Angels to Ashes Page 4

  “Walter Nathaniel Grey,” Walt blurted.

  The Demon typed his name onto a keyboard with a clatter. It stared at the monitor for a moment. “Walter Nathaniel Grey, age fifty-seven at time of death, of Cambridge, Massachusetts?” it asked. It stared at him with hostility.

  Walt nodded stupidly. Time of death? It was official, then. His heart sank. He needed to find out why he was there.

  “But,” he muttered timidly. “Why am I here?”

  Gortimer huffed in exasperation. It clicked once more its keyboard and surveyed the output. “Let’s see, here … you sold your soul at the age of fifty-four for … a tenure at Harvard.” The Demon snickered wetly with the sound of splintering wood. “That’s a shit deal, if I’ve ever heard one.”

  Walter’s mouth hung open in disbelief. He had sold his soul? He hadn’t even believed in a soul. He had achieved tenure through hard work and determination, nothing more, and yet …

  Something was there, in the depths of his memory. The flash of a toothy smile. A burning handshake. He clasped his head in his hands and shook it in denial.

  “No,” he murmured.

  “Oh, yes,” the Demon continued cheerfully. “It’s all here; one human soul, originally belonging to Walter Nathaniel Grey, in exchange for tenure at Harvard University. Bound and sealed. You’re right where you belong, Mr. Grey.” It chuckled with delight, its sickly rolls of red fat jiggling in merriment.

  Walter continued to shake his head. It was not possible. It had to be a dream, a hallucination. His mind flickered with half-formed glimpses of a fleeting nightmare.

  A grinning Demon that whispered promises with a viper’s tongue. An unraveling face. A doorway into the Void. His thoughts spiraled like water around a black drain, descending into nothingness. Walter’s head was going to burst.

  Gortimer continued to laugh, the cancerous sound of distending flesh. “Yes, indeed,” it guffawed. It pounded the surface of the table with devilish good humor. “We already have a place picked out for you in the 4th Circle: the Tower of Knowledge. It will be perfect for an academic such as yourself. Enjoy eternity.”

  The demon waved a meaty hand, and Walter was spirited through to the other side of the desk.

  Walt found himself clustered together with a small group of people. They looked as confused and disoriented as he. They were bruised and beaten things, yet their journey was only beginning. A tall figure clothed in unornamented black robes stood at the fore of the group. It held a charred, wooden stave.

  The figure turned to reveal a Demonic visage, though one tempered with sophistication rather than brutality. It was the dignified and learned face of everyone’s favorite liberal arts professor — somewhat. The long horns of an antelope arched gracefully from his weathered brow. His swirling eyes held the blackest secrets of the cosmos. He regarded the group for a time, and then spoke.

  “Greetings, lost souls,” the Demon declared in a melodious baritone. “My name is Paimon the Cruel. I am the Master of the Tower of Knowledge. I am to be your taskmaster and keeper for all time. Let us be off.”

  ~

  Their journey was long and filled with unimaginable horror. The ragged band of damned souls trudged dejectedly behind their Demonic taskmaster. The single-file line led them inexorably through the wilds of Hell toward their final resting place.

  They crossed the Burning Sands of Contrition, an impossibly vast desert of blood-red sand that boiled like a furnace. Each step was a lance of excruciating agony as the flesh of their feet blistered. They cried in pain, skin sizzling, but there was no stopping on that damned road.

  The moment anyone tried to halt, however briefly, Paimon would gently raise a hand. His mouth would open, uttering a word vibrating with ancient power, and their screams would crescendo to a new height of anguish. The agony of their journey was nothing compared to the eldritch pain of Paimon’s words.

  The desert was not empty. Monolithic bones of creatures larger than any that had ever walked the earth littered the wasteland like ivory monuments. Chains bound armies of damned souls to the skeletal towers as a caustic wind scored their flesh with embers of sand. Carrion birds circled the sky and descended to savage the captive souls.

  Walter stared at them with dead eyes.

  The Professor trudged mechanically onward. His skin burned ceaselessly, his voice cried out in supplication, but his mind was elsewhere. Behind the screams and the pain, behind the innumerable horrors of the path, his mind walked the familiar road of contemplation.

  As always before, Walter placed one foot in front of the other. Thus, momentum was maintained; the path forward preserved.

  He had dreamt of delving into the unseen mysteries of creation … and now they were laid bare before him, pulsating in all their unspeakable majesty. It was the wet, glistening truth at the heart of bedtime stories, the festering heart of the human condition. One might have thought he would feel exultation at such knowledge, but there was only a bottomless despair.

  As his body staggered onward, as his mind wore dark new trails into mental grooves that had become polished smooth by routine, his memory began to return to him. Bit by cursed bit, things he had chosen to forget reared like serpents.

  The frustration of the perilous waters of academia: the long, sleepless nights wondering if he’d be able to turn something as esoteric as philosophy into something sustainable. His papers were continuously rejected and unpublished. His superiors brutally snubbed him while his colleagues surged ahead in the rat race. The acidic pit of his stomach wrenched and churned in the dead of night.

  And then … there had been a deal, hadn’t there? Yes, he thought, there had.

  A smooth, porcelain face cracked with the toothy grin of a Cheshire Cat.

  Black wings unveiling in the dying light of a study.

  Promises and platitudes whispered by a hungry predator.

  Indignation, despair, and pride. Pride, above all else … such overweening pride.

  Lights flickered as searing contact, a searing contract, was made.

  So … damned, am I? Walter supposed so. There was a poetic irony in the tale of a philosopher who sacrificed his soul for nothing more than the empty trappings of worldly success. The petty baubles of a life in academia turned to a bitter ash when confronted with the true spectacle of the infinite.

  How could I have been so wrong? How could this be the truth behind the mortal veil? How could God do this to His children?

  Walt walked onward. Fuck this.

  ~

  Time bent backward upon itself in Hell: a loathsome worm eating its own tail. Walter walked until the mountains were ground into sand and the oceans dried up. He journeyed until the last star in the universe died a cold, lonely death. He walked in silence, consumed with self-recrimination and anger.

  The road went ever on. They wound through the Marshes of Despair, where the wrinkled hands of drowning souls reached beseechingly toward them from the putrid mire. They crossed the River Styx on an obsidian bridge as black water with howling faces screamed beneath. They passed the Hills of Sisyphus, where deceivers rolled burning stones beneath the flaying lash of laughing monstrosities.

  On and on. They wound through one infernal landscape after another. It was all the same: pain, despair, torment. An eternity of anguish. Walter’s self-recrimination boiled slowly away in the forge of the inferno, replaced by a white-hot fury toward the hoary old sadist who was responsible for such tragedy.

  God.

  His rage knew no words and held no rhetoric. It merely was, and it was just.

  And then, without warning, the line of travelling souls stopped. He raised his downcast eyes to see what was happening; they had never before paused. Up ahead Paimon had halted, and he turned to face the ragged line of the damned.

  Paimon raised his delicate hands. “Well done, my pupils, but our journey is only begun,” he called, his melodious voice lilting through the air. He gestured grandly behind him. “I present to you, the Tower of Knowle
dge.”

  Walt lifted his gaze, and his mind struggled to grasp the enormity of the monolith that rose from the gray sand beyond the Demon. It was a tower, yes, but it was a thing of such monstrous proportion and mind-bending angles that it was more frightening than anything Walt had yet witnessed.

  The Tower of Knowledge was perfectly smooth, and so utterly black that it seemed to draw one inexorably toward it. It rose into the sky, straight and cylindrical, but it seemed to bend in impossible directions. It was a single line that bisected every direction from every angle. It was every point in the universe, simultaneously in front of and behind him.

  Walter’s jaw dropped and he felt his mind try to claw its way out of his skull.

  Paimon the Cruel smiled wistfully. “This place is very … special. The lands we have journeyed through were nothing more than crude and barbaric things, mere meat-grinders.” The Demon paused, considering his words.

  “The Tower, however, is different,” Paimon finally continued. “It’s a subtle Hell, a thing of eviscerating beauty, and it’s for those rare individuals, such as yourselves, who might have the capacity to understand its message.”

  The Demon gestured, and a perfectly spherical mouth opened at the foot of the tower. It yawned with a flickering glow. Paimon gestured toward the column of battered travelers.

  “In you go,” he ordered, his voice holding a hint of some ancient sorrow. “I am quite certain you won’t enjoy your stay, but it is my hope that, in time, you will come to appreciate it.”

  Chapter 5

  Nexus

  Kalyndriel stepped from the ruined building into the cool evening air of Cambridge. The streetlights awakened for the evening as the sun dipped lower on the horizon. The Angel surveyed her surroundings for threats, but there were none. She allowed herself to relax slightly. Her brow furrowed in concentration.

  Her encounter with Makariel had left her deeply unsettled. It was unheard-of for a Demon of his stature to materialize for what amounted to little more than an infraction. Even more surprising was that the Bloody Wind, one of the most vicious of Fallen Angels, had declined to kill her when he had the chance. Such opportunities were rare, and she could not imagine why he would refrain.

  Then there was the issue of the Ravager, itself. The Demon had given off no infernal aura, and had behaved unlike any she had ever encountered. Those were two unprecedented situations, undoubtedly related. The implications were unclear, but worrisome. She must speak to the liege of her Choir, Samael, of this.

  Kaly ran an enameled gauntlet through her hair, thoughts uneasy, and spread her wings. She was preparing to return to Heaven when she felt a soft voice singing inside her mind. It was a beautiful sound.

  “I presume everything went well, Mistress Kalyndriel?” the voice asked.

  It was Dariel, the young Angel who served as Kaly’s squire. He was not yet experienced enough to join her in battle, but she had high expectations for him. His heart was true and his zeal was fierce. He would make a fine Avenging Angel, in time.

  “You could say that, I suppose,” she responded, troubled. “We shall discuss it when I return.” She closed her eyes.

  “There is one more thing, Mistress,” he added quickly.

  Kaly opened her eyes. “And that is?” she asked with a note of irritation. She was ready to be gone from Earth.

  “Baruchiel, from Maintenance, wanted you to take a look at something very strange. Since you were in the area … and if you have time, of course.”

  Kaly paused and folded her wings. Her alabaster face revealed a hint of exasperation. She had had quite enough for the day, but she might as well hear what Baruchiel wanted.

  “Continue.”

  “He requests you to examine the local Nexus. It is close nearby. He figured it might be best if you went, instead of him.”

  That did not surprise Kalyndriel. Baruchiel, the Virtue responsible for maintaining the Heavenly infrastructure, was not a particularly brave spirit. It was just as well, considering how dangerous matters had become.

  “I am sure he did,” she responded coolly. “And why should I visit this Nexus?”

  She felt Dariel’s hesitation in her mind. “Baruchiel says this particular Nexus seems, well, broken. There’s no traffic going through it,” he finally responded, disquiet evident in his voice.

  Now that truly was a surprise. The Nexuses were the conduits through which souls passed after death. They were the gateways to Heaven and Hell for mortals, geographically spaced to provide coverage for the nearby region. There were perhaps one hundred of them, throughout the entire world, and the nearby Nexus was responsible for the greater New England area. They were as old as the material world itself, older than the first human soul, and she had never heard of one malfunctioning.

  “A Nexus is broken? Has that ever happened before?” she asked uneasily.

  “Not according to Baruchiel. He is having quite a fit. Will you go?”

  Kaly nodded. She was suddenly very interested, indeed.

  ~

  The Nexus was located in a small park on the outskirts of Cambridge. Kaly materialized by the shore of a small pond, its surface smooth in the still evening air. Ducks swam in lazy circles, and there were a few scattered couples nearby. She surveyed the scene.

  Yes, something was definitely wrong there. Kalyndriel should have been able to feel the flow of souls into the afterlife, the confluence point for the myriad of recently departed spirits. They should funnel toward the Nexus, circling it like a whirlpool, where the character of their soul would determine their destination.

  Now, however, there was nothing. No breath stirred in her mind’s eye. Nothing passed through the park, no traffic of souls. It was dead.

  “Dariel,” she asked. “What, exactly, happens when a Nexus fails?”

  “Baruchiel says the throughput is being re-routed through the neighboring Nexuses. It’s causing some latency, but nothing too serious,” Dariel replied.

  Kaly nodded. That was good, at least.

  “Can you tell what happened?”

  Kalyndriel closed her eyes as her mind searched for the pinpoint of the Nexus’ divinity. It was difficult, as its light was so dim to be nearly imperceptible, but she finally discovered it. She reached out, probing the depths, seeking to discover the cause of the disruption.

  The spiritual matrix of the Nexus was not just blocked; it was severed. The gateway was completely disconnected from both Heaven and Hell. It was cut as cleanly as a limb that had been amputated and cauterized.

  Kaly’s mind felt the slightest caress of something strange and cold. An alien will, unlike anything she had ever experienced, echoed through her with ghostly afterimages. The placid surface of the lake stirred with ripples of memory. She quickly withdrew into herself, shuddering.

  What in Hell was this?

  The Angel composed herself. “It is severed completely,” she told Dariel. “Does Baruchiel have any idea what could cause this?”

  “No clue, from what I gather. I guess that’s it, then. You should probably return to Heaven before the Directorate of War comes for you.”

  Kalyndriel gave a small laugh, cold and without humor. “Not just yet; one last thing. Who was the last soul that passed through this Nexus?” she asked. Her eyes narrowed with expectation.

  Dariel was silent for a time while he searched for the answer. Kaly waited while her disquiet grew.

  “Walter Nathaniel Grey. He died here last night. Heart attack,” he eventually responded.

  “And he went … where?”

  “Unfortunately, he was one of theirs.”

  That complicated matters. It was doubtful that this Walter Grey knew anything about what had happened there, but it was still a possibility. Kaly needed to speak with him to ask him what he had seen, but there was no way for her to get access to his soul in the inferno. Well, no easy way.

  “Dariel,” she ordered. “Contact Hell’s embassy. Tell them I come. I wish to talk, nothing more.”
>
  ~

  Jerusalem: that most ancient and venerated of holy cities. Its hallowed ground was stained by the blood of brothers who worshipped the same God, killing each other in His name while He watched in silence. Echoes of forgotten epochs and disappointed prophets haunted narrow, twisting streets that had endured the passage of the ages. Weathered stone buildings pressed close against the penitents who traveled the sorrowful roads.

  The embassies of both Heaven and Hell were located in the Holy City. Even Angels and Demons, so eager to wage war upon each other, were loath to fight in Jerusalem’s oppressive atmosphere. It was thick with portent and prophecy. The embassies were officially neutral ground in which the warring divinities could meet and exchange threats and ultimatums. They served a purpose that, while unsavory, was necessary.

  That unpleasantness weighed heavy on Kalyndriel as she materialized on the cobbled streets. Bargaining with Demons was something that ran against her very nature as an Avenging Angel; her purpose was to dispense justice. The very thought of parleying with a Demon tasted of bile in her mouth, but she was driven by her need to uncover the truth. There was something foul at work, there, and it was also her nature to be relentless in the pursuit of truth.

  The embassy of Hell appeared to be a battered and worn temple; although no one living could remember to which God it was dedicated. It was ancient and fallen into disrepair, its windows boarded up and its stone walls crumbling. The sign above the chained door was faded and unintelligible. It had stood, abandoned, in a quiet part of Jerusalem’s Old City for time immemorial.

  Without knowing why, the city’s inhabitants always gave it a wide berth and walked quickly by.

  Kalyndriel took a deep breath and pressed through the chained door. It allowed her through effortlessly, and she found herself in a vast and sumptuously decorated lobby, far larger than the exterior of the weathered temple. Plush burgundy carpet and red paint covered the floors and walls, upon which hung numerous exquisite paintings and tapestries. They invariably depicted scenes in which horrific Demons tormented and devoured mortals. An enormous fountain, carved in the shape of a seven-headed golden beast, trickled serenely in the center of the lobby.