Part 15 (1/2)

”And as I huddled on the periphery of that night, I saw a shot of light, heard the heralding Host The pulse of the world fell silent, one sound only filling the void where that deafening announcement had been: the first wail of a newborn human”

The babe I had heard it

She lowered her head to clutch at a soft tuft of white hair ”Had I blood, it would have frozen in nized the voice in that hue of it rushed upon hty, had sent that part of hiht of that first and re-created Eden, the part that had spoken the words for the for of the cosmos before my inception and for nificant girl He had arrived now in person” the voice in that hue of it rushed upon hty, had sent that part of hiht of that first and re-created Eden, the part that had spoken the words for the for of the cosmos before my inception and for nificant girl He had arrived now in person”

Inside my sweater, the hair on my arms stood out from my skin

”Do you understand? Flesh!+ He had taken on flesh Not flesh in feel and appearance as I have done, or Lucifer ht do, as members of the Host have done since the early days, but true flesh!+ The sentence of humanity Why? Why!” Her arms jerked like a puppet's, and I saw pieces of her white hair sticking to her fingers, matted to them like blood on a windshi+eld ”I racked ths for these creatures-go so far as to de one of theuess about how Lucifer felt-the best-created, reat benefactor, his God-King having turned his back on him for the sake of a race of clay people How it o to prove his love for their terminal souls!” Drops of white spittle cas to the corner of her lip, her chin

”It caht train: He had never loved us so much And then: He had never loved even Lucifer so much! He had never loved even Lucifer so htest concession for any of us, let alone the shi+ning cherub? But there seemed to be no end to what he would do for the huer, albino strands falling from it-”If El mended the rift between the humans and himself in this sordid love affair, ould become of Lucifer? Of us?” She held out her hands ”Of htest concession for any of us, let alone the shi+ning cherub? But there seemed to be no end to what he would do for the huer, albino strands falling from it-”If El mended the rift between the humans and himself in this sordid love affair, ould become of Lucifer? Of us?” She held out her hands ”Of me?”

Had I heard those words froht have evoked pathos inless than capable, crafty, and alwaysbeneath the surface of everything she said, a taut power And when she raised her eyes tomove like a shadow behind their clouded curtain, as one in the street sees a figure in a third-story , looking down in silence, watching And again I felt that surge of anxiety that I wasentirely

”Then, with another squalling rush of clarity, I understood: There would be no new creation He would not discard these reater or meeker brand of creature He would offer his all to these mortals because they were the ones he loved”

”All this ti for El to destroy us?” I said faintly

Now that s of stained teeth ”Oh, yes yes” And the sibilance of that asthan if she had shouted, for I realized she had waited to revel in that very thing Now she leaned back in her chair, tilting her head at an angle I found unnatural, especially for an old wo her own neck

”And yet ere not without dom, and El had just entered it in the flesh of a huthened my own, demonic vision”

I had hardly ever heard her refer to herself in this way except at the beginning, so it struck , so carefully chosen and strategically placed, was ruthless It was enough that this would-be king threatened his reign, and so he sought to kill the child”

”I take it he didn't find hie happened The de with squinted eyes off in the direction of a store soaze, I saw nothing out of the ordinary, only shoppers co outside it like disenfranchised husbands waiting on their wives

”What is it?”

”He had every boy in the area under two years old butchered” Lucian's eyes darted this way and that, a dry tongue snaking out to lick at her lips

I thought again of the nativity scene, so serene and idyllic

”Not that it helped Obviously, the baby survived”

20

I felt it like a bodily urge-like the irresistible need to cough, to vo head within an to write, the physical act releasing it in fits Even when I reached the end, I sat back, breathing slowly, deeply, waiting for it to subside, and then bolted upright to add inat her hair, the grotesque moment when I'd asked her about human obliteration, her smile the rictus of a corpse

Shortly after one in the h to turn my stomach

At 3:00 a the demon had said If El mended the rift between humans and himself, ould become of us? If El mended the rift between humans and hiht of the Genesis account Of thedawned onthat, even alone inpile of pages on my desk was not the story of a fall Neither was it a dee

It was a love story Of God for humans

I supposed, too, it was the story of Lucian's own love affair and subsequent divorce

If humans could be reconciled, what about de about any hope for hio next

But what if not? What if Lucian were truly disowned? Then he must resent people as much as he claimed And that must, necessarily, include me

MY SLEEP THAT NIGHT, all three hours of it, was riddled with restless visions I drea the deep lines around his eyes, the gold crowns on two of his front teeth, more clearly in dreams than I could in memory But when he opened his mouth in children's church, he wasn't the pastor at all He was Lucian, spewing his hatred for all things human across the carpeted floor of the sanctuary

And then I was at my cousin's house My father was still alive, and we had driven to Nebraska as a family to see his brother's family where they lived midway between Lincoln and the western panhandle My uncle hadbin out back, and we played Kill-the-Carrier in their giant front yard I was six again

My cousin had, a his toys, a Sesame Street book about Grover, as afraid of a ed e, and of course I couldn't resist I was so enamored with the book that I wanted to take it with ah er than me, started to cry, I wanted that book soto ask for it I knew my mother would scold ain ild anticipation, Grover begging o farther

There's a e when Grover, alone at the end of the book, realized that he was theup to it that fueled , fixated, despite repeated warnings

And then I dreah proposals stacked in towers nearly as tall as I, throughout from between two boxed manuscripts, I saw the thin book with its cartoon Muppet character I picked it up and began to read

There's a e, punctuated every few seconds by the trilling laugh of a wo like an outsider

I had loved to come to the Four Seasons inHoine the day when I would spend every Friday afternoon in the Bristol Lounge's overstuffed chairs, perhaps in front of the fireplace if it were cold outside, expensive brandy rolling inside the snifter in my hand There I would take drinks with felloriters or my own editor-perhaps even an interviewer from the Paris Review Paris Review

It was four years now since I had last been here to take Aubrey's mother to enjoy salmon sandwiches, miniature tarts, and scones with clotted creah tea that we could barely afford

I half expected the hostess to give me a polite but distant look, to say that they were full, so sorry, that I ht try the Irish pub down the street But she smiled and led , red leather seat Between the bronze upholstery tacks along the back of the seat and the book-lined shelves above it, the polished cherry wood of the table and the attendant cozy chairs pulled up on the other side, the little nook gave off the flavor of an elegant personal library

In another life, one filled with editor and writer friends, I could have claimed this corner as my own, reserved it each week to hold court and take that brandy, to grant that rare interview