The Lovers

“So, Anmael was one of the Grigori. He, in turn, is linked to Semjaza, one of the leaders of the order. Some say that the angel Semjaza repented of its actions, but that, I suspect, had more to do with a desire in the early church for a figure of repentance than anything else.

“Now we have twin angels, Anmael and Semjaza, but here Christian and Jewish views diverge. In Christian orthodoxy, derived in part from Jewish sources, angels are traditionally viewed as sexless, or, in the case of the higher orders, exclusively male. The later Jewish view, by contrast, allows the possibility of male and female angels. The bibliographer Hayyim Azulal wrote in his Milbar Kedemot of 1792 that ‘the angels are called women, as it is written in Zechariah verse nine, “Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and behold, there came out two women.”’ The Yalkut Hadash says: ‘Of angels we can speak both in masculine and in feminine: the angels of a superior degree are called men, and the angels of an inferior degree are called women.’ At the very least, then, Judaism has a more fluid concept of the sexuality of such beings.

“The body of Ackerman, and the boy killed by your father at Pearl River, both bore the Enochian ‘A,’ or ‘Und,’ burned into their flesh. The women, by contrast, were marked with the letter ‘Uam,’ or ‘S,’ for Semjaza.”

He paused for a moment and seemed to consider something. “I have often thought,” he resumed, “that the children of men must have been a grave disappointment to such beings. It was our flesh and our bodies that they desired, yet our minds, and our life spans, must have been like those of insects by comparison. But what if two angels, one male, one female, could inhabit the bodies of a man and a woman, and enjoyed their union as equals? And as those bodies wear out, they move on, finding others to inhabit, and then begin to seek each other once again. Sometimes it may take years. It may even be that, on occasion, they fail to come together, and the search continues in another body, but they never stop looking, for they ca

“And the price they pay for their union is, I believe, to do the bidding of another: in this case, that bidding is to bring an end to your existence.”

“Another?”

“A controlling consciousness. It may be that some of those whom you have encountered in the past-Pudd, Brightwell, our friend Kittim, perhaps even the Traveling Man, among those whose human nature is not in dispute, for did the Traveling Man not reference the book of Enoch?-also did its bidding, but without even knowing it. Think of the human body: some of its processes are involuntary. The heart beats, the liver purifies, the kidneys process. The brain does not have to tell them to perform these Z qerform th tasks, but they serve the function of sustaining the body. But to lift up a book, to drive a car, to fire a gun in order to end a life, these are not involuntary functions. So, perhaps, there will be some who perform services for another without being aware of it, simply because their own acts of evil fulfill a larger purpose. There will be others, though, who are specifically charged with certain tasks, and hence their awareness will ultimately be greater.”

“And what is this controlling consciousness?”

“That we don’t yet know.”

“‘We,’” I said. “I take it you’re not talking about you and me.”

“Not entirely.”

“The Collector spoke of my ‘secret friends.’ Do you qualify?”

“I would be honored to think so.”

“And there are others.”

“Yes, although some might not be so willing to wear the mantle of friendship in the general sense of the word,” said Epstein, choosing his words with consummate diplomacy.

“No cards at Christmas.”

“No cards at any time.”

“And you won’t tell me who they are?”

“For now, it’s better that you don’t know.”

“Are you afraid that I’m going to make unwanted calls?”

“No, but if you don’t know their names then you can’t reveal their identities to others.”

“Like Anmael, if he chose to take his blade to me.”

“You’re not alone in this matter, Mr. Parker. Granted, you are an unusual man, and I have not yet figured out why you have always been such an object of hatred and, dare I say it, attraction for such foul things, but I have other people to think of too.”

“Is that what Unit Five is: code for what you call my secret friends?”

For a moment, Epstein seemed taken aback, but recovered himself.

“Unit Five is just a name.”

“For what?”

“Initially, for the investigation into the Traveling Man. Since then, its remit has broadened somewhat, I believe. You are part of that remit.”

Rain began to fall. I looked over my shoulder and saw it darken the sidewalk and fall from the dark red awning over the doorway.

“So what do I do?”

“About what?”

“About Anmael, or whoever thinks he’s Anmael.”

“He’s waiting.”

“For?”

“For his other half to join him. He must believe that she is close, otherwise he wouldn’t have revealed himself. She, in turn, is leaving traces fo Z qng tracesr him, perhaps even without realizing it. When she comes, they’ll make their move. It won’t be long, not if Anmael was prepared to kill Wallace and mark the wall with his name. He senses her approach, and it will not be long before they are drawn together. We could hide you away, I suppose, but that would be merely to delay the inevitable. To amuse themselves, and to draw you out, they might hurt those close to you.”

“So what would you do in my shoes?”

“I would choose the ground upon which to fight. You have your allies: Angel and the one who is, presumably, still lurking outside. I can spare a couple of young men who will maintain a discreet distance from you yet keep you in sight. Tether yourself lightly in the place of your choosing, and we will trap them when they come.”

Epstein stood. Our meeting was over.

“I have one more question,” I said.

What might have been irritation flitted across Epstein’s face, but he crushed it and assumed once more his habitual expression of benign amusement.

“Ask it.”

“Elaine Parker’s child, the one who died: was it a boy or a girl?”

“It was a girl. I believe she named it Sarah. It was taken from her and buried secretly. I do not know where. It was best that nobody knew.”

Sarah: my half sister, buried anonymously in an infants’ cemetery in order to protect me.

“But I may have a final problem for you to consider in turn,” said Epstein. “How did they find Caroline Carr? On two occasions, your father and Jimmy Gallagher hid her well: once uptown, before Ackerman died beneath the wheels of a truck, and then during her pregnancy. Still, the man and the woman managed to track her down. Then someone found out that Will Parker had lied about the circumstances of his son’s birth, and they came back to try again.”

“It could have been one of your people,” I said. “Jimmy told me about the meeting at the clinic. One of them could have let it slip, either deliberately or inadvertently.”

“No, they did not,” said Epstein, and he spoke with such conviction that I did not contradict him. “And even were I to doubt them, which I do not, none of them was made aware of the nature of the threat to Caroline Carr until she died. All they knew was that she was a young woman in trouble, and in need of protection. It is possible that the secret of your parentage might have leaked out. We excised the details of Elaine Parker’s dead child from her medical records, and she severed all contact with the hospital and the obstetrician concerned with monitoring the early stages of her pregnancy. Their files were subsequently purged. Your blood group was a problem, but that should have been a confidential matter between your family and their doctor, and he appears to have been above reproach in all respects. And then we warned your father to always be vigilant, and he rarely failed to heed our warnings.”