The Green's Hill Novellas

by Amy Lane

  The two of them appeared over the entryway to the anteroom and paused. It was, after all, the gateway from a soul’s seat on earth to its destination in heaven.

  “Shep, what’re the ropes for?” Jefi asked. He was naturally curious; the fourth hour of darkness was often a time for digging into secrets or children pattering down a darkened hallway.

  Shepherd stared at the golden cords and frowned. “I have no idea.” The cords seemed to be attached to all of the souls drifting about. They were brighter on the side near heaven and growing dimmer by the moment on the side near earth, and neither of the angels had any information on what those cords were supposed to be.

  Their puzzlement was greeted with soft laughter from a person coming out of the anteroom. There were plenty of people drifting in to the anteroom, and usually there was someone to greet them. That was the purpose of the anteroom: it was like an airport greeting area. Most of the people going through were in transit, and most of them had people waiting for them. Those that didn’t, well, they had angels to help them through the transition—Yahudia and Zaranpuryu being the main two, but they often recruited help. Either way, the anteroom was mostly an exclusively one-way proposition. Except for the young human with the white-blond hair and the sky-spangled eyes, weaving his way gracefully between oblivious souls.

  He was so solid in appearance, so full of flesh and vibrancy, that he was nearly blinding.

  “Hey there… wait a minute!” Jefi said. His energy vibrated; his wax-perfect human shape all but bounced on its pale bare toes. “You’re not supposed to be coming out of there!”

  The young man laughed. “Yeah, mate, I am. I was a little out of it, but I swear even I heard the row that got me my weekend-pass privileges set in stone. Check with your boss, duckies, but do it on your own time. I’ve got somewhere I’ve got to be.”

  Shepherd didn’t really have a mouth, but he knew that what looked like his jaw was swinging on its hinges. The young man faded out of the walkway to the anteroom, leaving Shep and Jefi staring at his narrow, retreating back.

  “Was he wearing a black motorcycle jacket?” Jefi asked out of the dark of the night.

  “Yes, Jefi. Yes, he was.” And ripped jeans and a white T-shirt. He’d looked like James Dean—only better. The pale hair was in a layered, curly halo around his face, and the blue eyes had been open and guileless, inviting people in as opposed to smoldering and warning people way.

  “He was very beautiful,” Jefi said in an admiring way. “By human standards, he would have been very coveted.”

  Shepherd blinked his eyes, feeling very stupid. “Oh, for the sake of heaven….” His angel form washed the color of softest rose. They weren’t supposed to swear. “That was Adrian, Jefi. Who else could it be? Weekend pass, inhuman beauty… dammit. We just let the vampire escape.”

  Jefi was silent for a moment, considering. “Well, technically he’s got a pass. We didn’t really let him escape.”

  Shep looked at him. Just looked at him. Jefi smiled charmingly, and Shepherd blew out a great chuff of air and threw his ass on a cloud with enough force to dislodge that sucker so it could float free. Jefi put his angelic “hands” on the cloud—it was about chest high—and instead of levitating or sweeping his mighty wings to and fro, he heaved himself up and clambered into a sitting position next to Shepherd like a toddler getting into bed with his big brother. Shepherd watched him silently, and when Jefi smiled that great, open grin into his face, Shep had no choice but to return it with a little smile of his own. You couldn’t stay mad at Jefi. This quality wasn’t one of his gifts as an angel. It wasn’t in his realm of power—it was just Jefischa. He was probably the only reason the fourth hour of darkness had so much possibility—because the fifth hour of darkness was dark, brooding, and violent. Drunks got mean in the fifth hour of darkness, when they were happy and sloppy in hour number four. Shep was pretty sure that was because Patrozhin was a dour, unsympathetic bastard who should have been made the angel of misers with pancreatitis.

  “You’re right,” Shepherd said, just to reassure Jefi that all his goodwill wasn’t for naught. “He’s got carte blanche. I don’t know why, but it’s out of our hands.”

  “Mmm….” Jefi sounded distracted. “I still don’t know what those ropes are for.” Jefischa put out his hands and made stroking motions. “They look… soft… and warm… and sweet to touch. I want to touch one….”

  “No,” Shepherd said uncertainly. “I…. Jefi, there’s something very… mortal about those. Look. They’re a direct link to earth. And did you see the size and the thickness of the vampire’s? It was….” He flailed for a comparison.

  “As big around as the vampire’s wrist!” Jefi said excitedly. “Yes! And the cord leading to heaven, it was much finer than those of these people here. You’re right, those are mortal things.” Jefi turned a look of pure adoration toward Shepherd. “It’s a good thing you spotted that! I would have just run right in!”

  Shepherd ducked his head and looked away. “Just looking out for us, that’s all.” And then, irritably, “You know, I really wish Peter had given us more of a heads-up about this place. It’s really complex!”

  “That’s because you’re not filtering out the white noise!” Peter tutted from behind them. Shepherd rolled his eyes. Saint Peter liked to just pop in unannounced when someone was on assignment. The humans had a word for it, but one did not call the right hand to the Lord of Heaven an “officious asshole.”

  Still, Shepherd and Jefi took Peter’s advice. They filtered out everyone who did not have access to the planet below. There was still the occasional soul—serene and filled with purpose—being drawn back to earth with those thick, almost pulsing cords of gold, but once the influx of souls was filtered out, it was an okay place. Shepherd heard a change of music—there’d been Mozart permeating the air earlier—and he raised his eyes toward Jefi with a wince.

  “Isn’t that a little contemporary?”

  “I like Death Cab for Cutie.”

  Shepherd felt more than saw Peter’s rolled eyes, so he grinned and said, “You know, I think it’s a good choice myself!”

  “Very cute,” Peter said through clenched teeth. “Look, he’s down on the planet, so I know you’ve already met. And he’ll seem very nice and very personable. Just don’t get personal with him, okay? That’s where the others slipped up. Don’t make that mistake.”

  “We hear you!” Jefi turned that open smile to Peter, whose jaw relaxed in spite of what Shep assumed were the man’s best intentions. “Are you going to tell us what the gold things are?”

  “Just don’t touch them!” Peter called, fading from their vicinity rapidly. Well, he was the head honcho here, off to do big important things.

  Jefi stuck his tongue out at the empty place where Peter had been, and Shep choked back a laugh. “Very mature, Jefi.”

  An actual circle of gold appeared over Jefi’s figurative head. “I am an angel, you know.”

  Shep let the laugh escape, and Jefi preened.

  After Peter left, though, the gig was pretty tame. Shepherd called up a great work of literature to read between calls of penitence, and Jefi lay on his stomach, peering at the world below, scanning for more music as the fourth hour of dark swept the globe. They could (and had been known to) spend months at a time sitting doing just that, but they hadn’t been settled for more than a few hours when their boy showed up.

  “Hullo. Glad to see you’re still here!”

  Jefi looked up, grinning. “Did you have a nice time?” he asked politely, and Shepherd glared at him. “I was only asking. I mean, we don’t get day passes out of here. I thought it would be nice to go somewhere and visit friends.”

  “Yeah, mate. It was positively smashing. Here, I’ll go and get out of your hair.” There was something about Adrian’s tone that told them both that a great deal of pain was involved in his “smashing time.”

  Shepherd and Jefischa met unhappy glances. They were angels. Part of their job
description was to alleviate pain.

  “I’m sorry, Adrian,” Jefi said, sympathy written in angelic lines across his form. “Why do you go if it hurts you?”

  Adrian shrugged, and something about his face told them that he’d rather not talk about it. “They need me. I’d go if it was torture, because they need me. It’s not torture—makes the afterlife bearable, if you must know the truth. I’ve got to tell you two, it hurts them the same as it hurts me. But we need it.”

  Shepherd and Jefischa watched, at a loss as Adrian moved slowly back to the anteroom. The thick living cord of gold that seemed to bind him to the surface of the world was faded now and not quite as thick as it had been when he’d left earlier, but still it seemed to slow him down, make his footsteps sluggish as he disappeared through the veil of mists that marked the entrance.

  “Well,” Shepherd said fitfully, “that was disappointing. He doesn’t even look like a vampire, really.”

  “I saw a little fang,” Jefi added helpfully, and Shep smiled at him to let him know it was appreciated. “Shep, your wings are gray.”

  “Yeah.” Shepherd sighed. “Well, the sky feels like a sad ocean after that, doesn’t it?”

  Jefi closed in behind him. It wasn’t a physical touch, not the way humans did it, but Jefischa managed to comfort Shepherd in his glow. “Why do you suppose he gets visiting privileges if they don’t make anyone happy?”

  “Maybe sadness is as sweet as it gets if you’re a vampire’s ghost, Jefi. Sometimes not even heaven gives happy ever after, right?”

  “Shep, that’s blasphemy!”

  Shepherd sighed. “You don’t hear them down there. Everybody begging forgiveness, and the ones who really need it won’t acknowledge they’ve done anything wrong. It seems like penitence is… it’s like a novelty you can buy, a pretty bauble. You say something mean, you blurt out an ‘I’m sorry’ and think penitence is served. But that thing you say… it’s around forever, long after your penitence has been discarded and the next awful thing comes out of your mouth.” Shepherd cast a covert glance in the direction where Adrian had disappeared. “But not that one. Now that we’ve spoken again, I remember him. That one, penitence was deep and it was real. Maybe sadness is really a treat for that one. Maybe that’s why he gets to visit.”

  Jefi’s energy felt… well, it felt contemplative at Shepherd’s back. “You like him.”

  Shepherd shrugged and pulled out another book—Dostoyevsky, a personal favorite. “Let’s just say I’m on a first-name basis with his demons, and they’re worthy. When he was on earth, I never knew he was a vampire.”

  Jefischa’s energy blinked. “How could you not know?”

  Shepherd sighed and situated himself, sprawling like a particularly large, long-legged human male might, had he not been an angel and wearing a form for the sake of the entering mortals. “He didn’t repent the things he did as a vampire. I mean, they’re supposed to have a mantra, right? ‘No shame.’ But nobody can do that for real, right? Most vampires, they slip up—they kill somebody they didn’t intend to, they turn someone who goes rogue. Even the ones who become vampires just to be evil—to kill indiscriminately—even they feel shame. But not Adrian. If he hadn’t made his livelihood in sex and blood, I’d swear he was a saint.”

  Jefischa was quiet for a moment. “You liked him, when he was on earth.”

  “It was nice. A good man’s penitence is a rare and precious thing. I was grateful when he was relieved of it, though. He bore the burden too long.”

  “Shepherd?”

  “Yes?”

  “All you know of humanity are the things they regret.”

  There was a dark silence then, and Shepherd didn’t know how to make it lighter. “Yeah, Jefi. That’s about right.”

  “Have you ever heard them, right before they go to sleep before a big, exciting day?”

  “No.”

  There was a subtle fluttering near where Shepherd’s shoulder would be if he’d had one. “You should. It feels like flying.”

  Shepherd had a sudden, irrational wish. He wished that he had real hands and not just constructs of energy. He wished that he could ruffle Jefi’s hair—if he had any. He pushed the wish aside but managed to lighten his wings up to an open gray-blue. “I’ll be sure to try that, Jefi. But for now, let’s give him a day or two to himself and then go visit. I can feel his penance now, and he shouldn’t be alone for too long.”

  “Why? What’s he regret?”

  “Dying and leaving his loved ones alone.”

  Jefischa made a suspicious sound, and Shepherd extended an energy-construct arm. Jefi draped himself across Shepherd’s “body” and made himself comfortable. From the way he was bobbing his head, Shep figured he was listening to music. “C’mon, Jefi,” Shepherd said after a moment. “You know it’s no use grieving for that one. Mortals have a short time, that’s all.”

  “Yeah. But Shep, he wasn’t mortal.”

  Well, yeah. A vampire in love probably assumed he really did have worlds enough and time, didn’t he?

  “We’re all susceptible to ending, Jefi. Even you, and even me.”

  “I don’t believe that, Shep. Falling isn’t ending. I think there will always be a Shep and a Jefi. The world wouldn’t spin right without us.”

  “And we’ll always be together, right?”

  An affronted silence. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be Shep and Jefi!”

  “Oh. Of course.” Shepherd was usually a restless, brooding sort of presence—unless Jefischa was this close, purring over him. So the reassurance actually made him happy. For a moment, a mere moment, he felt an anticipation of something unknown like Jefi had described, but it was immediately lost in the blissful hum of eternity ever after.

  They gave Adrian a couple of turns of the sun and then went in during Jefi’s hour. Adrian was draped on a couch, playing some sort of electronic game on a big screen with a recently departed teenager who had messy brown hair, jeans, and the rapidly fading marks of a fatal motorcycle crash. They were busy making lights and sounds for a moment, and then the teenager—who hadn’t heard the two angels come in—said, “Are you sure no one cares if we’re playing Grand Theft Auto IV? Because my mom kept telling me this game would fuck up my morals.”

  Adrian caught Shepherd’s eyes and winked. “Well, mate, I think if you’ve ended up here, you’ve probably got nothing to worry about.”

  There was a sad and quiet silence. On the “television” in front of them, a character took a clip in the gut, vomited cartoon blood, and died. “Yeah. Do you think she knows that?” The kid’s leather jacket repaired itself as he spoke, and what looked to be a fatal head injury knitted itself up as well. “I…. You know. We were fighting a lot when I ended up here.”

  Adrian pressed pause on the game—something about the movement suggested he’d had conversations like this many times before. “Mate, most mothers love their sons. If she was bitching at you to clean up your act, it’s because she loved you. She’s going to miss you, no two ways about it. But she’ll look at your pictures and cry, and then she’ll let you go, because she knows someday she’ll see her little boy again.”

  There was a thoughtful silence. “Will I know?” the boy said. “Will I know when she’s coming?”

  Adrian smiled at him with an insouciant, fuck-me sort of grin, and he fingered the cord emerging from his chest. “You’ll feel it here, mate. You can come meet her when it’s time.”

  The boy felt at the cord as though he’d only now noticed it, and even Shepherd realized that you couldn’t really see them unless you were looking. Suddenly the expression on the boy’s narrow, apple-cheeked face became dreamy… hooded… sultry.

  “My girlfriend misses me too,” the boy said, and Adrian smiled sympathetically. The boy began to caress the cord, bathing his hand in its energy. His head fell back against the couch, and his body—or what he imagined to be his body—began to bulge at the crotch of the newly repaired jeans.

  Adrian stood f
rom what looked to be a beanbag chair made out of cloud and unobtrusively exited the room, closing a “door” behind him.

  “Well, he’ll need to be alone for a while. Was there anything you blokes wanted, or did you want to do the voyeur thing some more?”

  Shepherd wasn’t sure about Jefi, but he knew why it took him a while to answer. “I… we weren’t aware that humans… uhm… souls… could still do that here.”

  Adrian raised a mocking eyebrow. “He was feeling his connection to the human world, mate. He was seventeen when he died. You could probably populate Mars out of what’s pumping through that gold cord.”

  Jefi giggled. Shep glared at him and he subsided, but Jefi’s hand was set solidly over his mouth, and his dancing angelic eyes showed that he was still amused. “It makes sense,” Shep said at last, slowly, and then Jefi moved his hand and interrupted.

  “Do you do that, Adrian?”

  Adrian’s smile was both devilish and kind at the same time. “Boyo, I wasn’t even human. I was vampire. We fuck like lemmings on speed. I can still do that. And I often do!”

  If Shepherd had actually been breathing, his breath would have absolutely stalled in his chest. As it was, Jefischa made a sucking, whooshing sound and almost choked on his own spit, which was pretty damned hard since angels didn’t have any.

  Adrian laughed loud and long, holding his middle and whooping until he was wiping his cheeks for tears that weren’t there and gasping for breath, and Shep tried to pull himself together. Before he could get a handle on his shock—or his terrible curiosity—Jefi said guilelessly, “Oh, I get it. You were kidding!” and that set Adrian off again. While he was rolling on the pale cloudy floor of heaven, Shepherd and Jefi looked at each other in mortification.

  “Not kidding,” Shep said, feeling an odd temperature fluctuation. Jefi must have been feeling it too. His wax-perfect features were starting to turn a little pink.

  “Thinking not,” Jefi answered back in a small voice. Adrian was starting to subside now, but he was still giggling a little to himself as he stood gracefully and swept imaginary dust off his blue jeans. He wiped another imaginary crimson tear from a razor-blade cheek and reached out and clapped Jefischa on the back. Jefi and Shep exchanged shocked glances when the slapping sound rebounded and echoed off the vaults of heaven’s anteroom, but Adrian seemed unperturbed.