Page 5 of Devils and the Dead
“Because your numbers are low,” Zariel snapped.
Eshu laughed. “Hell’s numbers aresofar from low. They’re lined up around the block, waiting for processing. We’ve had to stack them like cordwood because we’ve run out of room for all of our souls. Hades is working on an expansion—aren’t you?”
I was, but it wasn’t because we were bursting at the seams with our current layout. Satan didn’t care about crowding damned souls into the punishment areas, but he did care that some of his demons struggled to find adequate housing. I was working on a new section with luxury condos, a racquetball court, and a CrossFit gym. Several of the new arrivals were CrossFit instructors, and we were planning to adjust their scheduled torture so they could run workout sessions for the demons living in the condos.
“Purgatory doesn’t have her,” Remiel said, pulling my attention back to the topic at hand. “We believe purgatory. Wedon’tbelieve you.”
This was ridiculous. “Has anyone asked the souls who vanished and returned what exactly happened to them? Where they were for that brief moment in time? Maybe Mary Jane/Maude Hoffman accidentally got left behind when they came back.”
The two angels from heaven glared, but said nothing. Clearly no one had bothered to do any sort of investigation before they started pointing fingers.
“And howdidthe souls vanish?” Cruciel asked. “Hades was the architect for heaven, purgatory, and hell. Perhaps he has some insight into how the souls were able to leave, and reappear.”
“He obviously built in escape areas that we’re unaware of,” Remiel snapped. “We never should have allowed a demon to design heaven. Never.”
“I’m not a demon,” I told him. “Just because I have some short-term housing in hell and am working on several contracts for them doesn’t mean I’m biased. I take all my design projects seriously, and I resent the accusation that I’d build in secret escape areas. Heaven, hell, and purgatory were all built to specification. I did not deviate. I wouldn’t. I’m a professional, after all.”
Everyone liked to lump me in with Satan and hell, and in all honesty I did do quite a bit of work for the infernal lord. I treated all realms of the afterlife as my own, though. Even the ones that were more fun to visit than to actually live in.
“Then as the divine architect, what is your theory for how the souls were able to escape and return?” Waffle asked.
“A necromancer,” I announced.
Silence greeted my words. The only sound was Eshu loudly slurping his coffee.
“There are other ways for souls to escape,” I amended. “If a soul has a significant magical ability, they could possibly be able to orchestrate their own jailbreak. There is also some history of bribery, where demon guards have turned the other way, and even facilitated the journey across the river Styx. Some who are particularly gifted among the living have been able to enter the realms of the afterlife and bring a soul back to the living. But this particular occurrence was different.”
“Bribery or a sorcerer escaping with his own magic wouldn’t don’t fit. Not with the escape and return of multiple souls—especially souls in hell, heaven, and purgatory,” Zariel mused.
“And heaven’s souls do not leave on their own,” Remiel added. “No soul in heaven would ever wish to leave.”
Eshu snorted at that, but I nodded. Heaven was a lovely place. I should know since I designed it. It might not bemycup of tea, but to each his own.
“Why do you think it was a necromancer?” Zariel asked.
“They raise the dead. It’s what they do. And raising the dead doesn’t just involve animating a corpse either. A powerful necromancer can resurrect. An incredibly powerful necromancer can resurrect more than one person at a time.
“But six of our souls, plus the two from purgatory, plus however many from hell?” Remiel shook his head. “And if this necromancer was powerful enough to resurrect so many, then why return all except one of them an hour later?”
“The return of the soulsisperplexing,” Cruciel said.
“Maybe she picked the one she thought was the best and sent the rest back,” Eshu suggested. “I’ve seen women do that when they go shopping. They’ll come home with a dozen dresses that look good on the hanger, try them all on, then take back the eleven they don’t want.”
“She?” Remiel scoffed. “Necromancers have always been men. If they were women, then they’d be witches and witches can’t be necromancers.”
Eshu shrugged. “Just because you haven’t met a female necromancer, doesn’t mean there aren’t any around.”
“The gender of the necromancer, if thiswasthe result of necromantic magic, is moot,” Waffle interjected. “And there could be other reasons this happened. Perhaps an astrological alignment caused a weak area in our respective walls.”
“Then why did they come back?” I argued, ignoring the implication that my design would have a flaw that was susceptible to a certain astrological alignment. “Those who escape do not often return, unless their magic was faulty, or they violate a condition of the reprieve contract.”
Hell had no reprieve contracts, but purgatory did. See? The design specifications were exact.
“And all returned except for one soul?” Waffle looked around at all of us as we nodded in turn. “An additional question might be if there was a reason the missing soul is from heaven, or if that is just a coincidence.”
“I still think Satan concocted this whole thing as a cover-up for stealing Maude Hoffman’s soul,” Remiel countered.
“Why would Satan be interested in that particular soul?” I asked. Angels could get really hung up on certain things, but I got the impression there was more to this woman than her random disappearance from heaven.
