“And that works?” Yeah, I was in Heaven and still found it incredible such a system could ever work. "Sounds like a sure recipe for a fucking mess."
“More or less, yeah,” Bobby smiled. “Come on, bro, this is where the good souls go, at least those that worship the Big Guy. Before you ask about Hell, I'm not really sure how that works. With so many different beliefs flying around here, things get a bit muddled. Anyway, by Heaven's very nature, things tend to go pretty smoothly and folks are aware of their own faults. Everybody wants to get along and go with the flow.”
God, it was so great being there with him, shooting the shit and talking about even the littlest of things. This, well, this was actually a big deal. “So boring, I get it. So that was an angel asking if you knew anything about the crash?”
“Right on the nose.” He finally settled his chair back on all four legs. “Now I could go on about the daily grind here in Candyland, but you don’t really want to hear about that.”
“No way, man,” I argued, waving my hands in front of me. “I want to know everything about you, what’s happened, how you’re doing, the whole deal.”
Bobby shook his head and clucked his tongue, something he did that I knew I hated. “Come on, Frank, you know you can’t bullshit me. That stopped working when we were teenagers.” He leaned his elbows on the table, folded his hands together, and plopped his chin on his knuckles. “So let’s cut the horseshit and get on with it. You want to know how you got here and where your friends are. Especially where Gabby is, huh?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Goddamn, am I that transparent?” My eyes went wide and I slapped my hands over my mouth as soon as I said the words. When the smiting bolt from the skies, er, ceiling didn’t actually come, I looked sheepishly at Bobby.
He was laughing like a jackass. Once he finally managed to calm down, he was wiping phantom tears from his translucent face. “Don’t worry, that happens to everybody on their first day up here. God doesn’t actually blow anybody up for taking his name in vain. Hell, he has like a dozen names anyway.” Bobby’s quirky smile, so familiar to me and so long gone from my life, was big on his face. “And yes, you are that transparent, bro.”
“Fuck, well, I know you won’t let it go, so let’s get it over with.” I crossed my arms and sighed. “So what did happen? How did I get here and where did everyone else go?”
“The first part is pretty straight forward, obviously. Like I said, that Garuda thing crashed smack dab in the middle of the avenue not more than a block from here,” Bobby began. “Now, Heaven blocks are much longer than your typical New York block, but that’s still pretty damned close. I was taking a stroll and wasn’t no more than a hundred yards away when you smashed down into the pavement.”
“Yeah, that sucked hard.” I cracked my neck, surprised at how not sore it was when I could barely move it a moment before. “Bet it was a pretty show, though!”
“Oh, you bet. The most exciting thing that’s happened around here for, well, I don’t know how long.” He shrugged sheepishly. “Time isn’t easy to keep track of here.”
I didn’t bother to try to hide my incredulity. “That was exciting when the armies of chaos are ripping down the doors?”
“You did see how vast this place is when you were flying in, ya know? Most of Heaven is only barely aware there’s something going down.” Bobby sat back in his chair and his eyes went distant. “We’ve been to war, man. We know how much people try to ignore it when they don’t have to look at it. It’s no different here than it was back on Earth.”
I frowned. While I hadn’t meant to call back to the war we had fought together, he had a point. People were really good at denying things they weren't witnessing first hand. Out of sight, out of mind. If he was right, then no one was going to be prepared for what was on the other side of that super wall.
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” I tried to pull us to the present and, frankly, the important thing at hand. “So I’m guessing you were there, you saw my dumb ass hanging by a seat belt, and got me out before the proper authorities arrived?”
Bobby perked up a bit and nodded. “Again, right on the nose, Frank. The blue guy seemed to be waking up already and I only had so many arms, so I figured he’d be able to get the Mexican lady.” He arched an eyebrow. “That’s Gabriela, right?”
I frowned. Well, maybe there was hope Krishna got Gabby out of there. “But that was it? No Irish redhead? No big, barrel-chested black guy?”
Bobby shook his head. “Nope, sorry. Just the big metal bird-car, you, Gabby, and Krishna.”
I waited, hoping he would add Molly’s and Tyrone’s names to the list, but when he didn’t, I felt my world grow just a little darker. Had they not made it? I chewed on my lip and got to my feet to pace before I decked something. “Fuck.”
“Fuck indeed.” Bobby began to grin. “So we’re going to go find your lady love, right?”
My eyes widened in shock. It would have been one thing if I had said it, but for my sweet baby brother? “Bobby, man, she’s married!”
“Who cares about that? Whether you get with her or don’t, you still need to keep her safe.” He shrugged with a smile, with no shame at all on his face. “Besides, don’t you guys need to save the world?”
I turned and stopped my pacing. Shit, why did Bobby always have to be right? And why did he have to decide to be wrong the one time it would get him killed? “Bobby…”
“Frankie…” He matched my whiny tone. “So are we going to do this or not?”
I let out a sigh. We Butchers put family above everything and we always wind up giving in to our family. When it came to Bobby or Mom, I could never say no for long.
“Okay, you’ve got me.” I rolled my shoulders as I stared into Bobby's earnest face. “Let’s go save the day.”
17
“Damn, I feel stupid wearing this,” I grumbled, gesturing at the thick, voluminous hooded robes in eggshell white draped over my hands, “and I can barely see.”
It didn’t help that they got in the way of my feet, and drooped dangerously over my eyes.
“It’s either that or get reported to the angels,” Bobby smiled, assuring me for the zillionth time this was the only way for a “live one” as he put it to go about the streets of Heaven incognito. Well, it was either the robes or being an angel. We both agreed that there was no way I would convince anyone I was an angel. “Besides, it looks rather dashing.”
We were strolling down the street, full of dead souls going about whatever business they went about. The streets really were made of gold, or at least gold-plated, and were about the flashiest thing you could see at ground level. Honestly, from the ground, Heaven wasn’t quite as impressive as I’d expected since most of the crystalline structures were mounted high up on the monolithic buildings that soared into the skies. Not that it wasn’t still amazing, just, well, diminished.
On top of that, I was still a bit fuzzy on how the souls here spent their time. Honestly, most of them seemed, well, dull. Like they were walking around in a drug-induced haze or maybe they were just the most boring people to be culled from humanity. My first thought was simply that it took boring people to be good enough to pass muster to get in, but Bobby didn’t quite match up to that.
“Fuck off.” I rolled my eyes, which he almost certainly couldn’t see, thus wasting the gesture. “What the hell are these for anyway?”
“Even in Heaven, you’ve got to have good church clothes.” Bobby nodded to a few of the other pedestrians wearing similar robes. “Don’t worry though, we’re not headed there.”
“Thank God.” I stepped around to Bobby’s other side to dodge some oncoming souls. At least there was some variation in the simple clothes they wore, probably along religious lines. I might not be a genius, but I knew more than enough to realize there were plenty of monotheistic religions out there. “So where are we going then?”
“The Forum.” Bobby pointed to a large, domed building down the
road. “We could have taken the Angel Gate system, but I figured you’d appreciate a chance to stretch your legs and see the sights.”
I grumbled beneath my breath and pushed the hood out of my eyes yet again. While I did appreciate wandering around Heaven, at the same time, I was really worried we were going to run out of time. “So why there?”
“It’s one of the few places souls gather that isn’t under the watchful eyes of guardian angels. You know, like the old Greek forums, they’re a place to talk openly about thoughts, feelings, philosophy, and all that sort of thing.” He shrugged.
“So basically it’s a bullshit garden?” I smirked. Not that I didn't think people should talk about shit, don't get me wrong. It's just that, in my experience, any kind of public debate or town hall meeting or what not always turned into people screaming at each other with nothing actually getting done.
“Pretty much, but it’s also the biggest gossip house in the place,” Bobby nodded with an amused grin. “It’s our best chance to get information from non-angelic sources. Trust me, whether your buddies are free or got caught, the souls will be talking up a storm about it.” He smiled mischievously. “Trust me, it’s not like a lot happens here.”
The Forum was actually a lot larger than I thought it was. It was also the most irregular building I had seen in Heaven, with no hard angles at all. The dome wasn’t a dome so much as it was an immense sphere supported by a cylindrical stem as wide around as your average skyscraper. How it stood up was a divine mystery.
Diamond windows, so intricately faceted they probably wouldn’t be worth a damn as actual windows, dotted the Forum in a sublime geometric pattern and golden doors led inside the stem. A continual stream of dead souls flowed in and out, apparently just as eager as we were to get away from the monotony of Heavenly life.
We slipped easily into line with a few nods of greeting from the souls gathered around us. Gotta give the Big Guy props. There were certainly all kinds of people here. He sure didn’t discriminate. Bobby returned those greetings while I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible in my oversized formal robes. Honestly, they were working well. If anyone had any suspicions, they didn’t let them show.
Even better, there were only a few scattered angels hovering over the crowd and most of them were the classical “beautiful people with wings” variety. They didn’t mingle though, and they didn’t seem to be keeping a sharp eye on goings on, then again, watching the forum was probably the equivalent of guard duty or worse. Either way, it sure as hell didn’t give Bobby or me a second glance as we walked through the doors.
The inside of the Forum was crazy huge. It was easily a thousand times larger on the inside than it’d looked from the outside. There was serious mojo at work here, but I’d seen more than enough Doctor Who to roll with it. The space was one thing, but it was the press of so many souls, talking and arguing, each group packed into their own open-air auditoriums that really blew me away.
There must have been some kind of subtle enchantment around because I could still hear Bobby through the continual din as he pointed to a distant corner of the sphere. “That’s my specific Forum. We’ll start there.”
I had to be extra careful to keep my cover while also not tripping over my own feet. What can I say, guess I’m not a flowing robes kind of guy. Guess it was a good thing I’d never followed through on my Jedi training.
“Lead the way, Bobby. You’re my point man here.” Thankfully, the souls were absurdly polite and aware of their surroundings, moving out of our way before we got too close. I’ll be honest and say it was refreshing to hear the busy talk around me. Sure, they were dead people, but at the end of the day, they were still normal people leading relatively normal lives.
After this insanity with gods, wizards, kidnapped kids, and the possible end of the world, the wash of mundanity was most welcome.
No matter how packed the place looked, it seemed easy enough for Bobby to find us a space in the crowd. The mini-Forum was a deep auditorium with large steps leading down to a central stage. The steps themselves were broad enough to seat several rows of souls with round tables interspersed among the benches. While there were several people on the stage speaking at burnished bronze podiums, their voices amplified by some kind of magic, most of the souls were talking among themselves in clusters.
We found an open spot at a table and settled down. Bobby stretched his arms over his head and smiled, “And now we wait and listen.”
I put my solid hands into my sleeves to hide them from view and tried to look dead. I was antsy as hell, but I had to trust my brother here. “Sure, I guess. I just wish we could be, well, more proactive.” I glanced around. “Not used to sitting around like this and waiting.”
Bobby laughed. “Really? The King of the Theater is bitching about sitting around somewhere?”
He was so right about the old me. Shit, I wound up driving delivery trucks just so I could slack off more and catch more movies. Both before and after my time in the Army, I would do anything to get out of work and find a place to watch a movie. Now here I was, bitching that we were sitting down for only a few minutes.
“I guess I’ve changed a lot,” I muttered, frowning a bit under the weight of my sudden navel-gazing.
Bobby shrugged. “Everybody does, even in Heaven. You’re still you, though, and that’s all that’s important.” Some more “locals” trundled over to the empty spots at the table. “Anyway, let’s get to work, huh?”
I nodded and tried to copy the easy smile of our new arrivals. It was a mixed lot, like the rest of the Forumites, and it wasn’t long before the gossip began. What I shouldn’t have found surprising was the fact that I could actually understand everyone, no matter what sounds came out of their mouths. It wasn’t magic, not exactly, or it wouldn’t have worked on me. Maybe it was just how this dimension worked.
Despite my urge to open my big mouth and chat along, I forced myself to stick to the sidelines, soaking up information, while Bobby did the talking, which was the opposite of the natural order of things.
It started off with simple stuff. Who was doing what, who was seeing who, and what “new” people were arriving in the neighborhood. That’s where things started to catch my interest, because the real news was that there wasn’t anyone new arriving. This wasn’t news to me, not after the horrors I’d seen on the way in, but it turned the conversation among the souls to the strange things going on around Heaven.
“Did you hear about that steel monstrosity falling out of the sky?” an older woman (Frieda, I think) said. I think she was more than “older,” I think she came from a few centuries ago. Now they really had my attention.
Bobby nodded. “Sure thing. I didn’t see it myself, but the watchers were out asking if I had seen any live souls around.” He chuckled. “Crazy, right?” I had taken to miming Bobby’s reactions so I chuckled along with him.
“Don’t be so quick to discount the possibility, Robert,” an Arab gentleman whose name I hadn’t caught yet pointed out. “These are strange and exciting times. To be fair, I have yet to see anything like this for all my time in Paradise. In fact…” His voice trailed off conspiratorially as he gave a furtive look around.
“Well, don’t leave us hanging, man.” Bobby leaned forward on his seat. “Come on, you know us. We won’t go spreading this around in the wrong circles.”
The lady and I both pulled our chairs closer in, all leaning in like any bunch of community gossips. Frieda goaded the man on, “Yes, please. Such a thing is of vital importance to us.”
He let out a put-upon sigh, wholly fake, and gave in. “There was a great flight of angels right after the crash. I saw it happen from the observation deck of my archology.” He rubbed at his beard, a nervous tic more than a thoughtful motion. “I don’t know what it was the steel bird brought into our home, but it was a powerful thing that fought the heavenly host fiercely.” The Arab’s eyes grew wide. “Their blows back and forth were like thunderbolts ringing out in the nig
ht. My, how long has it been since I have last heard real thunder or felt the caress of rain on my face?”
Unable to keep totally quiet any longer, I leaned forward a little closer. “How did it end? Did you see what they were fighting?”
The man’s eyebrow arched and it looked like he was about to question me back, but Bobby leapt right in with a, “Yeah, Umar, what could hold off a pack of angels like that? Tell us, man.”
Umar’s attention was diverted from the strangely solid guy across the table from him to my brother. “Oh, yes, of course. The forces of Paradise won naturally, but it was hard fought indeed.” He folded his arms on the table and leaned against it. “Before the Hashmallim flashed by to clear the bystanders and watchers, I did see the angels bind two figures, a blue man and a Spanish woman.”
I almost bolted out of my seat then and there, but Bobby’s hand on my shoulder held me down. Frieda gasped, but still managed to keep her voice down as she asked, “A blue man? You mean like painted in woad?” Krishan might have been blue, but he wasn't painted with the stuff like Mel Gibson had been in Braveheart, that was for certain.
“I do not know, my friend.” Umar shook his head. “Even the optical crystals do not show everything that happens below. I would not think it was paint, though, for it seemed uniform and whole, even after such a furious battle.”
Bobby let out a low whistle. “Now that’s some serious shit there.” He didn’t release his grip, but he managed to make it look like he was merely resting his arm on me like a best buddy. “I guess that’s all over now though.”
Part of me wondered what had happened to Krishna, since they were very clearly describing the god, but at the same time, I was sure he was fine. It seemed unlikely God would have the time or energy to waste on pissing off another pantheon at the moment. If he somehow beat all the Old Ones back, then I’d start to worry.
“Nothing is ever over in Heaven,” Frieda pronounced as she settled back on her chair. “This is only the start of something new. Something dangerous.” She smiled broadly. “I’m so excited.”
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