To say it was cold was…not completely accurate. It wasn’t temperature cold; I still remained comfortable in my t-shirt and light olive jacket, but the vibe was cold, and dark, and empty.
When my eyes adjusted, and I could see what was around me, I was disappointed. Not that it wasn’t impressive, I just expected things to be scary, red, and on fire or whatever traditional concepts of hell I had in my brain.
This 'House of the Afterlife' was, well, a house. I mean a damn nice house, but a house. I’d probably define it as closer to a castle, but old. Really old.
Everything was made of stone with sharp corners. The specific place Damien and I stood was a large, open room with a long table in the center—stone, of course. If I’d had to draw a picture of a king’s dining room from medieval times, it would’ve been something close to where we were.
On one side, there was a fireplace with no fire or coals, though I got the feeling nothing warm could exist in this place. Above it was a large oil painting of Ansel, with his horns and his wings on full display. The other side had no fireplace, just a decorative table with some books under a glass dome, but another picture above it. This one was an oil painting of Ansel without the wings or horns.
He was a humble not-devil wasn’t he?
The most off-putting part of all was the voices. There were voices all around us, even though the room was empty. I could hear people crying, begging, talking, screaming—distant, but clear.
Damien and I were still pressed to each other, our faces inches from each other following the stolen kiss. For a minute, I forgot what’d happened before we were transported to another plane of existence, but after I got over the cold vibes, and echoing screams, I pushed him away. “What the hell!?”
He stumbled back a few steps but no remorse showed in his expression as he shrugged. “It was either that or make you bleed without consent. That seemed worse.”
“You didn’t have to do anything at all! That doesn’t actually count as a deal, right? You can’t do that.”
Damien threw his palms up. “Technically half of me can. Sure, I don’t have as much power or authority as Ansel, but I can still make a valid contract.”
“But I didn’t agree to a contract!” Should I have kept my voice down? It felt like we were trespassing in someone’s barbaric palace.
“You said deal,” Damien leaned in and said right to my angry face. “And as far as we know, the only way to counter that is to kill me in Ansel’s name and hope he does know something about how to reverse it because I sure as hell don’t. If that’s what you want, be my guest.” He held out the infernal blade to me.
Obviously, I didn’t take it, even if the temptation was real. I knew at least forty ways to kill him with nothing but that blade, and each one scrolled through my head for a solid ten seconds. He was lucky I didn’t know how to get out of this room, let alone across an entire Void of Dead. There wasn’t a door in sight.
If it ever came down to having to sell my soul to save Sky, I’d just have to live with the consequences of breaking a contract. It was only half a contract anyway.
“That’s what I thought.” He pocketed the blade somewhere on his person and turned away, leaving me to really take in the room for the first time. There was a strange sort of mist filling the room and a smell that wasn’t bad. It also wasn’t pleasant but it was completely indescribable. Like burning, but not quite smokey? And something rotten, but not that pungent? Nothing my nose recognised.
Damien spun with his arms out wide. “Welcome to The House of Guilt, also known as Ansel’s personal fun house. Where everyone who dies with guilt in their soul and remorse in their hearts exists for eternity, or until they move the fuck on.”
“It’s…lovely,” I said as I walked up to the table. It looked dusty as shit, but when I swiped my finger across it, it remained clean. So...that was just for Ansel's personal aesthetic, huh?
“It’s a piece of shit,” Damien corrected. “And it’s only going to get worse from here. Plus, I have no idea how to leave this prison, so get comfortable.”
I motioned to the walls, which had stained glass windows of only grey and blue high up above our heads—-which were useless because no sun was shining through them, and I could only assume it never did—but there were still no doors. “Can we even leave this room?”
“This is Ansel’s meeting room. Only the ones he allows can get in here, and only through a sigil like I have. One of the many perks to being soul-bound to a dick like him. I know only one way out,” Damien sat in the largest chair at the head of the table and threw his dirty shoes up on the surface, “pissing off the boss.”
In a puff of black smoke, and a crack like a whip, Ansel appeared behind Damien in full devil-form, looking displeased as all hell.
“Oh. It’s you,” Ansel said with a grumble. “Took you long enough to get here. And get out of my chair.”
What was he talking about? It’d been like an hour and a half since we last saw him. He had the patience of a hungry terrier.
Damien stood up, watching me with a half grin that Ansel couldn’t see. “Works every time.”
“What do you need, now?” Ansel asked, less bubbly than he had been at Damien’s place. Either he had serious mood swings, or something happened between the time he left and the time we arrived.
“We need out of your chamber, seeing as you have still not given me permission to enter and exit the house on my own accord,” Damien said, swinging around the back of the chair to meet Ansel.
Ansel laughed sarcastically. “It’s for your own good. Do you really want to go out there for this…human?” Damien’s face fell blank and a response, and Ansel continued, “I suppose that was part of the deal. Suit yourself,” Ansel whipped his hand backward, like he was ready to backhand Damien in the face, but never made contact. A rush of air hit me, forcing my eyes shut.
When I opened them, the large meeting hall was gone.
Our new setting was…well…also a hall, but a thinner one. Like the entrance to a great castle. The walls were decorated with more art than they could bear, from various periods in history and cultures all over the world, as far as I could tell. The only thing they all had in common was the accent of a deep, cool purple.
There wasn’t much in the way of furniture other than various shapes of stone that resembled furniture. A few tables still stood with vases or statues on them, and long rugs dull and tramples to greyness.
The hall was empty in a way that made me uneven. My mind believed there should be a presence there—someone watching me, eternally. Forever. Yet all I could see were ugly paintings and the dark marble floor until it disappeared into the distance of the hall.
“Uh…Damien. Where—” I turned to face Damien, but a new person stood between the two of us. He was tall and skinny, like a string bean. He had a face that somehow looked to be wearing glasses (even though he wasn’t wearing any) messy brown hair, and dark, loose-fitting clothes.
Despite his unkempt appearance, he was way more attractive than he should have been in a way that made me shake my head. Not my type at all, and yet...
The string-bean man never looked up from an open, leather-bound book in his hands as he started talking. “Welcome, new or unidentified soul, to the Void. You’re here because you’re dead. Don’t panic, it won’t do you any good. You are stuck here until a specific set of criteria are met. In the absence of your head-of-house, Lord Ansel, I will be guiding you through the transition. Any questions or concerns can come through me, and I will advocate on his behalf. Here in the—”
Damien leaned over to get a good look at the man’s face. “Wait. Leon?”
“—Tower of Guilt, we focus on—Huh? What? Oh.” Leon’s focus on the book was broken and he looked up at Damien. I swear his eye grew wider than his head. “Oh, no! No, no! Not you. What did I do this time? Come on man. I’m just trying to do my job for all eternity here.”
“Calm down. I’m off duty,” Damien said.
Leon threw his arms up in the air, nearly dropping the book in the process. “Thank you, glorious Ansel. Thank you.”
“You two know each other?” I peeped from behind them both.
Leon pivoted around and eyed me up and down once. “Know? Ha! I’d say so.”
“Leon also sold his soul to Ansel,” Damien jabbed him in the side with his elbow like they were old drinking buddied, “what was it for, again?”
Leon swung the leather book in Damiens's face with a grumpy frown. “Hey! If I hadn’t won that bet, then I’d have been killed anyway. At least his way I got ten more years out of it.”
I don’t know why I’d expected folks in the afterlife to be…like…I don’t know. Different. Like brainless mummies, or screaming in torment endlessly for infinity. I suppose Leon wasn’t all that different from Damien, but it was off-putting to see them banter like they were at a bar, not in a literal void of death.
Damien actually looked…amused? Happy even. He had a smile as he looked at me and pointed at Leon with his thumb. “I was his mentor when his soul was finally forfeited and he was so bad a reaping, Ansel put him here as his own personal grocery store greeter.”
“That was my job for eight years as a mortal. Ansel has such a lovely sense of humor.” Leon perked up when he saw me for the second time and wrapped the book in one arm so he could reach out with his other for a handshake. “I’m sorry, we haven’t met. Are you dead or soulless?”
“Oh. I’m—” I fumbled with my hands.
“Soulless,” Damien answered so quickly I had barely gotten my mouth open, and I certainly hadn’t had time to shake Leon’s hand. “Yup. Sold their soul. I’m showing them the ropes.”
I guess the handshake moment was lost because Leon dropped his arm to his side to focus back on Damien. “I thought you said you were off duty.”
“I’m off…your duty.”
“Uh huh…” Leon leaned right into my ear and whispered, “Don’t trust this one. I think he was a politician in his previous life.” It took all my effort not to snort a laugh. Damien did kind of have that presence. Rich, clean-cut, well-spoken, lots of hidden secrets.
Leon rose and clicked his heels together to make a clank with his shoes. “Since you don’t need me, I’ll be off.”
“Wait. Leon, maybe you could help us,” said Damien.
Leon leaned away from Damien with the most intense stare. “I’m sorry, you need my help? Daddy’s favorite pet asking the rodent outside for assistance? This ought to be good.”
“Mikkie and I are going to be doing some security work. Any whispers around about folks escaping from the tower?”
“Escaping? HA!” Leon’s laugh shot down the hall, and straight through my soul. It didn’t seem like a good thing that someone like Leon would find that notion so amusing. “Even if souls were escaping, they wouldn’t tell the likes of you or me about it, would they?”
In one blink, the hall which previously had only the three of us, now had two middle-aged women standing with us.
Leon clicked his heels again and jumped into action. “Ah. More new souls. Good eternity, Damien…person whose name I forget.” He nodded at me and proceeded to the women. “Welcome, new or unidentified souls…”
Damien pushed me down the hall and away from Leon and new souls, which I’m sure had absolutely nothing to do with him not wanting me to see how dead folks react to the news that they are…well, dead.
“Glad he was there to waste our time,” I said as we strutted down the endless hallway.
“Nothing is a waste of time here. There is hardly time to waste.”
At the very end, a large set of double doors shot all the way to the ceiling, probably twenty feet high. It was elegant and painted with murals of what looked to be a stylized version of Ansel performing various tasks: tearing souls from bodies. Sitting in a chair with folks bowing at his feet. The worst was him in a bed surrounded by folks on their knees to please him.
Gross.
I mean to each their own special kinks, but I didn't need it carved into the door.
All of it was still accented in purple.
My eyes bounced from one horrible painting to the next. “What did Leon mean by ‘Daddy’s favorite pet’?”
“Like Ansel said, he likes having another Lord’s offspring as a contract. That’s all.” Damien threw up the hood of his hoodie and pushed the doors open, head hung low.
The politician in him was showing again. There was a lie buried in there, even if the foundation was the truth. Damien was hiding something else, and I had a bad feeling it wasn’t going to bode well with our mission.
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