Chiaroscuro

  When the fear begins to subside comes the anger, rising like Vesuvian magma under the unsuspecting twin cities, melting away what’s left of the terror with righteous indignation. How dare the Creator write a role for which she did not give consent? There was no need to drag her away from her humanity into this dance between the immortals. What possible cause could they cite for the theft of her humanity when for thousands of years it was understood they despised the half-caste offspring of mortals and angels, going so far as the destroy all but a handful of people in the blanket destruction of all life on the surface. It was akin to a farmer finding a caterpillar on a lettuce and burning the whole field because of it, and them blaming the lettuce. Not only the Creator, either, but all those angels who thought they could manipulate the world into giving up their souls, for taking them without consent; for the rape of the spirits of humanity for their own personal gain. The Falle...

  Her words have barely finish echoing before Steve has stepped towards her. She can feel the change in the air around her as he moves; the shift of soul fragments from the Nephilim and Astaroth, the interaction of his as they move through and around hers. His voice almost echoes, such is her perception of time, now. “Roisin.” It sounds like a plea, but she doesn’t understand why he’s so concerned. Why is it to him that she has become Justice? Is he worried he might fall prey to her? She turns toward him slowly, as though the movement has to pass through several layers of perception before it reaches her body. She is only just been granted this new perception, and it will take time for her movements to become naturalised in the shape she now wears, but she has time to learn, and the knowledge to apply that learning through infinite scenarios in a the blink of an eye, And she can blink very fast indeed. Steve’s voice cracks into two pitches as he speaks again. He is overwhel...

  At first, Roisin feels nothing. Just like at the doctor’s when she goes to have her inoculations against COVID or the latest virulent epidemic sweeping the country (and despite most of the diseases being immigrants from America, where the rise of Anti-Vaccers has put medicine back by more than a century, she has never contracted anything) she doesn’t even feel the prick of the needle, or in this case, knowledge. She isn’t even aware of any increase in her memory – she’s not suddenly an expert on history or biology, and her vision isn’t overwhelmed by a thousand lines of green-tinted machine code scrolling endlessly past her optic nerve, she just feels a strange, crystalline stillness — as though her mind has been left in the freezer compartment overnight and has emerged wrapped in frost. The mantle of Knowledge sits inside her like a silent partner investing in a business for the tax write-off. It radiates clarity, but her emotions are lollygagging, slow to catch up, like a bod...

  “Maybe.” Astaroth nods, his gaze distant as if he were running through a hundred different hypotheses with combinations of angels and crosses. It takes him long enough the Roisin is able to glance at Steve, who looks decidedly uncomfortable although, to his credit, he has stood his ground against the angel he summoned. After several seconds, Astaroth’s gaze returns to her face. “It would depend on the cross,” he says. “And the angel, obviously. Nothing would work against anything above the rank of Malak, and probably not even those, unless you had the alter cross from Cologne cathedral or St. Basil’s in Moscow.” Steve spoke up. “Not one from the Vatican?” Astaroth shrugged. “Fourth or fifth at best.” He pauses for a moment, as if running the crucifix blessed daily by the Pope against a number of angels before the consideration is dismissed. His attention returns to Roisin. “When you abandoned your mantle, the world did not lose Famine. It lost the anchor that kept the Four al...

  Roisin trembles. She feels the same as she felt the one time her boyfriend in high school made her go on a rollercoaster in Taunton. She’d been afraid of heights since she’d fallen off the top of the Helter Skelter at Laverstone Mop when she was six. The Mop was a travelling fair that rumbled around the country for nine months of the year, stopping at villages and towns and setting up stalls and sideshows for between three and five nights, usually packing up in the early hours of Monday morning and leaving nothing behind but some flattened grass and several tons of fast-food litter.   She’d likes slides, so the Helter Skelter seemed an adrenaline filled ride that fitted safely within her comfort zone. Her dad (he was still around at this point) had paid the entrance fee and sent her scrambling up the stairs in the middle, but somehow, she’d continued climbing at the top of the stairs and walked right over the safety barrier, falling forty feet onto the hard surface of the Co...

  Astaroth smiles again. He smiles a lot, as if everything is a joke to him, as if the people around him are mudskippers, hopping about open-mouthed at the sudden loss of their habitat. Of course, he is, or was, the Angel of Knowledge, so there is a good chance he really is just waiting for everyone else to see what he’d laughing at. He’s like the uncle who visits at Christmas and sits in the corner of the room laughing, but when anyone asks him what he’s laughing at he says it’s an ‘inside joke’ or ‘too complicated to explain.’ It makes Roisin want to punch him, but she has the knowledge that punching a major player in the hierarchy of Hell would probably lead to consequences she wouldn’t enjoy. Imagining the act makes her smile, however. As an ‘inside joke’ of course. Astaroth lets the silence stretch until it becomes a source of tension in the room; until Roisin feels it pressing against her ribs; until Steve looks like he might break under the weight of it. Only then does t...

  Roisin closes her eyes as another vision bursts like fireworks over the London Eye. There is no pain to the vision, but the sense of completeness is as beautiful as the New Year celebrations watched on the television without the sound. The mantle is once again in front of her, but not in the void this time, but inside her vision. The Four Horsemen are the cardinal points of a circle, with Famine held by the Nephilim. In the centre stands Steve, a creature of the supernatural world, yet one who remains forever mortal, and serves as the pivot representing the humanity the four revolve around but never touch. Around them all it a cirle of light which she recognises as representing herself. She clutches her head, tears edging from the corners of her eyes. “This is too much. I can’t— I’m not—” Astaroth’s voice cuts through her rising protests. “You are not taking the mantle, yet, Roisin. You are recognising it. You are seeing what will become of you should you follow this path.” ...

  Roisin shakes her head. What was the point of making such a difficult decision between being angel and being human if it was all being stripped from her now?   “I’m not— I can’t—” She swallows the lump of terror that seems to be lodged in her throat. “I’ll be Famine. I’ll take my place with no more distractions.” She looks at the Artist. “Tell him. Tell him this is what I’m meant to be.” Astaroth cuts her off with a raised finger. “You are becoming Justice. The mantle of knowledge has chosen you, just as the mantle of Famine has chosen your offspring.” “Justice?” If angels could spit, the Artist would do so now. “There is no justice but that which the Creator offers. If is not our place to presume those who deserve Heaven from those who do not.” “I never said it was.” Astaroth laughs. “I would not dare assign such hubris to the Four. But Roisin is no longer of the Four. She is apart, alone, The Fifth. The one who stands between the Four,” Astaroth says. “The one who te...

  Roisin takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, then breathes out slowly through her nose. She doesn’t even think about the difficulty of it. She’s never had any trouble breathing through her nose. She’s never had a cold, or the ‘flu, or even a sniffle during the cold rains of winter. Her breath trembles as she realises it, an indication of the stress she feels through this forced, urgent decision. Why couldn’t she have just lived her life in peace? Why did she have to be born a fucking angel? Why must she stand so indecisively on this slackline between Horseman and Mortal? Twenty years of tranquillity, all to change forever in one night, and now she has only seconds to make the choice. She can taste the truth of it like mustard on the side of a vegan salad. She can feel the mantle stirring in the Nephilim’s chest like a ballistic missile igniting in a Jerusalem launch tower. She can visualise the echo of herself intercepting it and taste the ashes in a land empty of crops. ...

  Astaroth raises one eyebrow – a curiously human gesture – and tuns his attention to her. She feels the world shift, as though his attention is a force that rearranges the hierarchy of everything it touches and now she feels it crawl across her like maggots over a corpse. She doesn’t feel a sense of judgement, for what fallen angel would have the hubris to make a judgment over anything? Rather, she feels his curiosity, his surprise at finding not one, but two horsemen in a dilapidated upstairs flat in Wolverhampton. “You haven’t taken on your mantle?” “I was about to.” Roisin feels defensive despite the lack of judgement. “Then there was another one offered, and it distracted me.” “As I knew it would.” Astaroth smiles. “Knowledge is the most powerful weapon of them all, and if you want to fight the angels, it would serve you better than the mantle of the Black Horse.” “Would I be seen if I wore Knowledge?” Roisin glances at the Artist, but his expression is unreadable. “Woul...

  Roisin looks at Steve, who is trying to act nonchalant but is completely failing to hide his fear of the newcomer. “That answers a lot of questions. Were you born as Christopher Marlowe, or was that just an identity you took at the time? How old are you, really? Are you even human?” Steve shakes his head. “Don’t let this old Nick turn you against me the moment he shows up. He’s not called the Father of Lies for nothing, you know. I’m still Steve, just as you’re still… whoever you were before you were Roisin. Yes, I’m perfectly human, I’m just a lot older than I look, and I change my identity every twenty years or so, usually moving away from everyone who knows me and starting an entirely new life. It gets harder every time, actually, especially when they started computerising   records. In the old days you’d just make a note of any babies who didn’t survive and assume their identity without any being any the wiser, but these days it gets harder and harder, especially if I ...

  Roisin is pulled from the void back to her physical body like an infant plucked from the crib, nurtured for a moment and then replaced, suddenly bereft from the brief contact with its mother. She feels claustrophobic from the number of them Only Steve’s eyes move, and his heart and lungs, she realises, since his chest still rises and falls with his breathing, but all his voluntary movement has ceased. Is this an effect of her ancient brother, she wonders or is it the result of some demonic magic that keeps his muscles frozen in place. Certainly, if it was a skill that could be learned she was up for learning it. Imagine how useful it would be if she could do that. Even in the limited world of fine art, shutting up men would be a blessing. “Who the fuck is that?” Paul’s voice cracks from terror, even as backs away from the newcomer. “And where did he come from?” Not all men, then. Just one at a time, as necessary. Astaroth turns toward Paul, the smile of a gentleman who’s ...

  The void is infinite, a place between Heaven and the Earth. It might exist in other planes as far as Roisin knows, but she knows nothing of them. She knows little enough about the void, only that it is a necessary place between here and there . Indeed, many just call it The Between , and refrain from calling it the void at all, since in an infinite space there exists infinite possibilities, and even angels would rather not conjure those. The void has no walls, no ceiling, no floor. It just is . The name spoken doesn’t echo. It lands in the void like a magnet dropped into a lake whose surface is molten steel. Around Roisin’s physical body, the room inhales and the shadows contract away from the three beings in the doorway: human, Nephilim and angel, each playing high stakes with the fate of the world. The Nephilim’s head snaps toward Steve with a sharp tilt reminiscent of a mantis about to snatch prey from a nearby leaf. It does not seem afraid but alert, as though something...

  Fire dances through her veins, but for Roisin it doesn’t burn, for she is part of the element itself. Famine and Fire have walked hand-in-hand through the centuries, for where one treads, the other follows. When fire wipes out crops and livestock, and the habitats of the creatures hunters rely upon, Famine covers the land with a tattered blanket, causing the bodies of those left behind to self-consume under starvation. Pestilence often follows them both, bringing insects to clear away the corpses of animal and vegetable alike, and War leads them all into a glorious blossoming. The flames don’t burn her, but they ignite memories of past glories. Seven years of famine during the reign of the pharaoh Djoser; millions of Chinese people dead in the second century BC; twenty thousand more when fire danced atop Mount Etna and lit the ancient world from one side to the other. She feels them as the thrills of past glories, and the promises of more to come. From her veins to her belly, a...

  She is becoming something in-between Famine and Roisin; something that stands between them; a bridge, just as the Nephilim suggested. A bridge between the human life she built and the cosmic identity she abandoned. The Nephilim’s awareness presses gently against her mind, not pushing her forward, not pulling her back but simply reflecting her. She sees herself the way it sees her; as a being who once held balance the balance of the world but stepped out of the role in order to hide the charges she thought unjustly condemned to death, and though she has lived as a human she was never fully human herself, only the echo of Famine hiding amongst the shadows of mortality, afraid to confront the truths she had hidden from the human part of herself. What the Nephilim is showing her is a revelation. She has been living in a shape too small for her She is not human in the way she believed. She can live as one, love, suffer setbacks and losses like one, enjoy the highs and terrors of...

  She shifts her weight backward—just a fraction, just enough to signal intention—and the air around her thickens, her vision shifting slightly, as if she’s seeing two versions of herself a second apart from each other, though whether she is the first one or the second, she has no idea. It’s purely a visual illusion, not a physical one like a force holding her in place. It’s subtler than that, it feels like trying to step out of her own reflection. Her body leans backward but her foot doesn’t move. It feels like her muscles are doing everything she requires of them – contract, lift the foot, shift weight – but there is no alteration of her position in space. The world stays exactly where it is in relation to her. A soft pressure gathers at her sternum, not pushing her forward or pulling her back but simply holding her in the exact spot where the Nephilim’s hand meets hers. Her eyes narrow as she exhales. “Let me go,” although she isn’t sure who she’s speaking to. The Nephilim? ...

Steve’s attempt to break the connection doesn’t feel like an interruption to Roisin. Rather, it feels like a hand tugging at her sleeve while she stands on the edge of a different world. His hand clamps around her upper arm again, harder this time, fingers digging in with a desperation he doesn’t bother to hide. She can barely hear him, despite him shouting almost in her ear. “Roisin. Let go of it. Now.” His voice is shrill and urgent, cracking at the edges. He’s not trying to pull her back anymore, he’s trying to pull her out of whatever she’s sinking into, whatever decision she needs to make, but she barely feels his grip because the Nephilim’s awareness is still touching hers, and the contrast between the two sensations is so stark it’s almost painful: Steve’s hand is warm, frantic, and human while the Nephilim’s mind is cool, steady, ancient, and still holds the shape of her in its memory; like the single missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle of the galaxy. Her world splits into two...

  She steps closer without even being aware of her own movement. Her hand remains in contact with the Nephilim’s and her breath and heartrate have slowed to match the pulse she feels from him. The horse within is quiet, contained; resting like a sleeping cat in Sunday afternoon sunshine. She feels no pull from it, no demand that she take it within herself, only its calm contentedness radiating out like a softly-spoken mantra. She feels herself rocked by more memories. Not a wave of sensation like a storm at sea assaulting a lighthouse, but the shallow bobbing of a hired rowboat like the ones on the lake in Laverstone park which they rented as high-schoolers to travel across to the constructed island in the centre, a haven for birds and randy teenagers alike. She encounters the sensation of being the hollow circle she once embodied, keeping the other aspects safe from the results of their walking through the world, and the balance she once kept, following Cain from the Garden into...

  She was there at the Beginning, and she will be there at the End, whatever that might be, for although the assumed ending of the world is that which the angel Yihvah offered to St. John on Patmos, the Nephilim offers her another possibility. No prophecy, this, but an alternate path, that could become Truth, one where the Horsemen rise again not to open the remaining seals ad bring about the resurrection and the ending of the world, but to counterbalance the angel’s attempt to gather all the souls for themselves. The Nephilim offers another possibility, one where the Horsemen and the Nephilim stand together; where the Nephilim carry the mantles of the horses, leaving the four aspects of Araksiel hidden from the Eyes of the Creator. The Artist would not be the Aspect known as Pestilence, and neither would Roisin be Famine. Each would be something else entirely, able to stand in the space between human and angel and between memory and identity. Easch would act as a bridge between ...