Angel Dust (25 page)

I touched him.

The purity of my desire broke all the fetters of Heaven.

I really touched him.

I BROKE THROUGH FROM HEAVEN AND TOUCHED HIM.

He felt it.

He jerked back. He looked into my eyes.

Time shifted. Froze. Was frozen. Will freeze. Becomes one. Together. Merges. The moment goes on for ever.

‘I'll support you,' I whisper, ‘I love you . . .'

He sighs as if he's been waiting for those words. I open my arms. He steps towards me. We embrace.

‘Let me kiss you,' he says. ‘I've needed you so badly.' Stardust is in his eyes. Angel dust is in his heart.

He leans to kiss me.

I press my lips against his. I feel him through the boundaries that lie between us.

He reaches forward. He holds on to the marble of a tombstone. I see how his knuckles are pale against the grave. He's straining to reach me. His eyes. I meet them. We are locked together.

His tongue slips into my mouth.

We are one.

It's like sunlight. We are each other. We've known all our lives. We fuse. We want to be one. We are one. We must stay one.

The moment ends.

And we stand there trying to understand.

I say, ‘I'll do whatever it takes.'

The Dust of Angels settles around us. All around us in the sunshine. And time – its shortness, its length – means nothing.

We grasp the sunshine.

We have kissed in the shadows of the cemetery.

And everything I wanted to say, everything I wanted to tell him was driven out of my mind, except that as we parted I whispered, ‘Be careful, Marcus, our days are short; don't return unto the path of evil, forswear all wickedness.'

But he lifted up his hands as if he wanted to shush me. And such a look of longing and of sadness dawned in his eyes that I became quiet.

‘We're doing it my way,' he whispered.

I nodded. He was right. He'd asked for my support. I would give it
–
even if he chose to go to Hell. I would go with him.

‘If I could always be with you,' he whispered. ‘If it was always like this, all the time, I could be OK. I could stay strong. If I could always feel like this and you were always there.'

‘You are with me,' I said. ‘And I'll be with you.' And in that simple promise I sealed my fate. For if he wasn't to die and come to Heaven, the only other way to be with him was to cross the great divide myself.

And I didn't regret it, for I could give up all eternity, all my future in Heaven, for just one day on Earth with him.

Don't judge me. Please don't judge, all you Heavenly beings that weigh the souls of humans on your scales in the Halls of the Dead, those of you who hold their destiny in your hands; those of you who blow the trumpets for the great Judgement Day – don't be too sure you have it right.

For if you have never felt the tug of passion
–
the wrench of desire as it floods your chest, the ebb of blood in your belly
–
you can't know what inhuman power it takes to stay true to anything. For Earthly love has an authority that can't be denied, won't be denied. So don't judge too quickly.

Yes, I should have told him. Yes, I should have bared my truth until he understood. He could hear me, could see me. Yes, there was no reason not to.

But I was afraid.

Afraid to tell him that his life was won through Joey's death. Afraid to face his pain. Afraid he would turn away from me. I could not bear that. I could not.

And so I started a new intent, a plan to save him, a way to be with him forever.

I trembled at the thought of it.

I trembled at my boldness.

This was no joke. I really would do it.

I really would Fall from Heaven.

Marcus left me shaking amongst the headstones, left my fire and brilliance shimmering uncontrollably in the grey morning. I clutched at a gravestone to steady myself: oh, the feel of that stony surface – so cold to the touch, rough-hard like the pressure from dark lips. I tried to regain some measure of restraint. I pulled my fire inwards. I straightened up my wings; but they shivered and shivered.

And though Marcus was gone, I still sought him. I looked through cement and stones. I gazed into the crematorium. He was supporting his mother, giving her his arm. They were settling on chairs. I must go – already St Peter would be wondering. Oh, Marcus. His broad shoulders. His smooth muscular chest. I must get back to Heaven.

One last look.

Joey's older brother moved away from his family, crossed to Marcus. I saw Rayanne smile; I saw Jasmine take her mother's arm. Joey's brother drew Marcus aside.

‘Man knows you took the bullet. Man knows to show you nuff respect for that.'

Marcus nodded.

‘But Man's bro is lying there deaded in the coffin, you-know-what-I'm-saying?'

Marcus nodded again and held up two fingers in the everlasting victory sign – a way of showing respect.

‘Safe, bruv,' said Joey's brother. ‘So man dem
need
to see the Crow's blood running too, you-get-me, don't ya?'

Marcus nodded.

‘So that every time your bullet hole bites you, you gonna check Joey and you gonna know his peeps showed you da love and respect. So we've taken a decision. We're keeping it real. We're in with the beef. We're gonna do the business. For our Joey – you're still de man, it ain't like that. Give us two days to tool up, get clean heaters and a disposable ride. Then when you're ready – you say the word.'

Marcus smiled. ‘Yo,' he said.

Heaven is not Heaven if you're not happy, and I wasn't. I was miserable. I was in despair. I was panicking. It was 29th October.
The 29th.
Halloween was only two days away.

So as soon as I got back I chose a dark raiment, checked I had the D.I.Y. kit, threw away my identity bracelet, left a note which simply said:

Then I closed up my cell, and raced out, across the Golden City. I charged through the all-pervading smell of boot polish and cold metal, up towards the North Gate.

Outside the North Gate was awful. God's Army had wrecked the place. The fields were scarred. Great wounds of earth lay furrowed where tanks had left their tracks; swathes of corn had been ploughed dark; soil turned and left in heaped clods, flowers lay crushed, hedgerows trampled, saplings broken.

I didn't care. I raced straight for the Abyss. I even took to the air and flew. Who cared any more about stupid rules. Let God's Army catch me if they could. I was going where none of them could follow. I was so upset I didn't even notice another angel flying behind me – not until I reached the far wastelands.

Kamuel.

‘Don't try to stop me,' I shouted.

‘Be careful,' he said. I glanced across at him. His lovely face, so breathtakingly beautiful, was set hard like flint. ‘What you think you do for love may only be a trap, a different kind of temptation sent by the Devil to catch the unwary.'

‘Love in any form is Heaven sent,' I yelled back. He wasn't going to dissuade me.

‘Self-love is not,' called Kamuel sternly. ‘Seeking to ease your own pain is not love,' he warned. ‘It is self-serving. Have a care, Serafina, that you do not mistake the two.'

‘How?' I replied. ‘To do something noble and self-sacrificing to save another can never be the Devil's work!'

He flew closer, reached out very tenderly and touched my wing feathers. ‘Oh Serafina,' he cried, his face quite melted in tenderness. ‘Don't be hasty. You are the dearest, the most beautiful of God's Seraphim. Don't forget He loves you and has sheltered you in His sacred Cloisters, prepared you to do His work. It would grieve Him to lose you.' The sadness in his voice made me want to weep.

Kamuel was so lovely, so kind, so wise, but I did not think it would grieve God to lose me. He had everything. He didn't need me. But I kept my own counsel. I didn't want to argue.

‘And I would grieve too,' said Kamuel, ‘if anything evil should befall you.'

‘Why is it so evil to Fall from Heaven?' I said, suddenly defiant.

A shadow passed overhead. The sun blinked out like the shutting of a great eye. Kamuel sighed.

‘
Tell me,
' I persisted.

‘Look,' he said, pointing at the landscape ahead. ‘See the mountains hard and bright?'

‘I see them,' I sighed. I wished sometimes Archangels would give you a straight answer.

He plucked a feather from his wing and released it into the air. Immediately the wind took it, whipped it around and bore it away.

‘Temporal things do not endure,' he said, ‘and neither does Earthly love. Be not like the feather, Serafina. Seek to be hard and bright like the mountains.'

And he pressed my hand and in that gentle pressure I understood. Kamuel cared. He wanted to save me from myself. He knew.

‘I have something for you,' he said. He held out a small gold crucifix on a golden chain. ‘Wear it for me,' he said, ‘so that God's Grace will be with you wherever you go.'

I could not refuse a blessing so gently given. I took the crucifix and fastened the chain around my neck. It felt so light against my throat, like the caress from the tip of a feather.

‘But I can't be yours,' I said, looking into his eyes, determined to tell him the truth. An Archangel as great as he should not be deceived.

‘Why, what courage you have, my Serafina,' he said.

‘I just can't,' I said.

‘Yes,' sighed Kamuel. ‘I would keep you if I could: together we could chase rainbows and create such beauty in the universe that even the Devil should bless us.'

‘I can't,' I repeated, beating my wings faster. ‘I love another.'

Kamuel looked at me and smiled. ‘Then I pray that whoever he is deserves you, will cherish you, will adore you for all eternity and humble himself before you, as I will – as I do.'

‘You are too good,' I murmured, thinking of Marcus, his wild moods, his bitter resolve, the press of his lips, the strain of his body against me, the heady smell of life lived in the fast lane that clung to him. How he didn't care if he went to Hell and back.

The cloud passed from the face of the sun.

‘Don't try to change my mind,' I said.

‘I won't,' he said sadly. ‘But you must consider this: none have returned. Falling from Heaven is the one thing God forbids. The one thing he does not forgive.'

‘But others have,' I said. ‘Vincent would have Fallen.'

‘But in the end he chose not to.'

‘But your friend Fell,' I pointed out.

‘Ah, yes,' mused Kamuel, ‘but not by choice. And remember, anywhere that is not Heaven is Hell.'

So Hell was carnal knowledge: skin on skin, pulse beating, blood thickening.

‘Brimstone and fire,' said Kamuel.

And kisses wild and sweet, I thought.

‘And death and disease and sorrow,' said Kamuel.

‘But this immortality isn't life,' I said.

‘No,' he agreed. ‘It's not life.'

In the distance the faint thrum of thunderbolts rolled towards us. I saw the sky flicker with lightning. ‘Please,' said Kamuel, compressing his fine lips, ‘come with me, before you make any decision.' He seized my hand. He shook out his feathers. ‘There is something I have to tell you.'

Up he soared into the air. Obediently I followed. The sky throbbed around us; the clouds parted, soft like swansdown. At every beat of Kamuel's great wings a quiver of sunshine leapt from his feathers until all the countryside below was speckled in honey light.

‘Behold,' he said. He pointed to the Golden City, now tiny beneath us. ‘See how beautiful Paradise is.' He raised one arm and pointed at the skies above. From his fingertips beams of light shot forth until a fan of sheer radiance ran right across the Heavens.

I looked at him, awestruck: so mighty, so full of splendour.

He stopped soaring and hovered beside me. ‘All this is yours, Serafina,' he said. ‘The wide fields, the flowers, the city, all yours.'

It
was
beautiful. If I were to fall, I would lose it. And gain what? At best a few forbidden nights with a wild human boy? A grimy soul saved from the pit it should've been tossed into long since?

Kamuel turned towards the Sapphire Mountains. ‘Follow me,' he commanded. Soon the peaks rose about us and quite shut us in.

‘Let us stop here,' he said, as we reached the first outpost, a regiment of rocks that guarded the way to the summit. There were no fields there, only the raw fabric of the mountain, bleak, savage. When the rush of air and cloud cleared, I heard the work of God's Army clanging much nearer.

‘Listen,' said Kamuel. ‘They are preparing for the Great Purge. They will start their March soon,' he said. ‘No one will escape their scrutiny, no stone will go unturned, no deed unexamined.'

‘Will they discover everything?' I asked.

‘Only if you show them your thoughts. God's Army purge the mind as well as the soul.'

‘Oh,' I said.

‘But perhaps you will not be here when they come?' He looked at me with his steady eye.

I made no answer. I knew my mind. He knew it too.

‘Follow me,' he said abruptly.

Kamuel took my hand and led me to the summit. I hadn't been expecting that. I hadn't quite realised where we were – but suddenly, yawning at my feet, was the Abyss.

Sheer rocks of fall.

Vertigo.

Dizzy.

Plunging into mist and chaos.

Head swimming, I clung to him, my mind falling, plummeting down into those depths below.