A while later, we were making our way through the dark, half-empty streets. I wasn't sure Alistair would lead me. He walked without much eagerness and was gloomy, despite the pleasure he'd just had. But I had no choice but to trust him.

  There was less and less light around. Along the narrow road were sorrowful statues, strange for this city. None of them showed naked flesh. As I looked closer, I noticed that they all had the same face, hidden by a deep, marble hood. And each face had a different expression, as if the whole grim row was a set of frozen grimaces. Only the eyes seemed unchanged. They stared into the void with an overwhelming detachment.

  ‘What is it, Alistair?’ I asked, shuddering.

  ‘The faces of the Seekers,’ he said grudgingly. ‘It was Ferno's way of seeing his soul. He was obsessed with roads.’

  ‘It scares me, Alistair.’

  ‘Why so?’ he commented. ‘Who better to appreciate them than you.’

  I still don't know why he took me to the temple. I felt he didn't want to. But he didn't stop until we came to a lonely white building. Its roof was missing in many places, or it had never been finished.

  ‘This is the temple,’ Alistair waved his hand and stopped.

  I stared at the small, ascetic house. A white cube with rows of columns. I liked it more and more with each passing second. Perhaps because it had a smell familiar from some other life.

  The smell of heaven.

  ‘Aren't you coming?’ I asked.

  ‘I've already been there,’ Alistair said.

  ‘Come on, let's go!’ I tugged his arm.

  The door was unlocked. It opened easily. It was scrawled with many inscriptions, the meaning of which could no longer be seen because of the passage of time. I remembered only one of them. It was very recent. In dark blue marker.

  There is no difference between flying and falling.

  It kept running through my head for a long time afterwards, and I savoured it like a gourmet drink. Later it became something of a personal motto. A key to my memory. Each time I incarnated, I always remembered it. And I was always plagued by the mystery of who had wrote it. In my heart, I wanted to meet him. I don't know why.

  ‘Go on,’ Alistair pushed me roughly inside.

  I flew halfway down the dark, empty hall and froze. I froze in front of the painting that adorned the entire wall.

  ‘This is Saint Ferno,’ Alistair said, coming up behind me. ‘I told you you were just as beautiful.’

  I remained silent, stunned, staring at the painting. Or rather, who it depicted.

  He was a young boy, perhaps even younger than I was. Slender and graceful, he nevertheless exuded incredible power. It permeated his entire appearance, and I trembled at the touch of it.

  Ferno was indeed beautiful. Very beautiful. A face the colour of honey, accentuated by the blackness of his clothes, chiselled, unusually expressive. The face of a child, but there was nothing childlike about it. Deeply vicious and cruel, it shocked like a knife thrust. The sharp cheekbones, the fine nose, and the infinite contempt of the mockingly curved lips.

  His lips were perhaps a little pale for an incubus. But that might have been done on purpose, to emphasize the unbearable blackness of his eyes, which looked incredibly vulgar against the blond hair that swept over his shoulders. Their weave resembled a strange parody of a halo. Slender as a reed, Ferno froze in one pose - as if he were about to take a step, but hesitated, wondering if he should stay where he was.

  Stolen story; please report.

  This barely perceptible movement looked so natural that one felt the urge to rush forward to pick him up. Because if he took a step, he would surely fall. Or maybe he wasn't going to step at all. Maybe he was preparing to fly.

  When I got over the first impression, I realized that behind his back large narrow wings were painted. Their span took up the rest of the wall. And the wings were black.

  ‘The greatest lecher of our kind,’ Alistair said harshly, breaking me from my contemplation, ‘and the most insane of the Fallen.’

  Suddenly I realized something

  ‘Of our kind, you said… Ferno is your father, right?’

  ‘You're right, my dear boy. I am one of Ferno's direct offspring. If I wasn't, how do you think I would have found my way to heaven? Followed your trail?’

  ‘You followed my trail?’

  Alistair smirked.

  I remained silent, looking at the painting again. Saint Ferno was staring at me with condescending eyes. I shuddered as I imagined the power this Fallen One possessed. His feverish charm was captivating even through the image.

  ‘Don't look at him too long,’ Alistair whispered. ‘He'll poison you.’

  ‘I don't think so,’ I grinned. ‘He looks like a whore. And those painted wings are pathetic, not majestic.’

  ‘He did have wings,’ Alistair said quietly.

  I turned to him in a daze.

  ‘He had wings?’

  I couldn't believe what I was hearing! No one in Hell had wings. At least not that I've ever seen.

  ‘Yes. He was as great in heaven as he is here. He was born with wings. After the fall, he dyed them black and shortened some of the feathers. So they wouldn't get in the way of his delights,’ Alistair added after a moment's thought.

  ‘And did he fly?’

  ‘No. No one remembers him ever wanting to take to the air. He had them folded back and opened them only for the amusement of his lovers.’

  ‘Than maybe he just returned to the heaven? Just flew?’

  ‘The way back is forever denied to the Fallen.’

  ‘But you were there!’

  ‘I'm not a Fallen. And I've always taken risks.’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alistair nodded, ‘every time could have been the last for both of us.’

  I looked into his eyes with the passion of a first-time lover and saw he wasn't lying. Kissing his shoulder, I knelt down in front of him.

  ‘Let's do it here?’ I asked. ‘In front of your father's holy face. I want to get laid by my father in hell in front of my hell’s grandpa!’

  I was aroused to the point of trembling in my groin, so much so that this immoral thought took hold of my mind. Not even the painful slap Alistair had given me could cool it. I clung to him and pushed him to the floor. We were entwined in the void of this strange temple, eager moans echoing through the long-stagnant silence.

  In passing, fulfilling one or another of Alistair's whims, I caught a glimpse of Ferno's insane face and grinned at him. And it seemed to me that he was smirking voluptuously back. But his eyes did not look interested. They didn't even look satiated. They just stared.

  Afterward, we sat on the warm floor slabs, surrounded by the shapeless piles of our own clothes, thinking every one of our own thoughts. I looked at the wings of the first Fallen with fascination and wondered what it would be like to make love with such a miracle on my back. Personally, I would try them out in flight. I was again reminded of the strange phrase on the temple door.

  There is no difference between flying and falling.

  Who wrote that? Not long ago. I thought I could even feel the echoes of his breath.

  ‘The artist who painted it was a genius,’ I concluded and stood up to get dressed.

  ‘He painted himself,’ Alistair said with a sneer, ‘shortly before he left. He locked himself in here alone and didn't come out until he was done. All the Fallen are drawn to look at his perfection sooner or later. Most of the writing on the walls and the door belongs to them. There's not many, though. Nothing's changed since the last time I was here. And that was a long time ago.’

  I held my breath. Fresh writing in blue marker! A Fallen had been here! Recently! I had never seen one of my own kind before and so it was easy to understand my excitement. I almost told Alistair about the inscription, but something stopped me.

  When we left the temple a few minutes later, I lingered at the door. Taking out the bright cherry coloured lipstick I liked to use when we went out for fun, I hastily captioned next to it:

  But the void is filled with the feathers of birds...

  Although Ferno made a twofold, very mixed impression on me, I was drawn more than once afterward to sneak back into that darkened temple. To gaze at his mad face again and again with a feeling close to awe. Which I did often. In secret from Alistair.

  I don't know whether Alistair was aware of these visits, at least he never told me. Nor did he tell me how he felt about my perverse desire to make love in front of this painting. With others. I had taken many there and each time the impression was that I was not f*cking, but floating in the bottomless darkness of the saint's eyes.