Angel of Ruin (31 page)

His Majesty? That could only be one angel. One very fallen angel.

Lazodeus strode into a vast hall. It was dazzlingly lit with thousands and thousands of candles positioned against mirrors. A long fireplace ran to shoulder height along the wall. Her breath was tight in her chest; would she see Lucifer? He approached a black marble table which gleamed in the light of the flames.

“Greetings, your Majesty,” he said as he approached. Deborah realised he was apprehensive. His gait was not so confident as when he was with mortals.

“Greetings, Lazodeus. You may approach.”

His Majesty came into view. Lucifer was a perfect ruined beauty, with the same masculine dignified bearing as Lazodeus, in similar white robes. His face, however, was more exquisite, his hair black and his eyes green, an unimaginably perfect symmetry and proportion of features. A scar ran from one side of his face to the other, diagonally from forehead to chin. But it wasn’t his physical characteristics which made him beautiful — though he was most certainly beautiful. It was something about his eyes, some addictive thrill cleaving to his brow, some dark promising kiss waiting in his glance. She held her breath. Lucifer sat behind the table in a carved chair and spoke.

“Why are you here?”

“It is about leaving guardianship behind and moving ahead.”

“I understood that you were destined to remain a guardian because of your indolence.”

“I am trying much harder, Majesty.”

“You have not provided this realm with a single soul in hundreds of years. My Principalities and Thrones must be far more aggressive than that.”

Deborah felt as though she had been kicked in the heart. Souls? After all this time, after convincing herself that this was not what Lazodeus wanted, was it really so simple? She composed herself, determined to remember every detail.

“I have found three girls … sisters …” Lazodeus began.

“Sisters? Decent girls? Pretty?”

“Yes, all three.”

“Tell me.”

“I was called as their guardian by an idiot witch who did not know what she was doing. I have been waiting their whole lives for them to call me. The eldest two trust me … love me. The youngest is wiser.”

“Forget her. Tell me of the others.”

“I want to seduce them to our party. If I can do it, will you elevate me to the position I rightfully deserve?”

Lucifer shook his head. “Too easy, if they are already in love with you —”

“Name me a sin, then. Any sin. I believe my sway is such that I can get them to do anything. In time.”

“We have abundant time, Lazodeus.”

“Name me a sin, and if I can get their souls that way —”

“You will become one of my Principalities. I suppose it is fair. I’d like to meet them.” Lucifer took a
deep breath and closed his eyes. “Are they pretty? Are they soft? Do they shed tears and tremble?”

“They are all that we adore about mortals.”

Lucifer opened his eyes and smiled. “Go on, then. See what you can do for me. I shall be watching you closely.”

Lazodeus stood, bowing obsequiously. “Thank you, Majesty. But you have yet to name their sin.”

“Their sin?” Lucifer idled with the scar near his chin. Deborah held her breath, realised she was clutching the bed covers in anxious fingers. “Let me see … Ah, yes, I have it.”

“Majesty?”

“Patricide,” Lucifer said. “Their sin shall be patricide.”

D
eborah’s skull seemed suddenly made of granite. The shock froze her solid for a full minute. Then she pressed her fingers to her eyes and rallied her thoughts.

What to do? How to proceed? Her sisters would never believe her. She had declared Lazodeus her enemy just a few short days ago. To approach them with this story was to be destined to fail.

But she could not let Lazodeus have his way. Tempt them with …

Surely, he did not hold them so much in his spell that they would murder their own father. Her father.

Once more, she peered into the mirror, but Lazodeus had left the great hall and returned to the gleaming black streets of Pandemonium. She watched him as he began to wander silently through obsidian alleys indistinguishable from one another, twisting sickly into lonely places. Occasionally he would pass another white-robed, scarred creature and exchange greetings, then keep moving. Walking, as Father did, to contemplate a problem. The problem of patricide. For a long time she watched, and her heart would not still. Finally, she passed her hand over the mirror and it lay silent.

“Think, Deborah, think.” Long since, she had heard Anne and Mary come home, take the rugs up for beating, call her angrily, then leave her alone when she claimed illness.

A terrible illness of the soul.
My sisters; my father.

It would take time. Lazodeus had much hard work ahead of him to convince Anne to kill Father. Mary … no, even Mary was not so completely without conscience.

“So I must not rush into warning them,” Deborah said, falling back on her pillow and taking a deep breath of the stuffy closet air. “I must be prudent.” Watch and wait a little while, and ask Amelia for help. Though Amelia was to blame for all this according to Lazodeus. Amelia and her reckless magic. So much for her exhortations to spontaneity. How was Deborah to know, now, whether or not the demon key was endangering her own soul? All Amelia’s talk of amorality was now in question. Every instinct shrieked that she should destroy the key, but she needed it to protect Father. And herself.

She picked up the key and hung it round her neck again, tucking the bar of tarnished silver between her breasts. When all this was over — when her sisters were returned to their senses and Lazodeus was banished and Father was safe — then she would melt it and cast it into the Thames.

Until then, necessity dictated she consort with demons.

“How much do you love your father?”

Mary propped herself up on one elbow. “I love him not. You know that.” She sipped her drink: spiced wine served in an ivory tusk, gold tipped. A special gift brought for her velvet room, from the exotic depths of the east.

Lazodeus smiled up at her from amongst the velvet cushions. His hand languidly caressed her bare thighs. “How much do you hate him?”

“He is an irritant rather than a blight. An itch rather than a pox. Why do you ask?”

“Some of those I affiliate with in Pandemonium are unhappy with his great poem.”

“Unhappy with it? Why?”

“Will it be published?” he countered.

“I expect so. He publishes many things.”

“The fear is of its influence, that its fame may live long after him, that the true story of our nobility as a race will never be known.”

“That tedious ordeal of a poem famous?” She sniffed. “I scarcely believe that to be possible.”

“Still, these are our fears …”

Mary shrugged. “I should not mind if they wish to burn all the pages. But do not ask me to do it, for Deborah and I are at war, and I know the foul girl is watching me.”

“It won’t be necessary.”

Mary smiled at him coquettishly. “I have brought something else for you to read, though. Something far more interesting.”

“What is it?”

She pulled the letter out of her bodice. It had arrived yesterday, with “ERJENT” written across it in Grandmamma’s hand. “Go on, read it aloud,” she said, handing it to the angel.

Lazodeus unfolded the letter and read: “‘Mary dearest, Lady Ruth Adworth has died of the gout, and now Sir Adworth asks me daily about you. I believe he purposes to marry you if you return. Do not delay, Mary. Write to him forthwith.’” He handed the letter back. “And why should I be interested in such a trifle?”

Mary felt her face fall; she had hoped Lazodeus would be jealous that some other man loved her and wanted her to be his bride. “I thought you might care that I was appreciated by so wealthy and powerful a man.”

“Perhaps you should marry him, Mary, if he is so wealthy and powerful.”

“No!” she cried. “How could I ever … I mean, now that I have known your caresses, how could I …”

“Did you hope to make me jealous by this?” he asked, and his voice was cool and puzzled.

“I …”

“Mary, trouble me not with the love letters of ageing suitors, when I have concerns about more important writings. I want you to watch your father for me: hear his plans and aim to know what he intends. Can you do that?”

She nodded, chastened. “Of course, I shall do exactly as you say.” She could do no differently.

Deborah watched her sisters and neither of them looked different. Neither of them looked like patricides. They sat in a circle in the sitting room, Betty and Liza behind them. All five of them were working on sewing up a new arras for the party on Thursday night. Father was expected home at dinner time and Betty was eager to have it done before his arrival.

So it was a surprise to all when the front door banged and Father’s voice drifted up the stairs. “Where is everyone?”

Betty put aside her sewing and hurried to her feet. “Why is he home so early?”

“To torture us with his boring poem, I suppose,” Mary said when Betty was out of earshot. She turned her eyes to Deborah. “Though I suppose you like the foul thing.”

“Yes, I do,” Deborah replied. “’Tis a great work of art.”

“Please do not fight,” Anne said, but it was a vague shadow of the adamant entreaties she had spoken in the past.

“Death, Anne,” Mary said, “you sounded more convincing when you stuttered.”

It was true; the lines between them were drawn deeply now, and Anne seemed not to care. Deborah held up her sewing to her face and examined it closely. Her stitching was uneven, compared to Mary’s which was always excellent. She noticed her fingers shook a little; it was the anticipation of seeing Father. Once, she would have bounded down the stairs to greet him, excited at his return. But everything had changed. Somehow she had grown into a woman, disenchanted with her brilliant father, frightened of her sisters, overwhelmed with the responsibility of protecting them all, of healing this awful mess.

His voice carried up the stairs loudly. “Mary, Deborah, come down to my study at once. I am in need of your services.”

“I shall keep sewing, shall I?” Anne said under her breath.

“Come down and say hello,” Deborah said, touching her sister’s hair.

Anne smiled up at her tightly. “I hardly think he’s interested in my greeting.”

With a deep breath, Deborah put aside her sewing and followed Mary down the stairs.

“Good morning, Father,” Deborah said. “We were not expecting you so soon.”

Betty stood outside the front door paying the driver and giving a coin to the boy who had been engaged as Father’s eyes for the journey.

“I hurried the driver. My mind is on fire. I have so many new ideas for my poem, and I must dictate them immediately.”

“Why do you require us both then?” Mary sniffed. “Surely Deborah will do.”

“I require you, Mary Milton, to start making the fair copy of the poem. An old friend of mine named Samuel Simmons is a publisher at Aldersgate, next to the Golden Lion. We crossed each others’ paths in Cambridge, and he has expressed a keen interest in publishing the work.”

Betty, who had rejoined them, nodded her head smugly. “It shall be published then?”

“Of course,” Father snapped. “There was never any question. He has promised me twenty pounds — the first five when I give him the fair copy, provided the work is to his liking.”

“Twenty pounds!” Betty exclaimed. “Why we shall be able to afford some new rugs.”

“’Tis hardly a King’s ransom,” Mary said quietly.

“Enough, Mary. I’m aware it is not a fortune. It is barely recompense for the many hours I have spent on it.” No mention was made of the many hours that Deborah had spent on it, or any of the other scribes he had used over the years. But Father’s arrogance was hardly a concern any more. His safety was far more pressing.

“Well, I think twenty pounds is a solid sum, and we can use it,” Betty said. “And ’Tis a good reason for us to celebrate tomorrow night. John, I have organised a party in honour of your return.”

“A party! Do I have time to make small talk with idiots?” Father shook his head in exasperation, but Deborah knew that by tomorrow night, when the guests started arriving, Father’s excitement would match Betty’s. “Now leave us be, Betty. We have work to do.”

Mary set up on one side of Father and Deborah on the other. Soon, Mary was copying out lines in her strong, neat hand, while Deborah waited for Father’s grand ideas to form into blank verse. He intended new and dynamic scenes, and in his dreams he had acquired ideas: grand ideas, heroic ideas, breathtaking ideas for speeches and descriptions.

And nearly all these ideas were about fallen angels.

Deborah tried to keep up as Father dictated. His words were almost frantic, and yet so beautifully chosen, so grandly joined together. At one point he stopped to ask her to read back a speech which Lucifer — Father called him Satan — made to his ranks of angels. Deborah straightened her glasses on her nose and read to him:

“Farewell happy fields where joy for ever dwells: hail horrors, hail infernal world, and thou profoundest hell receive thy new possessor —”

“Ha!” Father said, and he actually clapped his hands together with glee. “I
like
him, Deborah. I
like
my new Satan. Better than that vain, toadying weakling I had originally imagined. Now he has pride; now he has dignity.”

Deborah looked across at Mary. Her sister’s eyes were locked on Father’s face, and a smug, knowing smile tugged at the corners of her lips. Deborah’s gaze returned to Father, and he was smiling too, but it was a gentle smile, an innocent smile. In his moment of happiness, Deborah suddenly felt his awful vulnerability. An empty sick feeling opened up in her stomach, and she fought the keen urge to push aside the books and run to him, take him in her arms and tell Mary to get out. Tell her to leave them both and dally with her devils in some other part of the world and never to look at her Father again as though he were a fool, and she were his superior.

Father’s fingers went to his throat. “I grow hoarse. I have been speaking too loudly in my excitement. Perhaps we should take a break until this afternoon.”

Mary needed no encouragement. She put her writing tray aside immediately. “Good. I shall walk Max. ’Tis too hot to be inside.” She was gone before Deborah had tidied her ink pot and rolled her pens. Deborah stood and walked to Father, knelt in front of him.

“What is it, Deborah?”

“You must be tired from your journey.”

“I slept in the carriage.”

“Father …”

He let the silence draw out between them. Finally, he said quietly, “What troubles you, Deborah?”

“Father, make no more mention of your poem to Mary.”

“No more mention? But I must get a fair copy to Simmons by the beginning of September. How do you propose I shall do that without Mary’s help?”

“I shall make the fair copy, Father. I shall take your dictation during the morning and make the fair copy in the evening. It stays light until quite late still, and I can work by candlelight just as well. Mary can do my chores — Lord knows she never really does work to the equal of the rest of us. But let me do it, Father. Mary should have no more involvement.”

Father sightless eyes rested on her face, and it occurred to her for the first time she had been seen neither by her mother nor her father. Mother had died in childbirth; Father had been blind before she was born. Did that make her invisible? She reached out and touched Father’s hand. He withdrew it awkwardly.

“And why should Mary not be involved?”

“You must trust me, Father. I cannot tell you.”

“I know some of what Mary does,” he said.

Deborah felt her blood cool in her veins. “You do?” Had Betty told him? And if so, would Deborah have been implicated? She suddenly couldn’t bear for Father to know of the dark world she was now involved in.

“Yes, I’ve known for many years. A friend from Forest Hill told me. She flirts with men … she gives her favours …” He dropped his head as though ashamed. Relief; this was only about Mary’s chastity. Father looked so embarrassed that Deborah produced a lie to reassure him.

“’Tis not true, Father. ’Tis an unfortunate rumour. Mary is chaste and brings no dishonour to you.”

He nodded, but didn’t seemed convinced. “Thank you, Deborah.”

“Do you trust me, Father? Will you allow me to make a fair copy?”

“Deborah, I trust nobody. But I will allow you to do Mary’s work. And I shan’t mention it to Mary again. Perhaps one day, when you are a grown woman and you bring my many grandsons to visit, you shall explain to me what this is about. Until then, I have confidence in your judgement.”

That old familiar sensation of pride rose up inside her, and she pushed it away with her reason. It would not do to rely on Father’s praise. Father had little respect for women, Father expected her to marry and bear him grandsons, and Father would never understand her need to make her mark upon the world. She stood and moved to the door with a cool, “Good day.”

“Deborah?” he said.

“Yes, Father?”

“Do not let me down. The fair copy must be complete by September the first. And I have many more scenes to draft. You must be reliable.”

“You may rely upon me, Father,” she said. She stood in the doorway and watched him a few moments, then turned to rejoin her sisters upstairs.

It had drizzled all day; a mournful misting summer rain which sent the party guests inside damp, with limp curls and sagging feathers. Enthusiasm was not dampened, though, and Father was in particularly high spirits, playing music and laughing with friends. Anne cared nothing for the party, and nothing for Father’s good mood. She only cared that two hours stood between now and reunion with Lazodeus. From her hiding place near the window, Anne watched as Mary sang and flirted. Deborah, however, was nowhere to be seen. Anne had heard her upstairs in her closet, a pen scratching away at paper, and had asked if she would come downstairs for the party.