Grave Importance

by Vivian Shaw

  “I don’t know,” said Zophiel, and was a little surprised to find he didn’t mind not knowing; that he didn’t have to dread the future, whatever it held. “As long as I have you,” he added, “it doesn’t matter.”

  All around them the other angels were beginning to talk, laughing and crying and embracing one another, and Zophiel smiled helplessly, and bent to kiss Amitiel just once, lightly, on the mouth.

  Lips are soft, he thought, wonderstruck. I didn’t know that, there’s so much I don’t know, but maybe I’ll be allowed to find it out, and then Amitiel was kissing him, and Zophiel felt as if he might come apart with simple glass-clear gladness.

  In Tower Three, the hospital was silent. The cries and moans of wounded angels, the urgent orders and demands of the nurses, the squealing of monitors all vanished to nothing under a huge empty calm silence.

  Greta, numb with shock and horror and despair, thought there was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour before the wave of intensely beautiful music washed over her. Afterward she wouldn’t be able to describe it with any clarity: a kind of synesthetic pleasure, warmth and sweetness and care all at once, like a hot bath for the mind; the closest she could come was thrall, and this held none of that deliberate influence, it wasn’t directional, it simply was.

  Nor did she know how long it went on, the echoes ringing in her mind, before she found herself back in the little ready room in the hospital, entirely clean of golden blood. The shock of realizing that nothing hurt was enough to make her dizzy: all the exhaustion, all the pain from hours of desperate work, had vanished with the blood.

  She blinked, looking around at the others, who were also—waking up wasn’t the right phrase, but something like it. Grisaille and Ruthven were staring at one another.

  “What just happened?” said Grisaille.

  “I don’t know,” said Greta, “but I’m not arguing,” and she got up, swaying only a little, and went to the door, not knowing what to expect: had that all even happened, had they simply hallucinated the entire godawful business—

  Oh. They hadn’t imagined it.

  There were angels everywhere, lying on cots and stretchers, but as Greta watched, they were sitting up, prodding their chests experimentally, staring around at the controlled chaos of the emergency ward. The mess of blood and broken feathers that had splattered the floor and walls was gone as if it had never existed. The doctors and nurses were also staring around and blinking, but as she watched, they began to pull themselves together and start checking their patients over.

  “Well, that’s one way to sort out the situation,” said Faust beside her; Greta jumped a little. “Never thought I’d get to see it myself, but it’s not exactly unheard of in the literature—Take it easy,” he added to an angel who was attempting to get up and looking rather dizzy. “You’ll feel right as rain in a few minutes, but don’t push it.”

  The angel stared at him. “Who are you?” it said in a beautiful bell-like voice that reminded Greta of Samael. “Where am I? What happened?”

  Faust counted with his fingers: one, two, three. “Splendid,” he said, “the classic-question trifecta. I’m a doctor, you’re temporarily in Hell, and that was the use of the vis vires divinus if I’m any judge.”

  “The what?” said Greta, about as confused as the angel looked.

  “Him upstairs,” said Faust, nodding at the ceiling. “Getting involved. He’s done it before, of course, but it’s been a good long while since anybody’s heard from Him; someone must have finally yelled loudly enough on the correct wavelength to get Him to pay attention. The rest of you doing all right?”

  Greta nodded. “I think so.”

  “You were bloody good back there, by the way. Thanks for your help.”

  “I didn’t do enough,” she said. “I lost so many.”

  “We all did,” said Faust. “No one could have done more, Helsing. It wasn’t a situation we could win, but we did the best we could, all of us.” He clasped her shoulder briskly, not unkindly, and gave her a brief smile. “My people can mop up from here. Go and find your friends and do a bit of celebrating, why don’t you.”

  She was about to protest automatically, and then had to stop and laugh. “Okay,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He nodded, turned away, and a moment later was abjuring another angel to lie still until the dizziness wore off: a short, businesslike figure in a black gown, bustling along the ward, entirely unfazed by the situation. Greta envied him that unflappable calm, and it took her a little while to remember where she’d seen it before—and the realization brought with it no surprise: he reminded her of her own father, years ago.

  “Do you know what’s going on?” Grisaille asked, joining her; a moment later Ruthven, Anna, and Nadezhda followed. “Nobody seems to be perforated anymore.”

  “I’m not sure,” said Greta, “but I want some fresh air, and to find the others.”

  “Yes please,” said Nadezhda. Greta noticed with some amusement that her hair was slowly coiling itself around her earrings again: it must have gotten over the shock. “Right now,” Dez added, and a pang went through Greta’s chest: she was obviously missing Hippolyta about as much as Greta missed Varney, which was to say like a limb.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Varney and the others joined a stream of people walking out of the bar, heedless of whatever their tab might have been; unable to resist the pull of curiosity—

  —they were not alone; demons were flowing out of the other towers, out of the businesses circling their bases, out into the vast empty space of the plaza with its central fountain, all of them looking up in wonder and awe, because it was snowing in Hell, and it was snowing gold. Soft flakes of glittering, glowing gold, dropping out of nowhere, out of the arched vault that formed the sky of Hell.

  Already the white stone of the plaza was gilded, the snowfall soft but steady. People were holding out their hands, lifting their arms to catch the snowflakes; they touched Varney’s upturned face in tiny soft kisses, warm, not at all the chill of ordinary snow. They were giving off a gentle golden light. It didn’t seem to matter that this made no sense; it didn’t matter at all.

  He was dimly aware of Cranswell and Hippolyta nearby, talking, possibly talking to him; all he could think was how beautiful it is, how beautiful, the strangest and loveliest sight of his long life; his mind was still trying to comprehend what had just happened to him, what he had—done, or tried to do, or asked for, the vast and unutterable weight of that, but in the face of the falling golden snowflakes, thoughts refused to stay together, scattered and sparkled like motes of gold themselves.

  How beautiful, and then Varney heard his name, distant, somebody calling his name. A voice he knew.

  That was enough to shake him out of his daze, and he turned to see Greta Helsing threading her way through the crowd; and a moment later he had closed the distance to her, taken her in his arms, and hugged her off her feet, burying his face in the sweet and familiar scent of her hair. “Greta,” he said, muffled, and did not know if he was crying or not, or if that mattered.

  She was holding him so tight his ribcage creaked. “Varney,” she said, sounding a little choked herself. “Francis. I thought I’d never see you again.”

  “So did I,” he said, his lips against her neck, aware of the blood pulsing rapidly, so near, so very near, warm and bright and alive, and felt nothing but joy. “… Say that again?”

  “What?” she asked.

  “My name. It’s… it sounds nice.”

  Greta pulled back enough to look him in the face. Golden snowflakes starred her hair, glittered in her eyelashes, and his chest hurt with a deep, sweet ache. How beautiful, he thought again. “Francis,” she said, reaching up to take his face between her hands—clever hands, kind hands—“I love you,” and drew him down into a kiss.

  All around them the host of Hell was laughing, crying, dancing, holding one another, as the
golden snowflakes fell. Ruthven and Grisaille and Nadezhda and Hippolyta were clinging to each other silently; beyond them, Cranswell and Anna were dancing terribly, both unable to do anything but smile as they waltzed. The snow fell over the whole of Dis, over the distant smudge of Oldtown on the far shore of the lake; gilding each surface in light, the dome of the Spa glowing gently, the white stone of the plaza a drift of gold, bringing with it something of that feeling of peace and sweetness. Every being in Hell that could think was aware of—respite. Of having been spared an ending, and allowed a future.

  On the sixtieth floor of Tower Six, Samael stood looking out of the floor-to-ceiling windows of his conference room and quondam command center, the monitors and projectors abandoned now. Only he and Fastitocalon remained.

  He was standing with his hands clasped behind his back, white wings mantled, looking down at the celebration in the plaza with a faint little smile on his face. Fastitocalon came to join him. On the other side of the glass, the points of falling golden light slid softly down the window, soundless, like a series of tiny caresses.

  “They’ll be expecting an announcement,” said Samael.

  “In a minute,” Fastitocalon told him. “Is it—can you feel this happening?” He gestured at the snow. “Because it’s not you doing it.”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not.” For a moment there was an ache in his voice so deep it echoed. “And you know that I feel everything.”

  Fastitocalon winced. “What are you going to tell them?”

  “The truth, or a simplified version of it,” said Samael. His wings settled, the feathers rustling slightly. “Without the damaging political detail.”

  “There’s going to be a lot of cleanup to do,” said Fastitocalon, absently rubbing his chest. “Have we made contact with Above?”

  “Not yet,” said Samael. “I have no idea what’s going on up there, and I’m giving them a little longer to catch their collective breath before they have to deal with us.”

  “‘Deal with us,’” Fastitocalon repeated sourly, “they ought to be thanking you. You bloody well saved who knows however many of their people, and you didn’t have to do that.”

  “Yes I did,” said the Devil, and looked sideways at him. His eyes were the brilliant, shifting blue of a butterfly’s wing, of the glow in the depths of a moonstone. “You know I did, Fass.”

  “… all right,” said Fastitocalon, and sighed. “Yes. I know.”

  “What I don’t know,” said Samael in a slightly different tone of voice, “is what actually flipped the switch. There had to have been some kind of—catalyst, or something, that was finally enough to get His attention and His intervention.”

  “What kind of deity takes an eighty-year nap and lets reality fall apart to the point where large holes appear in it,” said Fastitocalon. “I mean, part of the whole business is that He’s supposed to be watching everyone all the time, right?”

  “That’s ineffability for you,” said Samael. “Everything might be happening for a reason, or it might not, and that’s all in His plan, presumably. Perhaps all this mess was supposed to happen. Perhaps he intended the whole thing.”

  “The rift is gone as if it never existed,” said Fastitocalon. “Everything’s been… undone. All the damage erased, no sign of anything ever happening. I’m willing to bet the mortal world is going to have no memory of any of this.”

  “They won’t be allowed to remember,” Samael said. “That much trauma is—well, too much for humans to bear and still function.”

  “Unlike us,” said Fastitocalon drily. “Presumably the next universe over is going to try to find another way through at some point, unless they’ve given it up as a bad job or been told off by their version of Him, who seems like a rather more smite-y version than the one we’ve got. Ours is back online, though, either way,” he added. “Even I can feel that.”

  “He’s awake,” Samael said. “And judging by the light show, approves of our performance. But I still don’t know what the trigger was, and that’s going to itch at me until I find it.”

  “You will,” said Fastitocalon, rubbing at his chest again. Samael glanced at him.

  “Are you all right? You said something, before the end, about being tired—”

  “I was,” Fastitocalon said. “I’ve—the treatments in the scanner did reset my signature most of the way, so I was in better shape than I’ve been in centuries, but I had to use a lot of energy stapling Paris back together, and I never really got it back. I—think I have now. Nothing seems to hurt.”

  “Well, good,” said Samael. “I still want Faust to look at you. Oh, damn,” he added. “I need to get down there and see what the status is; if the evacuated angels made it through that and didn’t get raptured, they’ll want repatriation. I’ll have to organize it.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Fastitocalon. “You can go live from there afterward, to make the announcement. It’ll look even better with the hospital behind you.”

  Samael nodded. “You were right, there’s going to be a lot of cleanup to do, and I need all my Council of Nine confirmed and on board with it. How’d you like to descend to full archdemon status and be given the responsibility for rebuilding M&E?”

  Fastitocalon stared at him. “Really?”

  “Really. You’re far better at it than Asmodeus ever was, you don’t wear an insufferable and endless variety of crowns, you don’t foment political unrest, and I can trust you to do the sums right the first time. I know there isn’t much I can do to make up for those centuries of exile on Earth, but this might be a way to start.”

  “Yes,” said Fastitocalon simply. “I would love to. It’s… been a long time since I had a purpose. Or a home.”

  “Come here,” said the Devil, and drew him into his arms, wrapping the white arches of his wings around them both for a long moment. When he let go, he was smiling. “You are home, Fastitocalon. Hell welcomes you back with open arms.”

  “Well,” said Fastitocalon, eyes suspiciously bright. “In that case, let’s get to work.”

  It was evident that Hell needed very little excuse to throw a party, and even less notice. In about half an hour from the beginning of the snowfall and the initial rush to the plaza, cocktail tables had been set up around the central fountain, which had unaccountably stopped running water and started running champagne, and demons in white jackets were carrying trayfuls of glasses to distribute to the crowd. Greta was halfway down her first drink and feeling slightly, pleasantly high when a huge swath of one of the towers’ glass facades lit up like a giant LED screen, showing Samael in his winged form with the very familiar sight of the hospital behind him. In the background they could see angels being examined, and it was impossible from this distance to tell them apart from the white-winged golden-haired figure of the Devil, save for the faint glow of halos here and there.

  The hush that rippled through the crowd was almost immediate and absolute; she heard one or two people whisper, He’s making an announcement, and thought to herself that stating the obvious was not a trait reserved solely for humankind.

  On the screen Samael looked—not tired, she thought, but faintly melancholy, as if he were missing something he knew he could never get back. When he spoke, however, he sounded both confident and brisk. “May I have your attention, please.”

  Utter silence, save for the splashing and fizzing of the fountain.

  “We are continuing to examine the details of what’s just happened,” he said. “What we know so far is this: the attack by an external universe upon a vulnerable point in ours caused a chain reaction that initiated the Armageddon sequence, while also establishing a state of war in Heaven, whose leadership called on me for aid. Which we provided.”

  Another pause, and it felt like he was looking directly at Greta, that he’d picked her out of all the thousands of people in the plaza, when he continued. “I cannot clearly enough state my pride in every last one of the responders. Those who volunteered to fight, those wh
o ran logistics, those who kept order—and I am immensely proud, too, of the citizenry of Hell. This was a crisis of proportions not seen since the Harrowing, and you faced it unblinking. I know you did, because I know you all.”

  A sigh went through the crowd; evidently that struck the demons as caring rather than creepy. Samael smiled a little. “We are not out of the woods yet. The—intervention—that stopped the sequence and reversed the damage is obviously divine in origin, although the details remain to be clarified. I have not yet ascertained the current conditions in Heaven, but if we are called upon to provide assistance in rebuilding, I will ask again for volunteers.

  “As you can see behind me, our Erebus General Hospital opened its doors to casualties of war, regardless of affiliation. I want to thank, as well, those visitors who volunteered their skills and aid to the medical team. You were desperately needed, and you rose to the task.”

  Greta couldn’t help feeling a swell of pride. She knew exactly what the Devil was doing, and thought she ought to mind the manipulation more; but the warm sense of being appreciated was undeniable.

  “We have with us fifteen remaining citizens of Heaven who, as soon as Dr. Faust pronounces them fit, will be returning to their home. Once that is done, I proclaim three days of holiday in celebration.

  “Thank you,” he concluded, still audible over the immediate roar of appreciation that had followed celebration. “Thank you all,” and the screen vanished; the building facade was again simply half-mirrored glass.

  “He’s good,” said Anna. “I know from propaganda, and he’s good.”

  “The snow is stopping,” said Cranswell, looking up, and stuck out his tongue to capture one of the last flakes as it drifted down. “I think maybe things are about to get a bit infernal round here. Why do these taste sweet?”

  “Why are they sparkling gold?” said Grisaille, who had snowflakes starring the long fall of his hair and was already on his second glass of champagne. “Why is anything the way it is? I think I’ve gone mad.”