Tall, immensely powerful, his body rippling with muscles and crackling with living fire. He was beautiful, too. A face more perfect than any man or woman Dana had ever seen. A thousand times more beautiful than a statue from ancient Egypt or Greece or China. Haughty, imperious, sensual, amused. And yet there was something familiar about him. Almost as if that face was superimposed over another one. Dana tried to see through the beauty to the face beneath, and she caught a glimpse.
Just a glimpse.
And then it was gone. The angel stood there, dressed in rags of light, looking up at her. Through the open V of his white shirt, Dana could see a large tattoo inked directly over his heart. A disk of deep black surrounded by a corona of fire. The sign of the eclipse.
His sign, of that she was certain.
Behind his broad back a pair of magnificent wings unfolded and spread so wide the tips of each wing brushed the walls.
The wings were not set with white feathers.
They were huge and leathery and black.
The angel Lucifer looked up at her and said a single word. It was the most terrifying thing he could say.
He said, “Dana…”
CHAPTER 48
The Chrysalis Room
6:48 P.M.
Dana screamed herself awake.
She fell over, smashing her shoulder against the floor, hitting her head, biting her tongue, flooding herself with pain.
The carpet beneath her was cold and coarse.
But it was only carpet.
She could not see the fibers; it did not whisper its chemical formula to her. The molecules of which it was composed did not reveal themselves. It was a rug and she lay on it. Ordinary candles surrounded her, and the air was filled with smoke from incense of no particular magnificence.
She was back in the world. In the real world.
It was smaller, uglier, less magnificent.
Safer.
A groan drew her focus, and she turned to see Sunlight sitting with his face in his hands, shoulders slumped. He seemed to be as dazed as she was.
“What…?” she began, and failed to construct any question beyond that.
It made Sunlight look up. His face was drawn and haggard, and it took a moment for his eyes to focus on her.
“Dana?”
“What happened?”
He rubbed his eyes and sat up, but it looked painful. “That was … something.”
“Did you see what I saw?”
Sunlight nodded. “I think so.” He paused, considering. “On the moon? A ship?”
“Yes. But that wasn’t what I meant.” She climbed to her feet and stood, swaying. It was as if her body did not quite fit right, like she’d gotten dressed in her skin in the dark and had buttoned it up wrong. “I saw him.”
“Him?”
“I saw the angel,” she said.
Sunlight stiffened. “What?”
“Didn’t you see him? He was right here,” she said, pointing to the area between where they had been sitting.
He got to his feet as well and looked as wobbly as she was. “It was an angel?”
“Not just any angel,” she said. “I think I saw his true face. It was like he was wearing a mask.”
That made Sunlight gasp, and he stepped over and took her by the shoulders and stared hard into her eyes. “You saw him?” he demanded. “You really saw him?”
“I—I think so.”
“Tell me. Every detail,” he cried. “It’s important.”
Dana tried to remember every detail, but the more she was in her body, the further memory drifted from her. She could remember the mask best and she described that, and described the garments of light and the leathery wings. Sunlight released her and walked thoughtfully across the room. He stopped by a small table on which was a bowl of fruit and a knife. He picked up the knife, selected a ripe pear, and peeled it without comment. Then he cut it in half and brought it over to her.
“Here, eat this.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Psychic experiences take a toll on the physical body. Pears have water, vitamins C and K, copper, and fiber. It’ll help you settle back in.” He smiled. “It’s a very old trick.”
Dana took the fruit and ate it. The pear was delicious, and it erased a metallic taste in her mouth that she had only been mildly aware of. Sunlight also ate his piece.
“Do you know who Lucifer is?” he asked.
“He was the Morning Star,” she said, chewing. “He was an important angel who rebelled against God.”
He nodded. “He was the shining one, the light-bearer. It is a mistake to confuse Lucifer with Satan, Dana, for they are not the same being. Satan is the soul of evil, the infinite exemplar of corruption and sin. Lucifer is an angel, and an angel has perfect knowledge of God, of the universal All. A being with such an awareness could not, by definition, be evil. That is an impossibility, because perfect knowledge and perfect love are two sides of the same coin.”
“But in church they told us that Satan was Lucifer.”
“Of course they did,” said Sunlight, “because they don’t understand. Lucifer was the bringer of light—he was a liberator, a guardian of the enlightened and a guiding light that brings people to true understanding. The misinformed connection of Lucifer to Satan is mostly the work of poets and writers. Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, Joost van den Vondel’s Lucifer, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost collectively polluted the name of the angel whose gift is knowledge and understanding.”