25. Good Intentions
Chapter twenty-five
Good Intentions
Nicodemus
I sauntered up the walkway slowly, as I was still feeling like I had been hit by a truck, but at least I was mobile once again.
Much of my body was still wrapped in bandages, but Lysander had cleared me to help the two past Gods with organizing Purgatory, so I must not have been as bad off as I felt.
Seraphine had her long white hair pulled into a loose bun, which she secured with a black scrunchy. She was usually very formal in how she dressed and carried herself, but she didn’t have patience to keep up the facade with the daunting task ahead of us.
Endymion’s own white locks were braided and clipped into place, freeing his face from the overwhelming heaviness of his hair. He had deep bags under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept in centuries, though he forced a smile for me.
I paused before the two, looking them up and down. They didn’t understand why I was doing this and tilted their heads in unison at me. “Huh,” I puffed.
“What?” Endymion blurted.
“Erasmus certainly has a type. Seraphine is literally the female version of you.” They both tsked and waved their hands at me as I let out a loose laugh, trying to break the tension a bit. “Come on, tell me I’m wrong!”
“Are you ready to do this or what?” Seraphine laughed, pinching my cheek with her long black nails.
“I suppose so. How do you want to split this up?”
“I’ll handle The Waiting Room,” Seraphine affirmed, “I know that will be the biggest shit show, and with Nick still under the weather, and this old fart being so out of the game, I figured it would ease the stress on you guys.”
“Har, har,” Endymion flatly retorted with an eyeroll. “Since you and Gehenna aren’t getting along too great right now, I’ll tackle those souls.”
“I haven’t worked with Caelum in a long time. It’ll be a nice change,” I sighed.
Seraphine smoothed my hair back with her delicate fingers. “The moment you feel off, let us know, and we will take a break for the day. Endymion and I can handle more than you think.”
“You sure you don’t want me to handle The Waiting Room?” I offered.
Her merlot lips pulled upward. “The Gods have asked me to take over for Atlas while he is, well, you know, so this is part of my new role. Since you’ve restored my powers, I can become Grim again, and that makes things a lot easier.
I will take over your training and keep the Shadow Realm from imploding, I promise. ”
“You’re going to train me!” I gasped in astonishment.
“I’m not some old fuddy-duddy, you know! I beat this moron’s ass and survived Atlas’s fight. Take THAT universe!” she triumphantly cried, shaking Endymion, who laughed at her antics with me.
“You are a true badass,” I giggled out, brushing my eyes clear before gripping the door handle. “No time like the present, right?”
“Right,” they repeated. I turned the knob, and as I did, all of us transitioned into our Grim forms. I expected us to be replicas of one another, but to my surprise, that was very opposite the case.
Seraphine was absolutely beautiful. Her skeleton body still harbored a long, smoke-like cloak like mine and Dad’s, but she had a flowing black dress that cascaded down her long frame.
Her hair was replaced by the same black smoke of her cloak, but it fell down her bone shoulders and sat on them delicately, constantly swirling in little curls.
She had a crown of black lilies atop her head, with needles sharp as can be poking out of the delicate flowers.
Endymion, to my surprise, wore all white.
His cloak, armor, scythe… all were a blinding white color, with black accents running ruins down his body.
Each one was archaic protection charms that glowed to life against his bone body.
He had an assortment of black roses hand-stitched into his cloak, as roses seemed to be his signature, and they traveled up throughout the cloak and to his scythe, which held plumes of them that dropped constant petals onto the ground though the flowers replenished themselves repeatedly.
My Grim form was always a bit plain, I thought, until I saw myself in the reflection of the pooling fountain beside us.
My black raven-like wings stretched wide across my back, an intimidating sight, so I tucked them away.
My plague mask sat at my waist, tied to a black leather belt that hung from my armor.
My cloak was long and elegant, framing my body perfectly, and allowing my intricate armor to glisten under the morning sun.
I was missing my scythe, of course, after the fight with Death, but Endymion promised he and Griffin were cooking one up for me, so I would have to make do for now.
Even as a boney freak I couldn’t deny I wasn’t a handsome and daunting force of nature, a being fit to take on the role, and intimidating enough to do so.
My Shadows collected in my mind and went to work buzzing to one another as we stepped inside Purgatory, which sounded like the pits I was submerged in while in Gehenna.
Millions of souls were bouncing around the Realm, shrieking and disorientated by their tragic and swift deaths.
Seraphine braced her scythe and nodded to the path straight ahead.
“Don’t get overwhelmed. They’re going to be a bit discombobulated for a moment but just go right to your designated area and start small.
We have all the time in the world to sort them out. ”
“I will use a spell to subdue them.” Endymion raised his scythe and, with one fluid motion, struck the ground with the handle, making a sea of white light cascade over the Realm.
Each soul it washed over was consumed by the waves, which seemed to lull them into a peaceful stillness that they desperately needed.
The calmness that echoed across the empty space made me settle and find my courage to continue once more.
“Let us depart for our respected Realms after our five-hundredth soul. That will give Evris and Odysseus something to work on and allow us a bit of a break after so many,” Seraphine instructed.
“Understood. Good luck, all.”
I ghosted forward towards the hallway marked CAELUM with my scythe firm focus despite my jittery nerves.
Really, Seraphine had definitely given me the easiest job, but it was still daunting to see how many souls were lingering in this section.
Most of the Humans who had been killed were innocent enough for Caelum, which was usually the case, but that meant there was millions of them waiting for me.
I took solace in the fact that Odysseus would be helping Magnus on the Caelum side of things.
He was already creating new doors for these souls to go in, so all I had to do was mark them, verify their status, give them a number, and then send them to Magnus for final transition.
I would need to sign off on each soul, of course, but Odysseus had more work ahead of him than I with having to create their personal sanctuaries.
Magnus would bring the soul from me to Odysseus and instruct the Odysseus to make the sanctuary the soul asked for, so our system should have been pretty foolproof.
Odysseus could make a hundred doorways in one hour, so I knew how to pace myself to match his speed.
The souls felt me enter their space, and the moment they did, they collected in large masses and tried to swarm the entrance I came through.
I was overwhelmed by their ferocious energy but remembered a spell Dad had taught me when I was a kid.
“Silentium mihi aeternum affer,”2 I spoke into the air calmly, moving my hand in a semicircle.
The spell radiated a cooling light that cast a barrier over me, blocking out the incessant buzz of the voices.
They bumped into the barrier and bounced off it like ping pongs, making me chuckle to myself.
“Ah, silence. Something so hard to obtain nowadays.”
“One soul, two soul, three soul, four! My goodness, they are just everywhere!” May sang as she counted off the blobs floating about us.
“If Dad taught me anything, it’s to not be overwhelmed by their numbers, and to treat each one fairly. Souls were once flesh and blood, after all, and deserve respect and dignity.”
“Spoken like a true God-to-be,” Claude complimented. His words made the pit in my stomach loosen in the slightest bit.
I reached through my barrier and plucked the tail of my first soul, which wriggled in my boney hand like a tadpole.
I chuckled in delight and pulled it into the barrier with me where, once it was enveloped in peaceful silence, it began to settle in my grasp.
“Hello, little one. What was your journey like?” I crooned as I brushed my fingers over the pulsating orb.
I drew a circle on the outside of the soul, and once it was completed, a projection of the soul’s life displayed before me.
Her name was Anne-Marie. Born to a quiet farming family and raised in the countryside, she led a short but full life with her parents and four siblings.
Taken from this world at only twenty-eight, she died from the disease Pestilence spread through her village, which took her mother and two sisters as well.
My heart thudded painfully as I watched her chase the family dog and her twelve-year-old sister through the tall corn their family grew, where the two played hide and seek until their final moments.
She was a pure soul, who had never seen the big city, and had dreams of taking over the farm for her nearing elderly parents, but those dreams were stolen by… my father.
“I’m so sorry you died like this… I swear, I will make things right.” I brushed the soul against my cheek, just to soak up her beautiful aura, before bringing her eyelevel to me. “My dear… what would you like your afterlife to be?”
“My…afterlife? I’m dead?” she echoed in awe.