The Ninth

Prologue: An Equal

‘You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being.’ Frankenstein by Mary Shelly.

The first thing Lucifer noticed was that God had changed his face. Lucifer supposed that he shouldn’t be surprised; that it had been a millennia or more since they last faced each other. That a being cannot be expected to wear the same face for all of eternity. Still, it grated him.

Even without a familiar face, Lucifer recognised God. The nose might be slimmer, the mouth more plush, the lines in the forehead not so deep but the walk was the same, the general air of superiority had not changed. Even across a battlefield, Lucifer recognised Him.

Lucifer was atop the mountain they had agreed to meet on, punctual as ever. In the valley below, a battle roared. Having arrived early, Lucifer had chosen a flattish rock to survey the carnage from. Now, though, he turned his attention away from the blood and the metal to the figure of God, picking his way up the mountain as leisurely as a shepherd on a summer afternoon.

Lucifer tried to be analytical, tried to assess God with his eyes. But, they kept straying to that new face – wholesomely handsome with a big mouth that must have taken over his whole face when he smiled. He wondered when God had decided to change it – after the Fall perhaps? Had it been so long since they had last seen each other? Maybe it was a spur of the moment thing, a mask for the occasion.

Slowly, God climbed his way up to Lucifer. Soon they were on level ground and within earshot of each other. Lucifer placed a hand on his knee to steady himself. He had been trying to arrange this meeting for centuries, had been planning what to say for longer than that. He could not afford to mess things up. He was not going to let this new face distract him.

God settled on a rock a few feet from Lucifer – close enough that they could talk without shouting over the sounds of the battle but not so close that they should be sitting next to each other. A safe distance. For a while, they sat in silence, watching the mud of the valley growing redder and redder. It was already clear which side was going to win.

Lucifer felt sorry for the mortals. He understood what it meant to be pitted against a foe you did not want to fight, to be unfairly matched and doomed to fail. A force of habit that he could not break, Lucifer waited for God to speak first.

‘Well, boy,’ God said, his voice edged with exasperation already, ‘are you going to tell me what is so pressing – so important – that it cannot be communicated to Gabriel?’

Lucifer schooled his face so he would not scowl when God said the name. Sometimes, when he was feeling nostalgic and foolish, he might miss God but he would never, ever miss that power-grabbing, know-it-all Gabriel. Hell would have to freeze over.

Lucifer swallowed, preparing himself. When he was around God, he didn’t feel like the King of Hell, the Lord Satan, Baron Beelzebub or the Prince of Darkness. He felt like a shy child before his overbearing father. He couldn’t play with God the way he could with mortals or other angels. He felt God’s steely gaze pressing down on him, another thing he did not miss about heaven.

‘I would like an equal.’ For a moment, the words rang out like stones skimming across a frozen lake.

He kept speaking, trying to ignore the way the silence seemed to envelope him like it wanted to drown him out: ‘A woman, as you gave Eve to Adam.’

‘I am not made of the same stuff that you are,’ he looked down, gathering his resolve, ‘I cannot live alone. I cannot be the only one of my calibre.’ Lucifer didn’t dare look to his left, didn’t dare meet God’s eyes.

‘It makes me…,’ he hesitated, afraid to reveal too much, ‘It makes me lonely. I neglect my duties. I believe if I had an equal I would not be so…I would be better. I could be the steward that duty commands me to be.’

He gritted his teeth for the last admission: ‘That you command me to be.’

Finally, Lucifer turned to look on God. He had hoped to see eyes brimming with sympathy, ready to spill over into a gentle smile. He had feared he might see anger or disappointment. He had considered that God might be surprised at him. But God watched him with an analytical gaze, like Lucifer was a painting that had inspired him to do a double take but he couldn’t place why. That look – of indifference, of infuriating calm – made Lucifer want to shiver where he sat.

God looked away from him, his eyes falling onto the river of blood that had begun to flow down the valley, towards the sea. Lucifer followed his gaze. Together, they watched as the losing side abandoned their blunted weapons and resorted to fighting with their teeth.

Then God said, so quietly that it hurt: ‘That I cannot do.’

God pushed himself off his rocky seat. Lucifer felt panic spark in his stomach and spread through his body. His palms curled in on themselves. After centuries, millennia, he was not going to let God walk away from him.

‘You can’t or you won’t?’ Lucifer growled, eyes on the battlefield to hide his spiralling rage.

God had the audacity to sigh. ‘You should know by now, boy, that for me, there is no difference.’

Lucifer whirled on God. Now, they were both standing atop the mountain but still, there was that ever-present distance between them.

‘Why?’ Lucifer cried, ‘Haven’t you punished me enough?’

At that, the first fissure appeared in God’s mask. He stepped towards Lucifer, anger flaring in those eyes older than age itself.

‘Punished you? Punished you?’ God snarled, spittle flying from his lip, ‘I should have destroyed you when I had the chance, you ungrateful whelp!’

‘Destroy me now.’

For a moment, God was too surprised to be angry: ‘What?’

Lucifer stepped forward, a supplicant ready to plead his case. ‘If I must live alone – peerless – forever then I would rather be dead.’

And he added, softly: ‘Destroy me.’

God scowled at that. ‘You have a whole kingdom of fallen angels to amuse you and you call yourself alone?’

‘They are not equal to me!’ Lucifer screamed, ‘If Adam was equal to the animals, why did you give him Eve?’

‘Must you always have more? Can you not be content with what you have?’ God yelled back.

They were closer than they had been since before the Fall. Lucifer was standing so close to Him that he could see the beat of his blood through his veins, one at his neck and the other in his forehead close to the hairline. Lucifer turned his back on God – something he would not dared have done when he had been a mere angel. But you are not just another angel.

With his back to God, Lucifer ran a hand through his hair and dragged a palm across his face. The face that had remained the same millennia upon millennia. He took quick breaths, trying to calm himself. When he had imagined this conversation over the years – and he had imagined it many times – even when it got to a heated point, he always managed to bring it back. Lucifer always got what he wanted. Wasn’t that his great talent, after all?

When Lucifer turned to face God, he did not feel so confident. The anger had faded from the new face, but the eyes were wary. They tracked Lucifer’s every movement like an animal watching its predator.

Lucifer walked toward God, that guarded gaze following his every step. When he was close enough to touch Him, Lucifer fell to his knees. He let every emotion that he had been so desperately trying to conceal wash over his face. He let the tears come to his eyes and the pain twist his mouth. He hung his head, not hiding his feelings but succumbing to them. God took an involuntary step forward, caught.

‘Please…’ Lucifer said, as though his life depended on it.

For a moment, nothing happened. Neither immortal moved. The wind continued to caress the mountainside, the scent of blood and metal clinging to it. The sounds of the battle below – the roar of human rage and the clanging of weapons – trickled up through the clouds. The moment became a tapestry, the threads of time frozen, hanging.

Then, God placed a hand on Lucifer’s head. Lucifer, delighted, lifted his head to look into His eyes. As he did, God’s hand slipped from the crown of his head, to rest against his cheek, hot with emotion. There was pity on God’s face, pity and pain.

A single tear slipped out of one of Lucifer’s eyes. God caught the tear on his thumb and lifted his hand up to examine the drop. For a breath, it slid along his thumb. Then, it fell to the ground, mingling with the grass. God looked back at Lucifer, smiling sadly.

‘You always did give a good performance, boy.’

As fast and frightening as a flash of lightning, anger appeared on Lucifer’s face. He reared up from his knees, howling. There was a moment where Lucifer was hurtling through the air, arms outstretched.

His hands closed around God’s throat. They both landed on the rocky ground, God on his back and Lucifer on top of him, exploding with hate. God tried to rest the powerful fingers from around his neck but they were evenly matched. They writhed in the dirt like snakes, kicking up a mist of dust.

Through Lucifer’s grip, God husked: ‘Kill me if you think it would make you feel better.’

His face was deepening like a bruise, red now purple.

Still, he whispered: ‘Do it.’

With an anguished cry, like he had been stabbed in the chest, Lucifer let go of God. He rolled away from him, looking up at the sky hopelessly. God was quick on his feet, spluttering but standing. Lucifer only managed to bring himself to his knees, head cast low. With a last regretful look back at Lucifer, God walked away, moving down the mountain as serenely as he had climbed it. He had nothing left to say to the angel he had once loved so much.

On the summit of that cold mountain, Lucifer felt more lost than ever. All of his years of dreaming were nothing now. They were as meaningless as the blood and sweat in the valley below. With no one to remember them, they would soak into the earth, invisible.

Lucifer screamed an almighty scream, so loud that it made the mountain below shiver and the fighters on the battlefield look up, believing that they had heard the sky tearing itself in two.

Chapter One: The Professor

Ishani Kumar snuck into the back of the lecture hall just as the lights were dimming, as the silence was descending. Thrown into sudden darkness, she almost knocked over a chair as she sat down. The lecture hall was huge and echoing, the kind with tiered seats that cascade down to a podium. Down below, lit by the bluish light of a projector, a woman stepped in front of the microphone. For a moment, Ishani was distracted.

With her moonlight skin and roman nose, the woman reminded Ishani of her favourite pre-Raphaelite painting, Waterhouse’s Boreas. When she began to speak, Ishani had to make an effort to pull her attention away from the speaker’s dark hair and tapering chin.

‘My name is Dr Holland. You may also call me professor,’ the woman began, her voice as clear and final as a bell, ‘Your other tutors might encourage you to call them by their first names. They might show you pictures of their pets and talk about their holidays. But,’ and she paused, raising serious eyes, deep like wells, ‘I believe in the sanctity of the student-teacher relationship. I expect professionality at all times. You are here to learn and, learning is privilege one must earn.’

She paused again for effect and Ishani could feel the whole room hold their breath, afraid to let it out.

‘So, what will you actually be learning?’ Here, she raised an arm and the light changed as a new slide flashed against the canvas. Ishani look at the projected list of modules and accompanying essay deadlines only briefly, already bored.

Most of the lecture was mundane. The professor – Dr Holland – explained what they would be learning in the compulsory modules, what the optional modules were and when they could pick them and when their essays were due. There was a brief and perfunctory mention of their dissertation even though it was three years away. Quickly, Ishani zoned out, her eyes drifting to her classmates illuminated by the harsh light of the projector. She wondered what it would be like to paint their pinched, serious faces.

Something the professor said caught her attention once more, drew her away from her peers.

Dr Holland was saying, in a voice as serious as a preacher’s: ‘Through art, the mortal becomes immortal. And so, through the history of that art we can view our own mortality. We can see our lives, our deaths, our hopes, dreams, fears and nightmares. We notice patterns, similarities, differences, styles and themes.’

She paused for breath and Ishani realised how far she was leaning in her seat at the back of the lecture hall, almost straining to listen.

‘We learn the ultimate lesson: the paint might change, but the painter and the viewer are much the same. Through art, we can witness the immortality of human mortality.’

There was a pause so heavy that Ishani thought she could hear it ringing through her head. Then, the professor continued, in a voice that clashed with the reverent tones of a few moments before: ‘Thank you for coming to this introductory lecture. Read chapter six ahead of your first seminars this week and come to class with notes prepared. Dismissed.’

Some of the students released audible groans as the lights came back on full-force. But Ishani didn’t even blink. She was still fixed in place, watching the woman below. Ishani knew – deep in the back of her mind – that she looked odd, that she should get up and move, try to small-talk with the rest of her cohort. But, she felt like she had finished watching an opera. The music might have stopped but she could still feel it humming through her bones.

Ishani must have been staring intently because Dr Holland raised her eyes. Their gazes met even over the heads of moving students. Looking at those blue eyes – the same electrifying shade as in Waterhouse’s painting – Ishani had the disturbing, thrilling sense that she had just locked eyes with a portrait in a deserted gallery. Dr Holland broke her gaze first, looking down at her notes.

Whatever spell that had kept Ishani frozen was broken and she leapt up from her seat. Ignoring the curious glances from her peers, Ishani pushed her way to the front of the lecture hall.

The professor seemed to be in a hurry now. She was weaving her way through the crowd, her papers in her arms like she didn’t have time to properly put them away.

‘Professor!’ Ishani called.

A few students glanced at her but the professor kept moving.

‘Professor!’

Breaking free from the lecture hall, Ishani had to dodge through the crowd to catch up to her lecturer. She cut ahead of Dr Holland to open the door for her. The professor ducked through the door like she wanted to outrun her but Ishani matched her pace, talking all the while.

‘That was a great lecture, professor. Really great. The others I’ve been to so far were dry.’

Even with her lips pursed, the professor still looked like she had escaped a gilded frame.

Ishani kept speaking, like a child pushing until they get their answer.

‘I loved your points about immortality. But, don't you think art is a form of immortality? You know, not just a means of examining mortality or immortality or whatever but actually a route to it. A means to an end if you will. I mean, isn’t that how we define greatness in art? We say that Picasso or Rembrandt are universal – immortal – that their genius is forever and therefore, they’re great artists. And so, they live on in their work. They are immortalised as much as their paintings are.’

Ishani had been talking fast to match the professor’s walking pace. But now, they stopped dead. For the first time since Ishani had caught Dr Holland in the corridor, the professor looked at her. Her expression was inscrutable. Her eyes – blue but strangely dark, like an evening sky – were questing Ishani’s face. Suddenly, Ishani felt self-conscious, even more than she had when she snuck into the lecture hall. She realised that she had no idea where they were, somewhere in the labyrinthine corridors of the college. She realised that they were alone.

‘What’s your name?’

Ishani swallowed before she spoke, her mouth weirdly dry. ‘Miss Kumar.’

Dr Holland quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘Miss?’

‘I heard you don’t go in for first names.’

A glimmer of a smile whispered over the professor’s face. Ishani felt something spark in her stomach.

‘Well,’ and she stepped around Ishani as she spoke, ‘if you have any more theories about immortality and art, do come by.’

Dr Holland rapped on one of the many doors in the deserted corridor. Ishani noted the plaque on the front – it read: Dr Vivian Holland – as the professor pushed the door open and moved inside.

‘Miss Kumar,’ she said, nodding at Ishani with a wry smile.

‘Professor,’ she nodded back as the door clicked shut.

Standing in the silent corridor, Ishani realised that heart was beating as fast as if she was still chasing after the professor.