Page 28 of Devils and the Dead
Babylon
At three o’clock, I was locking the door behind us. I was alert, awake, and energized, my sleep clock adjusted after years of working the late shift at the bar.
I looked around for Hades’s vehicle and didn’t see any. “I guess I’m driving?”
“I can teleport there if you give me the address. I’m not here often enough to bother getting my own car, and it’s easier to just pop in and out of where I want to go.”
“Oh.” I should have realized that from my sisters’ boyfriends, but I never really thought about their transportation methods. Most of the time the couples showed up for Sunday dinner together in cars, or trucks. It never crossed my mind to ponder the fact that those vehicles belonged to my sisters, and that they were usually the ones driving.
“You could steal a car,” I said, remembering that Addy’s boyfriend, Ty, had done just that when they’d been dating. I was pretty sure auto theft wasn’t beyond Eshu, Xavier, or Lucien either. Nash and Hadur didn’t seem like the stealing type, and I knew that Hadur had bought a used truck after my sister had released him from the summoning circle he’d been trapped in.
“That seems rather rude.” Hades frowned. “What if someone came out in the morning to go to work and found their car gone? What if they had an emergency, and I’d stolen their only means of transportation? Even if I took one from a sales lot, it wouldn’t be very nice to deprive a human of a business asset just because I’m too lazy to teleport somewhere.”
I doubted any of my sisters’ boyfriends would have considered those things. It hit me once more that Hades wasn’treallya demon, so he’d regard things like theft differently. It sounded as if he regarded humans differently as well. Hades. The architect.
Thearchitect. I liked that designation, liked the pride of accomplishment and self-assurance that came with it. He was kind and considerate, but he wasn’t shy about admitting his talents. I liked that about him just as much as I liked his looks.
“I’ll drive. That way we can talk and get to know each other a bit.” I led the way over to my car, trying to squelch the concerns of being in a vehicle with a man I’d just met. Xavier was his friend, and had warned him about being gentlemanly, so I knew I had six hellish demons looking out for me in addition to my witch sisters. But still, I felt uncomfortable. A human guy I’d met one night had pulled something when I was giving him a lift home. I’d been able to handle it with half a dozen undead mice, but Hades wasn’t human and I didn’t think he’d be as freaked out over zombie rodents as the human had.
My instincts said I could trust him. Xavier had indicated I could trust him. But just in case I animated a squished opossum from the far side of the parking lot, and had him sneak into the backseat as Hades was getting in.
Opossum backup.
“An old friend or a new one?” he asked, seeing the undead animal climb into my car.
“New,” I confessed. “Sorry. Necromancers gotta necromance, you know.”
I wasn’t about to admit that I didn’t quite trust him. Although confessing to always having animated corpses around me was probably just as much of a relationship killer as not trusting he’d be on his best behavior.
“I understand.” He eyed the opossum once more then climbed into the passenger seat. “Does your new friend have a name.”
“No.” I’d never thought to name any of my undead. They were just animated. It wasn’t like they actually had sentience. They simply were mobile due to my magic and will. Addy named all of her animal friends, but naming a moving corpse felt silly. Like naming a sofa or a fork.
“So, you live in hell?” I broke the silence as we pulled out of the parking lot. “Are there other places you could live? If so, then why hell?”
“I can live anywhere I choose, but I do have some temporary housing in hell. Right now the majority of my work is there, and I wanted to consider my daily commute. Besides, I got a particularly good deal on an apartment in the fifth circle.”
I glanced over at him, not sure if he was kidding or not. “I’m sure your apartment is nice, but I don’t really understand the appeal of living in hell. Shortened commute aside.”
I didn’t want to discount the shortened commute. It was a contributing factor for my living outside of Accident, and one of the major reasons my sister Addy had also moved from our hometown. Driving over the mountain each day into the human world was a pain. And for me, I’d felt just as much the oddball inside of Accident as I did outside of the supernatural town. I didn’t really fit in there, and I really didn’t fit in here either. The difference was that here I could pretend to be human and everyone seemed to accept that. Back home, I’d always be that weird witch who animates the dead.
The roadkill opossum in the backseat chirped, reinforcing just how weird my magic truly was.
“Hell isn’t for everyone,” Hades confessed. “It’s always hot, although it’s a dry heat. Some find the cries of the damned to be annoying, but Lucifer specifically wanted the acoustics designed so residents could hear the sound in all corners of hell, so I can’t be blamed for that particular feature. Most demons find the background noise melodic, but it’s a matter of taste.”
“I’m sure it is.” I hid an eye roll, thinking that screams and wails were not my idea of pleasant white noise.
“I carefully designed the circles with aesthetics in mind, but hell is basically a purpose-build structure,” he explained. “I had certain parameters that I needed to stay within, and expectations to fill. There’s only one afterlife that is completely my own design. I’m still working on it, fine tuning the details when I have time between contracts. Sometimes I stay there, but the commute to hell is a bit of a beast. So that’s why I have the apartment.”
“Me, too. The commute, that is. I’ve got a little house here in the city instead of staying in Accident,” I told him.
He nodded. “I miss it. My own afterlife, that is. Even unfinished, it brings me so much joy. It’s wonderful to create something where I don’t need to compromise my vision to satisfy a customer’s specifications.”
In my bartending job I had to make all sorts of drinks that I wouldn’t drink if someone held a gun to my head. If it was what the customer wanted, it’s what I did. I guessed Hades was under the same constraints.
“You designed heaven and purgatory as well?” I remembered him saying that at the bar. “Were those places closer in alignment to your creative vision?”
He winced. “Not really. Lucifer gives me greater latitude than other customers. The designs for heaven and purgatory had very rigid, detailed specs, so I couldn’t be very inventive. The fluffy clouds in heaven had to be an exact density, specific color, size, and shape and distance apart. Harp music only. Choral voices were only allowed to sing three songs on repeat. Pastel pink and blue filters with a certain degree of transparency. The pearly gates at twelve feet on the nose, golden pearl. There was no latitude for creativity at all.”
