by Tim Hawken
“What are we looking for?” Charlotte asked
“I’m not totally sure,” I said, surveying the room from wall to wall. “The Guilt seems to always come from the horizons, so we should keep our attention there to start with. Look for anything unusual. Is there one spot it comes from in particular, or multiple spots? Does it start above or below? Is their any pattern? Anything?”
They both nodded their understanding and we fanned out to the edges of the circular room. With our feet at the rims of Hell, the normal storm clouds retreated inward and bunched in the middle. We would have a view of the horizons without them concealing anything. I watched down. I had never known what was at the edge of Hell. Here it was displayed as nothingness in an outward bulge: a curved, featureless wall. In front of that wall were high mountains, masking this edge of the universe. They would be totally impassable by any normal soul. From the sub-ground level they towered up almost to where Asmodeus’ cursed barrier should be at my feet. Here, though, that wasn’t represented either. I supposed that was for practical purposes. If it had have been included in its normal form, you wouldn’t be able to see down into Hell. It would have obscured the world you wanted to see. I made a mental note that, in essence, the floor we were standing on was the barrier; it was simply clear in this instance. At that moment a shimmer of movement appeared beneath me.
“Something’s happening!” Clytemnestra yelled out to me from across the room.
“Here too,” Lotte said.
“Watch closely!” I commanded.
At the very edges of the walls, behind the mountains, dust and clouds began to gather. The heat whipped into a fury. Pillars of flames shot downward, sparking and flashing. In a turn of power, the light twisted into plumes of cyclic energy, forming tornados that squirmed like fiery, beheaded snakes. Their tails licked the ground, charring the earth. I switched my view to that of the elements, to see if I could perceive anything different. What I saw rocked me. I had known that The Guilt was sewn together from different elements of memory and regretful emotion; The Perceptionist had taught me this much. What he hadn’t told me was where those elements came from. Looking at this, it appeared they were streaming down the edges of the dome, leaking from the floor I was standing on. At the edges of Hell on every side, they gathered in a tempest of the darkest kind. I peered around me, half thinking that the movement of the elements must originally be coming from this upper portion of the room, but it wasn’t. The intensity of the phenomenon grew below, until it was set to burst. Then, with a rushing sound the storm advanced toward the city.
On cue, the real fires of torment burst into the room around us, blinding the rest of the display below. Smoke choked the air. I was still watching with my perception of the elements: greens, browns and blacks flung about in chaotic spurts. A tumult of oppressive emotions swept by, laced with memory triggers. They splintered towards our bodies and tried to penetrate our hearts. All three of us were protected. We simply had to wait for it to subside. Finally, the last of the fire cleared. I dropped to my knees, looking back down to see if I could find where it retreated. The vacuum of guilt sucked back towards the horizons on all sides, passing in a misty wave over the mountains as it dissipated towards the edges of Hell. The weave broke up so it became a loose wash of separated atoms, which absorbed up into the glass floor I had my face almost pressed against. Then they were gone. It was finished.
Sitting back on my haunches, I tried to make sense of what had just transpired. I gazed in a trance of thought. Lotte and Clytemnestra came to my side, both talking.
“It’s like it was raining fire from the floor,” Clytemnestra said.
“The storm just came from nothing, like the heavens opened up and dumped The Guilt on our heads,” Lotte added.
Her words were like an electric shock to my brain. Asmodeus had said something uncannily similar when he had appeared last time: The Guilt will sweep in from the heavens and all of these souls will be helpless. My synapses started firing together with the cause and effect of it all. It was like the heavens opened up, Charlotte had said. In actual fact, Heaven itself had done just that! That was why I had looked around at the room thinking it must have been coming from around us. It was, but we couldn’t see it. This representation of Heaven didn’t reflect the change. My mind was crackling ahead, knowing the ultimate conclusion already, but following the steps just to make sure my theory could be justified. There was a reason Paradise was seen as a place of eternal rest. There was no more struggle: no more negative emotions to weigh on your conscience. That had never made sense to me when the most pious people on Earth always seemed the most ashamed at their natural impulses. They denied their desires, chastising themselves as being evil. Born sick. Surely that self-loathing didn’t end with death, simply because their choices had been vindicated with the reward of a golden ticket to Heaven. Asmodeus must have been draining that guilt away, siphoning it to us! Hell was taking on the oppressive sense of culpability from those above. That poison was laced with our own memories, to make us think it came from within, but it was forced into our souls. Psychopaths who had never felt remorse in their lives felt it acutely down here. It was manufactured – An essential process to make Heaven what it was to its inhabitants and Hell what it was to ours. I could picture it in my mind, the swirling of the filter drawing out the negativity in the holy souls above, pushing it to the outer reaches of Heaven with an imperceptible centrifugal force. It would build up and build up, like clockwork, being trapped on the edges, until the downward force became so great it would sluice through the weaker fringes of the barrier, like liquid straining through a leaking sphincter: the feces of human emotion poured into our minds, like so much filth. That’s how Asmodeus would have entered Hell: by riding that torrent of emotion down. The Archangels and Moloch had appeared at the head of a guilt storm. They had all retreated before it could fully dissolve. I could picture them struggling up the lessening stream of elements, squeezing their way back into Heaven before the way had been blocked off. No one down here would ever hope to find that exit; they were incapacitated when it was opened. That’s why it had been so easy for Asmodeus to conceal himself. No one was conscious when he arrived. The small number of demons lucky enough to be free of The Guilt could have easily been avoided. That’s why no one had ever stumbled upon this way out either. You were either unconscious during the tumult, or had the advantage of being in Hell without its main drawback. There would be no motivation to leave. It was a massive entry front, too: impossible to patrol, spanning the whole diameter of Hell. All these thoughts flickered through my mind like a hyper-speed movie reel. Clytemnestra and Lotte stepped backward when I leapt to my feet, almost exploding with the revelation.
“I know how to get into Heaven!”
I struggled to contain the ideas flowing through me. Both my companions peppered with me questions as I worked to unravel the thought process that had just run through my head. Hell was taking Heaven’s guilt. It would rush down from above six times every day. When it did, the outer edges of the barriers of Hell where weakened, enabling Asmodeus to enter, or leave. This was our way out: a way for a lightning attack on our enemies that they wouldn’t expect!
“The Guilt comes every four hours,” I said to them, looking at my watch again. “If I’m right, I think this would be how long we would have to raid Heaven, if we used that pathway. Maybe less. We would rise up during one guilt storm and then be ripped back down to Hell during the next.”
“Wouldn’t the barrier bring us back right away?” Lotte asked. I shook my head, knowing in my heart that wouldn’t be the case.
“The forces of the barrier would work to drag us back down, but the pressure would have to build up as it went,” I said, “That’s the only thing I can think of that can explain what we just saw. If I’m right, this wouldn’t be an instant process. I don’t think it works like when light souls float upward at any time in the middle. I think the heavier evil has to be purged with a strong burst down the
sides.”
I was almost jumping on the spot with the energy this was injecting into me.
Charlotte put a hand on mine, trying to ease my manic state.
“Please calm down, my love,” she said. “We have to take our time with this. Every time we have rushed headlong into an opportunity, we have been turned back. Let’s think. What’s the best way forward?”
“This is the right way,” I said insistently. I knew it in every part of me. Asmodeus had made the slip of the tongue himself. He knew. It had to be how he came here; how he brought the Archangels with him. My gut was a warm fizz of excitement. That warmth was sparkling out to all of my limbs.
“Please, slow down,” Charlotte said. “We have to wait for the others. If Marlowe and Germaine have been able to find Phineus, he’ll be able to confirm our possible success by reaching into the future with his sight, won’t he?”
“Phineus, yes.” I let myself smile.
Charlotte was right. We had to regroup and move ahead with caution. He would be able to provide some details, which might be important. He might be able to flag some probable dangers by reaching out with his inner eye.
I kissed my wife on the lips.
“I’d be lost without you,” I said. “Your comment about the heavens pouring The Guilt on us sparked my thinking.”
“You did this yourself, Lord Michael,” Clytemnestra said in her husky tones. “You were the one who said to visit this room. It was your good will to end our daily suffering which led us here. Let’s get back to Satan’s Tower and wait for the others to get back.”
A gleeful picture of revenge entered my head. I could choke Asmodeus by feeding him Mary’s tainted soul when I found them both. This time, I would have the upper hand.
EIGHTEEN
WHEN WE RETURNED TO THE TOP OF SATAN’S TOWER, Marlowe and Germaine were already waiting for us. I lifted their disguises immediately, just to make sure it was really my friends who lay beneath. Phineus sat leisurely on a couch to the side. I was glad, but perplexed, as to how they were back so soon. I thought that it would have taken longer to track down the prophet and convince him to help us.
“We’ve been back for hours,” Marlowe explained as we entered. “Phineus found us before we even left the building.”
“I had seen that you’d find me,” Phineus said from the couch, with a yawn. “I thought I’d relieve you of the trouble. I would have come sooner but, Michael had forgotten to write me into his story again until now.”
I looked at him oddly. It was always difficult speaking with someone who knew the mysteries of the unknown. He was a riddler by nature, which didn’t help things either. I walked over to Phineus, holding out my hand in greeting. He looked well. The bloody bandage he had once worn around his face had been discarded. Instead, eyes like clouds on a blue sky stared up to meet mine; the eyes that I had helped him retrieve from Asmodeus. He was still an old man, though: a prophet dressed in the robes of his time. He smiled at me and rose from the couch, shaking my hand with a firm grip that defied his aged exterior.
“It’s good to actually see you with my real eyes,” Phineus said. “I’ve been trying to track your progress with my sixth vision, but it’s been hard to get a read on you lately. Things are always changing.”
“Good,” I answered. “Let’s hope Asmodeus is having the same trouble watching my future.”
I beckoned for him to sit back down and he resumed his relaxed state on the couch. I joined him on the opposite corner of the seat, happy that he seemed in such good spirits. I looked up to the others.
“We’ve had some good fortune,” I said. “We found something intriguing at Magdalene’s Mansion.”
“It had nothing to do with fortune,” Clytemnestra said. “It was through hard work and thinking.”
“Then you are fortunate you can think,” Phineus said wryly to her. She started to speak again, but he stopped her. “Just hold that thought for a few moments,” he said, raising a finger in the air.
We waited for him as the seconds ticked by. Just as I started to grow restless, he pointed to the lift, which announced a new arrival with its sharp “bing”. Smithy and Mack strode into the room.
“Now you won’t have to repeat your story,” Phineus said with satisfaction, “and I won’t have to listen to it twice.”
“Michael!” Mack boomed, rushing in to shake my hand. He took my fingers in a crushing grip, his strength almost sending me to my knees. To push through the pain, I clapped him on the shoulder in greeting. He was wearing black jeans and a grubby white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. A tattoo of a 50s style pinup girl was plastered over his thick bicep. On his forearm was more ink, depicting cars, flames and guns. His face split in a grin, showing a couple of golden teeth where he had replaced lost ones.
“It’s good to see you again,” I said, trying to smile back instead of wincing. I really was happy to see him.
“I didn’t think you’d remember me,” he replied, mercifully letting go my hand. “I’ve been slaving away in your army, driving trucks around the city. I’m glad my skills can be put to good use.”
“How could I forget you?” I frowned. The memory of how he’d picked me up in his taxi and led me to meet Smithy was still fresh, as if it had happened yesterday. He had also had the nerve to drive me into Satan’s Demise. Mack had guts, and guts were what we would need.
“Well, you’re all famous now and everything,” he began, but stopped when I shook my head.
“This is not fame,” I said. “This is duty. I don’t forget my friends.”
He cracked his big grin again, which looked out of place on such a burly man. I wanted to speak with him more, one-on-one, but there were further pressing tasks at hand. I let the others gather around as I explained the significance of what we had seen in The Chamber of Maps.
“I’m going to take a handful of us to the edges of Hell and rise up against the flow,” I said. “If I’m right, which I’m certain I am, we’ll have only a few hours to make it to the Gates of Heaven and assess a weakness. If we can’t find anything, we’ll be expelled, but we can rise again after the next storm – again and again if we have to. Asmodeus wouldn’t dare stop that process and plug the breach; it would clog up Heaven with negativity.”
Germaine furrowed his brow, thinking. “But Asmodeus said he would stop The Guilt when he came here last time. It was part of his treaty offering.”
“He was lying,” I said firmly. “All he wanted, was to cause a revolt; for the people to doubt me. In part he succeeded. We lost one of our closest allies to his deceit.” The others went quiet at the mention of Mary; no one wanted to even speak her name anymore, it seemed. I rose from the couch. “We’ll go in our ethereal bodies this time.”
“Why don’t we use bodies of flesh?” Smithy asked, in an effort to figure out the best way to attack this next mission. “We’ll be able to stay up there indefinitely that way. The weight of the vessels will stop our ethereal selves from being drawn back.”
“I don’t want to risk us being captured and trapped in those bodies,” I explained, and paused to make sure I worded my next sentence the right way. “Smithy, you won’t be coming on this mission. I need you to stay here. I want you and Mack to help Marax lead the armies.” He looked hurt, but I continued before he could object. “You’re the finest soldier I know. Your advice will be more valuable in Hell. We need to have the legions battle-ready as soon as possible for when we succeed up there.” I didn’t add that because Smithy had refused to be protected from The Guilt it would burden our entry against the storm. This way was better. I couldn’t hold writhing bodies as we rose. As it was, it would take all my strength to overcome the flow of the elements pouring downward. “Mack,” I said, turning my attention to the macho cabbie, “I want you to help with the city’s logistics. You’re not just a driver. You know these streets better than anyone. I want to make sure efficient routes are being used to supply the legions with what they need as quickly as possible.
We need to be on high alert. You can pick your own team and Smithy will explain to Marax that you have my full confidence.”
Mack turned around and looked down to the streets below, through the panoramic window that afforded us a bird’s-eye view of the city. He started nodding.
“I can do that, Michael,” he said. “We can start to plan attack paths as well. I assume if this barrier thing gets broken, we’ll have to be able to climb upward? We’ll need to establish points to take off from.”
He was absolutely right. In my hurried state of mind I hadn’t thought of that. With no barrier, there would still be the problem of physically migrating upwards. We would have to start by building an air force. There were some demons who had wings already. Smithy was the most skilled pilot Hell could hope to have. We had options. Trust in my friends was returning rapidly. They held answers to problems I didn’t have time to consider now. I nodded to Mack that he was correct.
“We’ll cut roads to the mountains at the fringes, then,” he said. “Lucky we have an abundance of council workers in Hell. They won’t be allowed to rest on their shovels here if I have anything to do with it.”
“That’s a great idea, Mack,” Smithy said, everyone now gathering the buoyant feeling in the room. “We can establish airstrips at strategic points. That way, we’ll be as close to the foot of Heaven as possible when we open up the territory. We’ll be poised to strike.”
“And you’ll be the commander of the unit,” I said to Smithy. “You’ll have to pull together a fleet of planes.” His eyes glowed at the prospect. I could see the wheels of thought ticking behind his wrinkled face. Things were coming together. I had no illusions that roads and airfields could be built in a matter of days, even with all the legions of Hell working the task, but we were thinking as a team. We were planning like a united nation looking to overthrow an enemy. It would continue to reinforce the morale and direction of the legions. There had been a sharp swing in confidence since the defeat on Earth. I knew we had to act fast on this, but doubt about our change of luck crept into me. I had grown so distrustful of positive events that I wouldn’t allow myself to believe things would work just yet.
