The Dirty Streets of Heaven

by Tad Williams

  We drifted across Merciful Square and down the Eternal Way with its endless white columns. Angels passed us constantly, but some of the highest simply appeared and disappeared, not bothering with approximations of Earthly life. I suspected these might be the ones who had never been mortals. Every now and then I could make out the shape of golden wings inside a high angel’s glow, and it reminded me that one of the Celestial City’s very important citizens might well be a traitor. I distracted myself by pointing out some of the more esoteric sites to Clarence.

  “And that’s the Panepistimion,” I said. “It’s where they learn to work with the Dominions of the Second Sphere. I don’t really understand what that means, but it has something to do with the machinery of the universe.”

  “See, that’s the problem with Sam,” Junior said abruptly. “He never tells me anything. Not like you do.”

  I bristled a little. “Sam’s got his own way of doing things. Don’t underestimate him.”

  “I don’t, but sometimes I wish he wouldn’t…I don’t know, hold me at arm’s length so much. Half the questions I ask I don’t even get answers. Not even, ‘Shut up, I’m not going to tell you’! Maybe you could ask him to talk to me a little more, Bobby.”

  I laughed, but now I wasn’t feeling quite so protective toward the kid. “Look, if he answers even half your questions you must keep him talking twenty-four seven. He’s trying to train you, and he’s going to do it his way. If you wind up as even half the advocate Sammariel is, you can be very, very proud of yourself.”

  Clarence looked at me carefully. He was very present now, as if the discussion had helped him shake off some of the free-floating joy of Heaven. “He always sticks up for you, too. That Elvis guy said something about you once, nothing too bad even, and I thought Sam was going to hit him in the face.”

  Now I did laugh. “Yeah, well, Young Elvis can be a bit of a bitch. And Sam and I go back a long way. Has he told you…?”

  “That you guys were in the Counterstrike Force together? Yeah. You were Harpers or something.”

  “Harps, youngster. CU Lyrae. That’s not the kind of connection you forget, and those aren’t the kind of friends you turn your back on. I’ll tell you a quick story.” We were approaching the street of shining, cloud-piercing buildings in which the Records Hall was to be found. “I was on point once on a SALT mission in Spanishtown—”

  “SALT?”

  “Yeah—Secure And Level Target. Which means burn it to the foundations and purify the ground with silver nitrate. We were going into a desanctified church that a group of Deniables had made their base of operations—”

  “Deniables?”

  “Are you going to let me tell the story, kid? Deniables are demons who’ve supposedly gone rogue. The Opposition is still running them, of course, but they can claim they’re out of control, acting on their own. And these bastards were doing some bad, bad shit in that part of Spanishtown. Three possessions among children in the neighborhood, a rash of suicides, and a big increase in drunken fights, stabbings, family violence, you name it. They were peddling despair, and they were building their clientele by the hour.

  “Anyway, I was point and Sam was our top-kick that night when we broke into San Juan Soldado. It was a bad fight, and I don’t really want to talk about it here—doesn’t quite seem right. We had pretty much wrapped it up, though, until we broke into the final chamber, the old sacristy…but they had a Deathwatch hiding there. You probably want to interrupt again. Or do you know what those are?”

  Clarence shook his head.

  “It’s a demon who looks like a man, but who’s made up of…well, bugs, or things that look like bugs. Beetles usually, which is where the name comes from. We already had the area enclosed with wards, so the Deathwatch wasn’t going anywhere, but he wasn’t going to surrender, either. All the pieces of him flew apart and swarmed me.” I paused for a moment. I hadn’t talked about it in a while, and it still made my stomach clench. “Oh, one thing I forgot to tell you about those bugs—they’re poison. Every single one of them sinks its little jaws into you and the pain is…well, there’s no describing it, really. Time just stops. The pain is everything. All you can do is scream and thrash, if you can even hold it together enough to do that.

  “Anyway, do you know what Sam did when the Deathwatch got me? He grabbed me and wrapped his arms around me like a drunken frat boy hug. A bunch of them jumped off me and onto him, and he staggered away, carrying them with him. Then he shouted at the guy with the flamethrower to hose him down.”

  “What?” Clarence looked like he was going to be sick. It raised an interesting question—did anyone ever throw up in Heaven? “What do you mean…?”

  “You heard me. He told the guy to hose him down with the flamethrower.”

  “But how could Sam survive that? How could his body survive it, I mean?”

  “It couldn’t, of course. But he was showing me what to do. So when the guy turned the flames on him I jumped into it too, just like it was a warm shower.” I sounded glib, but it all came back as I said it, that endless, shrieking, agonizing moment that in some ways, especially during sleepless nights, had never ended. Time does not always move forward, no matter what they tell you. That kind of agony equals eternity, and that’s how long the memory would be with me. They also say that you never really remember pain. That’s bullshit too.

  “You…you burned up?”

  It took me a moment to push it away. “Yeah. It was the only way to stop it, the only way to kill those fucking beetles. But it was fairly quick, believe it or not—a few bad seconds, then it was all over.”

  Clarence was looking around as though hoping to find evidence somewhere nearby that I was making it all up. “So, w-why didn’t Sam just use the flamethrower on you? Why did he let himself…?”

  “Because he was our leader. Nothing like this had happened to us before, and he wanted us to see that Heaven was behind us. Also that he wouldn’t ask anything of us he wouldn’t do to himself. Believe me, everybody remembered. Wherever they are now, they still remember, I promise. I did, too—when I woke up in a new body, that is. Sam and I spent a while in Rebirth—see, it takes some time to get used to the new body when you go out violently like that. And while we were there…well, that’s when we got to be friends.” It was also the time Sam started doggedly drinking his new body to death, but I didn’t tell the kid that. None of his business.

  Something about the stark horror on Clarence’s face almost made me sorry to have told him the Deathwatch story. He looked like a whipped puppy. I glanced up and saw the first of the Halls of Records looming in front of us, a literal ivory tower covered with gold and silver scrollwork, a massive needle without a haystack. It was quite interesting on the inside, too, but I wasn’t going to be seeing it, at least not today. If I even stepped inside I might as well have set off an alarm throughout the Celestial City announcing “Bobby Dollar’s back in town.”

  “Here’s what I want,” I told him, and recited the list of half a dozen names, beginning with the Rev. Dr. Moses Habari. “Get me whatever you can find on all of them. Everything of interest.”

  “But I can’t bring the records out!” he said, horrified. “I’m not even supposed to go back there after being transferred!”

  “You still have friends there, I’m sure,” I said. “Sam must have taught you at least a little by now, Junior. Schmooze them up. If you can’t bring me copies just memorize them—remember, you’re an angel. I’ll meet you when you’re done. Go on, get to it, or I’ll have to report you for loitering.”

  He stared at me as I turned away. When I looked back he was slouching toward the door of the Records Hall like he’d been called to the principal’s office.

  I headed off to the building where the fixers hang out to explain what exactly had made The Compasses fall down go boom.

  The Mule looked up from his work, if that was what the ball of cold fire in front of him represented. The face inside the angelic glow chang
ed expression, but it was hard to tell from what to what. Archangels aren’t anywhere near as inhuman as Principalities, but they’re still hard to read. “Angel Doloriel!” His tone was guardedly friendly. “God loves you! What a surprise. Are you well?”

  Well, not actually. I’m in love with one of Satan’s little helpers, and one of his poker buddies is trying to kill me—and that’s if I’m lucky. But even in Heaven, that’s a question I seldom answer honestly. “Yes, I am, Archangel Temuel, thank you for asking.”

  “The Ministry of Inquiry wants to talk to you. Have you communicated with them?

  “Just finished up with them before I came here. But I also wanted to check in with you. Do you have a moment to spare?”

  He hesitated an almost undetectable instant, but I was looking for it. “Of course. Let’s go out. Do you like Contemplation Park?”

  “Lovely spot.” Does he know how deep I’m in? I wondered. Has he somehow heard about Caz? Why else would he want to take me somewhere beyond the reach of eavesdroppers?

  My next thought was even creepier. Does such a place even exist in Heaven?

  We made that strange Heavenly transition between inside and outside, the one where you kind of just melt your way through everything in a matter of moments, then walked in a more normal fashion through the crowds to Contemplation Park. (The folks in the City are busier and more focused than the folks in the Fields. They’re also off in their own worlds, but their worlds seem to be part of now. If you stop them and ask them something they’ll even directly answer your question, if they can. In some ways they’re almost like people in an ordinary city, but there’s still that vagueness I’ve never quite been able to penetrate, and that sense of undifferentiating happiness that just…well, it makes me nervous. I can’t help it.)

  An idea struck me—one that I realized I would have to give some serious consideration: What if I’m not the only one who feels this way? It was important, somehow, my instincts told me, though I didn’t know why. I prayed I’d be able to remember it later, since many things that happened in Heaven seemed to melt away like dreams back on Earth.

  “So things are still a bit difficult for you, I hear,” the Mule told me as we traveled along the flower-edged paths. I saw a group of children playing on top of one of the grassy knolls, a charming sight until I began to wonder how they’d died, and why it had happened to them so soon in life.

  I am one badly screwed-up angel, there’s no question about it.

  “Difficult. Yes, you could say that. Did you get my message, Archangel, that I needed a few days without clients? Is that possible?”

  Temuel did whatever archangels do when they nod their heads. I can understand it but I can’t describe it. “Yes. And although not everyone was happy about it, you’ve been given some leeway, at least for the present. I think it’s because of the summit conference.”

  “The what?”

  “Ah. Then you haven’t heard.” The song of a solitary bird, oddly haunting, twittered through the park, and it made me aware for the first time how quiet it was in this part of Heaven. “The conference will be about the matter of the missing souls, of course. We have been given to understand that the Highest is disturbed. The Opposition claim they know nothing more about it than we do. It’s a vanishingly small chance they’re telling the truth, but a meeting has been agreed anyway. You will be invited to attend, of course, Angel Doloriel.” His calm voice took on a momentary edge. “It will not be the sort of invitation that can be turned down.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you were the first advocate this happened to, although by now you have a great deal of company. And since that unfortunate hour you have also been pursued by a malign spirit, which may be related, or may not.” A change in Temuel’s glow led me to guess he was showing me a half-smile. “After all, you have made a few enemies in your years on Earth, Doloriel.”

  I politely ignored this. “Please tell me the whole truth, Archangel Temuel. Is this a real inquiry or are they simply looking for scapegoats? Because as the first poor bastard this happened to I see myself as a likely candidate to get tied to the post.”

  “It’s a large, important inquiry, and I believe the intent is honest. Whatever our superiors think of you, this is a problem that cannot simply be blamed on someone—it must be solved.” Temuel’s attention turned slowly past me, and I wondered what he was thinking. He seemed to be looking out over the misty vastness of the park toward the distant gleam of the Empyrean. Temuel was opaque to me, and not just because he was an archangel. I simply had never been able to get a fix on him. “I think unless there is something else you need of me, we should go back now,” he said. “Rest assured that for a few more days I will do my best to give you the freedom you feel you need on Earth. But do not—what is that old expression? Do not push your luck.”

  That had the sound of something you didn’t want to be told twice. Unfortunately, I’d heard it several times already just in the last little while. “Thank you, Archangel. When is this summit conference happening? And do you know who’ll be there?”

  “Who will be there? Everyone of importance in the matter, I suspect—from both sides, too. Nobody can afford to be seen ignoring this. As to when—soon. You will be given the rest of the details when they’re available.”

  It was a real joy to know all my enemies would be together with me in one place. Was I just being paranoid again, or was Heaven doing its best to get me bumped off? “Oh, one last thing,” I said as we drifted back toward the California building and Temuel’s office. “Do you remember when you asked me to keep an eye on the new advocate, Haraheliel? The one Sam has been training?”

  I swear when I said that, the Mule’s glow dwindled—for a moment I even thought I saw the edges of it flutter, like flames in a sudden wind—but then everything was as it had been. “No. I do not remember that.”

  For a moment I could only stand there with my angelic mouth hanging open. I’ve never known one of my superiors to forget anything. “Hang on,” I said, “maybe I’m confusing things somehow. I’m talking about Haraheliel—the one we call ‘Clarence,’ but that’s just a joke. His earthly name is Harrison Ely, and he’s been working with Sam. When I was here before you asked me—”

  “No.” I hadn’t heard the Mule so stern. Ever. “You are mistaken.”

  “But…!”

  “You are mistaken, Angel Doloriel. Do you understand? I’m afraid you have misremembered. Such a conversation never took place.”

  He left me standing there all by myself, completely surrounded by angels.

  twenty-six

  the pride that goeth

  I DREAMED I was reaching out for Caz. The dream should have been sweet or sexy or full of Catholic guilt or something, but instead I was scrabbling in dirt like a dog as she was being pulled away from me down a hole into dark, crumbling earth. At last she was gone, and though I scratched frantically all I could hear were muffled screams. I woke up in my Earthly body, streaming sweat, and for long moments my limbs felt like they belonged to somebody else.

  Earthbound angels dream, but not very often. I almost never do, but occasionally a disturbing experience brings one on, and Temuel’s response counted as just that. I’ve always had a kneejerk distrust of Heaven, especially when it came to whether or not they had Bobby Dollar’s best interests in mind, and although my superiors could be stingy with the truth I’d never known any of them to lie straight to my face. I mean, could they even do that? They were important angels of the Lord! But unless the Mule had forgotten an extremely important conversation with me, something angels definitely don’t do, he was baldfacedly denying something that we both knew had happened.

  There was a third option, of course: I might have lost my mind, or at least the parts that I’d always counted on, my memory and my sense of logic. That wasn’t a possibility I could afford to entertain very seriously, since I had become more and more isolated from my Heavenly support system in recent days. My best friend wa
s in the hospital, maybe in a coma, my favorite hangout was wrecked, and my bosses were pissed off at me. If I couldn’t trust my own judgement I was in real trouble.

  Morning light was filtering in on me through the curtains of Clarence’s rented basement room. Well, I say rented, but it looked a lot like the kind of room an adult son might have waiting for him in his parents’ house, always ready for a visit. A fancy (and dust-free) model of a biplane dangled from the ceiling on a nearly invisible thread, a Giants team poster hung on the wall, and the bookcase was crammed with science fiction and sports and travel books. Even the bed where Clarence’s currently untenanted body lay looked as though it had once belonged to a child. The coverlet was decorated with the logo of the San Judas Jacks, a local minor-league basketball franchise that had gone under some years ago.

  But just because Clarence’s soul was still in Heaven didn’t mean his body was dead. Our masters had arranged things much more sensibly than that, and the kid gave every sign (and sound) of merely being asleep. I lay waiting for him to wake up, and while I did, I ran through everything that had happened to me on this last strange trip Upstairs. I knew I had particularly wanted to remember the idea that I might not be the only one with authority problems, but as often happens, whatever had made it seem so significant at the time had not remained attached to the concept. Still, it was something to mull over while I listened to Clarence’s quiet snoring.

  I thought about calling Caz. I’d actually thought about it a lot in the last twenty-four hours, but I didn’t know what to say to her. Hell, I didn’t even know how I felt. Well, actually, I did, but that was part of the problem—I wasn’t supposed to feel that way about someone from the other side.

  “Where’s the coffee?” I said when Clarence’s eyes began to flutter open.

  He groaned. “Come on, man, give me a minute!”

  “A minute? Angel, please. I’ve been lying here waiting and listening to you wheeze like an asthmatic basset hound for at least half an hour. You should get checked for whatever that is. Sleep apnea. You sounded like you were trying to swallow your tongue.”