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“Great, look at what you did.” Alastor looked at his cuffed sleeves, white as snow against the even, warm brown of his skin—and the tiniest dot of blood had found itself onto the fabric, making its way up his forearms. “Another stain.”
His victim—pale, old, on his way out—gargled on his back, spat out blood just shy of Alastor’s Oxfords, well worn and well loved. “You could stand to have a little more respect for others and their belongings. That’s what really gets me, the lack of respect. I was perfectly pleasant to you. I don’t ask for much, I think an apology would’ve ended this a little differently.”
He cursed, chest heaving while he savored his breath, any one of those could be his last, and Alastor flicked blood off his knife and onto his chest, staining the fine, worsted fabric of his suit, for whatever sort of fairness they can find in this exchange. “Alright! I’m sorry then! I didn’t mean to offend you, I thought it was funny!”
“Oh, but it is funny!” Alastor chuckled darkly, and what little color remained in the man’s face drained. “See—if it was anybody else, they’d let you continue on your merry little way and bite their tongue until they tasted blood.” He tried to move back on his forearms, uselessly. Alastor took a step and covered more distance than he had moved, casting a long shadow over him. “I’m the only one willing to teach you a lesson. Without me, you would go the rest of your life thinking this is acceptable behavior. But without me, your life would actually continue. That’s hilarious.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t dare break eye contact, in case Alastor moved when he blinked.
“You know, I don’t consider myself a good man.” His grin grew over his face, sharper than his knife. “But there is something poetic, about how I get to be the one to tell men like you where you’re going.” He gripped the knife tighter and sank it directly into his chest, piercing a lung. “See you in Hell.”
The man couldn’t respond, as he was now actively dying—but no sooner than Alastor had cut into him, there was a flash, and a noise like a cymbal, and this figure before him, a mess of great wings and many eyes. “Don’t fear me, mortal—“
It didn’t get a chance to say much more. Alastor started, the way any sane man would before such a creature, and he jerked the knife out, spraying blood in several crimson arches—including directly onto the being.
“Oh!” It shrieked. “Oh, that’s in my eye! Oh my gosh!” It shrank back, shocked, every other eye on it looking at him like he had spat at it, but for one that was shut, something like a hand pressed against it. “What did you do that for?”
Alastor froze, a deer in headlights. His grin dropped.
The being rubbed at its eyes--the shock had ended and it now accepted that that was clearly an accident, and it was actually being rude for barging in. “Okay. Wow. Not how I imagined this going… but um. It’s okay! I love surprises!”
Alastor had to squint in the light that came off its skin, and it didn’t make the image any clearer. He was at a loss for words, unsure what to say or do. The first thing he managed to get out was, “You shouldn’t be in here.”
“Oh, no,” it said, and laughed. “I mean, before, I shouldn’t, but it’s allowed now! Ugh, I’m sorry, I’m getting flustered, let me start over.”
It cleared it’s throat, and came closer—the light it was bathed in wrapped around it’s form, into something largely humanoid, and then it was just a woman before him, in a full skirt, with long, thick hair, though she was an assortment of blues and whites. She took a deep breath, all smiles, all joy. “I’m Emily—but you can call me Em, Emmy, E—anything, you can call me anything.”
“Anything,” he repeated.
She nodded—apparently just happy he had understood this introduction well enough. “Do I get your name?”
He paused. Tried to wipe the blood off his hands and onto his slacks, but it only really smeared and just meant he’d have to give it a more thorough wash later. But ever the gentleman, he held out his hand, and offered the friendliest smile a man like him was capable of. “The name’s Alastor, dear, but my friends call me Al, it’s a pleasure to be meeting you.”
She hesitated a moment, and then reached for his hand, smearing blood into her dark skin. “Al,” she repeated. “Oh, the pleasure’s all mine! I’m so happy to be meeting you!” She glanced around the room—dim, bloodsoaked. A radio on the mantle, the fireplace lit below. She could not bring herself to comment on the body, because she was hoping it wasn't what she thought it was. “Though, I… didn’t anticipate this setting.”
His smile tightened. “Was there a different setting you had in mind?”
Her eyes widened—and there was a larger one on her chest that mimicked her surprise before she laughed awkwardly. “I’m sorry, I guess I have some explaining to do. This is my first time meeting a living human.” She took a deep breath. “I’m Emily, the… other Seraphim—not that you… know the first—I digress. Heaven has sent me down here before you. Our hope is through positive interaction with Heaven and its people, we can collectively steer humanity away from Hell, Sin, and Evil.”
“Ah.” What could he have expected? She had manifested seemingly out of pure light, so really, anything could be happening right now.
This still felt. Strange. Surreal. Like a nightmare, only in its warp—nightmares had long since stopped scaring Alastor. Nothing really did now.
Just to be sure, he pinched himself. When that didn’t do anything, he just glanced to that nearby table in the corner, with his barely touched bottle of illicit whiskey. “Must be a bad batch,” he mumbled.
Emily smiled at him. “I’m real.”
“It certainly seems it!” He sighed and turned back to her. “In any case, I have to confess, darling, I think you might be a little too late for a man like me.”
She shook her head—her eyes possessed steel, shiny and rigid. He could not bend her on this. “It’s never too late, not for the living. There’s still time for you.”
He shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to argue with an angel. “Can I offer you a drink, Anything?”
She laughed, and it broke the sound barrier. His head spun, as if taking her in in her entirety, before it seemed to refocus, blocked out what it could not make sense of. It had been millenia since a mere mortal human had seen an angel in the flesh, and it seemed that humanity had lost the ability to look at them in their wholeness.
So, they settled at the dining table nearby, and Emily tried to pretend this was not the most disturbing thing she had ever bore witness to. Despite the corpse assuming room temperature on the floor and that her new friend was covered in blood, Alastor was being as polite and friendly as he could be, and poured her a glass of his favorite whiskey, in hopes that it could serve as a better apology than anything he would say. He wouldn’t mean it if he said it.
Emily glanced at it, and hesitated, so Alastor sipped from his own glass to prove it was safe for human consumption, though it did occur to him that that likely wouldn’t be as comforting as he wanted it to be. But Emily was brave and lifted her glass all the same.
And then immediately regretted it. Alastor’s favorite rye whiskey was to his tastes, he thought himself refined in his tastes—they didn’t quite suit the inhuman, especially if this was their first hard liquor ever.
Emily took a swig and then, immediately, gagged and spat it back onto the table. “Oh my gosh!” Alastor leaned back, shocked, smile tight. “I’m—I’m so sorry! I-I think it’s turned.”
“Ah.” His own fault. He reached into his pocket. “No, dear, that’s how it’s supposed to taste. I take it we’re not much of a drinker?”
“Uh, we don’t…” She cleared her throat. Her eyes were watering a little. Your first drink was always hard. “We don’t have stuff like this in Heaven, I don’t think.”
He pulled out his handkerchief and offered it to her. She accepted it, but struggled to meet his eyes. “I’m mortified, Al, I swear I’m not usually like this.”
“Don’t be, darling,” he said. “I’m the one that should be embarrassed, I’ve made quite a mess out of you.” Emily grimaced at the blood on her and tried to wipe some of it off, along with the whiskey on her lips. Objectively lovely things, they were—full, and almost curved like they had been made for the sole purpose of smiling. “Let’s try this again.” He topped off her glass. “This is the whiskey, it’s one of my favorite things to drink though it might be better in a sazerac. We’re in the midst of prohibition, so it’s in very high demand. Down here, we use it as some sort of… social lubricant. You have no obligation to drink it, but if you do, I might recommend sipping.”
She smiled sheepishly and took it into her hand. “Thank you.”
Alastor tented his fingers. “You were telling me about Heaven,” he said. “And why you’re here.”
She took a deep breath, gathered herself, and continued. “You don’t know this, but Hell is… crowded. It hasn’t escaped our notice that humanity seems often more drawn to it, somehow. I think that’s just how this works, that some people have to end up in Hell, but with the sheer numbers heading for it…” She cleared her throat. “So, our hope is to steer some more humans up to Heaven. We’re Heaven, and goodness is our nature, our sole purpose. The hope is with some guidance, human souls just like you can change for the better and join us in Heaven.”
“Okay.” None of what she was saying felt overtly complicated but he was struggling to wrap his head around it. “So… Heaven is sending its angels to proselytize?”
“Yes!” A beat and then her smile twitched. “Well, no, sort of. It’s just me.”
“It’s just you,” Alastor repeated. “And might I ask, why me?”
“Fate has brought me here,” she said. “It was… a lottery of sorts. It could have been any other human, but instead, it was you.” She reached across the table and seized both his hands tightly. Touching her was like touching sunlight, warm and comforting. He was sure if it was prolonged enough, he would tan a darker color in the shape of her fingers. “It was you, Al, and I wholeheartedly believe that means something.”
“What an awful lottery,” he said. “Fate gave you a serial killer." Subtly, she glanced at the body, and noticeably gulped, betraying her discomfort. "An irredeemable man with no chance of getting into Heaven."
"Uh, well..." She racked her brain for any experience that could help her and bit her lip. "One of my closest friends was actually the first murder victim." And so, she was an ally to that community, she figured, and somehow, this would help her with her approach to him.
His smile was somewhat sympathetic. He did not apparently delight in worrying her. "I don’t think there’s any amount of repenting that can save whatever soul I have left, dear.”
“Oh, that’s not true at all!” She insisted. “You just need a little time and a little encouragement—I can see it, Alastor, clearly. You must have a good heart.” She squeezed his hands again. He tried to let go and she finally pulled back. “And see, it won’t be just you, we think. The humans—um, sorry that sounds—humanity is made up of such social animals—no, sorry, that’s worse. What I mean is, we think it’ll spread. That you can carry this goodness with you, and it’ll find its way to the people around you.”
“Like the Spanish flu,” Alastor said.
“Sure!” Emily wasn’t entirely sure what that was, admittedly, but it sounded important. “If I can prove that I was a good influence on a human, we might implement this on a larger scale. Think of the souls we could save from Hell. I’ve personally never been, but I’ve heard awful stuff, and I don’t want that for anybody, and definitely not for you.” They were bonded now forever, just by virtue of meeting. Friends now, before Alastor had any choice in the matter.
“I think I’m following so far.” He reached beneath his glasses and wiped at his eyes. It’d been a long day. “Can you tell me about Heaven, then? Is it what the Catholics think of it?”
“Oh, well, I couldn’t say,” she said. “I’m not sure what the Catholics say. You know, everybody down here seems to have their own theories down here—are you Catholic then?”
Alastor’s nose wrinkled. “I was raised Catholic, I suppose.” He fixed his glasses—Emily’s eyes briefly left him and returned to the floor. “Between you and me, though, I’m not sure how much of it I believe in. Parts of it, certainly, I believe in Hell, I know what a soul like me gets after death, but I mostly regard the church with disdain.”
Emily was looking at the body again--she glanced back at Alastor. “I’m sorry, I think I heard something.”
“Don’t be afraid, darling, he’s dead as a doornail.” She was still looking at him. Helpfully, Alastor rose and nudged his victim—or, his victim’s body with the black toe of his spectator shoes. “Can you hear me?” No response and no movement, so he sat himself back down.
“Thanks,” Emily said, and then remembered that that had once been a person, and perhaps she had no right to her own fear. “…I guess.”
“You’re very welcome, Miss Emily,” he folded his hands again. “I guess.”
“Is the religion thing why you, um…” She pursed her lips.
Alastor furrowed his brow. “Oh, no. At least, I don’t think my godlessness is why, but if my mother knew, I’m sure she’d disagree.” He picked up his glass. “She would be angrier with me if she knew I hadn’t been to church since Ash Wednesday, then if she knew what I got up to on nights like this. My reasons for my lack of religion are different.”
Emily should’ve dropped this. But for some reason, this felt important to her, perhaps as all things that pertained to Heaven did. “What reasons?”
Alastor considered this a moment. “I don’t think I should get into the entirety of the transatlantic slave trade,” he started, because that wasn’t what you wanted to discuss in a relatively lighthearted fanfiction that ended in smooching. “But between that and the prohibition going on, it seems to me that you can use God and the Lord to justify pretty much anything. You can beat your wife, and hurt your child, you can rape and murder, you can stop others from harmless fun and actually, very recently, poison it and allow the populace to drink it, and decide that they have forfeited their lives by breaking the law—and in God’s name, it’s righteous, somehow.” Emily looked back at her glass and wondered if this was poison, and then, if human poison would even affect her. “I’ve not deluded myself into believing I’m a good man—but at least my horrors are man-made, and not Godly.”
This was a lot to process. It briefly occurred to Emily that perhaps, humanity was a little more screwy than she had originally imagined.
In the face of her confusion, Alastor shrugged. “Besides: I’ve no interest in Heaven. It sounds dreadfully boring.”
“Oh, but it isn’t!” This she could help with. “Heaven isn’t boring, it’s—it’s comforting. It’s home.” She leaned closer, hands curled around her chair. “It could be your home too! All the people are so nice, and we have tons of musical theatre.” He considered this. “There’s so sickness, no strife, no pain…” He furrowed his brows. Maybe she was losing him. “Sometimes, the Winners—uh, human-born souls that arrive in Heaven upon their death—“
“They’re called Winners?” Alastor asked.
“I didn’t name them,” Emily said. “But sometimes, their new Heavenly forms give them wings!”
“Like yours?” Alastor asked.
Without being asked, Emily jumped to her feet to move closer. “Like mine!” She turned around. She was not experienced enough with fear and danger to think better of keeping her back to Alastor, but it didn’t matter. He had no intention of hurting her.
Hesitantly, as if touching her might burn him, he brushed a gloved finger over her wing, covered in white feathers. It occurred to him he hadn’t touched a lot of birds in his life, his hunting rifle was mostly for deer, or rabbits. This was like what touching a very, very large bird was probably like. She was soft, and seemed to glow.
Emily turned her head to meet his eyes. “Everything in Heaven is beautiful,” she said. “But I really, really love my wings. You could end up with a pair! Wouldn’t that be great? Unless you’re scared of heights.”
“They’re exquisite,” Alastor said. Like nothing he’d ever seen on any birds before. Like nothing he had ever imagined. He ran his hand up against her feathers, dislodging one and letting it fall to the ground before he pulled his hand back. Emily turned back around. She had grabbed his attention, and that was what mattered. He would participate. Who was he to turn away a servant of Heaven?
Then his fingers drifted to her halo, hanging above her head, and Emily couldn't help her shudder. He wiped his fingers on his jacket, like if he could remove her touch from him, he wouldn't have done such a thing. "It didn't occur to me you might feel that," he said.
"Oh, barely," She reached for it, to straighten it out. "It's like... like when you're wearing a hat, I think. You can feel the pressure, the weight, you know when it leaves your head." She loved her's--and wouldn't Alastor look so good with his own?
First thing they had to do: they had to figure out what got people into Heaven, and what got people into Hell.
“I don’t have any experience with Hell, but I think I’m basically an expert on Heaven!” Emily folded her hands in her lap. The night was growing late. Originally, Alastor had been prepared to bury this body somewhere in the woods, but he didn’t imagine getting to that. Distantly, he could hear the baying of some hunting dog. He rubbed his tired eyes and tried again to concentrate on his guest, nothing but a well-mannered host. “And we have all sorts of people! Good acts get you into Heaven, but they’re not all made equally, and a lot of them are way more achievable than others. What do you usually do in your life?”
Alastor glanced at the body still on his floor and then the blood on him. This was going to stain awful. But Emily had stopped complaining so he shouldn’t either. “Well, I host a radio show.”
“Oh, I love the radio!” Another thing she could tempt him into Heaven with. “That sounds lovely. I bet you could get one in Heaven.”
“I worked awful hard to get this one.” He readjusted his glasses on his button nose, calling further attention to his handsome features to further contradict his next statement. “I always felt called to the radio, you know, a career as an entertainer where my audience doesn’t have to see me. This face was made for radio.”
“I think it’s a good face.” She reached closer, cupping his cheeks with her palms. “Honestly, if this is what the less attractive humans look like, I don’t know if I can look at the ones more attractive than you, I think you’re beautiful.” Alastor gently wrapped his fingers around one of her wrists and pulled it off his face. “Oh, I’m sorry—I’m a toucher. I forget not everybody likes that.” She pulled back. “I think it’s a little more normal in Heaven, I forget other people…”
“Don’t worry about it, dear.” He didn’t seem that bothered. He had just groped her wings and halo, he wasn't allowed to complain. “Another radio show is certainly enticing.”
“We love our entertainment in Heaven,” Emily said. “It’s an eternity of paradise, we need things to soften that eternity.“
He considered this a moment. “And would there be any barriers for someone like to me?”
Emily fought every urge to look back at the body. “Barriers to getting into Heaven, sure,” she said. “But the radio? What would keep an entertainer from… entertaining?”
“Oh, well, many things, I’m sure.” He tapped his fingers on the side of his glass. “But off the top of my head, perhaps something like… rich, old, white men that feel more comfortable when they’re not sharing spaces with me?”
That rich, old, white man on the floor was staring at her with glassy, unseeing eyes. “Because you kill them?” Emily asked.
“They don’t know I kill them,” Alastor insisted. “And trust me, they give me plenty of reasons.”
She tapped her chin in thought. “So, it’s like vigilanteism?” Alastor considered this a moment. “We in Heaven encourage taking the high road, but I know that can be easier said than done. I think knowing the reason you do… the bad, Hellish things you do can help us figure out how to get you to do the Heavenly things.” This made sense to her—clearly, Alastor had a good heart that did not extend to his actions. Meaning she had to change his actions and not his heart. “So: why do you kill?“
Alastor froze, a deer in headlights. Shyness didn’t seem to suit him, but Emily was not one to judge anybody for anything. “I’m sure you have a good reason. Did he do something?”
“…He spilled wine on my shirt.”
Emily didn’t move. “Just your shirt?”
He grit his teeth. “It was the nicest shirt I owned,” he said. “And he did it intentionally.”
“‘Intentionally,’” she repeated.
“Well, first it might’ve been an accident,” Alastor said. “And he heard me gasp, and he turned to face me, and I could see the apology on his lips, and then he saw me, and he…” Alastor trailed off, trying to think. “He saw me. And see, I was much too dark to be his equal, I must’ve been a server, and I was clearly beneath him, and so, his accident wasn’t something worth caring about, it was actually funny that it would happen to me, so he did it again. And laughed while he did it.” He huffed but looked back at her, all smiles. “You know, it is funny. I do a white man’s job twice as better for half the pay and none of the respect, now that—that’s hilarious.”
Emily waited a second. “Do you do that a lot?” Alastor didn’t waver. “Like—lashing out violently when you feel like you’ve been wronged?”
Alastor had been wronged, that was a matter of fact. But phrasing like that made him sound wounded. Made him sound pathetic. And he was no such thing. Alastor had never been stronger, and having somebody’s life in his hands, blood on his hands, that was just evidence of his strength. “That man was an animal that made everybody else around him miserable. I can tell you that much.”
Emily didn’t believe in such things like that—what she did believe was that, regardless of what she thought, Alastor believed he was justified. “So, you think it’s right?”
“I never said that.” He finished off his glass and immediately topped it up. Though it wasn’t a race, she felt she was falling behind and took a sip of her own, and did manage to swallow it through force of will. “I just think he deserved it.”
“And do you think you deserve it?” Emily asked. “If somebody were to do something like that to you?”
“It’s not something I worry about,” Alastor said. “Because it’ll never happen.” He didn’t get a ton of power in his life—or, at least, it wasn’t recognized because he was looked down upon. But Alastor understood he had his own power about him. In that he was far smarter, more capable than the average man. That he had the guts to kill, and continue to live, and nobody could take such a power from him. He was above the common man in the simple way that he believed himself to be, and somehow, that was different from how other people believed themselves to be. Alastor had worked for this, and not had it handed to him upon a silver platter. The struggle meant something.
Emily wasn’t doing much to inspire empathy in him, that much was obvious. “Don’t you want to be good?” It felt obvious. Didn’t everybody? Wasn’t that preprogrammed into the humans?
But Alastor quirked a brow. “Do you?”
“Of course!” With every fiber of her being. It was natural. “I’m a Seraphim, we have defined Good with Heaven. It’s our purpose, our desire.”
“And that’s great to know about the Seraphim!” Alastor said. “But do you want to be good? Or do you want to fulfill your life’s purpose? Do you believe you’re doing good, or is it just that everything you do is justified as good, due to your nature as an angel?”
Emily tapped her chin in thought. “Does it make it less genuine, if my meaning’s already there?” It was all she knew and all she wanted. That did not mean the desire was not there, just because it was a constant, as natural as breathing. “I want to be good. I want to do good. It’s why I’m down here.” She reached across the table for his hand. “And I wholeheartedly believe you can be just as good.”
He was not convinced. But he did find her amusing, and could not find it in his cold, dead heart to break her’s. “And how would you suggest turning someone like me into someone good?”
“Um…” She considered it a moment. “You know, I’m not sure. Hold on a second—“
So, she phoned a friend--but her friends would be just as clueless as her, so instead she phoned a friend’s dad. Adam had yet to find an excuse to act on his worse impulses—he also had yet to discover rock music, as it had been born from jazz and had yet to reach him, so he was a lot more boring as a person. As it stood, his worst flaw was being kind of a prick, and his status as the first human man meant he was some sort of authority on humanity, no matter how far away it strayed from it’s original vision.
“Em,” he said. “Emmy, sweetie.”
“I know—“ she started, but he cut her off.
“I do not wanna be up here.” He folded his arms, dressed in this giant robe, white and violet—so clean, almost glowing in the dimly lit room. “Fuck, this is Earth?”
“Actually, it’s a hunting cabin,” Alastor said. "On Earth."
He scoffed, and noticed the bloodstain on the floor--so long as he didn't turn around, he might not notice the body. “This place sucks. It got so much worse. And the humans got so puny.”
Alastor grinned. “I’m taller than average.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” He shook his head. “And you got me up here why?”
Emily turned back to Alastor. “Al, this is Adam. The First Man, the Father of Humanity. Adam, this is Alastor.” Like it was just as important, demanding just as much respect, “He hosts a radio show.”
Adam would go on to badmouth jazz, but he could respect the radio. “Cool.”
“Extremely!”
“So, you know about our whole Sin problem,” she said. Adam nodded and tried not to look bored outta his skull. “And currently the idea is to prevent the sin while the human’s still alive, and Alastor here’s our…” She paused.
“Guinea pig?” Adam said.
“I was gonna say ‘example,’ but I don’t know if that actually sounds better.” She looked to Alastor who just shrugged. “So, we’re looking for ideas to undo sin, and get some Heavenworthy acts in his life—and who better to turn to than the first Heavenworthy man?”
Flattery got you everywhere with Adam. He gave Alastor—lithe, brown, speckled with red—another once over and shrugged. “Alright. I’ll bite.”
Alastor glanced up. “The Adam, is it? The one in the Bible?”
“That’s right, I’m the fucking man, you little weirdo.” Emily flinched, but there was no stopping him.
But Alastor didn’t seem much too bothered. “You look much different than what I would’ve thought.”
Adam faltered for a second. “The fuck does that mean?”
“Oh, nothing.” He readjusted his glasses again, like he was getting a better look at him. “I’m being rude.”
“Sounds like a sin right there,” Adam said. “I mean, come on. I’m fucking Adam, doesn’t that get me a little respect? Whatever happened to respecting your elders?”
“Or the eldest,” Alastor quipped, which was usually something Adam would have no problem with being labeled, but he didn’t like his tone.
He visibly bristled. Emily hopped to, “He doesn’t mean it, Adam—this is his first time ever meeting anybody from Heaven, can you show him a little bit of grace? Just a little?”
He scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever. I can be forgiving.” He crossed his arms. “So, what? What bad decisions is Emily trying to talk you out of?”
“Ah, ha, I’ve made a few I don’t think she approves of.” He chuckled to himself. “I’m afraid even just by hosting her, and offering her a drink I’ve broken the law. Prohibition, you see.”
“Yeah, yeah, I totally know what that means.” He pulled from seemingly nowhere a notepad and a pen. Notes? Something to distract him from this boring conversation? They might never know.
“I hunt, you know, for sport. I do make use of the meat, I’ll share it with my neighbors, but mostly for sport—I have a lovely set of antlers in my bedroom here.”
Adam hummed. “Yeah, yeah, gotta be nice to the animals—but hunting isn’t that bad.”
He thought it over. “I did shoot a few dogs as a teenager.”
Emily gasped. “You shot a dog?”
“A few,” he admitted again. “One was sick, and I was just putting it out of its misery, as the right thing to do.”
Adam furrowed his brow. “And the others?” Alastor neglected to answer. “Okay. Fucking weird. Maybe stop killing dogs. Maybe adopt one? To atone.”
“And I haven’t been as chaste as I’m sure the holy ought to be,” Alastor said. “I’ve seen many a woman’s bare knee, and I’m not above any entertainment with some… sensuality, if the entertainment’s good enough.”
“Cool as shit, man,” Adam said. “Keep that up. Not necessarily because it’ll help, but so we don’t get any more boring people in Heaven. You know how many of them are still fuckin’ creaming themselves over calves? Come the fuck on, you have calves, nut up.”
Alastor nodded, solemnly. Emily piped in, almost shyly. “There’s the other thing, that we’re worried about.”
Adam side-eyed Alastor. Emily was not shy and any showing of nerves was automatically suspicious. “What other thing?”
“The murders,” said Alastor.
“…The dog murders?”
Emily stared at the ground, but Alastor laughed. “Well, some of them were dogs, let me tell you! But mostly they were men. Human men, of course, but also dogs.” Adam continued to stare at him. “I’m sorry—that, haha! That bit usually kills!”
Adam turned back to Emily, the hand around his pen dropping from his notepad. “Em, is this a bit?” She shook her head. “This is not a bit? You’re telling me you’re a hundred percent serious right now?” She nodded. “Alright. I’ll be serious then: throw in the towel. Give up on the weirdo. He smells like blood and he isn’t even funny.”
“He’s nice!” Emily insisted. “And he can be better!”
“He kills people, Em, there’s no coming back from that.” This would be hilarious of him to say in a different time.
“Solely men,” Alastor said. “I’m above harming woman and children, of course, I’m a gentleman.”
Adam shook his head. “Nah, in Heaven, we’re all about that equality shit. Most the Seraphim? Women. My boss Sera, the other—well, not the other, the seraphim? Woman. Her boss, the Speaker of God? Woman. Her boss, God? …Haven’t actually met them yet so who fucking knows, but he or she or they or it or xe probably wouldn’t approve.”
Alastor faltered. “I’m sorry, are you… suggesting I pick up a female victim in the name of equality?”
“That is not what I said,” Adam said, raising his hands. “I am not saying to kill women.”
Alastor was still confused. “And… the children?”
“I think all murder is frowned upon,” he said. “That’s some Hell shit.”
“Well, we can’t undo the past!” Emily said. “And what really matters is what we do going forward. Does Heaven and Hell really matter, so long as we know we did the best we could in the lives we were given?”
“Uh, yeah,” Adam said. “Matters a lot, actually, what the fuck kinda question is that?”
Alastor smiled sheepishly at her. “I think your whole selling point was that Heaven was great and I should aspire to get in.”
Adam wasn’t looking at either of them right now, too busy with his notepad. “Yeah, for real, you think you’d care so much about good if you were in Hell?”
Emily looked up at him, and her gaze bore straight through his notepad and into his head. “If I were in Hell, I’d do everything I could to be better. And I would continue to love the people around me. And I would go to sleep at night, knowing I try my best.”
“Man.” He clicked his pen. “If I was in Hell, I’d probably—well, I don’t think I’d go straight for child murder, but I’d probably kick puppies or something.”
“Adam, that’s awful.”
“But they’re Hell puppies,” Adam argued. “So we don’t care.”
“Adam, they’re puppies.”
Alastor jumped in again, “Maybe the puppies deserved it.”
Adam nodded his head in agreement. “Maybe the puppies had bad vibes.”
“Can we stop arguing about puppies?” Emily asked. “We’re not kicking or killing puppies. We’re figuring out how to send souls to Heaven.”
“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Em, I’m writing down ideas.” He scribbled something in the corner. “I don’t know if any of them are gonna help, we don’t got any murderers in Heaven.”
“It doesn’t have to be all or nothing,” Emily said. “I believe in Al.”
He scoffed--he didn't worry so much about belief in an existence where he could know. “You should start making the bracelets and braid each other’s hair,” Adam said. “If you’re gonna use the power of friendship to save his soul.”
She didn’t falter. She hadn’t been more sure of herself ever. “We’ll get started on all that in Heaven, after Alastor gets settled.”
Adam laughed and tore out the paper he’d been using. He tried to throw it at Alastor but it was paper so it didn’t land and just floated and left him awkwardly trying to grab it. “Alright, Em. Good luck with that.”
Emily smiled up at him—incapable of hatred, of anger. “Give Abel a hug for me?”
“What for?” He asked. “You hugged him like an hour ago before you left. You’re making him soft.”
“He was soft before I hugged him, I’m just encouraging it,” Emily said. Somebody had to. “Bye, Adam!”
“Later, Em—Em’s murder-y friend.”
There was this solid circle of swirling violet, blue light and he was gone. “The Adam,” Alastor said. “He seemed… unwell.”
“Yeah, he always looks like that,” Emily said. “Like he hasn’t slept in a fortnight.” She didn’t think too much about it—it wasn’t like he needed the sleep. With him gone, she hopped closer to Alastor and the list Adam had left them with. “Okay! Ideas!”
Alastor decided to give her the lead on this and let her hold the list. From his first glance, he didn’t imagine it being a ton of help for her endeavors.
“Okay…” She furrowed her brow and glanced back at him. “I’m not sure how much I like this one, but Adam thinks that like, if you kill people and you can’t stop, maybe you should just kill people that kill people, and it makes killing people slightly better?” Emily wasn’t sure if she agreed with that logic, but she felt like Adam had to have some sort of authority on the subject. Maybe he understood something that Emily didn’t about the humans, his descendants.
“I’m not convinced this isn’t his way of suggesting I commit suicide,” Alastor said.
“Aw, he wouldn’t do that,” Emily said. “Life is a gift. Heaven dislikes suicide for the same reason we dislike murder, because we think life should be valued and protected at all costs.” She looked at the one below it, a simple jagged (KYS.) which was strange because as an idea, it didn’t get a separate bullet point, it was connected to the first idea. “Kiss?” Emily said. He spelled it so funny. “He might be onto something.” Alastor looked again at her. “Love’s a powerful thing, Alastor. It’s redeeming. It’s life changing.“ She looked him dead in the eye. “It shapes the soul.”
“It sounds a little more threatening when you phrase it like that,” Alastor said. The soul ought to be serious stuff. Its change probably wasn’t something to be taken lightly. "If it helps, I did kill one (1) man as a favor to a dear friend of mine."
"Oh, that's--" She faltered, because that was actually a really fucked up favor. "...What was the favor?"
He waved his hand a little dismissively. "Some brute that couldn't keep his hands to himself," he said. "This friend of mine was a, how do I put this, a bit of a trollop. I told her not to tempt him, the way she did, we both knew he was no gentleman. But it was handled, and she helped me clean up."
Still bad--but there was something nice about it. That for their own reasons, they could work together, for their mutual benefit. "You must really care about her."
"Ah, when I can."
She looked back at their list. "I should’ve known Adam was secretly a romantic,” Emily told him. “Him and Eve practically invented love.”
“Right.” A natural pair. The first lovers, husband and wife long before certificates. “Adam and Eve, the first man and woman. Of course.”
“Well.” Emily pursed her lips. “I guess Eve would technically be the second woman.” Alastor blinked at her. “Do you humans not know anything about that?”
“This one doesn’t, I’m afraid.” Perhaps he should’ve paid more attention at Sunday school.
“Alright, well…” She thought about it, because she hadn’t actually been present for it. “What I heard was they made two humans, equals—Lilith and Adam. But Lilith was dissatisfied with her duties as the first woman, and rejected Adam as her equal. At some point after she broke away, someone else found her.
“There weren’t other people yet. It was just the garden, with its plants and animals, as perfect as they were designed to be—and the ones that had made them waited above, meant to guide. One of them, one of our own, found her. Alone. His guidance was not what he was supposed to offer, but it was the only thing she would’ve listened to. In her place, they made Eve, carved from a rib so close to Adam’s heart. If their human woman was a part of him, their love would be more natural. It would be harder to stray from her intended design, and he would welcome her as his last option, a better replacement than the first.”
Alastor nodded, accepting this—but something flickered in his eyes as he remembered something. Something else. “But didn’t Eve…?”
This was something Emily felt she couldn’t talk about so much. It felt less defining of the human race than something like love, as pure of an emotion as it was. It was something that had affected somebody she knew, and went on to affect somebody dear to her heart. Surely, if Eve had ended up in Heaven, she wouldn’t want Emily airing out her dirty laundry to strangers. “I don’t know if Adam ever forgave her,” she said. “With the way he talks about her. But he still loves her. He used to talk about her more, when he was newer, when the memory of her was fresher.”
“And Lilith?” Alastor asked.
“Well, she tempted Eve,” Emily said. “With him. The Morningstar. It introduced Sin into the Earth, and so, they were damned to Hell. I don’t know much else about them. My job in Heaven is primarily to keep our souls happy, security isn’t something for me to worry about. I help keep Heaven running, I don’t need to worry about Hell.” She glanced where Adam had been just a few moments ago, like he might pop in on them and ask what the fuck she was saying. When she continued, it was quieter, “But I heard something. I don’t know how true it is, but somebody told me that the Morningstar had a child now. A daughter.”
Alastor laughed. “They definitely left that part out of the Sunday school lessons!”
Emily’s smile turned sheepish. “I guess none of that is really common knowledge,” she said. “I don’t know if I did the story any justice. I don’t talk about that stuff, it’s… it’s too heavy for Heaven.”
“Well, you can’t spell ‘Heaven’ without most of the letters in ‘heavy.’” Alastor finished his glass, and Emily decided to finish her’s. It burned all the way down, but the heat she now processed as something a little comforting. “And it seems to me that it all affected Heaven. It involved somebody in Heaven. I’d think there’d be a use in knowing about it.”
Emily smiled—it stretched inhumanly wide, but looked so pleasant on the blues of her skin. “That’s a nice way to look at it,” she said. “I guess I shouldn’t gossip--I only know about this, because it's why Heaven says the angels can't pair with the living.”
Alastor topped off her glass. “Never would’ve imagined the devil having a child,” he said, and laughed. “And I thought my father was the devil, haha!”
Emily reached for his hand. “I didn’t realize you had an unhappy childhood.”
“Oh, that would be that I didn’t.” He pulled his hand away, and so it didn’t feel so rude, pushed her glass back into her hand. “It was pleasant enough. I had a very loving mother, and I can count on one hand the number of times I ever interacted with the man. My mother did the best she could when she left him. And I know it couldn’t have been easy, but my childhood was fine.”
“Still though,” Emily said. “That sounds sad. Less than five?” She quickly counted the fingers on Alastor’s hand to be sure, though she had been pretty sure before he said it. “Didn’t you miss him?”
Alastor confidently shook his head. “I don’t much like talking about it—but when I was but twelve, I did speak with him. Him and my mother were trying to rekindle things, you see, and we had dinner. He didn’t last the night before picking a fight. He claimed that there was no way I could be his child—that I was too dark, that I looked nothing like him, that there was no conceivable way for me to exist, because I suppose if you deny reality long enough, surely you can change it. And I argued back, because even if children should be seen and not heard, I was just as mouthy as I am now, and I told him that my mother would not lie for twelve years straight to me, to him, to her entire side of the family.” He swished his whiskey in his glass for a second. “Then he punched me in the face and knocked me out cold.”
Emily gasped. “Alastor, that’s awful!”
It had been the 1910s. Physical violence in the name of discipline to children had been normal. Alastor remembered his father continuing to scream at him at the top of his lungs while he just stood there, still, confused that he was still going when it had seemed so obvious to him what was happening. Anger didn’t really need logic, apparently. He had frozen up. And when he’d slowly regained consciousness from the cold floor, it hadn’t struck him as the horrible thing it apparently was. His mother shook him awake, and immediately started going out the door, which was his first hint this was a serious thing. More than that, his father had backed off and taken instead to empty apologies. Claimed he hadn’t meant it. It was a mistake.
His mother was the greatest person he knew. She stood in his head as the peak of goodness and morality. Alastor never felt guilty about what he did, so much as he did that he could not be like her. But he would also remember this moment of weakness in her—her attempts to forgive a man that had hung her up to dry, that left her pregnant and alone. Letting her only son, her pride and joy as she told everybody, in the same room as a man as monstrous as him.
Alastor did not hold any of the times his mother had put her hands on him against her, because it was a part of the times. It had been discipline. Good intentions. But this one time with her father, he understood she held all the blame in that. She had failed him.
“I was fine,” Alastor insisted. “Had a bit of a headache, yes. Only saw that man once after that, the pathetic thing he was, and never again. And I never will. He’s not worth the thought, dear. He doesn’t get to be a part of my story, he’s not even a footnote.”
Emily paused for a second. When she asked, it was quiet, a secret. “Did you kill him?”
Alastor laughed again. “Of course not.”
“You just sounded like you did,” she said. “With that you’ll never see him again. And it… kinda seems like you’ve killed people for less.”
“I think you’re putting too much stock in why I kill,” Alastor said. “That man was too pathetic to kill. He was weak. Did I dream about it, about hurting someone that hurt others? Sure. Did I loathe him as a child, with every fiber of my being? That’s pretty much a rite of passage down here, Miss Emily. No, he still wanders the Earth a miserable shell of a man. And one day, he’ll die, and no one will ever share the news with me, but I’ll know because I’ll feel the weight off my shoulders. I don’t need to kill him.” He had the grace to be able to forget about the people he had killed. It did not weigh on him. He would move on with his life.
Unfortunately, if he killed his father, even if he didn’t regret it, he would remember it. He would have to face his mother, knowing he killed the only man she had ever loved. It didn’t matter what he had done with that love, it didn’t matter that he had decided Alastor—for arbitrary and useless reasons—didn’t deserve the love parents ought to give children. It wasn’t worth his time. It wasn’t a thing he needed to concern himself with. When he killed, it was a craving—but not a dream. Not something he longed for, and salivated over, and ached for. At this rate, outliving his father would feel better, more worthwhile than straight killing him.
“I’m sorry,” Emily said. She felt she had said something wrong, and didn’t like that, because she had enjoyed talking to Alastor thus far. “I wouldn’t know. Angels aren’t made like humans. There’s no eggs or sperm, we don’t come from physical intimacy.” Alastor considered this. “Of course, we still have family—Sera, the seraphim, she’s my sister. I love everybody in Heaven. It’s misguided of me, to think that because your family didn't look like others' that you felt any loss, when mine looks nothing like yours.”
“Think nothing of it, dear.” He rubbed his eyes. This late, he was beginning to feel the day and the liquor. “But I don’t think something like romance is going to save my soul.” He’d seen romance damn people. “I’ve never been one for romance. The closest thing I’ve gotten to romance is—“ He considered it for a moment. Late nights, drinking with a beautiful woman, pouring your heart out. “Is probably this, if I’m honest.”
“Not romance,” Emily laughed. “Love.”
“Those are synonyms, darling.”
“It’s different,” Emily said. “You don’t have to marry someone to be in love. You could start a family.”
Alastor smiled wryly. “That usually requires a woman.”
“You could adopt!” Emily exclaimed. “Like that comic strip with the orphan.”
“Yes,” he said. “Annie. It’s my personal favorite.”
Emily set her glass down. “I better stop drinking this, I… feel funny.”
Alastor furrowed his brow. “Alcohol has that effect, but you couldn’t have drank enough to feel it.” All the same, he slid her glass away from her so it wasn’t so tempting. “Must be a lightweight. Perhaps I should’ve warned you.”
Probably! Emily forced herself to ignore her own nerves. “I’m sure I’m fine.”
“Maybe just don’t fly for a while,” Alastor said with a wink and Emily laughed.
They sat there for a moment. Alastor thought to himself in the peaceful quiet, like he didn’t know the answer. “Do you really believe in what you’re doing?”
Emily nodded her head. “Would I stick around if I didn’t?” She asked. “I think you’re a great guy. Or you could be. I want you to be happy in Heaven. It’s what I want for everyone.”
Alastor nodded to himself. “Well, Emily, I haven’t been completely honest with you. I think there’s something a little more pressing than the murders. Something worse.”
“I know what this is about,” she said, softly.
“You do.”
A firm nod—and though her expression was stony, rigid in her beliefs, her eyes were softer than any Heavenly cloud. “This is about sex.” Alastor visibly deflated. “No, no, we have a lot of questions about that, Al! It’s okay, it’s perfectly natural, and though Heaven appreciates the whole man and woman unit, you know, we designed it, that doesn’t mean it’s one man and one woman forever. Sex is natural, and pleasure is good. It’s not going to send you to Hell, for enjoying yourself.”
“I have no interest in sex or the discussion of it,” Alastor said. “I was not talking about—“ He fumbled for a minute, gritting his teeth. He had said it a minute ago and it now felt wrong in company like her’s. “…pitching woo.”
“Okay.” She had no reason to think he was lying. She would treat this with the same gravity he was. “What were we talking about then?”
Alastor cleared his throat. “Well, the other night… Last night, actually.” He thought about how to say this, because if he told anybody else, he would sound crazy. “Well, I’m not a fool now, Miss Emily. I know what I am. I know what I’ve done, and I didn’t—don’t—believe there’s any redemption for me. But I understand what awaits in Hell.” He ran a hand through his hair—the blood on his skin had mostly dried, but the tiniest bit flaked off and stuck in his coffee-brown curls. “It wasn’t my first time, doing one of those rituals, but it was the first time it worked. She spoke from my radio on the mantle.” He gestured to it, above his fireplace where the light glinted on the corpse strewn about the floor. “Like an old friend. Like we knew each other. She’s offered to make me the most powerful Sinner in Hell, so that I might never answer to somebody higher than me like I have again—all for my soul.”
“Your soul?” Emily’s eyes grew wide and she stood and grabbed his hands again. This time he did not pull away. “But--you only have one of those! Please tell me you said no.”
“I summoned her,” Alastor said. “It was what I wanted.”
“Al.” Her eyes watered. “If you sold your soul to a demon, someone in Hell… they get it when you die. You’re going down there. There’s nothing I can do for you.”
“Oh, don’t look so sad, sweetheart!” He squeezed her hand and smiled brightly at her. “Be honest now, Emily—do you really think the rest of those Winners would want a murderer among them?”
“You would’ve been one of them,” Emily said. “One of us.” She sniffled. “I… I just don’t understand. Isn’t selling your soul to this demon, isn’t that giving her power over you?”
“For some time,” Alastor said. “But I intend on gaining my freedom eventually.”
“I don’t understand,” she said again. Her eyes wouldn’t stop watering. This was probably how the humans felt when they received terminal diagnoses. Or, heard a beloved one had received them. “Why? Why would you do something like this?”
“Have you ever been powerless before?” Alastor asked. Emily dabbed at her eyes, including one on her chest. “And I mean, truly powerless. You have no choices. Your will is not your own. You cannot act, you can only react and cross your fingers, and hope for the best?”
Emily sniffled. She had been privileged with a happy life in Heaven, offering as much happiness as she could give to her people, around her. “I feel pretty powerless right now.”
“Oh, hush now, darling.” He grabbed his handkerchief again and offered it to her. It smelled like alcohol still. She should not bring it anywhere near her eyes. “It’s not your soul. You’ll return to Heaven. You’ll be happy, you’ll make other people happy, and one day, I’ll be a faint memory you’ll laugh about with your loved ones.”
She shook her head and sniffed. “No,” she insisted. “When I talk about you, I’ll tell them how nice you were. And how you’d like it up there. And I’ll remember you, and I’ll remember this moment.”
“Well, now I have to hold you to that,” he said. “Come on now, enough tears, give me a smile, darling.” Emily sniffled again. “But your smile can light up a room, has anybody told you? You know you’re never fully dressed without one.”
Emily’s laugh sounded like a sob. The smile was against her will. Alastor smiled back with something gentler than what ought to be expected from a murderer, but perhaps gentler than what murderers should give.
Emily went back to Heaven. Of course she did. She had a job. It was her life. She could not stay on Earth with a human Sinner, waiting for his death and descent into Hell. She could not help him. If she could have, she would not be up here.
And everything was fine. She tried not to think about it too much, because failure sat with her wrong. It was very hard for her to fail at her job, because at the very least, failure tended to be postponing her success only slightly. This was more permanent. She felt like she had very specifically failed Alastor, and that he was suffering for her mistakes, and worse: she didn’t know what she could’ve done better.
For three days, she avoided talking or thinking about it, no matter how much Adam joked about her murderer friend.
“You did what you could,” Abel said, much more helpfully.
“I think I just drank and made him rehash some childhood trauma, actually,” Emily said.
Adam regarded her with his (root) beer can in hand, nearby. He did not spend a lot of time near his son—-when he did, it was usually with somebody else in the room, so the attention didn’t go entirely to his head. “That builds character.”
“Drinking?” Abel asked.
“No, childhood trauma.”
Abel’s eyebrows kinda knitted together, but his expression didn’t otherwise change. He didn’t really argue, and especially not with his father. “But you didn’t have a childhood?”
“Shut up, Abel, I fucked your mom.” There was no comeback to this.
At the gate, a new soul came in. There stood Saint Peter, with his friendly smile, and a book with an ever-expanding guest list. “Hi, can I get your name, please?”
The newest Winner on Heaven’s doorstep was a woman. Winged. Giant eyes, staring at him. “Emily,” she said.
“Oh, that’s funny,” Saint Peter said. “I have a friend named Emily. You’ll meet her soon, and you’ll love her, don’t worry—“
“No.” Her shoulders were shaking. “I need to speak to Emily.”
He blinked. “Oh, uh—“ He glanced back at the gate. “Right, well—we’ll get this figured out and I’ll take you to her, she loves meeting new people—“
“No.” Her eyes were even wider now, her pupils nothing but pinpricks. “He told me to find her.”
Something about her tone made Saint Peter’s ever-present smile falter. “Who?”
It took thirty-minutes to convince this woman to abandon her sole mission and give her name. Saint Peter took her into the gates, and as she requested, immediately brought her to Emily. “Hey, Em, we were looking for you. I think something’s wrong.”
“Oh no!” Emily immediately hopped to—this woman was shorter, and not nearly so… lighthearted as a lot of people became when they were welcomed into the gilded gates of Heaven atop its clouds, but she understood that a lot of peoples’ deaths were not gentle things. “That’s not the welcome we want you to have. Maybe I can help?”
She had held it together thus far. Now in front of her, her breath (which, she didn’t even properly need) was coming in short pants. “He—He told me to… you, and…”
“Hey, hey, hey…” She grabbed this Winner’s hands and squeezed. “It’s okay. You can calm down. We’re all safe up here.”
She shook her head. She would feel safe again. Just not right now. “He told me to find you.”
Her gentleness didn’t waver. It did not matter what this Winner said. “Who told you?”
“I don’t know.” She pulled her hands away to rub frantically at her eyes, like she understood on some base level not to sully Heaven’s grounds with her tears. “I… I only really knew him from the radio. Alastor.” Emily froze where she was. “He told me, when I got where I was going, I had to find you.”
“Alastor?” Adam was still there, because he was very inconvenient as a person. “Hey, wasn’t that your weird, four-eyed, murdery friend that kicked puppies or something?”
Abel turned to look at him. “Four eyes??”
The woman burst into tears. Emily rested her hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry—why did Alastor tell you to…?”
She sniffled. “I don’t know,” she said. “To remind you.”
Two more days passed. Emily tried her very best to help the influx of Winners settle, but especially Alastor’s… victim. Though she seemed wary of her. Perhaps she again wasn’t best suited for the job.
Then Saint Peter found her again when she was petting puppies with Abel, like this was how she might repent for her sins. It was a man this time. The man on the radio, he said. He wanted to remind you.
“What’s he trying to remind you of anyway?” Abel asked.
Emily thought about it, but her head just started to hurt, and she started crying instead of thinking. “I-I don’t know!” Immediately, he rested his hand on her back. “Is—Is it my fault? Did I not try hard enough to convince him? I could’ve done something!”
“Em, you’re not doing this,” Abel insisted. “We can’t help what other people choose to do. He’s choosing this. He chose to do this.”
“He could have chosen better!” She wiped her eyes again with her hands. “I could have been more convincing!”
“You can be really convincing!” Abel said.
“I didn't even do one musical number!” Emily exclaimed. “What was I thinking?”
This was graver than Abel anticipated. “You didn't?” Emily sobbed. “I’m sure you did the best you could. You know, murder’s been around for forever. Maybe it’s not something we can get rid of with a few musical numbers.”
“But he was nice,” Emily sniffed. “Murderers aren’t supposed to nice. People shouldn’t be so nice to people, and then do the worst possible thing to others, it’s wrong, it’s just wrong!” Abel patted her supportively. “I don’t know what the right thing is.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
Alastor ran his thumb down his knife and clicked his tongue. “Now you know I can’t do that.” He moved, uncrossing his legs from where he stood so he could step closer, and the poor man on the floor—taller than Alastor, pale, thin—flinched as if he had struck him, and Alastor couldn’t help but laugh. “I have to admit,” he said. “I’ve never been as sloppy as I’ve been recently. I’m almost sorry for bringing you into this.”
“Almost?” The man said.
“I’m not very good at being sorry,” Alastor said. “I think if I was properly apologetic, we would know, and you would probably get to leave.”
“Oh, god,” he breathed. “Oh, god, oh god oh god—“
“Enough of that now.” Alastor stepped closer and the light glinted off his smile. “Now. It’s not beyond me you’re not my usual victim. If I could ask a favor? There’s going to be someone up there, maybe, and I would appreciate if you sent a message.”
“What?” He was struggling to breathe. “Who?”
“Her name is—“
A flash. Just like when she first appeared but with much less blood this time. She was bright, full of eyes, and stoney-faced, and a bit of fondness, hot and fierce in his chest, seized him. “Emily.”
For a moment, she didn’t move. She looked at him with his knife in hand and his sleeves rolled up, and then at the terrified man on the floor, and then back at him. “Dare I hope my first few messengers got to you?”
“The two of them, yeah.” A muscle in her jaw twitched. “I don’t know what it was exactly you thought you were doing with sending them to me, but I don’t think I appreciate it.”
“It was three actually.” Alastor grinned a little broader. “I just wanted to be sure at least one of them got to you, apparently that first didn’t.” Emily seemed to tremble just twice but ultimately stood her ground. “For the best—that first one didn’t quite have his wits about him, when I was finished. I don’t believe he understood much of what I was saying, but I can only repeat myself so much.”
“What did you do?” Emily asked.
Alastor’s smile went tight-lipped. “Let’s not get into all the nitty-gritty details, Miss Emily. I know such a thing wouldn’t interest you. And—can’t I say that I hoped you might be a little proud? One of them was a woman.”
“Is this a joke?” She asked. “I didn’t want you to kill men either! I didn’t want you to kill at all! Why do you think I would want any part of this?”
“Oh, darling.” His hand with the knife dropped so when he stepped closer, it couldn’t be conveyed as a threat. Alastor was not stupid enough to threaten an angel, while he still viewed them the way the church did. “Is that what you think? I killed them just for you, just to remind you of me?” She didn’t answer. “I enjoyed your company, but I didn’t miss it so much to kill for it.”
“Then…” She swallowed thickly. “Then why…?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t intend to.” He ran a hand through his curls—he had washed the blood off some time ago, and tonight had yet to truly leave its mark on him. He had yet to properly do anything that couldn’t be undone. “See, I was out to bury that last body, the one you’re familiar with, and this man happened to stumble upon me. I took care of him, and I told him to find you, when he ended up where he was—apparently, though, you didn’t receive him, so that poor bastard is asking around Hell for an Emily. But then, while I was taking care of his body, that poor woman found me. I would have liked to avoid hurting her, but I knew she would go to the police if she got the chance. I didn’t have any grudge against her. And then—“ He laughed, wide-eyed—nervous. Scared. “It just! Kept happening! Someone caught me with her body! This one—“ The man flinched again. “This one caught me with that one! Even if you leave me right now to finish him, and I go off to bury it, there’s probably someone right outside, waiting to catch me. I’ll kill this entire town trying to cover up my tracks.”
He laughed so hard he doubled over. The knife slipped from his fingers and wiped at his eyes, but his smile didn’t waver. “I—I’ve never been so sloppy, in my life!”
Emily waited until he caught his breath. The man was looking at him now, perhaps with more fear than he looked at Alastor. There was nothing he could do against Alastor like this—but she was unbound, and inhuman, and thus, his life was her responsibility. As much as Emily knew love and happiness, she was acquainted with responsibility. “I’m going to untie that man now, Al,” she said. “Please don’t stop me.”
She stepped closer—and he stepped away.
Immediately, she fell to her knees. Her fingers were trembling but she tried to quell it. She had no right to fear. She couldn’t even say she was afraid of Alastor, but she was afraid for this man who had been looking his fate in the eye for who knew how long.
The knots were tight, but Emily finally got it off—and she helped him to his feet. Alastor stared at him, considering, and all he said was, “I don’t chase.”
Emily moved her hand to his back and nudged him to the stairs nearby. With no further invitation, he ran. He would find an exit, and he would leave this place, and then…
Emily tried not to think about what would happen after.
Alastor moved to the mantle over the fireplace, now unlit, and grabbed a bottle. He did not bother with a glass, they had moved past the need for glasses. “He could’ve at least thanked you,” he said. “No manners, that one. Maybe he wasn’t a shoo-in for Heaven like I first thought.”
She ran her hands through her hair. “Al, you were going to kill him. That man was scared half to death!” He took a pull directly from the bottle. “And you don’t even care!”
“Of course I care.” He held it by the neck as he stepped closer to her. “I didn’t set out to hurt the man. I have no grudge against him! Do you think I do this for fun? Well.” He glanced at the bottle. “Well, I do. And I don’t know when this became my definition of fun, Miss Emily, I would love to spend my nights doing something other than butchering whatever soul I happen across, hiding their body, and getting my hands on the next body.” He had friends like, a week ago. Hobbies. He would drink, hit up speakeasies, he went dancing, and now?
Now it felt like he hadn’t even seen sunlight, and he knew that wasn’t true. It felt like this was entire world. He felt like he was losing his mind. Like making that deal had offered up the last of his humanity on a silver platter. Now he was but a shell of his former self.
“It’s not fun anymore,” he told Emily. “You made it stop being fun.”
She folded her arms. “Well, I’m not sorry,” she said. “I don’t care how fun it is, it’s not something you ever should have done. I care about you, and I feel really bad that there wasn’t more I can do for you, but this…” Her stomach turned, and her voice came out a little weaker. “You could’ve been better.”
He threw himself into one of his chairs. It creaked under his weight. “I should have been better,” he said, but he did not mean the same thing. “I should have been more careful. I don’t know what I did wrong, but it was something, this has never happened before.” He shook his head. “Next time, I’ll just eat the bodies.”
“Next time?” Emily wheeled on him. “I can’t believe—“
He laughed again and she lost steam. Instead, she threw herself in the seat across from him, shoulders slumped. They sat there for a moment, breathing in synch. “It’s a shame,” Alastor told her. “That the first human you met was me. You could’ve met someone kinder, and non-murder-y.”
Emily shook her head. “No. No, you’re not the first human I met. Because you’ll be human after this, no matter where you end up. You can’t shed your humanity like dead skin. You will always be human, even when you’re something else. And all the same, whether you’re the first or the last human I’ll ever meet, I’m glad to have met you.”
His smile looked so genuine, something in her chest ached. He reached for her hand, this gorgeous, doubtless friend of his. Emily accepted without thinking, because she didn't need to think about it. "This failure isn't your fault, you know," Alastor said, as comforting as he could possibly be. "Blame fate. Blame whoever sent you here. You never had a chance, darling."
"These things happen for reasons," she said, quietly--but with more conviction than maybe anybody else had ever held. "Maybe the reason just... wasn't my own."
Alastor clicked his tongue and patted her hand, like he wanted to disagree with her but took too much pity to voice it. They sat for a little longer before he said, "I am going to die, you know." Emily looked up at him. "After tonight? I feel it's been a long-time coming now. I've felt it. Maybe that's why your fate has pushed you here with me. That man you set free..." He trailed off--he just knew with great certainty he had overshot his expected lifetime by some, in ways he wasn't sure about.
"You don't know that," Emily said.
"But I do."
She couldn't stay down here forever for a dying man, even if she wanted to. "Maybe you should do something good with your time." He glanced at her--she did not mean good as in Heavenly. Who was she to tell the dying what to do? "Isn't there someone down here for you? Your mother, maybe?"
Alastor readjusted his spectacles so they did not need to make eye contact for this brief explanation, "I'm afraid she's deceased, Em."
"What?" No, Alastor had spoken about her, and so, the impression in her mind was her alive. "How? You--Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, Al."
"Two years ago, I'm afraid." He looked at the table. "Trust me, dear, you don't need to know what happened."
She still somehow found a way to recover from her ugly shock. "Someone else, then?" She suggested. "What about that one friend? That you helped?" He shook his head, slowly. "Why not?"
"She can't reach me, where she is."
Also dead, then. "Maybe she can," Emily said. "If I can reach you from Heaven."
Alastor laughed. "Trust me, that girl is not in Heaven!" He wheezed. "Now, she had the voice of an angel, I can tell you that much, but she would never. And she wouldn't be so interested in it, either. No, she's downing gin and whiskey in the flames, having the time of her death."
"Is everybody that cares for you dead?" Emily asked. Alastor's grin stayed in place, so she just held his hand. No. No, because she was here, and she was alive. "I'm so sorry, Al."
"Don't be. What could you have to be sorry for?" She stood and hugged him, burying her face in his chest--and his hand moved to the back of her head. "If anything, I'm the one that should be sorry." Should. Maybe he wasn't capable of such a thing.
He didn't pry her off. She wondered if he wanted to, and was ignoring it for her sake--like she was the one that needed to be comforted.
"Maybe it's not fair of me to ask," Emily whispered. "But... when you're in Hell, can you remember me?" Something about him had marked her, and she would be as cursed with this memory as she would be blessed. This was how love worked in all its forms. It was not a thing you could shut off.
"Oh, darling, aren't I the one that should be asking such a thing?" He laughed--and traced over her halo again. "I'm one of the few modern humans to meet an angel in the flesh, while I'm still alive--and she just so happens to be the sweetest one? Up there with all the nuns and saints and--uh, puppies, probably, do you think you can remember the unrepentant Sinner you couldn't save?"
"Of course I will." She looked at him. "Al, I'll remember you forever. As a... dear friend of mine."
It was exceptionally brief. So brief, it had barely happened--but it did. Alastor might've had a cold, dead heart but his chest was warm, and his breath was warm on her face, and she felt like the sunlight he wanted to appreciate again. Their kiss was between them and the floorboards, not even a corpse to bear witness. Nothing else would happen--and far be it for Alastor to be the one to scold Emily for any broken rules, when she upheld Heaven's standards upon her steady shoulders.
Alastor spoke of his death only once and never again--Rosie laughed in her seat, until she couldn't breathe, until her eyes were glassy and she had to wipe them away with her free hand, because the other was on Alastor's shoulder so she did not topple over in her laughter. "Oh, that's--that's hilarious, Alastor. I was wondering what was taking you so long to come down here."
"Yes," he said. His eye twitched--his friendly smile did not waver, and it would never. No matter how much his head hurt, like the worst migraine he had ever experienced, a penetrating, exploding pain on the inside of his skull. It wouldn't go away for a while. "Sorry to keep you waiting, of course, Miss Rosie."
She shook her head, trying to clear it out and stop laughing at his death. "But you were worth the wait, weren't you, my deer?" Her hand went for one of the ears atop his head--fluffy, unfamiliar. He recognized them when he caught his reflection in a window earlier, because he had had the head of a buck in his living room with much the same ears, and he was still half-heartedly considering tearing them off his head.
She sat back down, for her small cup of tea where the steam rose off and wrapped around her fingers. "I am glad it didn't take any longer, though," she said, and cocked her head at him. Looking. Searching. "Your soul... its much different than what it was before, deer. It's warped. Uneven. Crooked. Taller, thinner." She pressed another cup into his hands and poured from the pearl-colored pot nearby as she continued, much more casually. "If you took any longer, and that continued--you might've been able to slip your chains!"
Alastor looked at his own cup. He did not add any sugar or cream. Frankly, after tonight, he really needed something stronger, but instead, he glanced out the nearby window, up at the red sky where Heaven was a silver swirl above them.