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  Michael took a ten pound note from his wallet. Samael studied it for a second before producing a fat wad of freshly printed tenners from within his robes. He pressed them into the waitress’s hand and waved her away.

  “I love alcohol,” sighed Samael. “My favourite poison. After human overconfidence.”

  Drinks arrived, menus were distributed and the human dining parties quaffed their absinthe/champagne concoctions and toasted their mysterious benefactor. The archangels attempted to decipher the starters and mains.

  “What does ‘essence of cranberry’ mean?” asked Gabriel. “Does it actually contain cranberries or just, you know, the idea of them?”

  “‘Hand-picked chestnuts’?” read Samael. “Is there another way of picking them?”

  Confused choices were made and conveyed to the waitress.

  “Right.” Raphael emptied a sleeve full of Christmas crackers onto the table.

  Gabriel regarded one warily. “What are these?”

  “You pull them,” said Raphael.

  “Pull?”

  With a sigh, Michael helped Raphael demonstrate. Gabriel’s perfect features furrowed at the surprising bang.

  Samael nodded with approval. “Explosives at the dinner table. Oh, and little plastic choking hazards!”

  Michael put on his paper hat and read out the cracker joke. “What is Good King Wenceslas’ favourite kind of pizza?”

  “No idea,” said Raphael.

  “Deep pan, crisp and even.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Gabriel.

  *

  Michael tucked into his barbecued squid and chorizo salad starter. Samael appeared to regret ordering the popcorn crab.

  “And how are you enjoying retirement?” Gabriel asked Michael.

  “Retirement?”

  Gabriel gestured to the world about them.

  “Relocation, not retirement,” said Michael. “But for the grace of God, any of you could be in my position.”

  Samael made a dismissive huff (he was also picking a piece of crab shell from between his lips so he may have been arguing with his food).

  “I’m doing a lot of good work with my local church,” Michael continued. “Did you know our attendance drops in the weeks before Christmas? Apparently faith interferes with Christmas shopping.”

  “Shocking,” tutted Raphael.

  “And what size congregation do you have?” asked Gabriel.

  Michael thought about it. “Sixty? Seventy?”

  “No, I meant when it isn’t being decimated by the allure of the shops.”

  “No, that’s it on a good day,” said Michael. “We were down to fifteen this week. Although Netty Fairfax and her husband left halfway through, because they wanted to see that Elf Service pop-up shop thing in the Gracechurch shopping centre.”

  Gabriel stifled a yawn. “Wow. Fifteen.”

  “Well, thirteen,” Samael corrected him.

  “But the church keeps me busy nonetheless,” said Michael.

  “When you’re managing a process bandwidth in excess of one point eight billion prayers per day, then you can tell me you’re busy,” said Gabriel.

  Samael consulted his watch. “Sixteen minutes twelve seconds.”

  “What is?” said Gabriel.

  “Time passed before you mentioned how extraordinarily important your work is.”

  “But it is,” Gabriel argued.

  “And by inference ours is … what?” said Michael.

  “But I mean especially at this time of year, given my own personal role in the nativity—”

  “Sixteen minutes, thirty-two seconds,” said Samael.

  “What?”

  “Reminding us of your one moment in history’s spotlight,” said Michael. “Again.”

  “I don’t!” said Gabriel. He looked to Raphael for support.

  “You sort of do,” said Raphael. “Sorry.”

  “You ask any five-year-old to name an archangel and who do they say?”

  “Only because you announced the birth of the Son,” said Samael.

  Michael nodded reflectively and chewed on a lump of chorizo. “There are these devices one can buy from the chemists. It’s a white plastic thing about so long. They’re for women who think they are pregnant, or hope to be pregnant. What happens is, the woman urinates on it.”

  “Ugh, really?” said Raphael.

  “She does,” said Michael. “There is a little window in the side and, if two blue lines appear in the window, it means she is pregnant.”

  “Ingenious,” said Samael.

  “And that’s what you are, Gabriel,” said Michael.

  “I’m what now?”

  “A pregnancy test kit. If they had been available in ancient Palestine, the Holy Mother would not have needed you at all.”

  “You’re a glorified piss-stick!” Samael cracked his first smile of the evening.

  “I’ve been thinking of launching a line of them myself,” said Michael. “I’m going to call them Gabriel’s Horns.”

  Samael approved. “Nice idea.”

  “Come now,” warned Raphael diplomatically.

  “You go too far!” said Gabriel. “I never mock anyone else’s sacred duty or the tools of their angelic mission.” He reached deeply into his robe and brought forth a spiral ram’s horn overlaced with silver filigree.

  “He’s only brought it with him,” sneered Samael.

  “Hang on.” Michael started patting his pockets. “Maybe I’ve brought the lance with which I struck down the Great Dragon and threw him from Heaven.”

  “I’m sure I’ve got a scythe on me,” said the angel of death.

  “Mock if you must,” Gabriel huffed. “I take my duties seriously, wherever I am.”

  “Actually, I have brought some aspirin and Elastoplasts,” said Raphael. “You can never be too careful.”

  “This horn,” said Gabriel, completely ignoring the angel of healing, “is a herald’s call. Yes, it announced the birth of the Son – and of his cousin John the Baptist, if you recall – but it also drew the wise men to Bethlehem and roused the shepherds from their sleep while they lay with their flock.”

  “I’m sure many a shepherd would love to be roused by your horn,” said Michael.

  “It’s quite perilous, you know,” said Raphael. “Sleeping outside at this time of year. They might have caught their death.”

  “No, no,” said Samael, raising a finger in disagreement. “Trust me, if it had been wintertime, I’d have been there: reaping their frostbitten souls. It wasn’t winter though, not that first time.”

  “April, wasn’t it?” said Michael.

  “I thought June,” said Gabriel.

  “Damned early Christians moved the feast of Christ’s Mass to the midwinter.”

  “Whatever for?” asked Raphael.

  “To cash in on the existing midwinter festivals,” said Michael. “It’s like how you see all those chuggers out during the Christmas shopping season,”

  “Chuggers?”

  “Charity muggers. Um, like holy beggars who want you to give them alms money. Not just today, but to promise to give it every month for the rest of your life. They know people have money in their pockets and giving on their minds. Same as centuries past: the populace were already celebrating their yuletide saturnalias and whatnot, so the Christian fathers inserted Christmas alongside and encouraged people to sort of, add it to their existing festivities.”

  “Underhanded,” said Gabriel.

  “Smart thinking,” said Samael.

  Raphael twirled his wine glass and smiled. “I like the snow at Christmas.”

  “So do I,” agreed Samael. “The number of accidents absolutely skyrockets. Slips, trips, frozen folk in ditches and, in this country in particular, you get a sprinkling of snow on the ground and everyone forgets how to drive.”

  Raphael shook his head. “I was thinking more about the beauty of the snow. Snuggling down inside a cosy home, cuddled up with loved ones by the fire an
d watching the flakes fall.”

  “Whatever.” Samael turned and looked past the increasingly merry and rowdy diners in the restaurant to the street outside. “Although I notice it’s not snowing.”

  “A White Christmas is a Dickensian myth,” said Michael.

  Samael tutted and caught Raphael’s eye. An expression of intense concentration came over their faces for a moment.

  “Look!” shouted one of the raucous female patrons.

  Fat flakes drifted in the outside air, turned orange and yellow and red by streetlights and passing cars.

  “Aw,” said one of the lovey-dovey women, and took her man’s hand in hers.

  “Who’s up for a snowball fight?” called a drunken voice from the works outing.

  Raphael and Samael smiled, for entirely different reasons.

  *

  Samael unrolled a cracker joke. “Who hides in a bakery at Christmas?”

  “I don’t know,” said Gabriel.

  “A mince spy.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

  Michael pushed the last of his venison and neeps main course onto his fork and popped it in his mouth. Outside, the snow was settling fast: deep and crisp and even indeed. Samael had ordered another round of cocktails for the entire restaurant and the place had broken down into four distinct categories: those who had grown drunker and louder, those who had grown drunker and sleepier, those who knew they had drunk far too much and were just trying to hold it together/in, and the sober pregnant woman in the corner who was staring at her drunken bloke with unconcealed hatred.

  “I think it’s secret Santa time,” said Raphael.

  Michael was surprised. “Are we doing secret Santa?”

  “It’s Christmas. Why wouldn’t we?”

  “Because it’s stupid and no one really gets anything they like,” Gabriel protested.

  “Well, it’s okay,” said Raphael. “I’ve brought enough for everyone.” He gave his sleeve a shake and four small but exquisitely wrapped Christmas gifts dropped out onto the table.

  “They’re from you,” reasoned Michael. “Not very secret, is it?”

  A broad and self-satisfied smile bloomed on Raphael’s face. “Ah. But this is a real secret Santa. I asked St Nicholas to choose and wrap them. I don’t know what anyone has been given, so it is secret, see?”

  “St Nick.” Gabriel rolled his eyes. “I wonder what bundles of wonder that self-righteous prig has wrapped up for us.”

  “It doesn’t matter what the contents are,” said Raphael. “It’s the joy of giving and receiving, brother.”

  “No need to tell me,” said Gabriel. “Being in charge of a pan-universal prayer communications organisation, I’m all about the giving and receiving.” He glared at Samael, silently daring him to check his watch.

  “Actually,” said the angel of death weightily, “I have brought a little something; in case anyone was interested.” He held up a square parcel, wrapped in black crepe paper and tied with a black bow.

  “You brought a secret Santa gift?” said Michael.

  “I prefer to think of it as a suspicious package,” Samael replied.

  *

  Gabriel pulled a face after trying his Cru Virunga chocolate cheesecake dessert. “How do you manage to survive down here, Michael?”

  “Very pleasantly. I think earth food is delightful,” he said, even though his gin fizz jelly with lemon sherbet was painfully tart.

  “You can’t tell me that this dross compares with a single bite of Heavenly ambrosia?”

  “No, but this food has been produced by real human labour and endeavour. The chocolate you’re eating is made from beans from Congo. The cheese is made from the milk of Milanese cows. The sugars, the flour and all the other ingredients have only been produced through toil and effort, and artfully brought together by a skilled chef. You have to admire the artistry and the … the journey this dish has taken!”

  Gabriel shrugged indifferently.

  “I’m enjoying it,” said Samael. “The very real prospect of food poisoning you just don’t get with Heavenly grub. Adds a frisson of danger and excitement to the dining experience. Speaking of which…”

  Over at the table of merrymaking women, one of them staggered to her feet, hands pressed firmly to her mouth.

  “One too many drinkypoos,” said Samael.

  The woman’s shoulders heaved as she looked around frantically for the toilets.

  “And thar she blows.”

  The woman started her run for the ladies, passing their table. Raphael reached out and brushed her hand. Abruptly, she stopped, straightened up and took a deep, sober and wholesome breath.

  “Just stick to the water from now on, eh?” suggested Raphael.

  She nodded, confused, and returned to her table.

  “Spoilsport,” muttered Samael. He leaned across to the googly-eyed lovebirds on the next table. They were kissing under a sprig of handheld mistletoe.

  “You’re doing it wrong,” he said. “Once you kiss, you’re meant to eat the berries to seal your eternal love for one another.”

  “Aren’t they poisonous?” asked the man.

  “Nah, you’re thinking of holly.”

  “Oh,” said the woman.

  “That’s not fair,” said Gabriel as Samael sat back in satisfaction..

  “Just doing my job.”

  “I’m not sure the Almighty would approve.”

  “Speaking of jobs—” Michael began.

  “No, you can’t have your old one back,” said Gabriel.

  “I wasn’t going to say that,” said Michael, honestly. “I was going to ask, aren’t you supposed to announce births? Tootling on your horn.”

  “I am famous for it,” said Gabriel.

  “But I don’t see you doing it.”

  “I don’t have to announce every birth.”

  “Don’t have to or can’t?”

  Raphael laughed. “A challenge!”

  “It’s a silly challenge,” said Gabriel. “I mean, every birth in the country?”

  “In the world,” said Michael.

  Gabriel fixed him with a steely stare. “That’s a lot of births.”

  “Can’t do it?”

  Gabriel’s face was a mask of nonchalance. “One horn blast per birth?”

  Michael nodded.

  “At the moment of conception or the moment of birth?” asked Gabriel.

  “Your choice.”

  Gabriel licked his lips, looking up and to one side as though listening to the distant rhythms of the universe. He put the ram’s horn to his lips and blew. The sound he produced might charitably have been compared to a form of wildly syncopated jazz trumpet but was closer to a stream of high-speed Morse code: a fluctuating tide of notes, sometimes as fast as a dozen per second.

  Cheeks swelling, Gabriel kept it going, on and on. Notes rose high and swooped low, an improvised sacred soundscape that sounded like Hark! The Herald Angels Sing reworked by a mariachi band.

  Raphael tapped Samael. “Now you.”

  “What? Deaths?”

  Samael shrugged, picked up a couple of spoons and beat out a superhuman drum tattoo on the table top; his marginally slower rhythm effectively blending with Gabriel’s tootlings.

  “Open your secret Santa,” Raphael said to Michael.

  The package contained a kazoo. Raphael undid his and took out a small harmonica.

  “I thought you said you didn’t know what was in these?” said Michael.

  “I’m a good guesser,” Raphael smirked.

  The two of them launched into accompanying counter melodies.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to stop,” said the waitress, “You’re disturbing the other customers.”

  “I don’t think most of them care,” said Samael. A generally boozy atmosphere thoroughly gripped the establishment.

  “But we’d really rather you didn’t use our cutlery like that.”

  “Sure,” said Samael, without
slowing. “I’ll stop when Dizzy Gillespie here has had enough.”

  Gabriel gave him a challenging waggle of his eyebrows and blew on.

  “I must insist,” said the waitress firmly.

  “Insist away,” said Samael.

  Michael tried to be conciliatory. “Please, guys. Let’s not get into trouble.”

  It was too late. The manager came over; strong words were said. Either Samael’s grip slipped or it was deliberate: one of his spoons sailed over the bar. Michael stood up to apologise and received an accidental elbow in the face. Gabriel put down his horn at last. One of the other diners shouted he had something Gabriel could blow if he wanted. The waitress said something quite unprofessional. Raphael attempted to heal Michael’s banged eye but missed and instead removed a mole from the manager’s cheek.

  Before things got totally out of hand Gabriel, with an angelic click of his fingers, caused the pregnant woman in the corner to go into spontaneous labour. It diverted everyone’s attention quite nicely.

  *

  Michael counted out the cash to pay for their meal along with a generous (and apologetic) tip.

  Gabriel read the last unread cracker joke. “What’s the difference between snowmen and snowwomen?”

  “Snowballs,” said Samael.

  Gabriel stared at the joke. “No. Sorry. Still don’t get it.”

  Michael gathered the money together. “Let’s go.”

  As the others made their way out, Michael pressed the cash into the waitress’s hand. “And can I say again how sorry we all are.”

  The waitress made a doubtful noise in her throat.

  “Also,” he added, “Samael brought in a ‘suspicious package’ that none of us feel inclined to open.”

  The waitress’s eyes widened. “Sus-suspicious package?”

  “Consider it a gift,” said Michael. To the thoroughly inebriated farewells of the other diners, he joined his fellow archangels on the street.

  The snow was shin deep in the town centre, and still mounting. Traffic crawled along roads that were rapidly being obliterated. Kerbside benches and litter bins were merely abstract mounds.

  “That’s a lot of snow,” said Michael.

  Samael lit a cigarette. “Do you have hills round here? For tobogganing and such.”