Why should she go with this handsome freak? Vita demanded. He"s two-timing his wife; how can we trust him? He is the world"s greatest liar, Jolie agreed. But we can trust him.
Orlene, disgruntled, knowing that she wasn"t quite catching something obvious, shrugged. "I will go with you, Natasha. But I would like an explanation."
Natasha put his hand on her elbow. "You shall surely have it. Tell me about yourself; I want very much to know."
Tell him, Jolie thought.
Bemused, Orlene started in. "I am Gaea"s natural. daughter, given up as a baby for adoption. I married a ghost-"
She broke off, for they were sinking through the ground. The layers of cloud were pa.s.sing like the vapors they were.
"Continue," he said.
"And had a baby for him, but my baby died, and I killed myself. Now I am trying to recover him from Nox, and I need Satan"s help."
"Nox? The Incarnation of Night?"
"Yes. She has my son. She set me a list of things I must get from each major Incarnation, and from Satan I need a curse. Only when the list is complete can I recover my baby and cure him of his malady of the soul."
The cloud dissipated. They stood in a stony cell. Ahead was a curving pa.s.sage, lighted by guttering and smoky torches. "Follow this pa.s.sage," Natasha said. "It will lead you to Satan"s suite. I will conduct you back from this spot when you are finished with him."
"I have to walk alone through h.e.l.l?" Orlene asked, appalled.
"This is a privileged pa.s.sage. No demon will molest you as long as you remain in it. Be sure you do not leave it, however." He urged her forward, letting go her elbow.
Orlene took a step, then turned. "I really don"t-"
But Natasha was gone.
It"s alt right, Jolie said. What he said is true: this is a pa.s.sage only special guests may use. We are quite safe here, though it pa.s.ses through the center of h.e.l.l to reach Satan"s suite. We may pause and look at anything along the way, as long as we do not go astray.
Orlene started walking. There were windows along the sides, opening into a.s.sorted chambers. In each chamber was some activity, but the nature of it wasn"t clear at a casual glance.
Orlene paused at one, in which a man sat, holding a wound in his chest. Blood was oozing, and he seemed to be in extreme pain. "Is he alive?" she asked, horrified. "I thought there were only d.a.m.ned souls here!"
The man heard her. "I am a d.a.m.ned soul," he gasped. "I am suffering what seems like eternal agony."
"What did you do to deserve this?" she asked, morbidly interested.
"I drag-raced a motorcycle." He seemed to be able to speak well enough, if haltingly, despite the wound.
"What?"
"I was in a pickup truck, on the nonmagic level of the highway. This motorcycle challenged me, so naturally I gunned my motor. I won-but I wasn"t looking where I was going. I caromed off a slow car and vaulted into the opposite lane at high speed. I crashed head-on into a school bus, killing twenty-seven people. I died myself-and woke at the entrance to h.e.l.l. That was twenty years ago, and I still have a thousand years or so to work off."
"But that looks like a bullet wound!" Orlene said. "How could that happen in a highway crash?"
"It didn"t. I was never shot."
"But-"
He made an agonized smile. "This isn"t my injury I"m suffering. Nor is it that of any of the pa.s.sengers who died in the crash. It is that of a dog."
"A dog!"
"You see, most of those pa.s.sengers killed in the wreck were young-schoolchildren, in fact. They did not have a lot of sin on their souls, but they did have some. They would have been detained in Purgatory for a while, or somewhere, until they had absolved their sins and were ready for Heaven. But they weren"t supposed to be dead yet. Probably they would have absolved those sins in life, before dying naturally at some later date. That"s where I come in."
"Because you denied them that chance!" Orlene said, catching on.
"Right. I must endure their punishments, because they might not have had them on their records if I hadn"t caused them to die early. It will take me centuries to catch up on all those sins of all those people, but it"s worth it, because at least I am repaying some measure of what I took from them."
"But how does a dog-"
"One of them was a boy who was playing with a gun and shot his neighbor"s dog. To cover up, he dragged the dog into a vacant lot and buried it. He was never caught; the neighbor a.s.sumed the dog had run away."
Orlene looked more closely at the man. "I see you are bleeding from the wound-but should that be over soon? How long did that dog take to die?"
"It wasn"t a clean wound," the man said. "The dog didn"t die from it."
"Didn"t die! But you said the boy buried it!"
"Yes. The dog suffocated to death underground. I don"t look forward to that part of it."
Orlene was appalled, despite the seeming justice of the punishment. "At least it will be over soon."
"In a few hours, yes," he gasped. "But, of course, that"s only this replay."
"Replay?"
" "I have to do it again, and again, until I have completely repented the act. That might have taken a hundred times, for that boy."
"But you didn"t even do it! How can you truly repent what you never did?"
"I agree it is a problem," the man said. "I suppose that"s why I haven"t yet gotten beyond the first case."
"The first case? The first one killed in that accident?"
"The first significant sin of the first one killed," the man agreed.
"How-How many repet.i.tions have there been?"
"So far? I don"t know. I lost count at ten thousand."
"Ten thousand!"
"Several years ago, I think. But, of course, I"m not very good at keeping time, here in this featureless cell. You are the first visitor I have had."
Orlene remained appalled at the thing he had done. She had no sympathy at all for those who took the lives of children, because she knew exactly what it felt like to lose a child. But this was ridiculous! The man would never succeed in expiating the sins of his victims, let alone his own. He was suffering pointlessly.
Now he was turning color, his gasping worse. He was going into the suffocation stage. "Is there anything I can do for you?" Orlene asked, feeling somewhat helpless and foolish, but compelled by her nature.
He wrenched a clenched eye open. "Maybe if you could ask Satan to let me get on to the next Atonement. -. ." Then he went into a horrible shuddering, and she quickly moved on, unable to watch further.
G.o.d Almighty! Vita thought. This sure as h.e.l.l is h.e.l.l! It is a typical case, Jolie thought. There are millions of them here. We can stop and interview any others we wish to.
But Orlene faced straight forward, refusing to look left or right. She had seen more than enough of h.e.l.l.
It was a long pa.s.sage, however, and she could not avoid hearing the piteous groans and seeing peripherally the struggles of those in unnatural agony. Truly, this was h.e.l.l.
At last she reached the end of it. There was a door, with a neat placard: SATAN. She knocked.
"Enter," a familiar voice called, and the door went up in flame. Beyond was a very attractive suite, with pleasant couches and pictures of green meadows on the wall.
She stepped in. A man came forward to greet her-or rather a demon came, with a grotesque face, horns, tail, and clothing formed of dancing flames.
Brother! Jolie thought, amused.
Alerted by this, Orlene looked more closely. "That"s a mask!" she exclaimed. "And a costume!"
Satan shrugged. His tail fell off and the flames faded into a conventional flame-colored suit. He raised a hand to lift away the mask.
"Natasha!" Orlene cried, astonished.
"Which is "Ah Satan" spelled backwards," he agreed. "You may also call Me Parry, after My mortal name, or Father, as you please."
"What silly joke is this?" she demanded, anger infusing her surprise.
Listen to him, Jolie thought firmly.
"I am Satan," he said. "I have many alternate guises. I wooed and won Jolie when I was Parry and lost her when she died, and again when I was corrupted by the demoness Lilah-"
"Who?"
"You know her as Lila, Mars" concubine. She left Me for him. I was not pleased at the time, but it is true I had neglected her, and in any event I need no demoness now. In the present age I a.s.sumed the guise of Natasha, and wooed and won Orb before telling her I was Satan. She married Me nonetheless, as Gaea, but for a complicated reason we never consummated the marriage. So My ancient concubine now sleeps with your natural father, and I am your stepfather the husband of your natural mother. This is why I asked Jolie to watch over you and to be your guardian and friend. It was not appropriate for Me to do it myself."
All true, Jolie thought. I am with Gaea, but it was Satan who sent me to you.
"I am-the stepdaughter of Satan," Orlene said, stunned. Yet she realized that she had known it, on a buried level; the intertwined relationships had been coming clear, following her death.
"And I love you as Jolie does," he continued. "As we would love the child we never had. I do not expect or require that this love be returned; in no other respect are you any creature of Mine. But I would do anything for you that a father would." He squinted at her. "But why don"t you a.s.sume your natural form?" As he spoke, her body changed, a.s.suming the aspect of her living state, rather than Vita"s.
"I-I come to ask a favor," Orlene said.
"So I understand. Ask."
"I need a curse, to save my baby. To put the fear of evil in him, which fear he does not yet have."
Satan shook his head. "My blessing you could readily have, for it is worthless. But a curse-this is no minor thing. I cannot give you that; you would have to earn it."
"I will try." How well she knew that Incarnations did not lightly grant their favors!
"You see, by such a curse I would actually be doing the work of Mine Ancient Adversary, G.o.d. I would be causing a soul which would otherwise come to Me to go instead to Him. I would have to take equivalent value."
"If-If I could save my baby"s soul, at the cost of mine, I would do that."
"No. Your soul is far too good for My realm! Besides, neither Jolie nor Orb would forgive me that. Ask something simpler, and I will grant it freely."
Orlene hesitated. "There is something-I know it is not my business, but-"
"Let Me be the arbiter of our business! Speak!"
"There is a man being tortured, in a chamber along the pa.s.sage through which I came. He-I know he deserves punishment. But what he is suffering is pointless. He is in a closed loop, suffering for another person"s sin, which he can never ameliorate. If he could just be nudged into the next Atonement-"
"You refer to the idiot who killed twenty-seven people and himself in a highway crash?"
"That one, yes. He doesn"t ask for mercy, only for-"
"I agree. What he is suffering is pointless. The same may be said of many thousands of murderers who must suffer in lieu of their victims. But this is a thing I lack the authority to grant."
"But if you are the Master of h.e.l.l-"
"I am the Master of h.e.l.l. But not of the underlying definitions. The matter of Good and Evil can only be decided by a joint committee of G.o.d and Satan, and there has been no communication between We Two for centuries. I feel the definitions are long overdue for updating, if only to eliminate glitches such as this, but I cannot make that decision unilaterally. Only if G.o.d agrees may we work on this."
"But why doesn"t G.o.d agree?" she asked plaintively. Satan grimaced. "I fear you will just have to ask Him. He will not speak to Me."
"As it happens, I must go to Him next. Certainly I shall ask!"
"Lotsa luck," Satan murmured. "And the curse-how may I earn that?" Satan paced the floor, considering. "It occurs to Me there may be a way around that. You may not need My curse at all, or any of the other favors from Incarnations. I believe I can get Nox to release your baby, cured, now." Ouch! Jolie thought to herself. He"s Tempting her!
But Vita picked it up. What do you mean? Is he going to renege? They were communicating to each other, not to Orlene, whose attention was externally directed.
Satan is never that simple. Oh, I must not interfere, but I fear for her!
Well, then, I"ll warn her!
No, you must not! She must endure it alone, or it doesn"t count.
Orlene, meanwhile, hardly dared believe. "You can do this? How?"
"Antic.i.p.ating your request, I availed Myself of the time you took walking the pa.s.sage to visit the Incarnation of Night. She agreed to allow Me to try it my way."
"My baby!" Orlene breathed, her eyes shining. "Oh, how can this be?"
"You need do nothing arduous. A simple agreement on your part will suffice."
"An agreement?"
Now comes the kicker, Jolie thought. He is so smooth, I hate it when he"s doing such business. I never should have let her come here!