Rome, circa 37 AD.

Rome was almost large enough to get lost forever in, but not quite. It was just for a while Paris was able to forget he'd been charged with strange tasks, or that he'd been told to plague mortals in the name of the Satan Seraphim. He never forgot the Angels altogether; Diana was always there to remind him. And if not she then Athen with that emerald hanging just below his ribs.

Athen was going by the name Antoninus; and Paris by Lucian its resemblance to Lucifer not lost on him, nor the irony of the fact neither walked in the light much. The girls had let Athen, Toni as he had become to all on familiar terms, pick their names. He hadn't worked hard on them, or his, they became Faye and Miranda.

Kills were never hard to cover up in Rome, never were they at loss for people who might not be missed. In all the commotion of Rome it should have been so easy to be forgotten.

Lucy was the first to find Paris; there was an Isis cult thriving in Rome which had not, as yet, been replaced by Christianity. So all their prayers and rites made it easy for Lucy - who had long ago usurped the name, though all the deeds done by the brave young goddess in Egypt's myths were rightly Israfel's - to come from the world beyond the world. The beliefs of Humans worked subconsciously to give Angels the power needed to come across the void between.

They met in her temple. Lucy thanked Shade for doing his duty, for living to remind the Humans of horror, of the blood sacrifices of olden times every time he drank, of the eternal cycle of death and rebirth from the earth every night he waked.

But Lucy complained then. She was jealous of That Halfangel who had been made Queen of Heaven in the Human's eyes. Secretly Paris could have no sympathy. Lucy had never been Queen of Heaven. In the first moments of creation it had been that Queen of Planets, which became the Earth, and then Venus had shone down on Earth's first twilight. But Lucy had been only that first intelligent creature to walk the Earth.

Lucy complained that Lucifer was depressed. It was as if he were impotent, she said. "Not even all the pagan rites can strengthen him."

"Not all the pagan rites are meant to strengthen him," Paris said, but Lucy knew this, whatever she said and Paris decided it would be best to just listen.

"He is faced with this: that he is expected to do evil and now can only rebel by being good. To do good would utterly destroy him. He can't be as good as he once was, he can't go back like that. And I Am will always be more good. He is overwhelmed."

Of course this was the same sort of thing an enlightened Christian might say, talking of good and evil. But Paris didn't believe it had so much to do with that. It made him pity the Earth Mother. Compared to the ignorant masses of Humans she was ancient and wise, but she knew nothing. It made Paris pity Earth and everything on it. Made Paris feel this creature would have been so much better off if not so enamoured with Lucifer who had been the first Angel her eyes had ever witnessed.

Even when he'd been Human he hadn't felt Human.

"You are not afraid to speak any truths, are you?" Lucy asked.

"No," said Paris.

"Ah, you could melt the heart of the Angel of Death."

"Zerachiel?"

"You know her?"

"Of her," said Paris.

Lucy nodded then. "She is also the one with the terrible task of punishing the others. That and the separating of the living from the dead have made her cold. But she would melt for someone like you, not afraid to speak like Duma was."

Paris shrugged.

"Perhaps you will see her one day, or him, Zerachiel is not so badly made as That Cherub. You have not seen others besides me? I suppose it is early, our new home only just being found. But no one who has been among us as long as you were will ever forget how to see us."

"Unless they want to."

"Shade...?"

"Nothing. It's nothing important."

"Night's Children can be cruel."

"Anyone can be cruel. Everyone is cruel, especially the ones you think sweet...they hurt you most."

"Only if you let them, child. Don't you begin trusting the kindly ones."

"Do Nephillim ever love, Lucy?"

"I'll tell you a truth, Shade: most people never love."

"I was in love, once or twice. My son's mother..." Paris paused looking down at the rings and pale gold fingers of his left hand, "My wife killed herself when she found out I was this."

"I see, then she is in torment now, unable to rejoin the cycle with this act weighing on her. She is a prisoner of her own soul. Pain never stops for those who take their own lives. It would be too kind a world if it did, a world full of sweet suicides. The pain just keeps going on."

"Oh Lucy, can you help me? Anything? She was so pure until I made her my wife. I made her trust me by being kinder than men ever are in this world, and then I lied to her. I have sinned." Paris hugged himself. "This is what sin is? This black feeling? This oppressiveness...Ariella often spoke of oppressive emotions. She said they were all that wasn't good in the world. I want to take the pain from her. I have to. Ariella did nothing I didn't make her do. Can't I just...take it away?"

"You just have," said Lucy quietly and faded from sight.

b b b

For years Paris lived in torment. At first his family tried to cheer him. The girls gave up. Then Athen gave up. Later Athen took his two Spawn and left. "We're getting out of this empire," Athen said, "it's disgusting, I feel it dying around me. You'll die with it. You'll go mad and die!" Paris didn't even cry. He was too far-gone past sadness to cry. Too numb to feel anything for Athen.

Dee stayed with Paris. She brought blood offerings to him when his body didn't just mindlessly go out on its own and kill. She came to his room every night and said nice things. Dee watched Paris twitch and shiver in the darkness. She watched him fall on ink brush and paper as if it were blood and read his scrawls afterward. Such dark disturbing things he committed to those sheets of parchment.

One day Dee said, "Vespasianus is bucking for the purple, come clean yourself and let me introduce you to his son Titus, you aren't so old that he wouldn't find you charming, if only you would move from this room."

And many more nights passed in torment. Paris sometimes cut himself and used the blood to write on the walls. The outside of the wooden door read: TORMENTVM. And that was as far from leaving the room as Paris ever got.

One night Paris looked up from his bed of stench and saw a blonde woman sitting up on his desk. She was wearing a simple white dress, and his vision had been failing him for months. "Ariella!"

The figure shook its head. "Poor Shade. Yes, I do suppose you are very shade-like right now. I feel so cold being in close proximity to you."

"Gabri?"

And Gabriel tilted her head as she smiled. "I'm grounded."

"You, grounded? Did you make a child you weren't supposed to?"

"Taught a recitation I maybe shouldn't have. The Qur'an. I thought it would be good if I did it...but maybe I should have asked for other opinions before I took the tablet from Raz's library and taught it to Mohammed."

"You revealed secrets to a Human?"

"Yes, I am one of the Angels of Revelation after all. I tried so hard with the First Ones, and they went astray, little Cain killed his brother, did it out of spite you know. Perhaps we shouldn't have asked for blood sacrifices...the poor little farmer. 'Want a blood sacrifice do you, I'll give you a blood sacrifice!' and broke open his brother's skull like an eggshell. And I tried so hard with those Kings of Israel. But David was over-sexed and Solomon stole Raz's book from us. Ah, Michael and I could never quite rid them of the worship of the others as Canaanite gods. And then my dear Human friend John Mark, he wrote his book like he was supposed to, but still those Christians didn't get our messages quite right. So, I thought, the Arabs, why not the Arabs? They are the descendants of Sumer as it were, through its marriage to Akkad, Ishmael's children as he was Abram's, they were our people, Abram came from Sumer, and he turned out to be OK."

"I don't suppose this turned out to be...OK?"

"Well, it's too soon to know, but I'm grounded anyway, just for revealing the book without permission. The thing is, with the Hellenists you could look effeminate, and we always make a point of appearing effeminate to the women of Israel, no use in them thinking strange men had visited their rooms at night, but I had to look quite masculine for the Arab. Even the Elohim are teasing me now, as if it weren't bad enough living down the Badly Made Cherub thing, now they all say, 'well maybe he wasn't so badly made.' and, 'here comes Jibril, no wait it's Gabri wearing man flesh.'"

Paris just twitched.

"I was sad when I heard that you had gone into torment after a Human soul. Very noble, but very dangerous."

"I had to do it."

"Yes. I suppose you did need to, if you are to go on living...her death has been weighing on you a long time." For a long while the room was quite, just a few flies buzzing around. Gabriel's eyes darted about after them. "Shade, had you realised that some of these insects are not mortal flies but Daejinnim in Mephiztopher's service? Honestly I thought the rankness your fault and so I said nothing, but it's Mephizto's influence. I should have known. After all, Nephillim Spawn do not create foul scents the way Humans do."

"I hadn't noticed."

"They are spying on you."

"I am not surprised."

Gabriel sighed. "Being grounded sucks."

"What's that mean?"

Gabriel rounded her mouth and drew in air. "Sucks. It means being grounded is like something very low and dirty, I suppose. It's some sort of saying school boys say, in some times."

"Yeah, well torment sucks like a boy-whore then."

"It's a shame you being in this room. You could really get far in the world. Do you want to get back out? I see, only in a selfish way, and so you refuse to want it. I too do not want escape for myself. It's that I fear for the unborn without me. I trust Dobbiel, but I know that I am better at the task."

"What are unborn?"

"You know, un-born, the sweet little Humans swimming inside their mothers' bellies. They don't know all the right things to do unless I tell them. There are some things a Human ought to be born knowing."

"You mean they are alive already? How long are they really alive in there? What happens when they are aborted?"

"Shade, how can you look so shocked? Is it your own blindness that shocks you? Yes. It's not any worse than bearing a baby only to abandon it on a mountainside or on the steps of a temple, well, maybe not temples, someone adopts those if not the temple itself. Still, I would agree abortion is a horrible art. It was Kasdaye that taught it to them. I'd much rather she taught them some method of birth control, or very interesting new positions to have intercourse in. Humans already murder their own kind enough..." Gabriel cried.

"I guess they are rather self-destructive."

"Well, when we first made them, they were made as slaves. It's no good to program your slaves to get along with each other extremely well, makes for well-organised rebellions. It's a bit late to go reprogram them now, they each have to fight the dependency on their own."

"How could you keep slaves, it's disgusting."

"But, Shade, they were not like us, not at all. You keep animals as slaves. The shocking thing about Humans is that they make slaves of other Humans."

"Yes. We're self-destructive."

"But not you, not anymore." It was then Paris noticed the pile of lilies in her lap. And then he saw one fall from her cheek. Those tears, they became flowers by the time they reached her lap. Gabriel caught one in her cupped palm, and stretched out her arm. The lily dropped down onto Paris' bed.

He picked the blossom up; it was real, real and sweet smelling, and oozing with nectar. It even looked dewy, but this dew would taste like tears. But thinking that made Paris wonder what Angel tears tasted like. He touched his tongue to a petal. Not salty, bitter though. It wasn't unpleasant, this taste.

"Zerachiel likes lilies. The smart Humans learn to put lilies out at their funerals or in the casket even. Death will smile at them when she comes, if they do. When we were one we cried lilies. Maybe that gave people the idea, maybe it was all someone else's idea though. And when we were one we saw the unborn as well as the dead. I think my split has got the worst side of us, seeing all the dead and of the unborn only the Neverborn. I think I'll take these to her, make an offering to her on both our parts."

"Yes," said Paris slowly.

"You could leave this room if you wanted. The soul you have gone into torment for, she's moved on now. You don't really have to worry about her ever again."

He nodded slightly, let the lily in his hand fall to the dirty floor.

"Your son, he's in China. He makes everyone sad. Athen thinks he's discovered something rather beautiful in pain. If he were here, he would sit and watch you, make you into his new study."

"Makes me almost feel sad."

"If you see him, talk him out of it if you can. You don't have to be miserable."

"I often think that I deserve it."

"It still pains me to see you miserable. You are strange, Shade, having friends on both sides."

"Don't think they will be any more happy that I'm doing this, as it deprives them of my image. I am useless to them here."

"Yes. They will be quite angry..." Gabriel said. She appeared to be listening for something. "One bit of advice before I go, you can love and then go on to love someone else. Love isn't something that lets itself be used up."

"I don't suppose so."

"And a message from my dear friend Raziel. He says if you wish to look for his book, go north, he would have heard if it was in Egypt, so if it's not buried elsewhere in the sand it's been taken north."

Paris waved and then went back to shivering.

"Salam," said Gabriel making a V with two fingers, and then was gone.

b b b

Pariswas in that same dark room, crying in his sleep, twisting violently every so often to escape the rays of sunlight that came through the old shutters. He began taking breaths, strange because when one of the Spawn usually slept they did not breathe at all, even during the day they went through the motions for the benefit of watching mortals. And then the sound. His name called, not Paris, but the true name...the one his mother used to whisper.

The shutters flew open and Paris woke. He sat up, scared, shivering now because he sat in morning sunlight. Blind. Even his limbs gave no shade. Slowly his pupils contracted, he felt the tightening pain, and the sky outside became blue, less blinding.

Paris stopped his breathing, regained his sense. He felt very weak, but he did not feel sick, or in any more pain.

The sound again. Paris looked all around, searching for the cause. He felt the eyes on him, looked back to the window and saw Death. Zerachiel stood several feet above the dusty wooden floor, and yet, tall as she looked to be, did not hit her head on the ceiling. She is not really inside the room, Paris thought. But he knew that she was there with him. He felt weak, wanted to lie down on the bed. He looked down at the bed, stained with years and years of old blood visible only now in the sunlight. In sunlight the whole room looked transient, larger than it had been all the nights it was Paris' prison and filled with childish scrawls.

Paris realised then, watching red droplets break against the crusty stains that he was crying. Lower. He needed to be lower. And so he went down to the floor and lay there, fingers scraping at the dust. He drew an eye, a drop of blood fell to its centre and spread. And what were these dry sounds he was making, not speech.

"Please get up," Death said, "you mustn't treat me that way."

"Take me," Paris whispered but did not look.

"No, Beautiful One, not like that. I have come to give you release."

Paris, mostly blind looked up and saw her clearly, the most beautiful and horrible thing ever. Naked and shameless. Two great white wings as Paris had always imagined the real Isis to have, and secondary tendrils that reached for him. Had Zerachiel been Nepthys, dark and as protective? He made a small moan. He wanted to be close to her. Would fate allow her to move close, to touch him? Yes, like silk stretched over bone, thin, and yet she had breasts, full and heaving. The fingernails were very close to him. If Paris were to kneel he might touch them, long, scythe-like. He moved upward, looked at the eyes. Absolute black, those eyes, made to draw you in, made to draw the life right out of you. This shocking beauty made to draw the soul from the flesh. Battlefields, sickrooms, nurseries, "Yes, come to me." Her hair danced.

Why did he follow her about Eden?

Paris knelt at her left hand and looked up, barely able to stand her gaze. "I love you."

"I know," she said.

Her foot was quite close, farther back than the hanging nails, but he'd only have to fall forward to touch it. She was changing shape, done with showing him the vision that could release him. She looked as she had in Eden, much smaller in stature than the other Angels of higher rank, like a young woman. It seemed it was she who caused him to stand. And then she floated downward, hovering before him, knees bent slightly and feet drawn up two feet from the floor. A white tendril moved from behind her and touched his hand. Her eyes, no less frightening, looked into his soul. "My Beautiful One, I have been watching you. We have been watching each other."

Watching from the inside out, gazing at souls. She called him beautiful without looking at his face. She might have even said nefer but he wasn't sure. Paris almost spoke, but her fingernails touched lightly against his lips. Her thumbs slid down over his eyelids and closed them.

Zerachiel pressed close to Paris then. Bliss came over him. He thought he had been told she was cold, more than once, but she didn't feel cold to him. Her body felt cool next to his, cool, smooth, and firm. He let himself put his hands to her waist. He could ring her entire waist with his hands. And then he stood with arms hung loosely about her waist liking that she was breathing on his neck. Her breath was thin and cool, like the rest of her.

Paris thought: the moon has come down from the sky and stood in my arms.

Zerachiel drew away as he thought it. "I am much to busy to allow myself to stay any longer. It would be a nice thing to stay, if I had nothing depending on me."

"I thought that I would never feel anything again. Thank you."

"Yes, Beautiful One, I must go. I feel love for you."

"I can't fear you!"

She smiled from the shadow of her wings. "No, not me. Only yourself."

"I will learn to know myself. I will follow my heart."

"I ask no vows, but if you must give them, then let your mind go before you along with your heart, Beautiful One. You will see me again."

Paris climbed down from his window and looked for a child whom the world had wounded. Such children were always ready to greet Death with welcome arms.