosmarty Square, a young man hurried out towards us from behind one of the crafts stalls. He was slim and tall, although not as tall as me, with long blond hair tied back in a ponytail and a diamond earring sparkling in one ear. He wore jeans and a long-sleeved white top but no coat. I suppose he was good looking — he had high cheekbones and clear blue eyes, and he certainly had a nice manner — but… he gave the most extraordinary thing to Casey. We stopped when he approached us, one arm held behind his back.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ve just got to stop you for a minute.’
I stared at him in surprise, for he had spoken to us in English, although I couldn’t quite place his accent.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked Casey.
She told him before I could stop her. He smiled. ‘I’m Raphael. There’s something on my stall I think you might like.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry but I really can’t afford to-’ Casey began, but the young man cut her off.
‘I’m not asking you to buy anything,’ he assured her hurriedly. ‘It’s Christmas. Please consider it a gift.’
He brought his hand round from behind his back and for a moment I thought he would be holding a flower or something equally presumptuous. But when he uncurled his fist, it was to reveal a small Black Madonna. It was without doubt a beautiful piece, carved from onyx and embellished with rich gold and red in the robe. There was a golden crown on her head and in her arms she held a black child, also adorned in a lavish gold and red robe with the same tiny crown on its head. This was no trinket he was giving her — this was an expensive and exquisite work of art. But for all its beauty, I couldn’t prevent the grimace of distaste at the sight of the sinister looking thing.
Alongside Mary — the chaste, pure ‘official’ virgin, there exists an ‘unofficial’ virgin — black, mysterious and all-powerful — associated with beings that pre-dated Christianity… Pagan goddesses and Ebony Ladies of the Underworld… Of course, Black Madonnas are found in churches, but the Catholic Church does not officially afford them any special significance: black and white Madonnas alike are claimed to be the same. Black Madonnas are still depictions of the Virgin Mary; it’s just that the artist chose to craft her from smooth ebony or Lebanese cedar wood or cold black onyx.
But there are rumours that the Black Madonnas were never meant to represent the Virgin Mary — that they stand for someone else altogether. And, unofficially, the church has taken to painting over their Madonnas with whitewash, to discourage the pilgrims who insist on affording them such an undue and inappropriate significance. For the Black Madonnas are associated with sexuality, fertility and procreation rather than chastity, and are credited by their followers with having supernatural powers. If the Black Madonnas are supposed to represent the Virgin Mary in some form, it is quite clear they represent something else as well — something a little older and darker — and I was not at all comfortable with Casey accepting this gift from such a stranger. He seemed harmless enough, but this was hardly normal behaviour, was it? I hoped Casey would refuse the Madonna, but I could tell she was flattered as well as delighted with both the gift and the good looks of the man who was giving it to her.
‘Merry Christmas,’ Raphael said. ‘I wish you and your baby all the best.’
‘Is Budapest crawling with angels?’ Casey joked as we walked away, still beaming and examining the tiny Black Madonna in her hand as we walked.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Gabriel, Raphael…’ She laughed. ‘I half expect Michael and Uriel to turn up on my doorstep any day now and tell me I’ve won the lottery.’
I glanced sharply back at the young man behind his stall, but then shook my head impatiently. Angels don’t wear jeans and earrings. If every man with an angelic name really was an angel, then that would mean that Zadkiel Stephomi and I were not human either. I expect a feeling of Christmas spirit made that young man give Casey the gift. Or maybe he was hoping to get a date out of it. My eyes narrowed at the thought. If that was his intention, he could forget it — I was looking after Casey. She belonged to me now because I loved her the most. I am hers and I would do anything in the world she asked me to. But I expect my jealousy is unwarranted anyway. This Raphael guy was simply trying to be kind. I just wish that he could have picked a less inappropriate, less sinister thing to give her.
That night I had the dream that had so shaken me back in October. Once again, Casey and I were outside on the dome of St Stephen’s Basilica, and once again snow fell around us. Again Casey gave birth to a perfect baby boy, and again I turned to pick up a blanket to wrap him in. But this time when I turned back, there was no writhing black demon on the ground. The baby was still there, but now there was a tiny pair of delicate feathered wings on his back — rainbow coloured, from emerald green to yellow to pink to sapphire blue. And the child glowed with golden light where it lay surrounded by snow at the top of the cathedral. It’s said that it wouldn’t be possible for a human to look directly at the angels of the higher realms without blinding themselves with beauty, much in the same way that directly looking at the sun would blind the naked eye with its brilliance. And in that moment, kneeling there in the dream world, I felt I could understand that; for this newborn creature on the ground before me was so enthralling, so utterly breathtaking, that I struggled to breathe with the joy of it.
But then the wooden doors behind us banged open and Mephistopheles was standing there in the doorway, smiling coldly, a woman on his arm. I knew the woman too, for she had visited my dreams before. It was Lilith, in all her dark, seductive, twisted sensuality. Horror suddenly froze me as I realised what dreadful danger the winged newborn baby was in. I reached out to grasp the child but Lilith was too quick for me and had swooped down to pull the crying baby from the ground by its wings. I winced at the roughness with which she handled him and tried to get to my feet to get him back, but Mephistopheles was holding my arms, freezing me solid with his demonic touch, so that all I could do was watch in horror as Lilith devoured the baby before its screaming mother’s eyes.
‘ God will forgive me,’ Mephistopheles murmured in my ear with soft mockery. ‘ He’ll forgive us all eventually.’
And with the demon’s words still echoing in my mind, the dream scene tore away from me and I woke up sweating and shaking in my bed.
25th December (Christmas Day)
Today was beautiful to begin with. Casey and I went to a Christmas service in St Stephen’s Basilica in the morning. The heavy snowfall during the night had dressed the city in a frozen, fine white robe of Christmas finery that sparkled at us as we walked through the streets to the cathedral.
People seemed more friendly than usual, and every family we passed stopped to wish us good morning and a merry Christmas. It was odd, really, and I wondered what made the day so special, so magnificent, for those who were not religious. For me the day was sacred for marking the time when Jesus Christ was born, but I couldn’t understand what made the day anything other than ordinary for non-believers.