Author's note: This story came to me while I was researching Focalor for a longer Saint Michel piece. I had been wanting to give Kira more time and use the more common portrayal of Focalor as a human, so I managed something. Er, they probably don't know each other half as well as they pretend to either. Both characters appear in chapters 5 and 6 of the volume 4 of the manga, in the Saint Michel or "Name of the Rose" chapter, which this story foreshadows along with "Devil's Trill."

To Drink with the Devil

If anyone noticed the young woman sitting at the little, round outdoor restaurant table it was probably only to admire her strange beauty, or catch a glimpse of thigh under her sundress. The dress, perhaps somewhat out-of-character, was cut from a dark material with a pattern of tiny flowers, and it made her skin seem even more pale and delicate in the noonday sun. She was slender, with small bones, not tall but not short either, but there was something in her posture that said she was just as strong as any man, probably stronger than most. Her eyes were long and sharp and distinctly Asian and there was a beauty mark under one to give her the look of a model. Her hair was long and straight and blonde, and she wore it piled on her head in an intentionally sloppy imitation of the style of Roman or Chinese ladies.

It was no wonder she attracted various looks, but it was perhaps a wonder that none of them were suspicious.

She sipped her cappuccino elegantly as she waited for the other party to arrive. And while she waited she looked around the small square. Large signs hung everywhere proclaiming the Jubilee of the new millennium, though it was still more than a year away. In the air there was a certain bustle, an anticipation, that the place exuded—that the normal people, going about their daily lives, could only feel in a minute amount with their own hopes and eagerness. It was much greater and much more tangible to her.

From the restaurant she could see the cupola of Saint Peter's Basilica and the outline of the oval rotunda, on top of which perched the saints in splendid marble gazing down at all the tourists and worshippers. She wondered again if this was an appropriate place for such a meeting, or if it would intimidate her guest into not coming. Such thoughts were useless, however, merely the work of human ignorance and paranoia. Though they lived in different places, the holy and the diabolical were two sides of the same coin—the duality of the spiritual force. No, she had no doubt her guest would feel very comfortable in these surroundings.

As if reading her mind—and perhaps, if she had let her defenses slip just now, he was—a deep voice said:

"Quite an appropriate place. It's been a while since I've seen the Vatican. I'd forgotten how much it felt like home."

By home, she knew, he meant Heaven. She couldn't help feeling pity for him for clinging to useless dreams.

She looked up.

The man who stood before her was tall and muscular with dark skin. His head was bald and his strong chin decorated with a black goatee, on which was strung a good-sized wooden bead. He couldn't quite help himself, she thought, noticing his attire. He wore a flashy silvery-gold suit of some material meant to resemble sharkskin over a black polo shirt, and with loafers worn with no socks it had the effect of making him look somewhere between a Mafia thug and a dandy. She did not find this laughable, however, since nothing about him was, not even the almost amiable, lopsided smile on his wide lips. It was the smile of a shark deliberating on whether he should eat you.

To complete his get-up, the man wore an obviously expensive pair of wrap-around sunglasses. These she knew he would never take off, not in a place like this around so many normal humans. Eyes resplendent like silver mirrors and as bright as the sun sat behind those little ovals of darkened glass, the terrible eyes of a once-angel. They were the one thing about him she feared.

It was all the reminding she needed that this was no lesser-ranking spirit she was dealing with. It was a crown prince of Hell.

"Kira, good to see you in the flesh," he said with a short bow of his head. Though he made an effort to sound sincere, she knew better. She was the last person someone like him would want to see.

"Focalor." She would not stoop to returning niceties. "Please, sit down."

He kicked the chair back with an easy push of his foot and sat, immediately assuming an interested pose. "So," he said leaning his big hands on the white tablecloth, "what's good here?"

"I don't know," she said. "This is all I've had."

"I would kill for a nice veal steak right now, but I regret I won't be staying long enough for them to make it, let alone for me to savor it."

He laughed, but she found nothing humorous in his joke.

"Cameriere!" he barked suddenly, and the waiter returning to the restaurant stopped. Focalor held up Kira's cup, much to her displeasure. "Un nuovo cappuccino, per favore," he said with a beautifully lilting accent.

When the waiter had disappeared, she continued in a low voice, "I want to thank you for agreeing to meet with me like this. In public, I mean."

He nodded. "It is risky. But your honorable reputation precedes you." The truth was he could not refuse a summons. "Your superiors must not have been pleased with the idea."

"Actually, they aren't aware of it. But on the contrary I think it's safest. You must have realized neither of us can do anything."

He smiled wryly then. "Yes, it's quite a stalemate we've found ourselves in. —Ah, grazie." The waiter had returned with his cappuccino, which he stirred and drank with a delicacy the seemed incongruent with such a big man, but that betrayed his nobility. "M-m, divine," he said as he set the little cup back down, then when he noticed Kira wasn't doing the same, "You're not going to finish?"

"I am finished."

He chuckled again at that, and at her serious frown. "Not coming down with anything, are we? I would hate to think you'd been working yourself too hard: it can be detrimental to your health, you know. Maybe you should take a holiday. I've been taking in the Greek Isles myself. Terribly boring after the twelve-hundredth time, I assure you. But I hear the beaches in Japan are wonderful this time of year."

His feral grin sent a shiver down her spine. It took some restraint not to reach for the crucifix under her dress, even if just to make sure it was still there.

"Cut the crap," she snapped. "It's that kind of attitude I wanted to speak to you about."

"Speak."

He raised the tiny cup to his lips again, and the extension of his little finger she was tempted to take as a mocking gesture. Yet she could feel the eyes through his sunglasses focusing intently and seriously on her.

"My colleagues and I have been watching events very carefully and we feel now would be a dangerous time for any of you . . . for any of your people to try anything."

"A dangerous time for you, you mean."

"Not necessarily."

Focalor frowned. "I take it this is about the Jubilee."

"I've been in contact with your master and he agrees. It would not do to cause an upset at a time like this."

"You've been in contact with my Lord?" He sat back and smoothed the tip of his beard absently. "So why come to me, in private, with a message like this?"

"Because I know your passion," she said. "You have a reputation of impulsiveness, and the two qualities make a deadly combination."

"What are you trying to tell me?"

"I'm warning you—for your own good—give it up. You passed the fifteen-hundred-year mark eons ago. Whatever you were told, it was a lie. You'll never return to where you came from, not even if the Antichrist himself came and sat down next to us right now. You deceive yourself, Focalor." He snorted his disagreement, but she continued in a low, apathetic voice: "Take my advice: go home, go back to sinking ships and be thankful you're still a free being. But if you screw up—even just one innocent life—not even your Lord will be able to control what will happen to you. The powers that be are cracking down on devils who defile the sacred conventions they're bound to."

"Do you like classical music, Kira?" Focalor said suddenly.

This change of direction took Kira by surprise. "I fail to see the relevance."

"I hear a real violin virtuoso from your country has recently come onto the international music scene. Made a big splash. What was his name again? Anyway, apparently his genius can be accredited to a certain Brigade Commander of the Dragon Calvary for the awesome sum of his only daughter."

"Yes, and if Surgatanus grows impatient and tries to cut corners it will be his undoing."

"I thought your field was exorcism, not divination." He smiled at her over the lip of the coffee cup. "But sometimes I think you really don't know us that well after all."

"I know you well enough to know I don't like you," she countered.

"And yet you're more like us than you care to imagine."

Underneath the table, out of his sight, she gripped the material of her skirt in frustration. Her patience—and her sense of security—was wearing thin. Maybe this hadn't been a good idea, to bring him here where anyone could see. Yet she tried to maintain a calm tone of voice. "Why did you mention Surgatanus just now?"

"Because." He dabbed the napkin to his wide lips. "You have bigger fish to fry, my dear, if you'll pardon the pun."

"Believe me, I'm aware of that," she said. "I know humans who make you look like small potatoes."

His smile wavered and she felt her confidence return.

"If you'll pardon the pun."

"Well," he said, reaching into his blazer for a wad of lire, "thanks for the chat. It's been . . . enlightening." She had touched on a sore spot, and now it seemed he was going to be the coward and run away. But there was little he could say in his defense. When was the last time he had truly dealt with something greater than a tanker or a suicidal mind—when was the last time he had challenged someone who could fight back?

He pushed back his chair and rose, dropping a couple ten thousand-lire notes on the table disinterestedly. She wondered if he was aware the cup of coffee was worth less than one.

"I would ask you if you'd like to join me for a stroll through Saint Peters but I know you're busy," she said, matching his sarcasm, "Rofocale."

"And I doubt they'd let you in in that," he added, noting her dress's flimsy straps, "my dear Kira. . . . You know, I never did learn your full name."

"Which is exactly how I'd like to keep it."

With a shrug, he turned to go. "Hey!" she called to get his attention. It wouldn't have been wise to yell the name of a devil in a restaurant in the city of Catholicism. "Take my advice, for your sake. The next time I have to say it, it won't be as a friend."

He flashed her a cocky smile and raised one hand in farewell. "In that case—as you would say—sayonara. I look forward to it."

He stepped out into the busy street; and in the time it took her to glance at the bills lying on the table and back again, he had disappeared.