Ascent of the Fallen

by Rebecca L. Frencl

  The roil of emotions he’d been drowning in since arriving back at Hell’s Gate finally settled. A smile tugged his lips and the warmth of the vial of miracles warmed his heart. The shining Gates rose before him. Deimos growled, but opened the gates without comment or complaint. He looked in the shadows, but didn’t see Asmoday lurking anywhere nearby. He wanted to repay the demon for the little trick he’d played deep in the depths. Later, he decided, letting power spark off his fingers.

  Yariel and Fesinth nodded to him from where they stood, judging the endless line of souls that stretched beyond Rue’s sight. He’s go see Nathanial, then Serafina.

  “Rue!”

  He jerked to a stop, frowning, searching for who called him. The souls nearest to him moaned, hands outstretched towards him. Fesinth reached out to judge the soul. It cringed away from the silver winged angel. Darkness poured out of it and Rue could see why it didn’t want to be judged.

  “Rue!” Azrael winged across the cavern, his dark wings lost in the shadows overhead.

  “Azrael,” he smiled, “you don’t come down here very often.”

  The grim angel landed. The souls screamed and scattered away from him. Deimos and his fanged partner hissed, lashing out with their whips to get them back in line.

  Yariel glared. “You’re scaring them out of the shadows of the wits they have, Azrael,” he complained. “They think you’re here to take them again.”

  Azrael ignored the angel’s griping. “Rue, where have you been?”

  He gestured to the Gate behind him. “I went to see Semiazas. He had something I needed.” He grinned. “I can’t talk now, Az, I need to go see Serafina.”

  His hands tightened on Rue’s shoulders. He knew had he still been mortal that touch would have chilled him to the bone. “It’s Serafina.”

  Rue froze.

  “She’s gone.” Azrael’s golden eyes glowed in empathy. “I looked for you. For hours, I put off taking her soul. I knew you’d want to be there to ease her through, to say goodbye.” He tightened his grip. “Where were you?” His anguished voice threatened to drop Rue to his knees. “I asked Yariel and Nathaniel. They told me that you’d disappeared behind the Gate days ago.”

  “Days?” Rue choked. “It’s been hours. Only hours, I swear. I—“he broke off, the truth dawning on him. He knew all the legends of the Hells. Knew not to eat anything, not to bargain with any of the denizens, not to trust even what his eyes showed him, but he’d forgotten one fundamental rule of Lucivar’s domain. Time ran at the Dark Lord’s will. It had seemed like hours, should have been hours, but had been days. Days in which he could have seen Serafina, spoken to her and said goodbye or saved her.

  He refocused on Azrael. “Gone?” He cleared his throat. “She’s gone, then?”

  Azrael dropped his hands, stepped away. “That’s what else I need to tell you. I was going to collect her personally. She would have slipped right up to the light, but I had put in an order to be called on when she was ready to go.”

  Rue nodded. “I saw that.”

  He slipped his schedule out of his pocket, tossed it to Rue. “Look here.”

  The date was opened. Serafina had been highlighted on the calendar, a personal request. Her name was gone. “What does this mean?”

  He slipped the phone back in his pocket. “There was a glitch. She was removed from my schedule.”

  “A glitch? Azrael, it’s heaven. There are no glitches.”

  “Then it was sabotage.”

  “So, she went up by herself?”

  Azrael was shaking his head before Rue had even finished the question. “I thought of that. Went up to see her, talk to her and assure her that I would get you through to her. She wasn’t there.”

  “What do you mean she wasn’t there?”

  “Just what I said, Rue. She wasn’t there. She should have been on my schedule. She was removed. She should have ascended on her own, she was good enough. She’s not there. That tells me that there’s more at work here than we know.”

  A cold spiral of fear lanced through even the numbing effects of being at the edge of the realms. “Sabotage, you said.” Azrael nodded. Rue narrowed his eyes, peering beyond the bars, searching the shadows.

  A flash of silver, a shift of light and Asmoday stepped up to the bars. He was dressed in funeral black, his shirt a shining silver, his tie decorated with grinning skulls.

  Rue looked over, his gaze meeting Azrael’s. “I think we need to have a little chat with the Deceiver,” Rue whispered.

  One corner of Azrael’s mouth tipped up in a smile. He reached out, pulled a scythe from the air. The souls in the line screamed and scattered again. He gestured to the Gate. “You first.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Souls scattered, terrified by their advance. Deimos shouted out a warning. Asmoday’s blue eyes flashed red as they widened and he dove for the safety of the deeper Hells. Rue and Azrael swept souls from their path. Yariel sprinted for the gate, but he was too slow for the two angels. Hell’s Gate slammed shut behind them. Asmoday, of course, was nowhere to be found.

  “Rue!” Yariel’s voice reached from behind them, but Rue and Azrael completely ignored the judge and carried on.

  Azrael grabbed Deimos by the throat, lifting the demon off his feet. He kicked, his eyes bugging out more than usual, ice riming the skin around the angel’s fingers. “Where?” he grated and gave the creature a vicious shake.

  Dark choking laughter squeezed from the demon’s throat. “Gone. You’ll never be able to follow.”

  With a growl, he threw Deimos against the Gate. The flames flared and flickered, dancing wild shadows around the judging chamber.

  The red-veined black tiled antechamber of Hell echoed silent as a tomb. The quiet lap of water did nothing to cool the rage burning within Rue. “He was right there!” He gestured with his shining sword to a jut of stone just in sight of Hell’s Gate.

  Azrael’s deep rumble did not sound amused. “It seems we were deceived.” His hand landed on his friend’s shoulder, a comforting pressure as opposed to the biting cold grip it had been on earth when he’d worn a man’s flesh. “He’s had centuries to perfect it.”

  Chill wind buffeted them. Cool fingers of mist trailed over his face. He jerked away with a frown at the unexpected sensation. “What?”

  Azrael’s hand shot out. “Hold,” he ordered. “There’s a wandering soul trying to get your attention.” He reached out, the hand with the skull ring disappearing into the mist that had appeared in front of them. “Speak.” The choral resonance of the Angel of Death’s voice shook a few stalactites loose from the unseen ceiling. They crashed nearby. “Be seen,” he ordered again.

  The white mist coalesced. A woman – no, Rue corrected – a girl, long flowing skirt, billowing sleeved blouse, hair loose and straight to her hips, appeared before them. She shook her head and he heard the musical clash of a trio of large metal hoops at her ears. “Whoa,” she staggered, fetching up against the outcropping of stone to catch herself. “Been a while since I had some weight to me.” She offered them a smile.

  “Speak,” Azrael ordered. The spirit shuddered in response.

  “You’re looking for Asmoday, right?” She went on, not waiting for their nods of ascent. “You’re never going to find him if you just blunder on into Hell.” She waved one hand at the River Styx. Charon’s black barge bumped to shore. “You can get across here, but the halls all twist if you don’t have a guide.”

  Rage and despair twisted inside Rue. Resolve hardened into a hot ball in his belly. Who knew how long he’d blunder about this time when Asmoday truly didn’t want to be found. And with Azrael at his side, how much would tangle in the mortal realms with the Angel of Death otherwise occupied? A thread of understanding started to spin through his thoughts.

  Azrael chuckled beside him, drawing his attention back to the problem at hand. He turned to see the Angel of Death’s golden eyes twinkle in amusement at the shade before them. “Do you want freed
om then, ghost girl?”

  She stuck her chin out in defiance. “I’ve been hiding from the demons since the sixties when I was brought down here and sentenced to Hell.” Her gaze raked Rue from toe to head. “Wasn’t you.” She gestured back toward the blazing gates. “One of the others thought I had enough sin by association to deserve the fires.” She lifted one shoulder in a negligent shrug. “I get it in some ways. I was part of Manson’s group for a while, but I got out before the Tate murders and all.”

  Rue reached out, reached through the girl, snagging her soul, ignoring her indignant little shriek. He sifted through her sins: indulgence, drugs, lust, greed, theft... then a realization that she was sinking so much deeper than she truly wanted. He saw a man with wild eyes and a silver tongue, a group of people nodding in a haze of smoke and drink to a plan that would end in death. Cold fear threaded through her heart driving her to slip out of an abandoned house where they were squatting. Nowhere to go, turning to the only life she knew selling her soul and her body on the streets where she met an untimely end at the hands of a man who wanted more than she was willing to give.

  He released her. Her eyes opened pale blue in the dim light of Hell, the color discernible only in Azrael’s presence. She cocked a brow at him. “You know how much that hurts?” She shook her head. “I’m sure you agree with the other judge.” She shrugged again, her earrings jangling. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “So, what do you want?” Azrael tossed his scythe in the air letting it disappear. “If not freedom, then what?”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want freedom,” she countered.

  Rue growled, his sword still glowing silver bright in his hand. Time was wasting. The longer they lingered, the longer it would take to find Serafina, the longer she’d be forced to endure horrors of Hell. “We don’t have time.... ”

  “You’d better make time,” the ghost snapped. “I’ve been watching Asmoday for the last little while. He’s up to something.”

  “What else is new?” Azrael snorted. “He’s the Deceiver. He’s always up to something.”

  She shook her head. “No, there’s something a lot bigger going on. I’ve been around for a couple of decades and I’ve learned to figure out when something big is going down.” She gestured to the Greek Underworld across the river. “Asmoday’s had the little guys poking holes into the real world.” Her mouth twisted. “I tried to get through. I thought being a spirit out there would be better than dodging demons down here.” She shook her head before they were even able to ask. “Works only for demonkin. I got zapped into smoke when I tried. Took me most of a day to re-form. I saw a handful of them go through not an hour or so ago. Of course, time’s a little wonky around here.”

  “Demonkin?” Rue frowned. “Az, when I was mortal, I kept seeing demonkin. I thought they were drawn to me because I was angel-touched. The princes left me my memories and those memories came with more abilities that a normal human would have. I thought they were just drawn to me. I got a sword from the princes. I was –” Realization dawned. “They were let loose on purpose.”

  “To kill you or to test you?” Azrael pondered.

  Rue shook his head. “No idea. Maybe they weren’t there for me at all.” He turned to the ghost girl. “Can you lead us to Serafina?”

  “My name’s Elli,” she muttered.

  He dipped into an apologetic bow. “Can you lead us to Serafina, Elli?”

  She pursed her lips. “I can lead you to the Labyrinth.” She waved one arm crowded with bracelets past the Greek Hell. “I know she was being taken to the maze, but that’s it. I can’t lead you through the maze, but I’ll help you.” As if she knew what he was about to ask she continued, “There isn’t any way through the maze. Well, there is, but everyone has to find their own way through. It’s complicated. You’ll see if you’re really serious about going there.”

  “I ask again,” Azrael’s deep voice echoed, a choral command to the spirit before them, “what do you want? We make no bargains with the denizens of Hell.”

  “What I want….” she trailed off, glancing at the flickering gates of Hell. “I want to serve. I want to have a chance to earn my way out of here.” She waved a hand, encompassing all of Hell in her gesture. “You all think we’re here for punishment or to work out our sins, but it’s not what’s happening. All that’s happening is punishment. I’ve been here more than forty years and I haven’t heard or seen one soul who was let loose. They all talk a great game about serving the greater purpose, but I haven’t ever seen anyone let go. What’s the point then?”

  Azrael stroked his chin, then nodded. “Very well.” He snapped his fingers, his scythe appearing in his hand. “Allow me to touch you with this, ghost girl, and you’ll be bound to my purpose.” He shrugged. “I’ve been meaning to take on more help.”

  She skipped away from the shining weapon. “You can’t. Not yet.” She gestured around them. “If I’m bound to you then I’m not a creature of Hell anymore and I can’t make the halls move.” She pursed her lips. At their uncomprehending stares, she gestured to the solid looking stone wall at her side and explained, “The halls move. They shift and only those of us who reside here can force them to our wills.” She shrugged. “I’m not very good at it, but I’d be a damn sight better than the two of you. We might have to grab an imp to help us.”

  Rue smiled. “I’m up for that.”

  She grinned, “I knew I liked you. You’re not like all the other judges, are you?”

  “Definitely not,” he agreed.

  Azrael gestured her toward Charon’s boat. “Then lead the way. We will bargain when the woman is safely where she belongs.”

  They boarded the barge. Charon poled, unconcerned that he seemed to be letting enemies into his master’s territory. Or was it his master’s territory anymore? Rue wondered. The ferryman’s master had been Hades. Had his loyalty left when Hades had been abandoned for Abbaddon or Satan? As Hell changed, so did its master. Black water slid by. Sharp-toothed fish broached the surface as if scenting flesh. The barge bumped the ebon sand shore of the Grecian Hell.

  “My thanks,” Rue said to the ferryman who raised his head to nod in return, the first such gesture he’d ever gotten from the creature.

  “Let’s go!” Elli’s voice rang from the twisted path. “The last time I went to the labyrinth it was past the Norse Hel and right next to one of the African ones.” She squinted across the large low plan that stretched before them. The Fields of Asphodel with its hordes of ancient Grecian dead milling about amid pale white flowers, stood now at their feet. Definitely different from when he’d come through Hell the last time. They’d skirted the Field, heading right toward the heart of Tartarus. “I know that it’s usually on the far side of the Greek Hell.” She flitted down the twisting smoke gray road that wound down to the Field. “The ancient Hells don’t move around so much as the more modern halls, though they do move. They’re usually just always up against each other. I just hope we don’t need to go through all of them.” She shuddered. “Some of them are really, really weird.”

  “Lead on,” Azrael gestured.

  She nodded and floated down another dozen yards leading the way into Hell.

  The Fields looked like nothing more than a vast rolling expanse of flower fields. White flowers, pale as corpse fingers waved in a non-existent wind. The souls of the Grecian dead who had not been particularly remarkable in life milled about, jabbering to each other in high screechy voices, unable to be understood by one another or visitors. Since they did nothing remarkable in life, they were doomed to do nothing in death. Truly, Rue thought, one of the more diabolical tortures of Hell. He paused before a woman. She ignored him, continued to stare straight ahead with no sign in her washed-out blue eyes that she even saw him. Perhaps, they didn’t mind?

  Rue remembered the lines of Grecian dead at Hell’s Gate, though he and his brothers had never judged these souls. They fell of their own accord onto the Fields knowing that they had not lead r
emarkable, heroic lives. In the Greek afterlifes, only those who were heroes or who were shining paragons of virtue were ever allowed paradise. Everyone else wound up in the Fields—of Asphodel or of Punishment. He had once visited the Isle of the Blessed, a beautiful sun-filled city of white marble crowded with athletes, philosophers and those who performed deeds of honor and glory.

  The Fields of Asphodel went on and on. The dreariness of the scenery started to drag down his eyelids. His feet stumbled over clumps of white asphodel flowers. Their scent, heavy and sweet, spiraled up to surround him, clouded his mind. He looked up. Instead of the lowering ceiling of a cavern he saw a gray sky painted with scudding white clouds. It would be nice to lay down his burdens for just a moment... his shining silver sword slipped from his grip to tumble amid the asphodels. A flash of white light and the celestial blade scorched a circle about six feet in diameter at his feet. The harsh stench of the burning flowers jerked him back to reality.

  Shaking himself, Rue picked up his sword and the pace, jogging through the ashes of asphodel to catch up with Azrael and Elli. They walked on, unconcerned and unaffected, through the Field. He could hear her voice happily chattering away to the Angel of Death, bombarding him with question after question. Why had it affected him? Why had he been the only one drawn in by the curious lassitude of the flowers? Did some lingering weaknesses from his brush with humanity still linger on him? Perhaps, Rue thought, just as he’d been able to tap into some of his angelic strengths as a human he was hindered by some of his former human weaknesses as an angel. Only time would tell.

  The fields gave way to a broad wooden avenue—the pathway to the Nordic Hel, Elli told them, and he was only too happy to leave them behind. One glance backward showed the white flowers waving in that ghostly breeze as if beckoning his return.