Zaj glowered briefly in Michael’s general direction, focused on moving them along. “It’s how we decide where the spirits will go. The worst of them go to the Pit. It’s basically Hell Jail.”
“And the others?” Uriel asked.
“Well, some of them don’t belong here, in our humble opinion. But you guys have some pretty strict policies, so we take the stragglers. Murder’s a sin, but killing in self-defense? Hardly.” He sniffed again. “But we take who you reject and they’re free to wander. Everyone outside the Pit gets a shot atreincarnation if they want, but they have to work for it. There’s basically three groups; The Second-Chancers, The Happy Haunters, and the Rotten Eggs.”
“Those names have Mags written all over them.” Uriel smiled, but it faded when his bad arm brushed the banister and he cried out. Zaj looked over his shoulder, frowning.
“Okay, we’re going to have to hurry this along.” His wings flapped harder as he led them up the stairwell to the top floor, where a trio of bored looking old women were seated behind a wide mahogany desk.
At first glance, they looked relatively normal; a bit like grandmothers as they snapped photos and noted down names and filled out Cause of Death forms. But then a veil seemed to shimmer out of existence, revealing violently purple skin and twisting horns. Michael blinked, and the matronly disguises were back in place.
Zaj caught his stunned expression and grinned. “Yeah, we try not to freak them out too bad when they first arrive. You won’t notice because you’re in the loop, but when they see me, I look like a human with that little people thing—dwarfism?”
“But you’re floating,” Uriel stated bluntly. “Humans don’t float.”
“That’s not precisely true in the afterlife, is it? Anyway, they overlook a lot as long as you’re not visibly terrifying. Humans see what they want to see, most of the time.”
He made his way to the desk and settled down on it, his tail stretched out behind him and flicking playfully at a stack of papers. The shortest of the women scowled at him, slamming her palm down to trap the appendage.
“Straeng.” Zaj said sweetly, and she swatted him with her other hand.
“No! Stop messing my papers!” Her accent was as heavy as the glare she leveled on Zaj.
“Don’t be like that,” he crooned, leaning in towards her, and she swatted his face away.
“Stop! No closer!”
“I need two visitor badges, Straeng my love. Can you or one of your lovely sisters help me with that?”
“Ask Geber,” she snapped. “That her job, no mine.”
“Here.” The middle sister thrust her hand at him, long nails scraping against bone as Zaj accepted the bits of hard red plastic. “Viv see you coming, I have prepare.”
The third and tallest sister didn’t deign to respond verbally, only raising a hand briefly before she resumed clicking away at the camera.
“Well, as much as I love to see you girls, I can also see you’re very busy,” Zaj hopped off the counter, dipping at first before he righted himself. “Come on boys!”
Luce had made a terrible mistake letting Mags keep the Gospel. His skin had begun to crawl as soon as Remi had come pushing through the doors to his study, and it only intensified as Camiel relayed the message Judas had intercepted. It had to be a response to his ritual. The wave of magic that had knocked him on his ass must have been strong enough to touch Heaven.
Jehovah knew the Gospel was gone, and he had sent his best soldiers to retrieve it—and surely Mags as well. This was going to go so terribly wrong; he could feel it.
“Will yousit down?” Remi snapped, lunging out of her chair to grab him as he paced by in another endless circuit. Rag grabbed the back of her sweater and pulled her back into her seat, shaking his head at her answering glare.
“Let him pace,” he rumbled, idly flipping pages in the cookbook Mags had lent him. “It’s better than him trying to bake something.”
“He’s making me dizzy!”
“So go check in with Bal instead of just watching him.”
“Fine!” Remi hopped back up, unimpeded this time, and stomped out of the room.
“I’m going with her,” Camiel sighed. “Just to make sure she doesn’t hurt someone.”
With the women gone, only their husbands remained in the study with Luce. Judas was intercepting the emissaries, while Glory and Bal were off doing who knew what. Luce didn’t like having everyone scattered with everything balanced so precariously on the edge of chaos, but it helped to at least have company.
They shared the silence for another several laps, the only sounds the pad of Lucifer’s shoes on the carpet and the turning of Rag’s pages. It was enough to settle the king’s nerves, slowing his pace and his breathing.
“Thank you,” Luce murmured, pulling gently on his beard as he turned back to begin another loop. “I can’t help it, I’m just?—”
