30.5

 

Like Astaroth, he has also been burned, but he has suffered far more than his brother. Roisin remembers a photograph depicting the charred body of Thích Quảng Đức after his self-immolation in protest of the Vietnam War, but unlike the Buddhist monk, Hasmed has already begun to recover. From the cracks and fissures all over his body comes what looks like the clear glue they used in school, and the seeping gel begins to regenerate the burned flesh. Tiny pieces of burnt skin peel off like ashes from a November bonfire exposing fresh, pink skin beneath. The bones of his torso and face whiten from their charred state millimetre by millimetre.

Roisin steps forward, trembling but steadfast. “Hasmed.”

His litany of words falls silent, but other than that there is no acknowledgement of her approach. Astaroth reaches out to touch her shoulder as he steps to one side to allow her passage. Hasmed still does not move. She touches his shoulder gently. His charred flesh is rough against her fingers, and despite the charred appearance, Hasmed is as cold as Musk. She pulls her hand away again, the tips of her fingers burning. “You don’t have to erase me.”

The void around him flickers. Floating ashes of his flesh are swallowed into it like stars into a singularity.

She puts her hands together, palm to palm. Not in prayer but perpendicular, folding each set of her fingers around the back of the other hand in a chain grip. She is almost afraid to look into the dark holes of his eye sockets, for even kneeling, he is taller than she. “You don’t have to erase anything.”

In her peripheral vision she can see Astaroth cocking his head, his eyebrows raised as he witnesses her words.

Hasmed’s wings fold slowly, painfully, each tiny movement breaking of unhealed pieces if the charred flesh and prompting the release of more gel; so much so that it drips on the ground beneath and each wing collapses slowly inward like the boarding tunnel of a first-class flight to Abu Dhabi. His voice is a whisper of absence. “I… do not know… what to do.”

Roisin inhales. Who is she to offer advice to a being as old as the universe? Deep within her chest, she feels the mantle stir, flooding her with knowledge again, but knowledge is not wisdom. Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not adding it to a trifle. “You have learned something new today. Now you can incorporate it into your… architecture, I think you called it? You have a new piece of knowledge about the world and that gives you the opportunity to evolve. You can be a new, better version of yourself.”

Hasmed’s form stabilises. Not fully, but enough to slow the catastrophic fracturing of his form. More gel leaks out and the healing of his skin… his surface… increases pace.

Astaroth taps Roisin on the shoulder as she backs away a pace as the wings complete their folding and disappear into the bony ridges of his spine, A glance at Astaroth reveals that he has already regained the physique he’d had when they first me, less than an hour ago. A fleeting though passes through her groin. Could she bear a Nephilim? If Man was built in the image of angels, they were a very poor facsimile indeed.

Beside her, Astaroth laughs. “I know what you’re thinking,” he says, “and, unfortunately, the answer is no. Hasmed is of the Order of Archangels and therefore was not granted genitals.” He pats her gently on the shoulder. “Besides, most angels were not made in the image of the Creator. This… human form is only an aspect we choose to inhabit because a mortal could not even begin to comprehend our natural appearance. It would send them insane in moments."

Roisin wants to say that’s not what she was contemplating, but the mantle inside her will not let her lie. “How did you know what I was thinking?”

Astaroth chuckles and inadvertently reveals his Fallen nature. “I saw your nipples harden.”

A movement compels both of them to look as Hasmed again. He has risen from his defeated kneel and for the first time in his existence, Hasmed has altered his outward appearance. He still towers over Roisin, but instead of the alabaster stone sheen of white flesh he has skin of a deep, golden frown hue and an actual face with eyes. He seems to be a living, breathing, Mediterranean version of Michelangelo’s David. And physically complete.