Gritting her teeth against the onset of another contraction, Casey gripped my shirt and pulled me forwards so that I was dragged into a strange kind of kneeling bow over her as she hissed into my ear. ‘If you leave me again now, I will never forgive you, Gabriel, never!’
Agonising indecision wracked me. I couldn’t trust myself to make any kind of judgement on what was wrong or right. I was morally disabled — I didn’t think my brain could tell the two apart all the time. This was never meant to have happened — just four months ago Casey had been a stranger to me! How was it possible to love someone so much when just four months ago I hadn’t even so much as known her name? If only we had not been neighbours; if only I had kept to myself and not spoken to her… all this agony might have been avoided. I couldn’t bear to see her suffer — that was what I had always feared would be the consequence of loving someone.
I hesitated — for a moment I was tempted to leave the Basilica as fast as I could, go to the airport and catch my plane for Washington. Fly further and further away from Budapest and pretend that none of this had ever happened; that I’d never even met Casey let alone loved her. I think I could have managed it — I’m quite good at ignoring things I don’t want to think about.
Then with an involuntary cry of pain sharper than the others, Casey dropped my hand and turned her head away from me, tears streaming down her face, and I realised that she was going into the next stage of her labour — there was no more time to make up my mind. She had given up on me already — finally sensing the futility in asking an assassin for help. I don’t think Gilligan Connor would have minded, particularly. But as Gabriel Antaeus, the thought of her believing I didn’t care was unbearable, and I felt I’d rather kill myself now and have done with it than leave her here hating me.
‘I didn’t mean it!’ I blurted out, appalled at myself, wishing I could take the words back. ‘I didn’t mean anything I said before, Casey, really! Look, I don’t know anything about childbirth — ’ I made an open-handed gesture of hopelessness, ‘- but I’ll do everything I possibly can to help, I promise.’
She tried to smile at me but ended up giving a dry sob, sweat running down her face despite the viciousness of the cold. I leaned over, kissed her on the forehead, and then moved round to help her, immensely relieved to see that the baby was positioned head first, for if it had been breach I just don’t know what I’d have done.
Strangely enough, there was no time to feel any hint of awkwardness as Casey started to give birth. All my attention was focused on trying to prevent any part of the baby from touching the snowy ground. I instinctively knew enough to realise that such cold temperatures could be fatal to a newborn child. But as soon as I was touching the baby, there was blood on my hands, and I felt sick at the sight of it, even though it was not death this time that had put it there.
The image of Anna bleeding all over the beach exploded in my head, and I actually gagged with revulsion. For a long moment, the only thing I could see was Anna, eyes shining one moment with excitement and lust, and the next blank, staring, accusatory. Other people in other countries, various different weapons… And always ending the same way — with me scrubbing and scrubbing at my hands in the bathroom. That last time, with Anna, I washed my hands until they bled, going round and round in a vicious circle, unable to remove the blood from my hands because it was my own; and the harder I scrubbed, the more they would bleed.
The memories of all those murders were like an unmerciful barrage, and for a moment I longed to be anywhere but the Basilica. I wanted to wrap my arms round my head and tremble in a corner until it was over. The sight of blood alone was intolerable to me, but worse still were Casey’s involuntary cries of pain. I wanted to leave. But I just couldn’t bring myself to.
I looked up sharply when ice and fire started to rain down around us simultaneously, splashing and hissing on the ground but somehow not touching us. Then I realised that there was no sign of Michael or Mephistopheles, and for a moment I thought they had gone. The sounds of fireworks and celebrations drifted up from the city, thunder rumbled louder than before, and the falling ice cracked and splintered as it shattered against the Basilica. The shower of fire lit up the cathedral, spitting as the molten drops fell into the snow. I thought of the fire I had seen covering Michael’s church on Margaret’s Island, and wondered if all the partygoers below could see the battle that was raging above the Basilica, or whether it simply looked its usual quiet and dignified self to their eyes.
And then I saw them — Michael and Mephistopheles — hovering just above the tower opposite us, biting, tearing, clawing at one another as if they would pull each other apart if they could. They were both almost unrecognisable to me. Their bodies flashed between the familiar human forms I was used to and something altogether different. Michael was once again lit up with a light so bright that I could hardly make out his features at all — as if he were simply too close to the sun or some other light-emitting force for me to look at him. But I could clearly see his powerful, feathered white wings spread out behind him as the two angels flew round, over and above the cathedral’s towers, striking out viciously at each other. Every now and then, a white feather would flutter down from the sky to be stained by the blood already on the ground around us.
Casey was sobbing now, and I dragged my attention away from the angels and back to her. I must not let them distract me. I must stay focused. When, at last, the baby was born, I took a penknife from my pocket, cut the umbilical cord and shrugged off my coat to wrap the infant up in an effort to protect it from the freezing night. I was filled with relief as I looked at the baby in my arms. For she was human. A tiny, perfect, human little girl… not angel or demon as I had seen in my dreams… not one of those creatures fighting so viciously above us. And there was no aura around Casey or her daughter now. The swirling clouds of shining gold and dripping black had gone.
‘She’s… amazing,’ Casey whispered, gazing at her daughter in my arms. ‘Isn’t she beautiful, Gabriel?’
I couldn’t believe how fragile she was, how vulnerable. I mean, she couldn’t even hold up her own head!
‘Do you want to hold her?’ I asked.
Casey started to nod and then froze, a confused expression on her face, one hand trailing down to her stomach.
‘There’s a second baby,’ she whispered.
‘Second baby?’ I repeated stupidly, gazing round as if expecting to see one lying on the ground somewhere.
‘Twins,’ she groaned. ‘I never went to any scans so…’ She trailed off and then, to my horror, started to cry. ‘Oh, Gabriel, I don’t want to do all that again! I’m so tired! It’s so unfair!’
‘You’re doing really well, Casey,’ I said, equally horrified by the revelation that she was carrying twins but trying not to show it. I realised now that the aura I’d thought for a moment had gone, was still clinging about her. It was fainter than before but still that strange, unnatural mixture of gold and black. ‘You’re halfway through it now; halfway through.’
‘But I didn’t ask for this! I don’t want to have children like this! I always thought there’d be a husband here with me or at least a boyfriend; someone who loved me, someone who was going to share this with me! Last… last week I saw this young guy holding his baby in a… in a restaurant, and when I got home I couldn’t… I just couldn’t stop crying! I know feminists would hate me for this, but all I ever wanted was the white picket fence. A house and a family that loved me unconditionally. My… my Mom and Dad… didn’t-’
‘I love you unconditionally,’ I said at once. ‘And you can still have the house and the fence and the family. But first you have to have this baby. You’ll love your children. And you’ll find the husband later. But until you do, I’ll look after you, because I really do love you unconditionally, Casey, and I promise I always will. You’ve got one beautiful daughter already and now you’re going to have another. Just a little bit longer and then you’ll be the mother of twins. Won’t that be wonderful?’