The Vague and Inexact Prophecies of Newton Nutter, Descendant.

Angel  in the bookshop  Bent there, over reading  Raise your eyes up and see me

Angel in the armchair  pored there, over tea leaves  Raise your eyes up  and miss me

Rest my head on my coils Wish I could close my eyes  sleep a thousand years on 

Wake when all the world’s gone by and you’ve no reason left to hide  that you’ll be no more of an angel  than I am the devil  Surely, I must be dreaming 

Angel  on the church ground  just out of my arm’s reach  Burn my soles out as I join thee 

Angel like the heavens  cold, pure, and above me serpents, craven,  turn to flee thee 

I’ll drive a thousand miles  Watch my scaly body  become the open road 

And there she was, sitting solitarily on a little stone wall, like a mockery of their first meeting. Azruba’al decided to play along.

“Greetings, O Angel of the Eastern Gate,” she hissed, sliding up as sinuously as she could manage beside the seated celestial, “Or should I say Angel of the Nominally Eastish Pile of Rocks?”

Cadfael barely glanced at her.

“What do you want?”

Azruba’al was taken aback. While the angel wasn’t quite what one would call cordial when they met, she was never standoffish.

“Well, personally, I’d prefer it if you and your infestation of disciples settled elsewhere,” she sniffed, haughtiness rising up to meet the angel’s frigid demeanour, “but I doubt you’d all be so amenable.”

“Leave them alone,” croaked Cadfael, “They’ve suffered enough.”

“Nobody suffers ‘enough’,” retorted Azruba’al, “There’s no designated quota. You can suffer your whole life, and then some.”

Cadfael finally looked up then, fixing the demon with a weary, purple-ringed glare.

“Why are you here?”

There was something old and bone-tired in her voice. Azruba’al shifted hesitantly, before melting back into her earthly form. No point being caught as a huge yellow snake and risking discorporation, anyway.

“Just visiting, really,” she answered, truthfully, “Getting away from Rome. There’s enough mayhem there with Ickle-Bootikins ascending the throne and trying to get himself deified.”

Cadfael grunted and turned away again, “Well done, you.”

“It had nothing to do with me,” said Azruba’al indignantly, partly annoyed for being accused, and partly chagrinned for being innocent in the first place, “And– And neither did the boy’s execution!”

Cadfael’s fists clenched, and Azruba’al’s heart sank. Ah. Of course. She supposed a few scant years were hardly enough to heal those wounds.

“I know you don’t believe me,” said the demon, “but I give you my word, whatever it is worth, that we didn’t– I mean, my side kicked up a fuss, obviously, stoked a few grievances, perhaps, but we had no idea– I had no idea that–“

“I know!”

Azruba’al flinched. The angel’s voice was hoarse and shockingly loud in the empty courtyard.

“I know it wasn’t you.” Cadfael had crumpled, her hands clutched around the back of her head as if to tear apart the cloth wrapped there, “If it was you… if it was Hell, I could have managed.”

Azruba’al stared at the angel. There was something vindictively pleasing about seeing a holy being rent asunder like this. Head bowed, knuckles white, the curve of her shoulders a painful slope beneath the crushing weight of her loss. Azruba’al wanted to revel in it. Get some satisfaction out of this whole sorry situation. But it was Cadfael, and that ruined it, somehow.

“…You need a drink,” said the demon, at length.

The angel snorted, “I don’t need anything. I’m not human, remember?”

“I said ‘a’ drink, not ‘to’ drink,” said Azruba’al, nose immediately tilting skyward, “It’s for the… spirit, not the body.”

“Spirits for the spirit?”

Cadfael had tentatively tilted her head, one brilliant golden eye fixing the demon again, like a spear.

“There is a particular mead-house here in Antioch that I like very much. I’ll show you,” said Azruba’al, sliding daintily off the wall, “I was heading there anyway.”

“I’ve never had mead,” said Cadfael, thoughtfully, “Never drank at all before, actually.”

“What, not even to keep up appearances?”

“I’m generally playing the ascetic, so it’s not hard to say I’ve had my daily bread away from prying eyes.”

“It’s your lot down here that are brewing it all,” said Azruba’al, smugly.

“Then I s’pose it has to be good.”

⧗

“Saw the world before he went, you know.”

“What?”

“I said he… saw the– all the kingdoms, you know, before they nail– erm, before the end and… so forth.”

It was evening, the lamps were lit, and there were bottles on the table. Azruba’al was staring thoughtfully into her cup of mead, tracing her index finger around the rim.

“I said to him, I said, ‘Look at it all, dear boy! You can have it, f’you want… If you join up with my boss, you know, you could prob’ly… probably do anything!’” she finally lifted the cup to her lips and took a long pull, “…get rid of those nasty humans n’ their sticks, for a start.”

“You did that?” said Cadfael, blinking slowly at the demon.

“Mmm. Well. Thought it might… help.”

“Help from a demon?”

Azruba’al giggled, “I know! I know… but, all the same… still’s… still counts as a temptation.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah… He said no, of course. N’ frustratingly politely, at that. Very nice about the whole thing. Bleurgh. Why’ve you all got t’be so nice?”

“S’in the job description,” mumbled Cadfael, and then, after a moment of thought, “…M’sorry for shouting at you.”

“‘Cause it’s your job..?” asked Azruba’al, hesitantly.

Cadfael turned to see Azruba’al leaning back stiffly to rest against the opposite side of the alley, glancing curiously into the street.

“What are you doing here?” hissed the angel.

“What do you think I’m doing here?” replied the demon dryly, “Really, Cadfael, at this point it–“

“It’s Cad-vile.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s Cad-vile now. My name. I changed it.”

Azruba’al’s rosy eyes widened.

“Changed it? Changed it? You can’t change your name! It’s–“

“A Holy Gift, yes, I know,” Cadfael waved a hand, “But that’s the beauty part. I haven’t changed the name itself; it just sounds different. I haven’t snubbed anything.”

“But how can– how can you just change the pronunciation?” argued Azruba’al, “It is -well, metaphorically- written in stone.”

“It’s not written in stone. Nobody mentions me on murals or anything.”

“I said metaphorically.”

“Well,” Cadfael drew herself up smugly, “You remember the Confusion of Tongues, yeah?”

“Yes…” muttered Azruba’al, frowning.

“Right. Well. Whole new kinds of talking popped up. All sorts of words and pronunciations. Like finds like, strikes out to build their own kingdoms where it’s easier to communicate instead of trying to understand each other, and some of’em pop off to an island and– BAM! Brittonic.”

The angel was grinning widely by now. The demon did not look impressed.

“And?”

“Cadfael becomes Cad-vile!”

“That’s cheating,” said Azruba’al, pettishly, “Angels aren’t supposed to cheat!”

“No it isn’t,” Cadfael argued, “it was The Lord who had it all happen in the first place, right? He was the one who split’em all up, so obviously, He must approve of Brittonic and Sinitic and Semitic and all of them, right?”

Azruba’al’s mouth twisted up.

“I… Suppose so,” she relented, at length, “But it doesn’t sound very angelic.”

Cadfael was about to argue, but the recollection of her current duty quickly changed her plans.

“Look. You need to get out of here,” she said, seriously, glancing back into the street.

Azruba’al pouted, “I didn’t say I wouldn’t respect your choice–“

“No, no, it’s not about that. You need to go. Now. There’s something happening.”

“Something happening?”

“Yeah. Something big. Extremely big– huuugely big.”

“It’s not another flood, is it?” said Azruba’al, warily, “It was promised–“

“No, it’s a pleasant thing this time,” said Cadfael, before amending, “I mean, nominally pleasant. In theory. Probably. We’ll see how it goes. But look– the point is, the point is it’s so big that they’re sending down an Archangel.”

The capital A buzzed in the air, almost tangible. Azruba’al stiffened.

“I’m meant to be keeping things running smoothly,” continued Cadfael, “So I’m gonna have to meet with him. If you’re in the area when he shows up, it’s not going to be pretty.”

Azruba’al was staring at Cadfael silently, eyes wider than ever.

“Why do you care?” she asked, trying to sound haughty and failing, then trying to say something else and failing that, too.

Cadfael found she wasn’t quite sure how to respond, either.

“You know me,” she said, at last, “’m an angel. Being of pure love, and all that.”

And Azruba’al was… well, she wasn’t a friend, exactly. But she was the only other constant otherworldly entity on the planet. It could get rather lonely, here. Cadfael was beginning to expect the demon’s odd visits, and besides, she suspected any replacement sent up would be a lot worse than fussy and pompous.

“And it’s not worth it, anyway,” she finished, with a small sigh, “You won’t be able to sabotage what’s coming. You’d have to wait until after to really think about doing anything demonic…”

There was a pause. Azruba’al was gazing at her navel and fidgeting.

“…Yes, yes… Can’t fiddle with anything that hasn’t been created yet,” she mumbled, at last.

She glanced up, then, and there was an odd look in her eyes.

“I shall take my leave of this place, then,” she announced, “But know you this; I shall return, and when I do, there shall be mischief.”

Cadfael gave a small snort as the demon disappeared. That was another thing– she was funny. Entertaining. Cadfael always had a bit of a laugh when Azruba’al came around.

⧗

“Cadfael!”

The angel winced. It was barely minutes after the demon had disappeared, and there was no mistaking that jovial, booming voice. Phew.

The Archangel Gabriel was striding towards her, dressed in flowing linen robes and beaming all over his handsome, rectangular face. It was very clearly his first time in a mortal body. The way he swung his arms, the way he bobbed just bit too high when he took a step. The way he cut a path through the locals moving the other way; a juggernaut fixed in a straight line, heedless to the shoulders he brushed roughly past. Any curses or scowls directed at him were met with bright, righteous eyes, and quickly deflected.

Cadfael stifled a groan and hurried towards him.

“Greetings, Gabriel,” she said, “Let’s get off the street.”

“Right! Right. Ha! Streets? What will they think of next?”

Gabriel accompanied Cadfael close to the buildings, marching beside her.

“There are so many kinds of walking!” he commented, glancing at Cadfael’s hips, and then back out at the streets, “Humans are so disorganized.”

“It comes with having a flesh body,” said Cadfael, “You’ll get used to it.”

“Of course I will,” said Gabriel, “So, where is this Mariam of Nazareth?”

“We’re headed to her now.” Cadfael pointed to a modest building farther down the road, “I’ve been hanging around the area. She’s a nice girl. Very pious. Betrothed to a strapping young gent named Joseph at the moment, actually, but I expect the details will be sorted, erm, holily.”

Gabriel wasn’t listening. He’d sped up, zeroing in on the dwelling place they were fast approaching. Cadfael jogged after him, growing a little anxious.

“Right, okay, Gabriel– when you get in there, right, you’ve got to be delicate, with this, okay? Gentle. This isn’t visiting Daniel in his dreams and helping him sort out a few visions. You’re in the flesh, now, and there are rules -well- etiquettes, like–“

Too late. Gabriel was already slipping -well, barging, really- into the building Cadfael had indicated. Cadfael broke into a run and followed him inside.

The first thing Cadfael heard was a shriek, which was quickly swallowed by Gabriel’s sonorous voice.

“Greetings, you who are so highly favoured! The Lord is with you!”

Cadfael dashed into the room to find Gabriel standing grandly in the middle, arms akimbo, his back pair of wings half-extended. They’d torn right through his upper garment, which was hanging off him in tatters. He glowed. Behind him, Cadfael could make out the trembling figure of a young woman sitting at a small table, clutching a Holy Book to her chest like a shield.

“Blessed are you among all women!” Gabriel continued, blithely.

“W-who are you?” squeaked Mariam, pressing her back tightly into her chair as if in the vain hope of phasing through it to safety.

“Gabriel!” hissed Cadfael, resisting giving the Archangel a punch to the wing, “You’re scaring her! You have to be gentle about this, it’s a lot to take in!”

A real heaven of a lot to believe, in fact, though Gabriel’s glimmering back-wings were probably proof enough that this wasn’t some scam artist.

“Oh! Right, uh, Be Not Afraid, a-ha!” chuckled Gabriel, patting the air patronizingly to show he meant no harm, “I’ve got great tidings of gladness for you, okay?”

Cadfael monitored Mariam’s face carefully as Gabriel went on to explain her great honour. Thankfully, Mariam seemed to be calming down, somewhat. The initial shock of a man bursting into her room was fading, and now her expression was hovering between confusion and wonder.

All told, she took the news rather well, and managed to recuperate enough grace to respond humbly to the sudden barrage of information. Cadfael couldn’t help but feel rather proud of her. Humans. What couldn’t they get used to?

“Oh! Ha, almost forgot,” Gabriel added, as he turned to leave, “Go to your relative Elizabeth and congratulate her on her pregnancy. She’s six months along so you’d better get to it! God be with you!”

And before Cadfael could protest, Gabriel dissolved into a glittering stream of light and ascended, leaving the Principality to stand awkwardly in the doorway.

“Er, yeah. Congratulations, Mary,” Cadfael mumbled, “Take care.”

The man next to the dustbins watched the other man’s form disappear into the building. He let out a small, helpless puff of smoke. First the unexpected contractions, then the oddly behaving staff, and now some strange fellow in a big coat rushing through the back doors with a picnic basket. Mr. Young had liked the look of the hospital when he’d brought his wife inside; it was clean and modern -but not too modern- and the presence of the nuns gave it a warm, serene feeling. But now he was wondering if everything was all right after all…

⧗

“Blast that stupid machine,” Azruba’al snarled under his breath, striding through the empty hallway, “Half an hour late, I am half an hour late! Please don’t have started without– well, they wouldn’t, would they? I mean they couldn’–“

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he nearly ran right into a black-robed figure coming around the corner.

“Oh! Good grievance, I–“

“Master Azruba’al! You’ve come at last!”

The demon in question straightened up, a look of relief brightening his pudgy features.

“It’s so nice to see you again,” said the nun, who was known amongst her Sisters as Mary Loquacious*, and was preparing to live up to her name, “I was barely out of Sunday school the first time– Hell’s teeth, you haven’t aged a bit! I–“

“Yes, yes, it’s lovely to see you again too, dear girl,” Azruba’al interrupted, quickly. He knew what would happen if he let her pick up steam, “I am rather late, I believe?”

“Oh yes, forty-six minutes and twenty-six seconds exactly,” Mary replied, with a cursory glance at the watch pinned to her breast.

Azruba’al scowled, “Right, you’d best be quick about it, then.”

He pressed the basket into Mary’s arms, “Here he is. Get him to the Cultural Attaché as quick as you can.”

“Oh my star– this– it’s him? The Adversary? Destroyer of Kings? Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is Called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Dark–“

“Hell’s sake, yes! Yes, it’s him, now hop along, there’s a good girl,” cried Azruba’al, nearly pushing the woman back around the corner, “We don’t want him to be forty-seven minutes late, do we?”

“Of course not, Master Azruba’al,” said Mary Loquacious, lifting one of the lids of the basket to peek at the Long String of Epithets That We Shall Hence Refer To As The Adversary, “Ohh, look at him! He’s got his daddy’s complexion!”

“They’re all like that at first,” said Azruba’al absentmindedly.

“No horns, though,” she remarked.

“I’m leaving, now,” said Azruba’al, letting go of the woman’s shoulders.

“Too young for fangs, and– oh! Yes, Satan keep you! Good night!”

Azruba’al was gone before she’d finished speaking. Mary gave a little shiver of excitement and bustled quickly down the hall. She could hardly believe it. Here she was, Sister Mary Loquacious-You’d-Best-Not-Get-It-Wrong-Again, cradling The Adversary. For all her years as a Satanist -which were indeed all of them, having been born into the faith- she’d never imagined that she would be at the thick of their greatest hour. No more tea-and-cookies duty for her. Speaking of, she’d meant to take a tin to the American Cultural Attaché…

“There you are!”

Sister Mary’s thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a very flustered Sister Grace Voluble.

“They’re getting antsy in there, they think something’s wrong! Have you got the– oh, for Hell’s sake, Mary, just a tin! They don’t need a whole picnic!”

Mary glanced down in confusion before puffing up a little, smugly, “I don’t have cookies. I don’t have a picnic, either. What I’ve got is the One We’ve All Been Waiting For, The Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of––“

“Oh, thank the Fallen One,” interrupted Sister Grace, making to snatch the basket out of Mary’s hands.

Mary drew away, indignantly, “Master Azruba’al has entrusted me with the Child.”

Sister Grace looked as if she was about to argue, before thinking better of it.

“Well you had best get him to the nursery and tag him so we can deliver him to his ‘parents’. We can’t pretend to be weighing them forever.”

Mary nodded primly and marched towards the nursery.

There is a game teachers use to explain probability to their pupils. Each child receives a chart and a bag with a variable amount of red and blue tokens inside. They are instructed to remove a single token from the bag without looking, note its colour on the chart, then put it back in and repeat to their hearts content†. The point of the exercise is to show that the probability of drawing a red token or a blue token changes depending on how many of each token there are. For example, if there were two blue tokens, and one red token, it would be less likely to draw out the red token without looking. It would be even less likely, say, if someone painted the red token blue by mistake. Even if you were looking straight at the tokens, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.

There were three rosy-pink babies in three blue swaths resting in three hospital bassinets. Sister Mary had just wheeled in the last one, the most important one, and was heading towards the worktable for a pen and a tag. At that moment, another Sister entered.

“Mary! What are you doing in– oh! That’s all three, thank Bowels, we can finally send them off!”

Before Mary could protest that she hadn’t tagged the Adversary yet, and what if he got misplaced, the newly arrived Sister was chivying her out of the room, insisting she get those biscuits.

Mary let out a deep, disappointed sigh as the nursery door slammed behind her. Well. At least she’d get to meet the Cultural Attaché.

⧗

Mr. Young had returned to room three by this time. He found his wife asleep, and no baby to speak of. Luckily, a nearby nun explained that the child had been taken away to be examined, and Mr. Young decided it best to retire to his wife’s side in case she woke up and panicked in the interim. By the time his son was finished being ‘examined’ and was delivered into the grateful arms of a flustered Mrs. Young, Mr. Young felt as if he’d been there for an eternity. And it was about to get longer.

“Hello! Oh, your Lady wife’s awake, then, good!”

Another nun was bustling into the room, bringing with her a tin and the air of someone who was about to sit down for a long, enthusiastic chat.

⧗

Harriet Dowling was laying in a cot in room four, surrounded by a complement of six security men in imposing black uniforms. One of them was carrying the latest and greatest in videotelephone technology, through which Harriet was meant to see her husband, the American Cultural Attaché. Thaddeus Dowling was technically on the line. He just wasn’t there visually. Spiritually, he was sandwiched next to his wife with a cool cloth and a strong hand to squeeze. Physically, he was on a business trip.

It was Sister Faith Prolix who was the first to congratulate Harriet, and, coincidentally, the first to suggest a name for the baby now cradled comfortably in his mothers arms.

Wormwood was a bit unconventional, yes, but the kindly Sister Faith was ever so convincing. Besides, Harriet didn’t much feel like naming the child ‘Thaddeus’ at that point.

⧗

The demon Azruba’al hurried through the night, too distracted to even think of calling another cab. He needed to make an urgent phonecall. A phonecall his people wouldn’t be too pleased about, but hopefully one they’d never discover.

⧗

There was a third baby. It didn’t have a tag, and presumably, didn’t need one.

Sister Constance Pleonastic had it in the backseat of the church’s old station wagon, driving it down the darkened midnight road. There were only two families, after all.

“I really can’t believe it’s finally come,” she prattled on to herself, faithfully upholding her convent’s chiefest tradition, “What a time to be alive. My grandmother would have killed to be in my place… if those Warrens hadn’t got her first.”

There was an orphanage in the nearby town. There was also a lake. The baby in the backseat was growing fussy. It could feel that something was wrong, somehow. This was not the same dark, rumbling thing it had been in before, and the endless, droning voice did not belong to the gentle hands that had wrapped it in soft blue.

It wasn’t quite ready to be the The Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is Called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness. It wouldn’t be for another eleven years. It did, however, possess something of a defence mechanism to ensure that it at least had a chance of getting there.

And so it was that at that moment precisely, a large black cat came padding out of the bushes on the side of the road and into Sister Constance’s headlights.

The cat yowled. The station wagon swerved.

GOOD EVENING, SISTER CONSTANCE, said Death, helping a very dazed Sister Constance Pleonastic up from her body, I AM SURE YOU ARE VERY DISAPPOINTED. BUT TAKE HEART THAT YOU WILL STILL HAVE A SEAT TO THE FINAL SPECTACLE, EVEN IF IT IS LOWER THAN THE ONE YOU HAD PREVIOUSLY.

After sending the unfortunate woman on her way, Death was preparing to leave for his next appointment when something else at the scene caught his attention. Not a death; those were a constant everywhere you went. Creatures big and small; something was always dying. No, this thing was quite unorthodox, as it existed in the living world. There was wailing from the backseat of the ruined car. A wailing that Death would have ignored, had it not come from this particular source.

Death knelt in the wreckage, gently pushed aside the cushion of airbags, and lifted a blue bundle into his arms.

I DID NOT EXPECT US TO MEET SO SOON, he said, thoughtfully, as the child immediately quieted in his embrace, BUT I SUPPOSE IT IS NOT AGAINST THE RULES. I HAVE YET TO RIDE. AND YOU HAVE YET TO CALL ME.

Even still, the child needed protection. It needed a home.

Without another word, Death drew a pitch-black wing of oblivion over the infant, and the both of them disappeared, leaving nothing behind but the smouldering wreck.

———————————————————————————————————

*It was called a Chattering Order for a reason. To explain it properly, however, one would have to do the authorial equivalent of joining up. Hopefully, the name says it all.