Drinking Midnight Wine

  In a matter of moments he was upon Blackacre, and crashed through the boundary without slowing. The thick fog shrank back from him as he passed, unable to bear his overwhelming presence. The dead guards came to stop him and he swatted them aside easily, sending their broken bodies flying and tumbling through the night. The great trees lurched forward on their roots to form a barrier before him, and he crashed right through them, rending and breaking the dead wood with his huge golden hands. He was Nephilim, semi-divine, touched by the Holy, driven by loss and remorse and cold, cold anger, and he would not be stopped.

  He strode out of the broken trees and into the clearing, and approached the farmhouse. Hob sealed all the doors and windows with his magic, and called up all his defences till the old building glowed in the dark. The Brother didn’t care. He loomed over the farmhouse, defensive spells crackling harmlessly against his golden skin like static, and brought his huge fist down like a hammer. He beat against the farmhouse with his bare hands, and the old stone and timbers creaked and groaned under the onslaught. One by one the defensive spells went down, shattered by the Nephilim’s presence and resolve. Stone cracked and crumbled, roof tiles exploded and the whole structure shuddered, as though afraid.

  Inside, dust was falling thickly from the groaning ceiling and wide cracks opened up in the walls, leaking unhealthy fluids as though they were bleeding. The whole room rocked like a boat at sea. Hob was screaming with rage. All his plans were being put at risk, by the one thing he hadn’t bargained for. He glared furiously at Angel.

  “I can still do this. You; buy me some time. Get out there and do something!”

  “No!” said Luna, moving swiftly to put herself between Angel and the door.

  Hob didn’t hesitate. “Kill her, Angel. We don’t need her. We’ve got Gayle. But do it quickly, please. She is my mother, after all.”

  Angel turned her crimson gaze on Luna, who didn’t flinch. If anything, she looked sad. “From my high station, I see everything. I saw you fall, Angel. And I remember what you have forgotten. Look at my armour, Angel. Read what is written there, and know the truth.”

  Angel frowned, and moved slowly forward to stand before Luna, almost as though drawn against her will. She studied the script that was graven into the shimmering metal.

  “I know this,” she said softly.

  “Yes,” said Luna. “It’s Enochian, a language for talking to angels. Can you read what it says?”

  “Yes,” said Angel. “It’s my name, and my history. I remember who I am. I remember everything, now.”

  Her voice rose, suddenly sweet beyond bearing, powerful and potent, as she called out to the Brother in a language never spoken in the world of men. Never spoken because the human voice could not support it. She spoke to the Brother, the Nephilim, in the language of angels, and he halted his attack. There was a long pause. The night grew quiet as the house slowly settled, licking its wounds. Hob glared about him like a trapped animal. And then the front wall of the parlour split apart from top to bottom and slowly opened up like a pair of stone curtains, letting in the night. Through that great gap looked the kneeling Brother, the rage in his face replaced at least for the moment by shock and wonder.

  “Uriel?” he said slowly. “Is that you?”

  “Yes,” said Angel. “It’s me, finally. It’s been a long time since I last saw you, Brother To Humans. My son.”

  “Is there anyone here who understands what’s going on?” said Toby, but no one answered him. Hob and Luna and Gayle only had eyes for Angel and the kneeling Brother. In the end, Angel turned round and looked at Toby, and for the first time her face seemed calm and relaxed.

  “Once upon a time, Toby Dexter, because the best stories all start that way; once upon a time, in the days before human history was set in stone, angels walked the earth. You see, there was once a Great War in Heaven, between those angels loyal to the Creator, and those loyal to the Morningstar. We all know how that turned out. But there were some angels who couldn’t make up their minds as to which side they should be fighting on, and even if they should be fighting at all. So after the War was over, something had to be done with them. Not pure enough for Heaven, or evil enough for Hell; for their indecision, their lack of faith and lack of moral conviction, the Creator sent them away. He reduced them from the immaterial to the material, and placed them on earth, there to live as mortals among mortals, and learn morality the hard way.

  “Now angels have no sex of their own, no male or female. But once made mortal they became men and women, better to help them appreciate and understand the new world they moved in. And, not surprisingly, the mortal angels mated with mortal humans, and produced children. These hybrid sons and daughters were the Nephilim, giants of great power and huge emotions. Perhaps luckily for the path of human civilisation, these hybrids were sterile, or their descendants would have dominated Humanity’s story for ever. Still, there were giants on the earth in those days, legendary kings and conquerors, statesmen and philosophers, heroes and villains; long-lived, but not immortal. Most of them are gone now, dead or sleeping, buried in the earth, at peace at last.

  The mortal angels slowly learned morality, through their own actions or those of their children, and one by one they determined their true natures, and they departed the earth as the Creator called them home, back into the immaterial. But some of us never forgot our children. I … had unfinished business here, that continued to haunt me. So after many restless centuries, I was allowed to return here. I descended back into the material, to meet with my only child, the last of the Nephilim still involved with the world of men.

  “But it all went horribly wrong. I had to forget much of who and what I was, to be able to operate on the limited, material plane, and this left me weak and vulnerable. The Serpent In The Sun saw me fall, saw an opportunity, and interfered with my descent. He shut down all my memories, and even arranged for me to materialise as a female this time, to further distance me from my past identity. Hob was the first living thing I saw, so I imprinted on him, and served him, as the Serpent intended. Sorry, Hob; but we were never truly companions. I’m just somebody else your father used.”

  “But why?” said the Brother. “What brought you back here, back to me, after all this time?”

  “Because I never said goodbye,” said Angel, or Uriel. “And because I never told you I loved you.”

  “You killed my Leo,” said the Brother.

  “Yes,” said Angel. “I’m sorry, now.”

  “Families!” said Hob bitterly. “It always comes down to families, and the ties that bind. I’ve never been allowed to have anything, and now they’ve even taken you away from me, my fierce and bloody Angel. In the end, you were just something else my father could use to hurt me. Well; the hell with all of you. This is my place, and I have power here. Power to punish the world and everything in it. Power to call down the sun! Father! Send me your fire!”

  Angel threw herself at Hob and wrestled with him. They were both inhumanly strong, and neither could overpower the other. The Brother put his great hands on the broken parlour wall and tried to widen the gap, so he could get in and help. The house cried out as more dust fell from the ceiling. Luna watched it all with wide, wondering eyes. Gayle turned to Toby, gripped his arm and pulled him down so that they were face to face. She called up the last of her strength, that she’d been saving for a moment such as this, and her gaze and her voice were strong and sure.

  “This is your moment, Toby, your reason for being here. Angel can’t stop Hob, not here. Not in his place, not his power. No one could. He will destroy Angel, summon his father’s fire and channel it through him, and do every awful thing he swore to do. He’ll kill us all, and rape and remake the worlds of Veritie and Mysterie. He’ll damn all the life that replaces us to an endless nightmare under his control, and his father’s, unless you help me stop them. As a human, as Gayle, I’m helpless to intervene. But you still have a foot in both Veritie and Mysterie; you have a link to both wo
rlds, no matter where you are. I can’t access my power; but you can bring it to me.”

  “How?” said Toby. “Tell me how.”

  “The ley lines,” said Gayle. “My power, the power of the living earth, travels along those lines. I put you in touch with them, earlier today. You’re still linked to them. You can reach out and touch them, even here, and bring my power to me. I can use that power to become my true self, Gaia, and do what must be done to stop the Hob, and the Serpent.”

  “I remember the ley lines,” said Toby, meeting her gaze steadily. “Just touching them for a moment hurt me beyond bearing. Holding onto them long enough to bring them to you would kill me, wouldn’t it?”

  Gayle nodded slowly. She wouldn’t let herself look away from Toby’s relentless gaze. “Yes. You could die, Toby. Being a focal point might protect you, or it might not. I don’t know. The odds aren’t good. Oh, Toby … I have no right to ask this of you. You already died once for me today. But you’re the only one who can do this. I can’t make you. It has to be your choice, your decision. But we can save the worlds, Veritie and Mysterie. Or you can let them die, and be replaced by something else. Your choice.”

  “My choice,” said Toby. “The one that changes everything.”

  “Yes,” said Gayle.

  “Hob was right about one thing,” said Toby. “Looking back, it wasn’t much of a life I had. But it still sounds better than anything Hob or the Serpent have planned. And I won’t condemn all of Humanity to death just because I never got the breaks. I don’t want to die, Gayle. I want to live on, with you. I love you, even if you are only a mask for something that could never love me. I understand now. Mortal must not love immortal, for the same reason that the moth must not fly too close to the flame. Unfortunately, love doesn’t care about things like that. So I’ll do what’s necessary. Bring the ley lines here, and burn on their coals. Not for the worlds, or even Humanity, but for you. Because a mortal man called Toby Dexter finally found love, and would rather die than live without it. Can I get a goodbye kiss, for luck?”

  Gayle rose up out of the chair, put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him. When they moved apart, she held his face close to hers, so that she could look right into his eyes.

  “I don’t know what will happen when I become Gaia. It’s been so long … but whatever happens, whatever Gaia finds it necessary to do here, know this, Toby Dexter. I love you. The woman called Gayle, the human role I made for myself, loves you with all her mortal heart, and always will. You’re a good man, Toby, and you deserved better than this. Now do what you have to.”

  Toby looked around him. Time seemed to have stopped while they were talking. Angel was still struggling with Hob, Luna was still watching, the Brother was still trying to get in. Jimmy Thunder and Leo Morn were still dead. Toby tried to take in every detail of the scene, in case it was the last thing he ever saw. And then he reached out, in a direction he could feel but not see or name, and there were the ley lines, shining so bright and powerful and perfect it hurt to look at them. He called them to him and the thundering energy of the living world leaped forward into Blackacre and surged through him, wild and terrible, burning him more fiercely than the Sun ever could have. He would have screamed at the awful pain, but his voice was lost to him. He tried to see Gayle, one last time, but she was gone from him, lost in the overpowering incandescence of the ley lines. They were destroying him, tearing him apart. He could have let them go, but he didn’t. He clutched them to him and grounded them in Mysterie, in Blackacre, in the farmhouse.

  Gayle saw the ley lines and called them to her, and they went immediately, like dogs to their owner’s voice. Toby could feel Gayle’s arms around him now, supporting him and holding him together, and then taking the burden of the ley lines’ terrible energies from him. She let him go and he crashed to the filthy floor, shaking and shuddering, but still alive. He saw Angel and Hob stop fighting, transfixed by the sight of something so much more important than either of them. Luna was laughing. Toby couldn’t move his head, but he could just move his eyes, and so he saw at last as Gayle took her aspect upon her and became Gaia.

  She became transfigured, still human in shape and size, but of awesome depth and quality; so much greater than Toby could ever have imagined. She was the force that drove life through every creation, from the smallest to the largest, the source and protection of every living thing on planet Earth. She was Mother Earth, come into her kingdom at last. Wild and glorious, loving and sorrowful, inhumanly just and terribly impartial. She was Gaia, and she was all those things and more.

  She smiled, and Blackacre was dead no longer. Life rushed through the dead wood like a pulse, and the trees burst into life again. Blackacre blossomed, throwing off its long death like an old coat, revealing what had been underneath all along. The unnatural fog faded away and was gone, unable to bear Gaia’s gaze, and the dead guards lay down and were only corpses again, free at last. Blackacre blazed with life, and Hob screamed with rage and loss.

  The one place that had been his was his no more, and much of his power had gone with it. He could not undo what Gaia had done, and with Blackacre gone and Gayle transformed, the Serpent’s plan was undone. But he was still the Serpent’s Son, and he would have revenge. His father’s fire still burned within him. He let it all out in one great rush; a blast of supernatural heat that was more than enough to reduce the farmhouse to ashes, and everything mortal within it.

  But suddenly Luna stood before him, and called up her aspect, and the Moon reflected the Sun’s heat right back at Hob. He blackened and burned and finally exploded, torn apart by the great warring forces, and his ashes were scattered across the room. But all the time he burned, he laughed: a hard, bitter, defeated laughter that had no regret in it, perhaps only a little relief that his long, unhappy life was finally over. Nicholas Hob, the Serpent’s Son, was dead at last, by his own hand as much as anyone else’s. The Serpent In The Sun no longer had an agent in the world of men; no longer had any way to reach them, or punish them. Veritie and Mysterie were safe.

  Luna gave up her aspect and became just a woman again. Her armour was gone, replaced by a simple white shift. She sank to her knees beside the scorch marks on the floor that were all that remained to show where her only son had stood. She didn’t cry, but she looked very tired. She’d tried so hard not to love him; tried so hard the effort had driven her mad, and she had had to retreat from the world that held her son. And when she finally pulled herself together, and went out into the world again, it was only to watch her son die. The Courts of the Holy were cruel sometimes, in their necessity.

  She’d always known he would die at her hand, eventually. Because she was the only one who could do it.

  Gaia looked around upon her works, and saw them to be good. She looked down on the fallen Toby, as though from a great height, and smiled fondly. Gayle had forgotten so much; forgotten that Gaia loved all her creatures. How could she not? She was their Mother. She put aside her aspect and became Gayle again. She knelt beside Toby, and hugged him to her fiercely. The ley lines had wracked him, but he still lived. He was only mortal, and she was not, but she would love him as long as he lived. Gaia knew what Gayle had forgotten: that love is worth the pain it brings with it. Toby stirred in her arms and smiled up at her. Gayle smiled back.

  Angel was talking quietly with her son, the Brother from Under The Hill, when Leo Morn lurched through the door, completely intact. He stalked over to his astonished Brother, reached up and slapped him round the head as hard as he could.

  “Idiot! You of all people should have remembered that only silver can kill a werewolf. Playing jigsaw with my body parts won’t do it. Putting myself back together hurt like hell, mind, and took some time. I take it we won, since we’re all here and Hob isn’t. So, that’s what you look like, Brother. I’ve often wondered. I’m impressed, really. But we’re going to have to find you a pair of trousers, before you give the rest of us an inferiority complex. Now would someone
please fill me in on what happened while I was out of it?”

  “Of course,” said the Brother. He indicated Angel. “Leo, I’d like you to meet my father.”

  Jimmy Thunder came through the door next, wincing as he gingerly felt the side of his head. Gayle laughed.

  “I should have known you couldn’t kill a Norse god by hitting him on the head.”

  “Not with his own hammer,” Jimmy agreed. “I’ve had worse hangovers than this. Can we go home now, please?”

  “Yes,” said Toby. “It’s been a long day, one way and another.”

  TWELVE

  THE MORNING AFTER

  Unusually early for a Sunday morning, Gayle sat at her kitchen table in her silk wrap, working her way happily through a large plate of scrambled eggs, her enjoyment only partially soured by the knowledge that scrambled eggs are what you end up making after you start out to do something more ambitious and then decide you can’t be bothered. Gayle put aside the thought very firmly. She liked scrambled eggs. Especially with toast soldiers and a large mug of steaming black coffee. Life’s little pleasures … Gayle was also reading the main section of the Sunday Times, which was propped up on the table against a coffee pot, looking bulky and authoritative. It appeared that the menacing solar flares had stopped, as suddenly and mysteriously as they had begun, and that everything was getting back to normal again. Gayle snorted loudly, and slurped more hot coffee. As in so many things, the real world had no idea how close to the wire it had gone. Which was just as well, really.

  She looked up as Toby came into the kitchen, carrying a carton of milk and a bunch of bright red flowers. Gayle qualified her welcoming smile with a stern gaze, but Toby just grinned as he laid the flowers down before her on the table.

  “I know; you don’t approve of killing flowers, so I got you silk ones instead. Happy now?”