Germany, circa 1212 AD.

Shade, as he became known even to himself, had lived many lifetimes. He was no longer living with pain. He had forgiven himself for keeping the truth from Ariella. He loved her, but he was not haunted by her. Shade did not even fear the Angels so much now. He knew that Lucifer and the old queens would want him to make his kills indiscriminately, but he didn't.

Shade had seen Death over battlefields, in the doors of plague houses, at night in houses that he didn't belong in. He saw her as she came for his victims, smiling.

He'd met with other Nephillim Spawn from the line of Salamiel, creatures who feared the very shape of The Cross and didn't know why, who feared crossing water terribly and listened to the Humans who said this was because the soul might become trapped in the water, who learned the word vampir from the Slavic tribes and believed it described them. Shade wanted nothing to do with these creatures. He despised their Human ignorance, despised Salamiel for making them.

There was one called Mad Sarah. Even her own Spawn called her mad. And she always had, every time that Shade met up with her, at least one new Spawn, while he had none but his son Athen. Shade would like to have killed Mad Sarah, but he did not have a good enough reason to kill her. Whenever he really hated someone, he refused himself permission to kill them. He killed only people he really had no reason to, people who had their own reasons for wanting to escape life, people whom he wouldn't mind watching die.

So though he wouldn't kill her Shade sometimes had violent conflicts with Sarah. He'd follow her around and keep her from killing people he thought ought to live. And one of these nights he happened to follow her into a large graveyard. She had just killed a pilgrim travelling there; dawn was coming. Sarah was screaming and running as fast as she could. Her Spawn, Raphelle was following at her heels, Shade was a breath away from catching Sarah herself.

The sun came up; Raphelle fell to the ground. Shade grabbed Sarah and thought to break her neck, she'd live through it. But he heard someone calling him. In that second he was distracted Sarah shoved him. Shade fell backward, his skull breaking against a marble headstone. His vision blurred the sunlight made him weaker still. His fingers dug at the earth reflexively as he saw Sarah dragging Raphelle away.

The voice came again, closer. Shade crawled through the stones toward the voice; again it called, to his right. He thought he recognized the voice. He saw her naked body only partly hidden by long gold hair. "Gabri," he said. She was crawling around on the ground just as he was, naked, wearing flesh. It was no wonder Raziel liked being close to her so much. Gabriel's body was ideal.

"Lucifer has stolen my robe and girdle, wounded this flesh. Help me, Shade."

Shade tried to shake the dizziness. "Lucifer?" There was no way he could really help her against him. Even outcast Lucifer could crush either of them with a thought, or set Shade on fire and send him toward final death. And worse Shade was still bound old ties to honour Lucifer with his allegiance.

"The shrine of the wise men, hurry."

b b b

Shade made his way through the graveyard. He found the shrine by following the voices, and when he came to it he saw Lucifer, dressed in a white robe with a pretty red sash girdling it at his waist. Shade knew in an instant that it wasn't Gabriel, the teased hair, the emaciated body beneath the clothes, but the boy there: the boy had no idea. There was a monk there as well, Shade couldn't really tell with his blurred vision if the monk knew this was a devil, but he appeared to be in some real sort of ecstasy.

"Raise an army of children," Lucifer said to the boy, "march to Palestine and convert the Muslim infidels to the true faith. The lord will provide a path through the sea."

The boy was trembling. Shade looked at his eyes. There was no stopping Lucifer now, even if he should want to. The boy was in thrall.

Lucifer saw Shade lying on the ground. He smiled, winked, disappeared. The boy shook the monk excitedly.

Shade was too weak to move, to dig. He didn't go look for Gabriel. She didn't come for him. And so he slept.

b b b

There was a witch called Margaret living in the big house of a small town. She'd inherited everything from her brother and was the last of her family. There was no one for her to marry and so she lived alone gardening her herbs, healing the sick. And no one said a word against her as long as she kept healing. But despite these talents she still thought Shade a devil when she met him at the crossroads at the edge of her town.

She let him stay with her because he knew how to treat the ill, he knew the names of plants she grew, the names of stars, and he knew spells.

When the villagers found a young girl beaten and raped at the same crossroads outside town they brought her to Margaret. This was unfortunate, for the girl had been very badly beaten and had no will to live. She died. Just as Margaret was laying the girl in the earth as Shade stood watching from morning shadows an army of children marched into the town.

Shade went into town to see what their boy leader would say. His name was Nicolas, his beautiful French bodyguard, Stephan. Stephan wouldn't let anyone touch Nicolas, not even pretty girls in swoons, he beat them. He said this was because Nicolas was a saint. Shade guessed the children were too stupid to realise all saints had to be dead to be legitimate. Shade guessed Stephan knew better and just kept lying.

Nicolas stood up before the villagers in the marketplace. He said the children of the empire had been called to a crusade. They could stay and end up like that girl they had seen buried or they could be his followers and fight for the cross.

The Cross.

Nicolas was a gifted speaker, feeding the children all the lines they most wanted to hear, telling them adults were corrupt.

"Who would believe just one person could convince so many of these Germans to follow him?" Shade asked himself.

It brings to mind the Hitler Jungend.

Imagine the H.J. in their black and khakis marching into Italy and asking to be taken to Palestine by boat.

Imagine Italians laughing.

Anyone who saw him would have to admit he was charismatic, Nicolas. There was fire in his eyes. It was obvious to all he was in some fervour, whether it was righteous or not was of no consequence, they would follow.

The townspeople were knocking at Margaret's door, accusing her of witchcraft, ready to testify against her, thinking if they burnt her maybe the children would stay and not follow Nicolas. They wanted the children to stay; there would be no one to do the work if the children left.

Shade made himself give up on Margaret. He followed Nicolas about. It was probably Nicolas, or more likely Stephan who had raped the girl. It occurred to Shade that Stephan might have loosed his gang of boys in black leather riding gear on her. Perhaps she had known a thing or two about saints.

They marched past the burning place on their way out of town.

Nicolas said they were going to march over the Alps. None of the children knew enough to question him.

Shade went up the slope ahead of them. Watched the children march by carrying banners, the girls black dresses whipped to shreds at the hems by the wind. He listened to them sing, so sadly. Every so often a girl or young boy would fall. Sometimes another would pick them up. And sometimes Shade would dart out and pick them up himself. Better him than the wolves and nomads yet to come.

And then, at the very end of the long line, two especially sad girls came. One passed almost unnoticed, but the last one looked at Shade with such sad black eyes...

"Zerachiel," he said.

They stopped, Gabriel and Zerachiel both in their black, Gabriel wearing flesh and a red sash, Zerachiel looking a little unearthly with sash of silver.

"Gabri, how could you let them cross the Alps?" Shade asked.

"Lucifer's the one who's put these ideas in Nicolas' head, but no one forced him to listen. And no one forced these children to listen."

"But can't you do something? They'll be set upon by nomads, torn apart by starving wolves, freeze in the cold...I've crossed the Alps, I know how dangerous it is."

"Some of them will die," Zerachiel said.

Shade shook his head.

"It's meaningful this way, if we allow people to go on believing this is a holy crusade, they will be martyred, they will know no torment when they die. Better that than live for the wrong cause."

"Allow them to go on believing? Just tell them what they need to hear? Why? To make life more bearable. If they do not know the truth they will never be inspired to change their ways because of it!"

Gabriel gazed levelly at Shade and he realised he had once agreed with her. He had used lies to achieve his own ends. Yes, and he had also thought keeping the truth from Ariella a good thing. He had been wrong.

"Children's lives are at stake! They should know the truth. Do I have to be the one to remind you the Muslims are yours?"

"I don't need reminding," Gabriel said.

"You're the Angel of Revelation, both peoples are yours. And you let them die on these crusades and jihads because the deaths will have meaning? You can stop the deaths altogether!"

"They do not want to stop the wars," Zerachiel said.

Gabriel threw up her hands. "Shade! I don't want them to die. And neither people are entirely in my control. Even I must obey judgements as they come down. The children will die."

Shade felt sick, those girls reminded him so much of Ariella. He felt pity for Nicolas, unlike Stephan he believed in his cause. And then he thought Gabriel looked sick. "Judgements? Yes. You aren't grounded. And last I saw you were seeking out Nicolas yourself..."

She whispered to him, "The judgement came down on my revelation: the Arabs were not judged ready for all that I had told them, and so several verses were altered. I meant to reveal something to Nicolas, send him on a crusade to make peace with the Arabs, but Lucifer interfered, and now all I can do is watch these children die."

"It's really so much better they're martyred. Some of them will want to die after what they will be going through," Zerachiel said quietly.

"Can't it happen fast? Get some Angel here who knows how to start storms, cause an avalanche, anything," Shade cried.

"They must be an example of their faith."

"You make me sick to be close to you today, Gabri, no matter your reasons. These are children, most as innocent as those unborn. This faith you talk about is just words, words misunderstood by those who say them. Muddled. You think the Catholic Church is something that needs defending? Do you know how wealthy the church is? How some of these abbeys rake in money like it grew on trees while they sleep with crosses about their cocks afraid the Lilim might visit them. They are afraid! People with real faith do not fear the enemy."

"Shade..."

"Do you know what happens to children in sea ports, if they ever get so far? I grew up in such ports; it's a certified miracle I wasn't sold into slavery pretty as I was. These blond boys wont last long in Italy. Rome has never supported this crusade. By Christ, Gabri, can't you Angels just leave this damn planet alone?"

"You speak from anger. I know you don't mean to attack me."

"I do so. You can stop this tragedy."

"Please, Beautiful One, understand, it must be done this way," Zerachiel said, "I do not take pleasure in this any more than you do."

Shade would not answer her.

He thought to himself, I do not have to watch it!

b b b

Shade made his way to England then, afraid he'd lost the only two Angels he really held affection for besides his sister. He liked the English immediately, not really in a way that he felt he belonged, he never would, but that he found them entertaining and original. When they weren't making up stories about highwaymen they were after witches. The Celts Shade found even more superstitious.

The particular highlanders Shade ran into kept telling him stories about a wizard, an evil wizard who killed many villagers, kidnapped children, cast spells on people, and drove an enchanted wagon. When they tried to go question this wizard the very ground rose up to defend his tower. Other villagers were afraid to speak badly of the wizard. They pointed out that he had killed wolves or deer either to protect them or to give them food, and such lovely arrows they found still in the carcasses.

Shade couldn't resist. He asked directions and went himself to the tower. Just as the villagers had said, when he stepped close to the tower earth flew up at him. But the villagers had not said they felt hands grabbing their feet as they walked, as if the dead were rising, which was what Shade imagined their logical exaggeration would be, as he could feel the wires being tripped. After searching he found the wires and avoided them.

Another wire, higher up, might have decapitated him if he had been shorter and running faster; arrows shot at him from either side when he tripped it.

The tower itself was strange, certain surfaces, especially those close to the ground were of stone, the majority were wooden walls with clear-paned windows placed in them, still other surfaces looked to be made of very fragile stuff. Shade had seen something like this, long ago, an archetype of this form, houses on top of larger houses, piled to the heavens. In visions he had seen these strange buildings. But this one was different; it was made of wood. And this building had a pointed roof.

Shade scaled the stone wall, climbed to a window in a wooden wall and broke through. It seemed the window shattered much too easily to be real glass. He dusted the powdery shards from his jacket with his bare hands and wasn't cut. Something made him bring some of the powder to his mouth. Sugar. The windows were made of sugar! Shade spit, having learned in his wandering that sugar was something of a danger to his kind.

There were stranger things inside, in one very orderly square room with walls made of paper and padded floors stood a large loom with bright green and yellow in the pattern of its fabric, and porcelain vases Shade had only seen the like of few times before. Asia, he thought, those vases were always imported from Asia.

And then the creaking attracted his attention. The creaking of rope under weight. Shade moved from the square room into a narrow hall with dark wood flooring. The ends of the hall both seemed dead ends, but one had aligned holes on floor and ceiling, and a rope hanging down from one into the other. The creaking came from there. Something was being lowered on the rope.

Shade saw a pair of feet in white socks the knees bent over the feet, the emerald silk embroidered with some gold animal form. And then the crossbow aimed at him.

Green eyes, black hair. He dropped the bow even as he hopped from the wooden platform, and ran across the floor. He kissed Shade, slid his lips across the cheek to whisper a name in his ear, "Louis."

"Louis?" Shade asked looking down at his son.

"Stole the name from the Franks, but it sounds nice enough, Lou for short, it sounds vaguely Chinese."

Father and son toured the house talking about each other. Louis talked incessantly about China, he was in love with that place, had only left because the girls had. They were fine, Faye and Min, living in Venice. Miranda had been shortened to Min. Shade told his son about his horrible time in Rome, all the Angels he had seen, all the crusades, western empires, the Catholics.

"I found the book!" Louis said.

"Raziel's book?"

"Yes? On my way to Scotland from the Netherlands, some guy named Eleazor was trying to read it. It's not a regular book, when you told me about it I thought it would have pages the way regular ones do. It has just two big pages and they change when you touch them."

"It's a special book," said Shade.

They came to the bedroom. The bed, looking very English, was the highest piece of furniture in the room. There was a small boy asleep on it. Louis smiled as he passed by the bed. He took the book from a wooden chest. He returned to Shade and placed it reverently in his hands. "You were meant to keep it," he said.

Shade put the book down. He didn't want to have to know what was inside yet. "The windows are sugar?" He asked.

"Oh, yes, I forgot. It's so hard to get clear glass." Shade got in the large wooden tub that was filled with steaming water and lay listening to Louis' voice. "I did have some trouble with children eating the lower windows, but I took care of them."

"Have any other news?" Shade asked. He saw that the boy on the bed had woken.

Louis went to the boy, whispered to him and stroked his hair. The boy closed his eyes again. "There's always some conflict between Byzantium and The Roman Empire. Well, if you can even say there is a Roman Empire any more."

"Yes. Did you know the Muslims got their book from Gabriel?"

"Jibril I heard."

"It was really Gabriel, but they apparently look alike when Gabriel wears male flesh."

"I heard they're building a university in Paris, like the one's in Prague and Krakow. Lots of Universities are being founded. Of course there aren't many areas of study to choose from, medicine, law, theology..."

"Shall we go to Paris then?"

"You been?"

"Walked through it."

"I thought if I found you, we'd go live in Venice with the girls a while, move to Paris when it's a really big city."

Louis gave Shade Chinese silks to wear, went on again about the people he loved there. And then suddenly he said, "There were other Nephillim Spawn there when we got there, old ones, from Asbeel's line. They aren't like us."

"Neither are Salamiel's spawn, they fear crosses and water, their eyes are reddened, the sun hurts them."

"Asbeel's spawn loose the colour in their hair and eyes when they drink the blood, they are always dyeing their hair black, the ones who go out and walk among Humans. And they can fly, very easily. I had some of their blood. It made it easy for me to fly."

They went out. Louis shot some rabbits, and his boy, whom he called Rabbit, fetched the carcasses. Louis threw carrots down and then they went back into his house. He bled the rabbits, then roasted them, entertaining his boy with sleight-of-hand tricks while they waited. And then the bedroom, Shade drinking rabbit blood from a chalice, Rabbit feasting on red wine and roast rabbit. Shade wondered if Louis didn't drug the boy. He looked so sleepy.

Louis kept himself busy as they both dined, lying stretched on his bed, brushing his hair, filing his nails. He left the space defined by bed and dressing table only when he saw the drunken boy nodding.

Louis took the boy's shirt and then knelt on it before him. He pulled Rabbit forward by the legs, bathed him in kisses. The sight made Shade sorry he hadn't taught his son this. Someone else had taught Louis this, probably someone Chinese. The boy dropped his arms about Louis' neck let his weight carry him forward and kissed Louis on the mouth.

"It's a good night for dying, Rabbit," Louis whispered.

"Will you kill me now, my Lord?"

Louis kissed the boy's neck. "Yes, I think I would like to kill you now." And he sank his fangs deep into the tender boy flesh and emptied him. Shade found tears welling up in his eyes. He didn't know why.

b b b

In Venice they lived like princes in their small Palazzo. Antonio, they would call Louis in front of Humans, but go back to calling him by his favourite name in private. They were four together, but they did not all four get along together. Faye and Shade found they could no longer be alone together and get along, and so when Shade went out it was with Louis or it was with Min. When Faye went out it was with Louis or Min. And whoever wasn't out stayed home. When Faye and Min were home together they sang. When Shade and Louis were home together they lounged. When Shade was walking the streets or gliding down the canals with Min, Louis was at home painting.

There were of course some things they might do together, or in threes. They might entertain guests who thought them all one family of brothers and sisters. They might invite poorer Humans in to play with them. And money came in as it always had, from trade. There were established banks they might invest money in.

By the time the Renaissance came along they had been living in Venice for ages, reincarnating one of themselves every so often as a descendant. Sometimes one of them would go away and live in another house for a while to make their arrival and later inheritance more believable. The girls sung for guests often, but Louis never did anymore. Louis painted as if he had a vendetta. Shade played either accompanist or apprentice. Sometimes people noticed he was a poet, but usually he went the least noticed member of the household.

Louis was friends with many painters who became known. He'd go visit Mantegna in his studio quite often. There was a pretty auburn-haired girl who modelled for them both who was brought to the palazzo several times, Francesca. Everyone she met seemed to say to her, "Haven't I met you somewhere before?"

She would always answer, "I don't remember."

One night she just disappeared, it broke up the painters' friendship, even though Louis swore on a stack of bibles that he hadn't even been with her that whole week. After that Louis couldn't make himself like any other painter.

Louis had a cruel game that he would share with Faye, a game played with Humans. Neither Min nor Shade liked this game very much; they'd go to Min's apartment. Shade would sit in the top of a closet, writing songs as he listened to Min make love to her girlfriends. When Louis and Faye played with Humans, things ended much more cruelly. They'd go get a boy, Faye would have sex with him, and Louis would sit right in bed with them watching. Louis would ask afterward what it had felt like, and then one of them would kill the boy. They'd bring a girl in. Louis would say sweet things to her, maybe kiss her chastely. And when he had her wanting him he'd remind her how pure she had been when she came in. Sometimes he had sex with her before reminding her. Sometimes he'd ask her matter of factly about philosophy, as if the arousal gave her revelation. He would always tell her she was bad and dirty. And he would always kill her after saying this. And he would always say, "Say hello to Satan for me." And laugh as she died.

Shade found this game they habitually played disgusting.

Louis said he "liked them scared."

Shade tried to explain that this was cruelty, this way of killing them only gave more gifts to Lucifer. Louis would be better killing those who wanted Death.

It amused Louis to hear this. He didn't believe in it. But he liked telling Shade that he knew how he and Zerachiel made eyes at each other. Eventually he stopped being amused and became annoyed with his father. He said to Shade, "You used to prey on Humans and not care. Even when you were a Human you didn't care about them."

"And I was tormented."

"Because you chose to be. They are foolish. They are blind. Their race is going no where."

"It's not their fault entirely," Shade said, "they've had some bad influences, bad direction-"

"Do you know it tortures me when you do this, Pa? I did this for you," he said striking his breast, "And what did you do? Drew away from us, ignored me. I want to love you, but you mope about after Humans, making eyes at Death. I wish that Lily had not stopped you. I wish that Mother had been turned so that she and I could be together now."

Shade's only answer, a coldly spoken question: "The art, it's for her?"

Louis shrugged. Of course, it was for her. The blood had not entirely kept him safe. He was painting for his mother. But Shade also saw that Louis had never blamed him for Ariella's death, but now blamed Lily for keeping the blood from her.

Shade studied the other two. They did not care for Humans. They had, and they had watched them die. And now they were both numb. Shade said nothing to them. He knew this numbness. Louis didn't seem to have experienced it; he fought.

He had given up singing to paint. His paintings didn't sell of course, which is why in modern times they would be rare and hard to locate. But Louis was not bothered by this. He didn't paint for the money or the fame; he did it because he needed to. It was his soul on those canvases and panels.

For the Humans he had games and lies, but for Ariella: his art. And his art was painfully truthful if nothing else. Where artists like Michalangelo Bounorotti were taking the wings from their Angels, making them into substantial beings, Louis painted them unlike anyone else. His Angels stood in real space, obeyed real laws of physics, and still came across as ethereal because he made their strange poses, their tendril-like wings, and their radiant skin all believable. Louis hated Michalangelo's work, the comic-bookish purposeful disproportion of the human form.

Shade and Louis did love each other, but they could not stay together forever. Louis would never understand or like that Shade killed those who had reason to die. And Shade would never understand what Louis saw in such things as pain and cruelty that inspired him so.

Louis was intense and quite self-absorbed, part of this self-absorption lead him to surround himself with only the people he really admired, but then once close to these people he felt he must dissect them, know every part of them, and keep these things with him. It was his way of defeating the pain of being immortal, of avoiding the numbness: he could keep people with him after they were dead because he knew them so well.

Shade saw that living this way Louis was more often than not the cause of his lovers' deaths, though these were those he meant to keep. He used people up, demanded too much. Shade realised that if he stayed with Louis continuously he would be drained as well. They would have to live a pattern of separating and reuniting.

It was Shade who left Venice. Louis hesitated to lose the security of house and business. He knew what life without these things was like as well as Shade; he'd wandered through all of Arabia and Asia without benefit of carriage for most of the journey. But Shade was not bothered by the wandering life. And so one night he just left.