Chapter Eight
From Hell to Heaven.
Jesus had also opened the tracing room in his home to his family.
I stepped out of the small room and into a psychedelic wonderland.
The corridor walls bombarded us with waves of bright color, enhanced by a skylight.
A glance up showed me the reason the J-Man had put in the ceiling window—a hydroponic garden of verdant plants with cone-shaped buds.
The marijuana flowed out of glass planters affixed to the sides of the raised skylight to trail down toward a pumpkin-orange shag rug that ran the length of the corridor. I paused to take everything in.
Jesus had been decorating again.
“J-Man!” I called out. “Yo, brother!”
Viper, Kirill, Re, and Hades (thankfully, he'd brought his sunglasses) came out of the tracing room behind me, all of them gawking at the décor. I especially liked the brass sculptures of birds on the walls.
“Out here!” Jesus called.
We went down the hallway, passing rooms full of beanbag chairs, sunflowers, and bead curtains.
I exhaled in relief when I stepped into the modern living room.
It wasn't Jerry's décor, but it wasn't hippie-chic either.
The theme was mid-century modern. Not my favorite, but at least I wasn't bombarded with posters of Jim Morrison and bongs.
It was a nice middle ground—something Jesus liked without being too uncomfortable for his visitors.
An Angel sat in a reclining leather chair. It wasn't Jesus. The J-Man didn't have wings. No, this Angel was mine.
“Az?” I went over to him. “I thought you were meeting with Mr. Gray?”
“We finished early.” He kissed my cheek. “Jesus texted.” He looked at Hades. “I assume things didn't go well.”
“A soul started to enter the Underworld and then was swept away,” Hades said.
“Swept away?” Jesus asked. “Bummer. We got one, but he's spaced out.
Doesn't know who he is or why he's here.” Jesus shook his head, his long, brown braid swinging over his broad back.
His face was the same as it was before, with his brilliant blue eyes and hooked nose, and kindness still radiated from him.
And he still spoke like a hippie. “Hey, my sister.” He hugged me.
“Thanks for coming. This whole thing is a head trip.”
“If it's happening here, it's happening in all the underworlds,” Re said.
“All but one.” I shot him a look.
“What does that mean?” Azrael looked from me to Re and back.
“Naraka.” I nodded at Azrael's curse. “Yeah, if the trickster is behind this, they're probably collecting souls in Naraka.”
“But why? How?”
I shrugged. “They stole those items for a reason.” I looked back at Jesus. “That reminds me. Did Az tell you to check on the tablets?”
“Oh, yeah. I looked this morning. They're good. Nothing's been near them.”
“That's a relief.”
“Are we going to tell Fenrir that his son may be in the Hindu Underworld?” Azrael asked.
“Vervain vants to,” Kirill said. “Ve aren't so sure.”
“You know, after what happened the last time in Naraka,” Viper added.
“Didn't the trickster save our lives?” Az asked.
I smirked at the others. “Yes, they did.”
“The trickster has changed.” Re put his serious face on. “It's been a year. They've been planning. They took Ty and are now stealing souls. Are you sure you can trust them not to attack us?”
“That might put a damper on their relationship with Ty,” I drawled.
Jesus chuckled. “The power of love, man. No one is immune.”
Right on cue, two female Angels sauntered out of the corridor dressed in bellbottom jeans and beaded tops. They grinned and finger-waved at Jesus as they passed through the living room on their way out.
“Catch you later, ladies!” Jesus called after them. Then he saw us looking at him and shrugged. “Free love.”
“They're diggin' the buff bod, huh?” I waggled my eyebrows at him.
“You know it, sister!”
Azrael cleared his throat. “Anyway, I agree with Vervain. I don't think the trickster will attack.”
“The trickster is crazy. We can't count on them to act sensibly.” Re shook his head. “Are we at least going to vote on this, La-la?”
“We will talk about it.” And then I realized that none of us had the right to make this decision. I amended my statement to: “We will talk to Trevor about it. I think we should leave the decision to him. Fenrir is his father, and Ty is his brother. He should decide.”
Re nodded. “That's fair.”
“Back to Heaven.” I motioned to Jesus. “Can I see the soul?”
“Sure.” Jesus spun about and headed for the front door. “Follow me. We've kept him out of general pop.”
I glanced at Az. “Did he just say, general pop?”
“Like a prison,” Re muttered.
“That's what the Greek Underworld is,” Hades said. “Good or bad, you aren't getting out without my approval.”
“Whoa, you sound like the Man,” Jesus said.
“I am the man.” Hades puffed out his chest.
I rolled my eyes. “You're both out of date.” I pointed at Jesus while I spoke to Hades, “He means 'the Man' as in the authority, and not in a complimentary way.” I looked at Jesus and pointed at Hades. “He's saying that he's awesome.”
Jesus chuckled, looked over his shoulder to respond, and careened into the wall. A flash of light blasted from him as he straightened. “Shoot!” He held his arms out to steady himself. “I'm still getting used to this body and,” he waved his arms, “my new magic.”
Viper snickered, and I shot my arm behind me to smack him while keeping my gaze on Jesus. “It must be disorienting.”
“It's the muscles.” Jesus shrugged his shoulders and motioned at himself.
When he accepted his father's magic and became Heaven's head honcho, Jesus had taken on aspects of the Christian God, including a thickly muscled body.
“Muscles are groovy, but there's so much more of me now.
Sometimes I lose my balance. It's my body, but not, you dig?”
“Yeah, I do. I'm lucky I didn't have such an extreme change when I became a goddess.”
“Whoa, that's right!” He smacked me on the shoulder, making me sway, and then turned around to lead us out of his house. “I forgot you went through a change too. Far out! We've got something in common.”
“Sort of.” I glanced at Az again.
Az leaned in to whisper in my ear, “He's a little out of sorts because of the lack of souls.”
“Totally out of it,” Jesus agreed as he led us out of the main door, down a path between two high walls, and then around the Throne of God.
“Things were so copacetic.” He walked over the glass panel in the floor—a window onto the Guf, and then to the edge of the holy platform.
Or was it a dais? Veranda? Whatever. It was a huge pavilion of sorts.
Staring across Heaven, Jesus slumped. “We were jiving. Heaven was at peace.”
I hurried past the Guf, and all the souls swimming through the mist. The Guf connected to the Void, drawing souls from it as the Norse Well of Souls did.
I wondered if the stream allowed travel in both directions.
Could I jump into the Guf and swim to the Void?
It was an interesting question, but I didn't need to answer it.
I had a much safer path to the Void—one that I could follow home.
We stepped up beside Jesus at the edge and looked across Araboth, the Seventh Heaven.
An extreme number of steps led down from the holy pavilion to the golden streets below.
I had walked those streets as an enemy of Heaven and as its ally.
Somewhere down there, an Angel had tortured me, and I had kicked his ass with a teacup.
I had to do it. I promised him I would when he began the torture.
But then Azrael had come to my rescue. Wait, no.
Az had come and released me, then I sliced up the Angel with a teacup. Oh, what a life I've lived.
I glanced at Az and saw him frown at Heaven.
I was betting he was remembering the same event.
It was hard to forget. The Army of Hell had invaded Heaven that day, marching through the golden streets to save me.
It astounded me every time I thought about it.
But it wasn't really me they had come for.
They had followed their king, who had followed his son, who had followed his heart.
Love will make you do anything, even storm the gates of Heaven.
But Lucifer didn't want to rule Heaven. He had a cushy job over in Hell, sucking up all the energy from naughty acts that were blamed on him.
Sometimes, it was good to be the scapegoat, and Lucifer was the OG scapegoat—the OG SG.
Azrael didn't want Heaven either. He just wanted me safe.
So, after Jerry agreed to a truce, the Hordes of Hell left peacefully.
But Heaven remembered. It would always remember that Hell was stronger.
I was betting the Host was relieved that their new leader had a good relationship with Hell. Better than good, Jesus was Lucifer's stepson—Holly's child by Jehovah. Despite that and the open path between the territories, Angels and Demons tended to stay where they belonged.
Jesus sighed. “These steps are such a downer.”
Viper snorted. “Literally.”
Jesus looked up, met his gaze, and chuckled. “Downer. Yes, literally.”
“It's your territory.” I motioned at the steps. “If you don't like the stairs, change them.”
“Whoa, you're right!” Jesus focused on the stairs, and they shifted.
Gears whirred to life, walls rose, and everything moved. The stone steps were still there, but they were to either side of a set of escalators—one going down and one up. The glass escalator walls supported white handrails that moved in time with the white metal steps.
“Very nice, Brother.” Azrael slapped Jesus on the back.
“Nice? This is outta sight!” Jesus ran for the down escalator. Arms up in the air, he rode down as if he were on a roller coaster, even shouting, “Wooo!”