Chapter 13 #3
“Less yapping, more stepping.” Zaj clapped his bony hands impatiently. “We have to get a move on if you want to beat the rush.”
“The rush?” Uriel felt more exhausted than he had in centuries, and they hadn’t even begun the descent yet. It didn’t help that every word out of Zaj’s mouth was more confusing than the last.
“Oh, you’ll see.”
As they wound carefully down the steep incline from the cliff’s peak to its base, a large brick building emerged from the gentle mist and tall pines.
It was easily three stories, nestled into the side of a hill, with large windows that allowed them to glimpse a long line of people stretching from the top floor to the first-floor entrance.
The line snaked out even beyond the doorway along a cobblestone path to a massive pair of wrought-iron gates that gleamed imposingly in the pale light.
Uriel was so busy looking at the crowd, he skipped a stair and stumbled the last few steps to the ground. Michael gripped his good arm firmly, pulling the other man upright and giving him a moment to catch his breath.
“Thanks,” he said, giving Michael a grateful smile.
Zaj groaned. “This is exactly what I wanted to avoid, the new souls take forever to process. And today looks like a longer line than normal. We’ll have to pull rank to skip ahead.”
They closed the gap from the cliffside path to pass between the massive gates and crossed the lawn to the building’s front door, bypassing the line completely. They received several disgruntled looks for their behavior, and Michael kept his gaze averted.
The freshly deceased tended to be a bit…well, unkempt, to put it politely. But Uriel stared openly through eyes half-lidded from pain as he stumbled along, allowing Michael to essentially drag him forward.
“They look mad, Zaj,” he murmured distractedly.
“Because we are!” One of the spirits in line snapped back, a furious look in his dark eyes. “Been waiting hours, and you’re just skipping right ahead!”
“Official court business,” Zaj sniffed haughtily, fishing a pendant out of his suit jacket and dangling it in front of him like a barrier.
A symbol of angel wings in black overlaid with golden stars was embossed on the front of the medallion.
As it spun, the back was revealed to bear a second set of wings, this time rendered in gold, pierced with a dark sword. “Important emissaries from Upstairs.”
“Is this going to add to our wait?” Another spirit piped up, peering curiously at the angels. Michael winced at the knife protruding from her sternum. Hopefully someone would help her alter her essence soon.
“Not in the slightest! In fact, I’ll make sure to have a word at Processing and get this line moving double time.”
“Yeah, sure,” the first speaker snorted, but the others in line looked grateful.
“How long does this normally take?” Uriel asked curiously.
“Oh, several hours at least. Usually five, give or take.” Zaj led them up a winding staircase, impatiently bumping spirits to the side so they could pass.
“It can take all day if we’re particularly busy.
We need to check the inbound ledger, then document their date and cause of death as well as what they’ve done to earn a ticket down here.
Finally, after we file that away, they proceed to the aptitude test.”
“Aptitude test?” Michael raised a brow in confusion.
Zaj glowered briefly in Michael’s general direction, focused on moving them along. “It’s how we decide where the spirits will go. The worst of them go to the Pit. It’s basically Hell Jail.”
“And the others?” Uriel asked.
“Well, some of them don’t belong here, in our humble opinion.
But you guys have some pretty strict policies, so we take the stragglers.
Murder’s a sin, but killing in self-defense?
Hardly.” He sniffed again. “But we take who you reject and they’re free to wander.
Everyone outside the Pit gets a shot at reincarnation if they want, but they have to work for it.
There’s basically three groups; The Second-Chancers, The Happy Haunters, and the Rotten Eggs. ”
“Those names have Mags written all over them.” Uriel smiled, but it faded when his bad arm brushed the banister and he cried out. Zaj looked over his shoulder, frowning.
“Okay, we’re going to have to hurry this along.” His wings flapped harder as he led them up the stairwell to the top floor, where a trio of bored looking old women were seated behind a wide mahogany desk.
At first glance, they looked relatively normal; a bit like grandmothers as they snapped photos and noted down names and filled out Cause of Death forms. But then a veil seemed to shimmer out of existence, revealing violently purple skin and twisting horns.
Michael blinked, and the matronly disguises were back in place.
Zaj caught his stunned expression and grinned. “Yeah, we try not to freak them out too bad when they first arrive. You won’t notice because you’re in the loop, but when they see me, I look like a human with that little people thing—dwarfism?”
“But you’re floating,” Uriel stated bluntly. “Humans don’t float.”
“That’s not precisely true in the afterlife, is it? Anyway, they overlook a lot as long as you’re not visibly terrifying. Humans see what they want to see, most of the time.”
He made his way to the desk and settled down on it, his tail stretched out behind him and flicking playfully at a stack of papers. The shortest of the women scowled at him, slamming her palm down to trap the appendage.
“Straeng.” Zaj said sweetly, and she swatted him with her other hand.
“No! Stop messing my papers!” Her accent was as heavy as the glare she leveled on Zaj.
“Don’t be like that,” he crooned, leaning in towards her, and she swatted his face away.
“Stop! No closer!”
“I need two visitor badges, Straeng my love. Can you or one of your lovely sisters help me with that?”
“Ask Geber,” she snapped. “That her job, no mine.”
“Here.” The middle sister thrust her hand at him, long nails scraping against bone as Zaj accepted the bits of hard red plastic. “Viv see you coming, I have prepare.”
The third and tallest sister didn’t deign to respond verbally, only raising a hand briefly before she resumed clicking away at the camera.
“Well, as much as I love to see you girls, I can also see you’re very busy,” Zaj hopped off the counter, dipping at first before he righted himself. “Come on boys!”
Luce had made a terrible mistake letting Mags keep the Gospel.
His skin had begun to crawl as soon as Remi had come pushing through the doors to his study, and it only intensified as Camiel relayed the message Judas had intercepted.
It had to be a response to his ritual. The wave of magic that had knocked him on his ass must have been strong enough to touch Heaven.
Jehovah knew the Gospel was gone, and he had sent his best soldiers to retrieve it—and surely Mags as well. This was going to go so terribly wrong; he could feel it.
“Will you sit down?” Remi snapped, lunging out of her chair to grab him as he paced by in another endless circuit. Rag grabbed the back of her sweater and pulled her back into her seat, shaking his head at her answering glare.
“Let him pace,” he rumbled, idly flipping pages in the cookbook Mags had lent him. “It’s better than him trying to bake something.”
“He’s making me dizzy!”
“So go check in with Bal instead of just watching him.”
“Fine!” Remi hopped back up, unimpeded this time, and stomped out of the room.
“I’m going with her,” Camiel sighed. “Just to make sure she doesn’t hurt someone.”
With the women gone, only their husbands remained in the study with Luce.
Judas was intercepting the emissaries, while Glory and Bal were off doing who knew what.
Luce didn’t like having everyone scattered with everything balanced so precariously on the edge of chaos, but it helped to at least have company.
They shared the silence for another several laps, the only sounds the pad of Lucifer’s shoes on the carpet and the turning of Rag’s pages. It was enough to settle the king’s nerves, slowing his pace and his breathing.
“Thank you,” Luce murmured, pulling gently on his beard as he turned back to begin another loop. “I can’t help it, I’m just—”
“Terrified.” Rag nodded. “It’s understandable.”
“I’m the King of Hell, Rag, not some lowly demon, I am—” he broke off his insulted tirade when he glanced up and saw Rag’s knowing smile. “I am absolutely terrified, yeah.”
“About them asking for Mags, or the fact that it’s Michael?” Sachiel asked, ignoring the warning look Rag shot him.
Luce went pale and looked like he was torn between vomiting and shouting. “How dare you—”
The sound of rapid footfalls from the corridor startled Luce to a halt and the other Fallen to their feet. They all turned to the doorway as Remi burst back through it, looking as if she’d seen a ghost.
“What is it?” Luce demanded, the frantic nature of her movements sending a spike of adrenaline through him. “Oh, Damned Souls, Remi! What happened?”
“Judas is back,” she stammered. “And Zaj is... he’s back too, and he’s with—”
Luce crossed the room and gripped her shoulders firmly, leaning so close they were sharing the same breath. “Tell me!”
“Michael,” she finally croaked, eyes wide.
Luce froze, hands falling away from Remi and settling at his side like dead weights. He blinked slowly, once, twice, and tried to calm his breathing. His heart thumped frantic rebellion against his ribcage.
Here, now.
It was so much worse when it was a certainty and not a possibility. He swallowed hard, tongue darting out to wet his suddenly dry lips, and his fingers came back to life to curl and uncurl in fists.
“I can’t,” he moaned, closing his eyes tightly. “I can’t be near him, I can’t.”
“You have to,” Remi said, stepping back into his space and taking his hands in hers. “Uriel is with them, and he’s got a bad break.”
“Oh no…Oh please…” Luce shuddered. “Can’t someone else?”
She hesitated, and Luce groaned.
“Cami is there trying to help,” she started, then paused, chewing her lip. “It’s splintered badly. I think it’s beyond our skill level.”
“Fine,” Luce said, straightening his spine. He took a steadying breath, then another. “Someone has to set it before it heals all wrong.”
“You’ll have to re-break it,” Remi said softly. “It’s already starting to fuse.”
“Fantastic,” Luce deadpanned. “This day gets better and better.”
He took one last moment to collect himself before drawing himself to full height.
A snap of his fingers and his favorite cloak appeared on his broad shoulders; rich black velvet lined with crimson satin draping and falling around him like a shield.
The ghost of a black iron crown appeared around his temples like a circlet of mist. Squaring his shoulders, the King of Hell swept from the room.