“Those lying sons of guns,” Jude swore, voice still low, and Ellie almost giggled, a reaction she did not quite understand except to realize that the noise would have been made of exhaustion as much as dark humor and shock. So, she realized, demons in Hell—of course, who would have thought. The hellfire and brimstone thing is real.
“Hey,” Ellie said, “Don’t you wonder what will happen to a demon if it dies in Hell?”
Jude opened his mouth, then fell quiet as Ellie slunk across the street, trying to move quietly so the thing did not hear her coming. Its attention seemed focused on its reverse-bath, so she was able to get within a few steps before being noticed.
Ellie expected the demon to run. It jerked in surprise when it saw her, and then—in parody of the smile given to Keith Smithson some hours prior—it grinned with needled teeth. Ellie sped up, hoping to catch and step on it before it could flee.
But the thing did not run. Instead, it rose and scuttled toward Ellie. It looked overjoyed. Right until Ellie’s boot slammed down—then it screamed, in shock as much as pain, and Ellie felt pressure under her foot like she was stepping on a water balloon, give and tension. The legs scrabbled to escape as she shifted her weight.
The balloon popped. Smoke like bad eggs billowed into the muggy air.
“Nice,” said Jude. As pleased as he sounded, Ellie also detected relief; she had been right, then, when guessing that Jude did not know reapers could handle themselves.
But Ellie frowned. She returned to Jude across the street, said, “That was weird.”
“How so?” Jude asked.
“Well...” she hesitated, checked the pocket-watch that they were still headed in the right direction, and kept walking. “It’s just... I had my reaper’s tool out. Demons usually recognize them. And they know not to mess with us because they lose.”
“Right,” said Jude. He fell into step beside her, and deduced her concern. “But this one ran right up to you. Like it didn’t care if you killed it or not.”
That sounded unlike a demon; they seemed to act from reasons, even if their reasons were stupid or horrifying. Rather like people acted. Ellie said, “Maybe it wanted to die?”
“Maybe they’re like NPCs in a video game,” Jude said. “They respawn somewhere.”
“What if...” Ellie said. “What if they return to Earth when they’re killed?”
“But if the world is ending, why would it want to go back to Earth?” Jude said. “And, come to think of it, if there are demons up here, then why do they need you to find this guy? Why not grab him themselves and find a way to bring him back?”
“The door did lock behind us,” said Ellie. “Maybe only a reaper can get a soul out.”
“Then why not send a demon or something to help us while we’re here?” Jude said. “I mean, it’s not like they knew your watch could become a homing beacon, right?”
“Right,” said Ellie. And a crazy thought came: “Or... what if it didn’t know what I was?”
“Huh?” Jude said. “Are some of them just that stupid?”
“Not really,” Ellie said. “They seem to talk to each other. I’ve never met one that didn’t know what a reaper was.” She reconsidered, then conceded, “But who knows?”
Finding no resolution, they lapsed into silence and kept walking. Block by block passed, and Ellie found herself thinking: how long does it take to walk a mile? About a half hour, she guessed. They had gone another block before Jude spoke again.
“So demons are real,” he said. Ellie glanced at him and he shoved his hands into his pockets, flapped his coat a bit to cool in the heat. He continued, “And so’s the afterlife, with Heaven and Hell. Or multiple Hells, it sounds like. And souls.”
Ellie shrugged, used to her assignments coming to these very obvious revelations. From what she could remember, these things had never been surprising to her, somehow. She thought back to her earliest days, but aside from some bare bones facts, the only thing she remembered most was Niles pronouncing the Commission:
Ellie Sullivan, you are sentenced to the commission of a reaper of souls...
Yet, as she thought this, Ellie heard the little voice in the back of her head whisper: No, you do remember more. You just don’t want to remember that you remember.
Angrily shoving that thought away, Ellie deliberately stuffed her own hands into her pockets, mimicking Jude. Her left had the shard from the Spindle, faintly warm, a rough-edged pebble which cut into her hand as she enveloped it and squeezed.
Jude said, “If demons are real, how about angels? What are they like?”
Ellie thought back to the pictures and statues she was familiar with from books and little old lady homes when her father dragged her on his rounds to the sick and hurting. Pretty women with wings, colorful togas, serene. She said, “Never seen any.”
“What?” said Jude. “Any? Any at all? What about at the gate of Heaven?”
“Nope,” said Ellie. “Heaven’s door is this old bloody cloth that leads into a narrow cave.”
“Huh,” Jude said, digesting this. Most people who heard this about Heaven seemed puzzled or a little freaked, but he shrugged. “I guess I get it. But seriously—no angels?”
“Nobody has seen angels,” Ellie said. She recalled asking Cookie once, and getting this confirmed. “Just reapers, humans, and demons. Some rumors of other things, but they’re all monsters that hurt reapers,” she glanced at Jude, “Like you.”
Jude’s face turned sour. Then he seemed contemplative. He said, “What about God?”
Ah, yes, Ellie thought. The question I get every time. And yet, in this conversation, Ellie found herself curious. She asked, “You’re religious, right? If I say something like, ‘He doesn’t exist,’ are you going to change what you believe?”
“I don’t know,” said Jude. “Maybe.” He fell quiet, and Ellie watched his face as they kept walking, and found him hard to read. He seemed to think for a long time. The pocket-watch’s location dials kept ticking down, indicating they were closing the distance.
Then he said, “Probably not. I think the answer’s gonna be Yes, God exists. But just in the hypothetical, I probably wouldn’t change. I know that’s not the most logical answer, with you being a reaper and all. I imagine you know more about the afterlife than me.”
Ellie pondered: any reapers who approached the gate to Heaven were unable to take another step. Maybe someone like Jude might eventually know more about the afterlife—if he could pass to Heaven. Reapers were able to enter Hell...
...but she had no idea what Heaven was like. She doubted it was clouds and harps.
“Not to say that I’m not also biased saying that,” Jude continued. “I mean, there’s plenty of evidence trending in the direction I want, anyway. The fact that souls exist. That there are demons that hurt people. There’s Heaven and Hell. These all point toward my religion. I guess Islam and Judaism are kinda still on the table. But both those have God. So it really only matters which version of God we’re talking about.”
“Right,” said Ellie. She paused, thinking about her words before speaking. Each footstep seemed loud against the cobblestones. “But that stuff still doesn’t one-hundred percent prove God exists. I could still say He doesn’t—but you wouldn’t believe me?”
“I don’t think so,” said Jude. “I’d think you were lying, or maybe ignorant, or maybe God was hiding or something and one day would be revealed. I guess that is how I’d justify it.” He glanced up at the sky. They met an intersection, and halfway across he said:
“Truth is, I never held with the idea that faith is belief without evidence. That always seemed like a lazy way to avoid criticism and thinking, for me. And the Bible doesn’t say that we should believe without evidence. There’s passages that people interpret that way, but I think those are misinterpretations. Take Thomas: when he doubts, the problem seems to be that he has lots of evidence but refuses to believe. All his friends are there telli
ng him what they’ve seen, but he still refuses. That sounds like evidence matters. As for me, I always thought my field, astrophysics, gave enough evidence. And I’d say that what I’ve seen of the afterlife has given me enough evidence now...”
They stepped up a line of stones that formed the curb, kept walking, passed by shops that were in individual buildings, not a strip mall, with little alleys between each. Ellie’s pocket-watch read they were a quarter mile away—indeed, the distance was decreasing rapidly, more rapidly than before, but Ellie did not notice. She was too busy listening.
“I know that this hasn’t been one-hundred percent the right sort of evidence,” said Jude. “Angels are missing, demons are sucky rather than scary, there are multiple Hells. Heck, there are reapers, and you guys aren’t mentioned at all. And God is absent enough that we can even debate this.”
He heaved a breath. “So, hypothetically, this could be a clockwork universe, a deist hands-off type of God. But I won’t change my belief if you tell me that. Partly because I’m stubborn. But the other part is because sometimes... —no, most times, even with evidence, you have to make a jump somewhere. You can’t one-hundred percent prove anything. I could be hallucinating right now. I could be a brain in a vat. There’s endless things I have to consider and reject or accept, just because I have proof enough for me. And I guess everyone has to live their life that way, no matter what they believe.”
Ellie’s throat was throbbing, and she swallowed, hoping that the movement would soothe the irritated flesh. This was pointless, though. The problem was such that it would not go away, would never heal completely. She kept her hands in her pockets.
And she said, “But how do you know there’s ‘enough’ evidence for something? How do you know you’re not just coming up with the conclusion first, and then finding enough evidence to justify it to yourself after? I mean, it sounds like that’s what you’re saying.”
“Yeah,” Jude said. “That’s definitely possible. It’s the question that keeps me up at night. But I think everyone has to doubt themselves sometimes too, or else they aren’t being honest. But doubt doesn’t mean you give up on what you believe. If that was the case, then nobody could believe anything. Not and be honest at the same time.”
And he turned the question back on her. “What do you think? Is God real?”
Damn him, Ellie thought, but her throat turned from a throb to an ache. That hurts.
“I’m a pastor’s kid,” Ellie said. “We’re kind of required to believe.”
Jude frowned at her. “No, you’re not. You’re your own person, doesn’t matter what your dad’s job is. No matter how you’re raised, eventually you have to decide for yourself.”
Ellie bowed her head. When she had been alive, she had never felt overly rebellious on this subject. She remembered nights when she stayed awake and listened to the screaming and yelling. She had prayed fervently for them to stop. She had needed God, she supposed—she had needed there to be someone out there listening to her.
But they never did stop. Not until she had died. That was what she had thought, right? If God was not going to make them stop, then she would. And she had.
She just wished that she hadn’t.
“I don’t know,” Ellie said, after a moment. No longer paying attention to the pocket-watch. “I mean, all the reapers claim God is real. Niles says He’s real. But I’ve never seen God. Mostly, I just get the feeling He laughs at things.” Jude was silent, stepping along beside her. And perhaps that was what gave her the confidence to burst out:
“Yeah. There is a God. But I think He’s an asshole. He doesn’t care about us.”
Jude flinched, hunched his shoulders. Ellie waited for him to argue, or to chide with some hurt voice, but he did neither. He seemed troubled but was keeping it to himself.
Perhaps he would have said something, eventually. After he had thought of what to say. Ellie watched the interplay of emotions on his face. But they were interrupted.
The sky turned. The colors shifted, like someone adjusting the spectrum on a television, brighter, more blue, less smog and dirty yellow. And from above a voice called:
“FALLEN, FALLEN IS BABYLON THE GREAT!
SHE HAS BECOME A PLACE FOR DEMONS.
ALL THE NATIONS HAVE DRUNK HER WINE.
HER SINS ARE PILED UP TO HEAVEN AND
GOD HAS REMEMBERED HER INIQUITIES.
SHE WILL BE CONSUMED BY FIRE!”
As though struck, Ellie and Jude halted. She saw that his face had gone white, was sure that her own was much the same. Above them, the sky returned to its hazy tint. But the wisps were forming, now, into clouds. Far off there came a roll of thunder.
Finally, Ellie said, “I think that was from the Book of Revelations.”
“That can’t be good,” said Jude. He glanced up the street. And then, as if reminding himself, he said, “Ellie. We’re in Hell. What do you think ‘consumed by fire’ means?”
“Shit,” Ellie whispered. Stared wildly down the street. “But it can’t be! I mean, why would there be all these buildings and stuff if they were just going to be burned up? How does that make any sense?” Yet even as she thought this, she was thinking of the world of the living—planet Earth, beautiful and warm in the void, now being tossed into the bin.
The world was designed to end. Entropy would eventually take over. Nothing was permanent. This seemed to be the way things worked—though Ellie had no idea what God was thinking, building everything this way...
I don’t understand, I don’t get it, they say ‘God is good’—they say you are good—then why is there death at all? It’s more than just human error, it has to be—the universe is designed to fizzle out. Even if we stop the Apocalypse today, then someday...
Yet. The emergency was now. Ellie said, “Might sound stupid, but reapers aren’t fireproof. I mean, we are a little. But not a lot. I don’t think.”
“I vote we get the hell out of Hell before the actual Hellfire shows up,” said Jude, and he looked like he would have continued, but was interrupted.
“Oh, it’s not as bad as that,” said an old man, stepping from an alley between two storefronts. He smiled grimly at them. “Actually, it’s much worse.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Mouth and the Pit.
Jude turned and stood firm like a pillar. He seemed to take the first appearance of a soul in Hell as a sign of concern. “And you are?”
“It is customary to introduce oneself first,” the old man retorted, eyeing Jude. “Especially as you have sought me out, using whatever magic you possess.”
Ellie observed him. The face was weathered, nose bulbous, as if it had never stopped growing over the course of a lifetime. The gray sprigs of hair were hard to see, as he was wearing a wide-brimmed hat—but he looked familiar, somehow.
Letting her eyes trail down over his clothing, Ellie considered how memorable it was—a long black leather coat, a belt with an overlarge buckle, boots—and gloves, dark, dramatic, as if the hands within were ready to reach up like a wizard working a spell—
“Obadiah Charon,” she guessed, even though this man was perhaps two or three times older than the man’s body in the Holy Sepulchre. She glanced down to her pocket-watch, and found her suspicion confirmed: for the location read only a few feet ahead.
The old man’s eyes focused in on her, and widened when he spotted her reaper’s tool. He said, “So. They did send someone to fetch me. More questions?”
“Wait,” said Jude. “What? Are you really him? You’re old.”
Irritably, the old man waved a dismissive hand. He said, “This is what happens when you overstay your welcome in your body by a couple hundred years.” He focused on Jude, and said, “Now. Introductions. You’re no reaper, boy.”
Only then did Jude seemed to realize how rude he was being, and said, “Oh. I’m Jude Wilson. Third year student from University of Denver at Boulder.”
Ellie wanted to laugh. He was s
till using the same introduction—but, she supposed, it was probably good to hold on to the familiar. She said, “Ellie. Soul reaper.”
“Obadiah Charon,” said the old man. “Keeper of the Five Night Chalices. Apprentice to the last Letavyc. Master of Twelve Sky Isles. Protector of the sun and moon.”
“Good job, there,” said Ellie, who only really understood the last sentence.
And Charon sobered. “Yes. I seem to have destroyed rather than saved them.”
Jude looked mystified. “Why would the sun and moon be under threat?”
“There are many creatures that would love to eat the sun and moon,” said Charon. “Creatures of darkness that heroes like myself—or you, or rather like you would have been—we hunt down and destroy. Everybody finds himself a niche.”
He tugged on his coat. “Mine was preserving the sun and moon.”
“And apparently also breaking the Spindle of Necessity,” said Ellie. “Stopping time.”
“Yes,” said Charon. “That was a mistake.” His face looked like stone. “The mistake that ended the world—I did not know that the Spindle was capable of breaking.”
“I see,” said Ellie. “So it’s, ‘Whoops, my bad.’ And then you think everything’s good?”
“Of course not,” said Charon. “I am in Hell, after all. One tends to go to Hell when one has single-handedly murdered seven billion people. And the universe besides.”
“I thought you’re in Hell because you sold your soul to demons,” said Jude.
Obadiah Charon’s face melted into surprise, and he guffawed. “Who told you that?”
“Demons,” Ellie supplied.
Charon realized, then, that they were not joking. He regained sobriety, and twisted into a calculating look. Ellie felt the need to step back as he scrutinized her, his face beaten down by time though his eyes were still sharp like flint. But she held her ground.
Finally, he said, “You’re not here to fetch me for your superiors, are you, little reaper?”
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