Soul Catchers

by Tony Moyle

  “Because I didn’t know what Satan had done.”

  “And because you gave up on mankind and turned off your own Soul Catcher.”

  “No,” he said curtly. “They gave up on me. Then they gave up on themselves. Have you seen the world, David? Humans have ruined it. Selfish, greedy, narcissistic idiots obsessed in their eagerness to destroy their own species as long as it means they benefit individually. They have no place in Heaven. Faith has to be earned, not bought or fought for.”

  “They’re not all like that.”

  “Then the idiots have spoilt it for the rest. They used to love me, and now they only love themselves. Well, they can have it. Soon their own self-obsession will be their downfall.”

  “Some people just don’t want to love a cruel god whose wrath and injustice they see on a daily basis. You created the conditions for them to fall out of love with you, Baltazaar. How can they love a god that sits by and watches while so much suffering happens? You started it.”

  “And I will finish it.”

  “God protects the King,” muttered David. “You’re the selfish one.”

  “Oh you liked my little piece of graffiti, then. It was ironic that the name Baltazaar should include the word King. Old Donovan here was a perfect choice as a host.”

  Petrol was seeping into the cabin and soaking into his clothes. If not all of his premonition had been accurate, perhaps the conclusion wasn’t either.

  “As much as I’ve enjoyed chatting with you, if you’d be so kind as to call for an ambulance, I’ll be on my way.”

  “Ha ha. You have an excellent sense of humour for someone without emotions and feelings,” said Donovan.

  “I don’t really do compliments. My brain doesn’t recognise them.”

  “There’s no way out this time. No one can live forever, David.”

  “Well, I seem to be making a good fist of it so far.”

  “Even you can’t last forever. You see, just like the other eleven, you’ve outstayed your welcome. The Limpet Syndrome allowed me to find you and send you back to Hell to cause havoc, which you seem to be excelling at, by the way.”

  “I haven’t been that close to it.”

  “No, you’re all over the place. Splitting you up was never part of the plan, but it’s had some useful and unexpected consequences.”

  “Unexpected?”

  “It appears a third way might be opening and if that happens he might develop.”

  “He?”

  “A third creator. Satan and I rule two-thirds of everything there is in the cosmos. We govern that which is ours, either positive or negative. But there is a dormant third of the cosmos that is home to neutrality. It never needed governing because no one originally desired what might be there. Faith itself was all that was needed. But as souls questioned their existence, some became neutral. The fear has always been that some way might be found to access that place. A paradise for those that don’t believe in gods. A new gateway that might attract souls and reduce the amount of energy that we have to work with. That’s Satan’s biggest fear at least.”

  “Where is this third creator?” asked David.

  “I believe he’s already here.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, you might not be able to see him from your pathetic position, but Byron is standing about a hundred yards away watching with interest to how I’m going to kill you.”

  “What does that have to do with the third coming?”

  “Because he and I can’t get this close to each other. Satan’s constitution is built of purely negative energy. Three portions of six grams of it, fused together, as opposed to the three separate seven-gram portions that human souls start with. I have a similar structure to his, but conversely made of positive energy, but my three parts aren’t fused together. When you bring two opposite poles of charge into the same vicinity it tends to break things. Just ask the Prince of Monaco. The Acts of God that occur tend to be quite powerful. Storms, earthquakes, that sort of thing.”

  “But not now.”

  “No. That’s how I knew he had arrived. Because there is a third factor balancing it all out.”

  “And that’s me, right?”

  “I’m afraid so. It would appear that you are the manifestation of all things neutral. A divine being with unknown roots and powers. If you weren’t, then the third tree would not have grown in the library and there would be no new book. You are he.”

  If David was, as Donovan suggested, a deity of all things logical, why didn’t he have some awesome power that he could call on to move his sorry body out of the tractor? Perhaps the algorithms were all he had. He checked. They drew a blank. It was disappointing to be told that you were a god, when you were on the brink of death. Think of all those logical miracles he could experiment with. He immediately wanted to go and solve the problem of why so many people watched reality television when reality was, in fact, happening all around them if only they’d stop being so lazy and go out and experience it.

  “If you’re so positive and all that,” said David as logic did its usual jog around his cranial block, “why are you so cruel?”

  “I’m not cruel. I’m fussy.”

  “Is fussy positive?”

  “I think it depends on your point of view.”

  “Surely a point of view is where you rationally weigh up all the information. That sounds like my job,” he said, getting into character.

  “It doesn’t work like that. I’m fussy because I set the rules and the rules have changed. I’m not willing for you to change them further.”

  “But if you kill me, won’t you open up the channel to the third way? If you can kill me, of course. I am a god now, don’t forget,” said David, attempting some form of mind games.

  “You’re not a real god. You were born human. You weren’t generated by the Universe as we were. You’re a fake, a freak, a phantom.”

  “I’m sticking with ‘god’,” replied David.

  “Well, let’s see if you die like a human or survive like a god.”

  Donovan King took out a lighter from his trouser pocket. A maniacal grin blossomed across his face as he tested it twice before setting light to the fuel seeping out onto the tarmac. The tractor, contents and surrounding areas were engulfed in flames. Donovan remained within the grip of the inferno. The fire licked his clothes with little impact. As the fire raged, David was overcome with pain and suffering.

  “I could use it again!” he screamed.

  “I’m counting on it,” replied Donovan under his breath.

  He walked out of the fireball, gently removing a few embers from his shirt and hat that hadn’t got the original message. A small fire crew and one lone ambulance man took up the baton. By the time they reached the inferno they knew it was too late.

  Death had never been this uncertain. Two algorithms worked at a speed never seen before by David’s synapses. Checking and rechecking the factors that were in play, they competed with each to be the one selected. They both recorded the same odds of success because both were working with gaps in their knowledge. Neither knew ultimately what would happen. Baltazaar had originally told him that he could only use it twice. A third time would be catastrophic. But the survival instinct that came from the Limpet Syndrome still pulled with the force of a pack of huskies. Should he use it or die like everyone else did?

  Donovan was using him. He’d told him what to do the last time. As a result he’d been removed from Nash and it had aided his pursuit of Byron. The second time it had helped him escape the square prison on level twelve. All actions clearly designed by the man that said a third time should not be attempted. It was true that God really did only protect the King. Donovan King. Well, he wouldn’t get his way this time. The pull to survive just couldn’t be ignored.

  Donovan stood watching the flames with an amused grin on his face as Byron walked over to join him.

  “How did he take it?” asked Byron.

  “Which part?” repli
ed Donovan.

  “The bit about being a god.”

  “Pretty well, considering. He shouldn’t be bothering us again. Our war can start again.”

  “Things have changed. The Soul Catcher in Hell has been turned off,” said Byron.

  “That’s too bad,” replied Donovan sarcastically. “Having some problems up there, are you? Really should pick your staff more carefully.”

  “Where will the souls go if both Soul Catchers are turned off?” asked Byron.

  “Only one place they can go,” replied Donovan.

  “Limbo?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it won’t cope with the volume.”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” he said, his grin stretching further across his face.

  “You bastard. This was your plan from the start. You tried containing the human spirit with Emorfed, and when that didn’t work you thought you’d try to destroy Earth itself. Limbo will expand until it can’t take any more. It will eventually consume the Earth.”

  “You really are slow, Satan. This is war, you know that.”

  “But how is this going to win a war against me?”

  “Oh, you thought I was at war with you…” Donovan burst into laughter. “How disappointing. My war is against them. If I wanted to win, I had to destroy your ability to rescue them.”

  “But why?” implored Satan.

  “Because they question my authority. They question my existence. They started the war.”

  “I will stop you,” replied Satan calmly.

  “You’ll try. After all there’s no point being immortal if you’ve got nothing to do.”

  They waited patiently for an event that would mark their cue to leave. Murders didn’t normally take this long. Fire had an uncanny habit of being a rather slow death. The event they were waiting for, a small blue cloud levitating into the sky, would have arrived much sooner if they’d shot him or had him electrocuted. Byron looked at his wristwatch. It had stopped.

  “How long has it been?” he said.

  “Not long. Burning to death can take ages,” Donovan replied. “What’s wrong with your watch?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s frozen, look. It says it’s one in the morning.”

  “Oh so it does,” he said, shaking it, the universal action for trying to make a watch work, even though in the history of forever it had proven effective on zero occasions. “Did you feel like the night went by rather quickly?”

  “I’m not good with time: no watch, see.”

  “But you must have noticed it went from dark to light faster than you designed it to.”

  “If you say so.”

  The fire brigade finally doused the flames and allowed the one single medic to approach a torso that was very different from what he was used to. Most of his patients had a pulse or at the very least some sign of life. This one had one redeeming feature: soot. A very large pile of it had collected in places that used to feature upholstery. If he’d had the courage to explore the corpse he might have notice a very small ball bearing of metal. When no one was looking, it very silently floated off into the sky and out of sight.

  “I don’t get it,” said Satan. “Where’s his soul?”

  “He was completely neutral, maybe they don’t float off like normal. Maybe they don’t have that familiar blue colour.”

  “Perhaps. But there’s another thing I can’t work out.”

  “What’s that?” said Baltazaar.

  “If David was the third coming, why are we still able to stand this close to each other?”

  *****

  Grace and Scrumpy reached the Unicorn where it had been moored carefully amongst much larger vessels. As they sailed in silence away from Tresco, a weather system was starting to develop over the island. Small at first, the further they sailed towards Bryher, the more it grew. A rumble of thunder crackled over their heads.

  - CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN -

  CELESTIUM

  The Clerk woke up from his nap with a start. He’d been asleep for approximately three and a half feet. That’s how far the Celestium wall had moved since he’d shut his eyes. The waiting room was half of its original size, and the chalk mark some metres on the other side of the metal. He’d already moved much of the room’s furniture into the Tailor’s next door in preparation for the retreat that would come if Limbo continued to expand. The souls were still flowing in, they just weren’t flowing out. Where would he go once the Tailor’s room was flooded? There were only two places he could: out or in.

  In meant being pressed on by a thousand confused souls desperate to know what was next. Out meant outside. Into the real world. It had been a very long time since he’d been out there. He hadn’t liked it very much.

  *****

  Sandy had deliberated for ages. Given the magnitude of the position he now adopted, it really wasn’t the most important of decisions. What title to give himself? He’d experimented with Lord, President and Emperor, but none of them had the right ring to it. The problem with power is it went to your head somewhat. You only really listened to yourself.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “I don’t think,” said Brimstone, whose silver belt had been replaced by an apron. It had to be made out of silver because everything else melted.

  “You do what I tell you,” replied Sandy.

  “For now. It won’t last, you know. All these dictators fall in the end,” he said, pointing out a number of familiar personalities that were sitting uncomfortably in thrones not designed for them.

  “I’m going to go with Master of Hell,” said Sandy proudly.

  “Whatever,” sighed Brimstone.

  There was plenty still to be done. Pillows had been requested as a matter of urgency as Sandy was too small to see over the table from Asmodeus’s throne. Pillows were scarce in Hell so plastic blocks lined with AstroTurf were used as an alternative. The rest of his animal army had been escorted back to level zero via the gap over the edge of level twelve, much to their consternations.

  Roger insisted he wasn’t bothered as he had ‘better things to do’. Vicky had already refused to be amongst the mutated vessols as they were bound to steal all of the good jobs. Elsie assumed it was a prank and went with the flow, using the time to create a counter-prank. And Gary, well, it would take him so long to get anywhere, they let him roam, if roaming was feasible at a speed slower than rocks moved.

  Level one was currently being converted into a home for convalescing lesser demons. Their only job was to ensure that the lake always remained full and nothing was allowed to escape from level zero. The rest of the time they could spend enjoying the many new features being built there, soon to include a museum of torture, Hell’s longest zip wire experience, and three casinos.

  “What happens now?” said Brimstone.

  “Everyone just enjoys themselves and does what I tell them,” replied Sandy.

  “And then what? What happens when everything changes?”

  “Changes will only be granted on my command.”

  “Evolution doesn’t work like that,” said Brimstone. “It doesn’t wait for someone to press the ‘go’ button. It tends to get on with it.”

  “Then we will suppress it.”

  “Are you familiar with the expression, ‘even in death, life finds a way’?”

  “Not really.”

  “Can I suggest you get familiar with it. If there are no working Soul Catchers then souls will build up in Limbo. Do you know what souls are good at?”

  “No.”

  “Evolution.”

  *****

  “I’ve never been to one of these,” said Aqua shivering a little. “It’s quite exciting, isn’t it?”

  The snow under his swirling body had started to freeze, making swirling much more of a challenge. Snow was mainly water, with a scattering of plastic to help it freeze, of course. Mr. Fungus sneezed. The cold biomes weren’t very appealing. They always dampened his mood and made his athlete’
s foot flare up. Mr. Gold and Mr. Silver’s joints had seized completely and their faces suggested they weren’t enjoying themselves.

  The animals had congregated as normal. They weren’t going to miss a pass over, even if a few gatecrashers had arrived without tickets. They knew the order of things. There would be no fighting for position or jostling for view anymore. The newcomers could sit wherever they wanted.

  Asmodeus had the best seat in the house, although his mind wasn’t really focused on the walrus looking frail in the gully at the bottom of the glacier. That was a sideshow. The reincarnates could get as excited as they wanted. What interested him was plans.

  “Snow cone,” said Mr. Graphite, leaning across with an outstretched craggy hand.

  “No.”

  “They’re very good.”

  “Don’t care.”

  “Suit yourself…Ice pop?”

  “Do you know what you can do with that?”

  “I think you lick it.”

  “I was going to make a very different suggestion,” replied Asmodeus. “What’s the point in all of this, anyway? So they sit around waiting for one of them to die… Again, where’s the fun in that?”

  “Just entertainment. Not much else happens down here by all accounts. They say this one will be the best one ever,” added Graphite.

  “No. Mine was the best ever. Brilliant it was. It drew the biggest crowd anyone has ever seen and had more noise and light than the history of life.”

  The lion licked its snow cone.

  “You can’t sit here, this is a demon-only area,” said Bitumen as all the demons looked at the imposter.

  “I think you’ll find lions are kings and have preferential treatment.”

  “Of jungles,” said Aqua.

  “Even jungles have winters, don’t they?” he shrugged.

  “This is not a jungle in winter!” said Graphite.

  “Prove it.”

  “Anyway, how can you have had the best pass over if your still here?” said Mr. Virus.

  “Magic,” said Roger.

  “Lions aren’t magical,” replied Aqua. “Rabbits, yes.”