The Damiano Series (73 page)

“All mortals are my business and have been so since the plague of them were spawned. They are far more MY business, Raphael, than yours. In fact, one might almost say that I stand in the place of their shepherd.

“On earth, that is.”

Then Lucifer turned in place and regarded Raphael with bored disdain. “But we have had this discussion before.”

The angel nodded. “I remember the last time. It was with Damiano. He won the argument.”

The delicate, carmine nostrils flared. “He died.”

“He won the argument,” repeated Raphael evenly.

All the while he sparred with Lucifer, Raphael's wings twitched, keeping time like a steady heartbeat, or like the rhythm of a song. His face was very quiet, but not with a stiffness which suggested he was concealing his feelings. Rather it seemed the angel's feelings were so consonant with his form that they did not disarray his features. He glanced over to Saara on the table, and his head was hidden from Lucifer by a momentary upcurl of his right wing.

He winked at her.

At this little message of reassurance, Saara's fine rage bid fair to desert her, and she felt her throat close in panic.

To perish in combat with evil was one thing, but to die dragging with you one who was greater and older than you: one you had been asked to protect, as well…

“Go away!” she hissed at Raphael again, and made ineffectual shooing gestures with her hands. “This is MY fight, spirit. You can only get hurt!”

But Raphael was speaking to his brother. “What do you think to do with her, aside from burning off her braids?”

“Think?” snorted Lucifer, returning to the table. He stared down at Saara and the air around her once again began to grow very warm. “I THINK, dear brother, that I will keep her a while for observation. That is the accepted course when one studies nature, isn't it? In a jar, perhaps, with straw over the bottom. Of course it might get smelly, and I have no great enthusiasm for catching her natural food »»

The Devil scratched his chin reflectively. “But then, after a suitable length of time—say a year, I will make a closer study. Of the inner organs. It will be interesting to see whether they really resemble more those of a bird or those of a bear.”

As Lucifer spoke, Raphael's wings expanded up and out sideways, as stiff and smooth-feathered as if they had been carved of stone.

So would an angry hawk have displayed, protecting the fledglings in its nest. And, in fact, one of those stainless wings did block Saara from Lucifer's sight or touch, while the other pushed Kadjebeen bodily out of his corner. The demon stopped to finger a white pinion appreciatively.

It was a figure of Byzantine splendor that confronted the Devil. Pale glory circled Raphael's head and his gown gleamed like the noonday sun. The four winds rose together and swirled about the chamber, lifting ancient dead ashes from the cracks between the flagstones and blowing them away.

Lucifer seemed to have memories of what it meant when an archangel spread out his wings like that, and when his mild face went as hard as justice. For he stepped back, once and then again. His heel touched the low sill of the window ledge and Lucifer put a steadying hand out. A sneer covered his embarrassment.

This was not the vanguard of the Almighty, sent to cast him once more from his heights. This was a single spirit, and one that had undergone change in the streams of earth. Lucifer had planned carefully, and he was in the house of his own power. He was not about to be intimidated by empty show. He was now bigger than Raphael in all but wings, and wings were not weapons of war. He advanced again and stood beside his brother, looking down. He laughed.

Raphael spoke, and his voice cut through the forced and raucous laughter. “I am supposed to beg you to release her, Satan. That is obviously your plan. You, in turn, will refuse to do so.”

Lucifer did not demur.

“There are two reasons,” said Raphael, “why you might have called me here to participate in this charade. Either you want me to know you are engaged in this cruelty, or you want something from me in exchange for foregoing your pleasure.

“If you only wanted an audience, then I tell you that you have failed. Now that you have brought me here, I will not permit you to harm Saara of the Saami. I will oppose you in any way I can.

“If, on the other hand, you want to bargain—then explain your terms.”

Lucifer stifled a laugh. “Well spoken, Raphael. You have condensed what might have been a half hour's stimulating conversation into a scrap of dull prose.

“And I will answer in the same terms.

“Dear brother, you cannot prevent me from harming this mortal. Perhaps once you might have, though I doubt it. But when you might have had the power, you certainly wouldn't have had the interest to do so. Now you can't.

“Let me list for you the reasons why: First, you answered the summons of a mortal and, not content with that indelicacy, you stayed to talk to him. And you returned to him, again and again. You taught him a style of music and of morals he had no right to know, and in the end he was unfit for the place and time in which he had been born. And if he was not what he had been…” The Devil paused and glanced at his brother from under an exquisite eyebrow.

“… neither were you.”

Lucifer took another step forward, as though to prove to himself that his retreat had been an accident. “Secondly, in the wretched village of Sous Pont Saint Martin, you stood for some seconds on a dimple in the snow. Below that dimple was an uncovered well, and a mortal man was forced to walk around you and miss the drop. It was a quick and smoothly handled bit of prestidigitation on your part, and I'm sure you thought that since the mortal never noticed you had saved his skin, perhaps no one else would. You were wrong.

“Thirdly, in the almost equally wretched village of San Gabriele, and at the instigation of an unaesthetic and inconsequential little dog shade, you opened a locked door and cheated the hangman of his employment.”

Another small step. He was almost in touching distance of Raphael now. Saara shouted a warning.

“Fourthly, you cut a man's hair and tied his horse's harness in neat little bows. Very decorative, but not your destined work, I think.

“Fifthly—if there is such a word as fifthly—you committed what even among mortals is a crime. You hid a dying man from sight for an entire day, preventing anyone who might have saved his life from discovering him.

“And last of all, the decisive moment came here not three minutes ago, Raphael, as you announced quite baldly that you intended to squabble with me over my little prize.

“Could you not feel yourself shrivel as you spoke, brother? And each time you dirtied your hands in this mortal muck, weren't you aware of your light dimming? You have diminished till you are little more than a length of black wick lying in a puddle of wax.”

Lucifer's tone was soft, sorrowful, almost caressing, and as he finished speaking he reached out into that clear brightness which surrounded Raphael. He put his hand toward his brother's face.

It stopped, or was stopped by something: some quality of the light or of the shining smooth cheek itself, and the hand clenched empty air as Raphael answered.

“My size and form are whatever they are. I have done nothing to cause our Father pain.”

“HE IS NOT MY…” The Devil's skin went from red to purple. Both of his hands leaped out at Raphael's throat, but it was as though a wall of glass came between them.

Luficer swung angrily toward the table. Though Raphael's wing concealed the witch from his sight, the intricate dollhouse sat there, vulnerable. He raised his fist above it.

From the far corner came a squeal of despair, and Kadjebeen hid his face in his hands.

In the middle of his rage Lucifer smiled, hearing the music he loved best. He allowed his fist to unclose and once more turned to Raphael. “You are quite right, Raphael. I do want something of you —something very easily in your power to give, and a generous act besides. And if you give it to me, I promise I will put the creature back where I found it. Unharmed. I further promise to leave it alone in the future: as long as it leaves ME alone!” Lucifer spared a haughty and scandalized glance in the direction of his captive.

“It's a lie!” shrilled Saara from behind her white screen. “He won't release me, no matter what you do for him. He hates me; I bit his neck.

“And he hates you, Chief of Eagles, worse than he does me!”

Lucifer smiled sidelong. “Just listen to the little shrew. And what a name she gives you, brother. ‘Chief of Eagles.' Don't you find it embarrassing?”

“Not at all. I prefer it to being called the Liar,” replied Raphael shortly. “Now enough of this tuneless twist. Tell me what it is you want of me.”

Lucifer's shrug and smile were a bit coy. “My desire is small and well-meaning. I want to break down the old and unfortunate barrier which has stood so long between you and me, dear brother.”

Then his pale gaze sharpened. “I ask nothing of you, Raphael, neither service nor friendship nor understanding (for I know I will get none of these), but only that you take my hand in yours once more.”

Raphael stood unmoving, but the feathers on the backs of his wings where they joined the body rutched out, as the hair on a man's head may seem to crawl. And the wings themselves started a barely perceptible tremor.

“No!” cried Saara. “Whatever he says, it is still treachery!”

But the angel was not listening, or at least not to her. He stood motionless, his head tilted slightly to one side, and his dark eyes unfocused. Then Raphael answered his brother. “I want to see Saara sent back first.”

“NO!” screamed the witch.

Lucifer smiled and his eyes grew white-pale. “Afterward, dear brother. I don't trust your decision will remain the same once the motivation is gone.”

“Yes, you do,” replied the angel, as he shook his feathers into place. “You DO trust my word, Satan, or you would never have called me. The only reason you would refrain from returning Saara now that I have agreed to your terms is that you have no intention of returning her. Therefore it must be done now.”

Lucifer, who had admitted to Saara already that he did not intend to free her, sulked for a moment. “If neither of us trust the other, Raphael, then I guess there can be no bargain, and the woman is sacrificed to your stiff-neckedness.”

“It is your bargain, Satan. You offered it, and you must perform your promise first. If this entire scene was set with me in mind, then you should have no objections to letting your bait go free.”

Now it was Raphael's turn to close the space between them. “Otherwise it is war between us, and though you are stronger than I and I cannot prevail, you will still not escape that battle unharmed.”

Lucifer growled in his throat, but he reached a negligent hand toward Saara, in her concealment behind the wing.

“One moment,” called the angel, and the pearly screen lifted like a fan. He leaned toward the woman and spoke. “Saara, when you are home you must forget this and not try to involve yourself with the Liar, neither out of anger nor revenge. Or once again he will have the power to take you captive.”

The miniature naked woman ran toward him until the cord tightened against her leg. “Listen to me, Spirit! I don't want my life from your hands. I can't take another sacrifice on my behalf. You and I love the same person and by his own request I was to watch over you. I cannot live with the shame of this failure!”

“There is no shame, Saara,” whispered Raphael. “And no failure. Not for you nor for me.”

Lucifer found this conversation immensely distasteful. He completed the gesture which caused the tiny shape to vanish.

“She is now back where I found her,” he announced.

Raphael's eyes grew a bit vague as he made sure the Devil spoke the truth. Then he glanced once more at the table. “You forgot her dress.”

“We didn't bargain for the dress,” snapped Lucifer. Then he strode away from the table and let the irritation of this minor defeat disappear in the satisfaction with the great victory it had bought him. He stared at Raphael with an expression of rapt wonder for some moments, knowing he had won. Knowing, despite his own accusation, that Raphael was true to his word and would make no effort to avoid what he had promised.

His. HIS. The beautiful and hated brother, symbol of all that feathered crew who had dared to conspire against him and to stand against him at the gates of eternity with their inane swords aflame! The Devil was trembling as Raphael had trembled, hearing Satan's terms. But it was neither fear nor disgust that caused him to shake, but a lust that was nearly love: a lust to touch once more, in the person of his brother, the very substance of heaven. A broad smile split Lucifer's face, exposing all his unangelic teeth.

Raphael also stood silent. Once again he did not seem fully aware of Lucifer before him. His eyes were almost closed. The angel's lips moved and he nodded, though no sound was audible in the chamber. Finally he came toward his brother. He held out his hand.

But now that the moment had come, Lucifer felt a desire to delay it. “A moment more, Raphael,” he whispered. “Let me realize my success.” His face was tight, and white patches stood out against his mottled cheeks. His jaw worked. His cloak of urbanity fell away from his face and form, revealing the demon tyrant that he was.

“You would have done better to go with me from the first, brother!” he hissed, and adderlike he struck out with both his blood-red hands, clasping Raphael's hand of ivory.

A shock passed through the room, sending stinging pain through Kadjebeen's ears, and causing the little round demon to go rolling over the floor. It vibrated the dollhouse palace until its tiny turrets rattled.

Raphael gasped. He fell to his knees. But for the grip upon his hand he would have fallen flat on the floor. His face was blank, like that of a man struck by lightning, and his mouth hung open. Wings beat spasmodically.