'He offers repentance with one hand, yet, with the other, seeks my demise.' Lucifer's eyes filled with loathing. 'Our Father is malicious.'

'As you would have it, Lucifer.' Michael looked at him, suddenly fierce.

'Your brazen iniquity affects your judgement.'

'As your shameless naïvety does yours,' Lucifer sneered. The two brothers glared at each other, severe, unyielding. Finally Lucifer spoke.

'My messiah shall rise from these isles,' he whispered. 'A king of politics and of industry, courted by kings and queens - a greater orator than Churchill - rises upon these shores.' He stared out past the raging black waves to a lone star that glimmered through the rising mists. 'I think I shall give him brothers,' he declared. 'Like us, he shall have a family.' His mood changed abruptly. 'They shall be three, even as you, Gabriel, and I are three angelic brothers.' He gave Michael a mercurial smile. 'Three brothers of the Race of Men.'
An insane fire lit his gaze. 'And like us' - he bowed mockingly to Michael - 'one shall be an insurrectionist, a renegade.'

Michael bowed his head. 'You will lose, Lucifer,' he murmured, 'as you lost at Golgotha.'
'Golgotha!' Lucifer snarled, his countenance turning at once into a mask of hatred. He turned his back on Michael, looking out to the raging winter seas. His voice was hard. 'Tell Jether when he sees the white rider in the heavens, my messiah will make his appearance in the Race of Men.'

And he vanished.

Michael turned as Gabriel strode out of the hanging Cornish mists, up the rocks and towards him. Gabriel's flaxen hair fell loose over his kingfisher blue vestments. His flawless features were finer than Michael's strongly defined one's ... gentler. But tonight his regal countenance was set.

'His messiah will be born tonight in Marazion,' Gabriel announced wearily. 'It is certain.' He stood on the rocks before Michael, the sword of justice hanging at his side. 'Lucifer's fallen angelic battalions already surround the area; our legions will do the same.'

Michael bowed his head. 'He will lose,' he said, 'at Megiddo.'

Gabriel nodded. 'Yes, Michael, he will lose - but at what cost to the Race of Men?' Together the brothers stood in silence, staring out beyond the dark, swirling mists rising off the west Cornish coast, to the blazing star that now rose in the heavens over the small village of Marazion.

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