Page 57 of Devils and the Dead
“Resurrected.” The angel snarled. “No necromancer has been able to pull that off in nearly a thousand years. Who is this necromancer? Who is he? And who helped him? Someone from hell must have helped him pull this off.”
“Why would a demon help resurrect an old woman?” Eshu asked, both of us carefully avoiding Remiel’s previous question. “It’s not like it does us any good having her alive.”
“You’re hoping to get another shot at her,” Zariel insisted. “To convince her to sin so you can enjoy that peach crumble in hell.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier for a demon to just steal the recipe?” I asked. “Or to get it from one of her living relatives? They’ve got the recipe, you know, and I doubt they’reallgoing to heaven.”
“He’s got a point,” Waffle chimed in.
Cruciel nodded. “There’s no sense in making a big fuss about it, Remiel. They found the lost soul, and she’s beyond any of our reach now. You’ll just have to wait until she dies again. I think even you can manage to hold off for fifty or so years before you get another bite of that peach crumble.”
“Or go ask her for some,” Eshu added. “I’m sure if you came down her chimney in the middle of the night, she’d let you have some. Maybe even give you a glass of milk to go with it.”
“That’s Santa Claus,” I reminded Eshu.
“Fine,” Remiel snapped. “But that necromancer needs to be punished. Someone needs to punish him.”
Eshu made that boom-chicka-wow-wow noise and I elbowed him. “The demons have an extensive torture plan in place for necromancers, I assure you. I designed those areas of hell myself, and promise you they are suitably terrifying.”
The angels nodded, somewhat mollified. What they didn’t know was there was no way Babylon would ever be tortured, or that she would probably not set foot in hell after her death unless it was to visit her sisters.
Always by my side. As long as she wanted to walk with me, in life or in death, I would always welcome her by my side. And I was already at work on some enhancements to my Underworld, that I hoped she’d like.
“Why did this necromancer decide to resurrect Maude Hoffman, and not the others.” Waffle frowned. “Do we need to worry about other souls being resurrected? Should we expect the other six Hoffman souls who briefly went missing from hell and the two from Purgatory to vanish one-by-one?”
“I think the necromancer wanted the peach crumble recipe, just like everyone else,” I lied. “Clearly out of the souls who were taken from heaven, hell, and purgatory, hers was the only one that knew the recipe. The necromancer probably traded her a second life for that peach crumble.”
Remiel nodded, as if this made absolute sense to him. “The other Hoffman souls are not particularly gifted in cooking, so I assume they’re safe.”
“Yeah,” Zariel grumbled. “I wish they were gifted in cooking.”
“So are we done here?” Waffle looked at a watch that instantaneously appeared on his wrist. “We need to get back to purgatory. Busy, busy. Lots of things to do.”
“You guys don’t do anything but stand around and wait,” Eshu told him. “There’s nothing to do in purgatory. Nothing.”
I elbowed him again, eager to get out of here before he started a fight—especially since we’d just narrowly avoided a war.
Remiel stood. “This matter is not over, it’s only postponed. If Maude Hoffman does not appear in heaven after her death, then we will file a grievance.”
After threatening war, filing a grievance sounded good to me. I lifted my coffee cup to the angels, and nodded as they all vanished, leaving Eshu and me sitting at the table alone.
“I’m guessing that Maude Hoffman will not go to heaven after her death?” Eshu asked, passing me his flask.
I poured some of the contents in my coffee then passed it back. “Maude Hoffman died in 1984. Ann Fleming may go to heaven, although she is currently interested in learning more about her other options, such as Hades’s Underworld.”
Eshu chuckled. “Poacher.”
I shrugged. “It’s a free world, before death and after death.”
“True.” Eshu drained his coffee cup and stood. “I’ve got five messages to deliver to the wrong people. Wanna come with me?”
I sipped my coffee. “No thanks. We’re breaking ground on the new Cliffs of Despair, then this afternoon Babylon and I are taking Ann to the MVA for her driver’s license. She’s got a job—two jobs actually. She’s working at the bar with Babylon, then has some sales job on the side.”
“Have fun. You’ll probably need this. The MVA is hell.” Eshu set the flask down on the table beside my coffee. “See you at dinner Sunday?”
I smiled, thinking how amazing life had become. Simple things like Sunday dinner with a loud, boisterous family weren’t something I ever thought I’d enjoy, but I found those weekly dinners amazing. Because Babylon was there. Any moment I spent with her was a moment I cherished.
“See you at dinner,” I told Eshu.
