First Circle Club

by Alex Siegel

  "It seems far-fetched."

  Virgil sighed. He had just had this argument with Barachiel.

  "Sir," Lisa said impatiently, "it seems pretty obvious that a powerful demon or angel helped Daniel get out of Hell and is hiding him now."

  "That's utterly inconceivable," Mammon said, "but we'll know the truth soon enough. If you destroy Daniel's body with Furies' Bane, his soul will immediately return to Hell. Then I will personally interrogate him in the frozen depths of the Pit. He will talk. I promise you."

  Virgil shuddered at the thought.

  Mammon continued, "Don't concern yourself with conspiracies and supernatural treachery. Don't worry about how he got out. Your task couldn't be simpler. Just put him back in Hell."

  "Yes, sir," Lisa said.

  "Sir," Alfred interjected, "I have a request."

  "I don't answer to minions of Heaven," Mammon growled.

  "Then I'll ask," Virgil said. "Daniel had a father named Matt Shipman. He might have important background information for us. We would like to speak with his soul, sir."

  "He resides in the Second Circle among those who allowed passion to overwhelm reason. Arranging a meeting will be challenging."

  "It could be very helpful to us."

  "Hmm." Mammon paused. "I will attempt to make the arrangements for tomorrow morning."

  "We already have a meeting with Detective Haymaker at 8 AM."

  "Come back to the mirror after that, and you'll receive instructions for how to meet with Matt Shipman."

  "Yes, sir." Virgil said.

  "That's all." Silence followed.

  "Is he gone?" Virgil said.

  "Yes," Lisa said. "Demons can be so stupid!" she added in a low voice.

  He smiled but didn't agree with her out loud.

  "They were made for a purpose," Sara said, "just like angels. They do their jobs and that's all."

  "Apparently, that's not true for all angels and demons," Virgil said.

  "Yes. The system is broken somewhere."

  "Or the Celestial Contract has a loophole. Either way, we must proceed. In the morning, we will continue to examine evidence and follow leads. Mammon was right about one thing. Worrying too much about the bigger picture will just distract us. It's not our job to unravel the mysteries of Heaven and Hell. We just have one target, and his name is Daniel. If we don't stop him quickly, he'll kill again."

  The team agreed.

  "Lisa and I are stuck here while we heal," Virgil said. "Alfred and Sara, why don't you go shopping. It's late, but I bet you can find stores which are still open. Buy anything that looks useful. We need more stuff for our investigation. Notebooks, binoculars, plastic baggies, that sort of thing."

  "Sure," Sara said. "See you later."

  Virgil heard two sets of footsteps walk out of the basement.

  He leaned back in his chair and sighed. He couldn't wait to regain his eyesight.

  "We're stuck here," Lisa said. "You want to talk about anything?"

  "You mentioned you were stabbed in prison. That sounds like an interesting topic."

  "Err... can we talk about you instead? How did you die?"

  Virgil lowered his head as he recalled the memories which were still bright and sharp. The dead never forgot the triumphs and tragedies of their former lives. It was one of the blessings of Heaven and one of the curses of Hell.

  "I was supervising a rookie fresh out of the academy," Virgil said. "His name was Castillo. As one of the old-timers, it was my job to show him the ropes."

  "I always hated dealing with rookies," Lisa said.

  "This one had a ton of talent, so I didn't mind. Polite and respectful, a pleasure to work with. As a team, we successfully apprehended several fugitives. He established a reputation as a rising star. That's when he started hanging out with a different crowd."

  "What kind?"

  "Other young hotshots in the Service," Virgil said. "They called themselves the Heavy Hitters. They had private training sessions and secret meetings. They took vacations together. They tried to get assigned to the most dangerous missions. I liked their enthusiasm, but I became suspicious of their methods."

  "Why?"

  "It was the way they talked. As a loose cannon myself, I recognized the disorder in others. I started following Castillo. I even planted a bug on his car."

  "Was he dirty?" Lisa said.

  "No. The Heavy Hitters turned out to be vigilantes. I watched them slaughter a drug gang. They planted evidence to make it look like another gang did it. As they were leaving the scene, I confronted them."

  "Brave."

  "Too brave," Virgil said. "It cost me my life."

  "What was the guy's full name?"

  "Rubio Castillo. Why?"

  "I'm going to look him up with my phone," Lisa said.

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise. He still wasn't accustomed to having instant access to so much information.

  After a few minutes, she said, "Oh. You won't be happy."

  "Just tell me."

  "Your buddy had a brilliant career as a U.S. Marshal. He retired as a chief deputy. He may still be alive."

  Virgil gritted his teeth.

  "Just let it go," Lisa said.

  "That's hard to do. The man murdered me in cold blood and got away with it."

  "You can't do anything about it now."

  "I could have a conversation with him," he said. "I'll let him know what kind of punishment is waiting for him in Hell. I might even give him a preview using my special gaze."

  "You'll just get yourself in big trouble with Mammon. Castillo will be punished when his time comes. That's how the system works. That's why Heaven and Hell exist."

  Virgil snarled with dissatisfaction. He didn't trust Final Judgement to reach the correct verdict. There were too many funny rules and exceptions. He swore he would see some kind of justice in the end, whatever it took.

  "OK," he said. "I told my story. Now you tell yours."

  "I don't think that's necessary," Lisa said.

  "We were both shot tonight. That makes us buddies. We're supposed to tell each other everything. How did you get knifed in prison?"

  She hesitated. "I had a gambling problem," she said finally. "I loved to play the ponies. I had it under control for the first few years, but eventually, I went to the track every day. Gambling destroyed my relationships and my finances."

  Virgil grunted. He had seen other friends walk down the same dark road.

  Lisa continued, "I borrowed money from family and friends until they refused to give me any more. Then I turned to loan sharks. I couldn't stop. All I needed was one lucky streak to win all the money back. I was going to parley some long-shots and make a million dollars in a weekend."

  "But it never happened."

  "No. The mob roughed me up and threatened to break my legs. I was desperate for cash, and I didn't care where I got it. I started stealing from the evidence locker."

  He inhaled sharply.

  "I stole jewelry, guns, anything I could pawn," she said. "My big score was a briefcase full of cash, but that turned out to be bait. Internal Affairs got everything on video tape. After a quick trial, I was sentenced to three years in prison."

  "Not a good place for a cop."

  "Especially a cop who still owed the mob a ton of money. I didn't last a week. A shank between the ribs ended my life."

  Virgil shook his head. "Well, I hope you learned your lesson."

  "Sure," Lisa said, "but that's the problem with Hell. You never get a second chance. It's eternal damnation without the possibility of parole. I made some terrible mistakes, but I didn't deserve to be buried like radioactive waste forever. Where is God's love and forgiveness?"

  He had to agree with her point. The system seemed pointlessly cruel. Even the worst sinner deserved an opportunity for redemption after suffering long enough.

  Virgil touched his eye sockets. He could feel his new eyeballs slowly growing back, but they were still far from being fun
ctional. He had to be patient.

  "How is your leg?"

  "Almost normal," Lisa said.

  "I just hope I can see again before the meeting with Haymaker."

  "You may want to wear sunglasses. Your face looks like somebody used a pick-axe on it. It's gross."

  "Good idea," Virgil said.

  * * *

  Virgil looked up at the Richard J. Daley Center in downtown Chicago. He guessed it was about thirty stories tall. The metal exterior was an unusual red-brown color, and the windows were slightly reflective. The broad sheets of glass allowed him to peek into the many offices inside the building. It was the seats of government for Cook County and the City of Chicago.

  Virgil and the rest of his team were standing on a huge plaza in front of the building. The plaza featured a gigantic steel sculpture which looked like a musical instrument designed by an alien. A pool with hundreds of water spouts was on the other side of the plaza. Three enormous flagpoles carried the flags of Chicago, Cook County, and the United States.

  The streets of Chicago were humming with traffic. When Virgil had been alive, he hadn't appreciated the mundane excitement of life in a big city. He was savoring the experience now. Men and women of all races were walking around. They were dressed in every clothing style from business suits to skimpy shorts. Even a toothless vagrant begging for change was an interesting example of the human condition.

  "I see him!" Lisa pointed across the plaza at Detective Haymaker.

  Virgil, Lisa, Alfred, and Sara walked over to the detective. He was wearing a sharp, brown suit and a black tie. His curly hair and dense eyebrows looked black in the morning sunlight. He gave the team a wary look as they approached.

  "Those are big, dark sunglasses," Haymaker told Virgil. "Late night?"

  Virgil lifted his sunglasses for a second, giving the detective a glimpse of what was underneath.

  Haymaker gasped. "Ugh!"

  "The eyeballs work," Virgil said. "They just don't look pretty."

  "You have no eyelids!"

  "They're growing back slowly."

  "You should see a doctor!" Haymaker said.

  "I'll be fine. It doesn't even hurt. We went to interview Daniel Shipman's sister, Patricia, last night." Virgil described the rest of the adventure.

  The detective grimaced. "You want to file a police report? I'm just asking because most people who get shot in the face multiple times want the police involved."

  "No thanks. What do you think about what happened?"

  "It's interesting." Haymaker paused thoughtfully. "It seems Daniel has allies who are watching his back."

  "That was our conclusion, and now they know we're on the case. We can expect more trouble. Next time, it might be more than one man with a shotgun."

  "True."

  "Let's check out the archives," Virgil said.

  Haymaker led the group into the building. They needed to pass through metal detectors which surprised Virgil. He wasn't used to seeing civic office buildings with such elaborate security. Haymaker had a gun, but his badge got him past the guards. Lisa's knife was a problem until she showed her state police ID. Virgil, Sara, and Alfred were unarmed.

  After they were done with the metal detectors, Haymaker whispered, "State police?"

  "It seemed like a good cover story," Virgil replied.

  "Pretending to be a cop is a felony."

  "You're the one who recommended going to Li and Li's."

  "I expected you to buy regular ID," Haymaker said, "not state trooper badges."

  Virgil shrugged.

  The Cook County Archives Department was on the eleventh floor. Haymaker had called ahead, and a clerk immediately took them into a storage room which occupied most of the huge floor. Metal shelves filled the whole space. Some shelves held cardboard boxes, and others held sliding plastic drawers.

  The place reminded Virgil of his office down in Limbo, except his office was much bigger and not as orderly. Crossing his office was like a hike through a jungle.

  The clerk quickly found the right drawer and pulled out a roll of microfilm. Virgil recognized the technology from his day, and the familiarity was comforting. Haymaker took the roll with a dubious expression. The clerk left.

  Virgil pointed to a microfilm reader. "Over there."

  The machine had a tray which projected bright light through the film. Lenses focused the image on a translucent screen. Simple and reliable, Virgil thought, just like things used to be.

  Haymaker had obviously never handled microfilm before, and he struggled a bit at first. Virgil was silent but amused. Haymaker eventually produced an image of court documents on the screen. Everybody leaned in.

  Haymaker's eyes scanned each page quickly, while Virgil looked over his shoulder. Black and white evidence photos showed neck wounds very similar to the one on the victim yesterday. The documents included lengthy transcripts of testimony, but Haymaker just spent a few seconds on each page.

  "OK," he said eventually. "It does appear like Daniel Shipman has come back from the grave."

  "What will it take to convince you we're telling the truth?" Virgil said.

  "I'm not sure. I've never really believed in an afterlife. The mental adjustment isn't easy."

  Haymaker continued to skim through the court documents for several minutes.

  He abruptly stopped and said, "This is interesting." He stared at the text on the screen.

  "What?" Virgil said.

  "Read for yourself."

  Haymaker moved back a little so the whole group could read a transcript.

  The microfilm reader showed testimony from a teenage witness named Franklin Mackay. He had spent a lot of time with Daniel for some reason and had known about the killings while they were happening.

  Franklin described Daniel as a precise, methodical hunter. He had researched his victims thoroughly, learning their history and habits. He had been very picky about who he had killed. He had considered only certain kinds of people worthy of his attention.

  Franklin also talked about elaborate rituals performed before and after each murder. Daniel couldn't kill until he had "purified" himself. Masochistic acts of penance had always followed the murders, and those painful ceremonies could last all night.

  "Criminals like these were the hardest to deal with for me," Alfred said. "They existed in their own world where their crimes made sense. They rationalized everything. They felt no guilt at all."

  "How could killing two dozen people make any sense?" Lisa said.

  "I have a theory about that. To Daniel, Heaven and Hell were tangible places. His father gave sermons about them every Sunday. Perhaps Daniel wasn't killing people in his mind. He was helping their souls get to Heaven quicker."

  "Interesting idea," Virgil said. "It makes a crazy kind of sense. Franklin Mackay was young when all this happened. He could still be alive. If so, he's worth talking to."

  Haymaker took out his phone and made a call.

  After a conversation, he said, "The boys down at the station located Mackay. He lives in the area, and we can drive there now. Let me just print this out."

  The microfilm reader had been modified to include a print function. Haymaker pressed a button, and a nearby printer spat out a copy of the page being displayed. He continued printing other pages of Mackay's testimony.

  Virgil remembered something. "Wait. Before we visit Mackay, we have another meeting scheduled in Chinatown."

  "With who?" Haymaker said.

  "Hopefully, Matt Shipman."

  "A relative?"

  "Daniel's father," Virgil said.

  "But he must be extremely old by now."

  "He's dead, and his soul is in Hell, but that's just a speedbump for us. Let's go. We don't want to keep Mammon waiting."

  "Mammon?" Haymaker said.

  "My boss. Stay back and let me do all the talking. You could say he is a prince of assholes."

  Chapter Seven

  "Welcome to our new headquarters," Virgil sai
d.

  "It's a basement," Haymaker said, "and not a clean one. Do you actually expect to run a criminal investigation from here?"

  Virgil looked around the basement of Red Palace Antiques and didn't think the place was that bad. The team had done some shopping and cleaning during the night. They had arranged chairs, tables, and desks to create a basic office space. The antique-ish furniture wasn't matched, but it was interesting. Shelves against the wall held an assortment of supplies which included pens, paper, binoculars, plastic bags for evidence, tweezers, rubber cement, and plaster. Piles of spare clothes sat on their own set of shelves.

  "It will do," Virgil said.

  "But you don't even have a computer."

  Virgil frowned. He wouldn't know what to do with a computer anyway. "Mei Li is our technology expert."

  Haymaker walked over to a side table with a white leather bag on top. He pulled out Furies' Bane.

  "That's a cool gun!" he said. "Must be an antique."

  "It's the gun which will kill Daniel Shipman," Virgil said, "and it wasn't made on Earth."

  "I'll have to take your word for that. How does the gun work? I don't see any kind of trigger."

  "I've been wondering that myself. Sara? Did the gun come with instructions?"

  "Barachiel told me the instructions are on the barrel," Sara said.

  Virgil took Furies' Bane and examined the barrel. Gold inlay formed intricate patterns which included two simple diagrams. One showed a lion with lines radiating from its mouth. Virgil assumed they indicated roaring. A matching diagram on the other side of the barrel showed a man with the same lines.

  "These instructions aren't very clear," he said.

  "It's all we got," Sara said. "The gun was made during the War in Heaven but never actually used."

  "We'll figure it out later." He slipped the gun back into its bag.

  Virgil turned to the mirror they would use to make contact with Mammon. Lisa had cracked the glass last night, but it had already been chipped. Black filth clouded the reflection.

  "Everybody else stay back," Virgil said. "Haymaker, I'm talking to you in particular."

  The mirror was propped against a wall. He walked over and knelt down until he could see his reflection.