Sleeping Late On Judgement Day (49 page)

“Which was to be worshipped, to be simplistic about it.” Karael's voice took on a tone of disapproval. “She never got past her origins. She didn't truly appreciate the Divine Plan.”

“Clearly. But here's a question I've never been able to answer. What about Eligor? What did
he
get out of it?”

“What do you mean?”

“It's quite simple, my Lo . . . Karael. Sir. A powerful angel and a powerful demon made a bargain and went to great lengths to keep it secret. For instance, Anaita sent Walter Sanders to Hell and brought a serial killer back from the dead—
two kinds
of dead—and sent him after me, all to keep the lid on what she'd done.”

“And what do you know about angels in Hell, Doloriel?” The cloudiness threatened a storm. I swallowed, or would have if I'd been on Earth.

“I think you know, sir. I think you know where I've been and a lot of what I've done. Anaita wouldn't have a reason to keep quiet about it, not once she was really in Heaven's power for good. And also I told Pathiel-Sa, the Angel of
Conciliation
, pretty much everything while I was imprisoned.”

A long silence, and it
was
a silence. We might have been in outer space for all the background noise that wasn't. “Let's assume that you're right,” the Angel Militant said. “That I know more about what you've been doing than is going to be officially admitted, Doloriel. And yet I'm still willing to let you go back to your normal job and even give you a few perks.”

I had the distinct sense of a shiny lure bobbing in front of me, but I wasn't in the mood. “I hear you. And I'll be happy to do that once I've had a chance to finish talking to you about all this.”

“You really are a very determined fellow,” said Karael.

“So everyone tells me.” I took an imaginary breath, the kind you take before jumping into the deep end. “Okay, so let's put aside the question about what was in this for Grand Duke Eligor, although I think that's probably pretty important. Help me out with one last thing. You know all about my partner Clarence by now, right?”

“Clarence?”

“Sorry, kind of a private joke. Haraheliel. Earth-name Harrison Ely. Sent in at first to keep an eye on Advocate Sammariel on behalf of management, then he later decided Sam was getting a bum deal and sort of threw in his lot with me. He was one of the souls picked up when you guys raided Kainos, but someone's put him back on the street again, kind of like you're offering to do with me if I stop asking questions.”

“Ah,” he said. “
That
Clarence.”

“Right. Well, apparently instead of going through the normal training like Sam and I had when we joined Counterstrike, when Clarence was being prepared for his undercover assignment for the big bosses, he was sent somewhere different. Somewhere I'd never heard about before. Got schooled on guns there and all kinds of stuff.”

“Yes? So? That was Anaita's play, son.” He really did sound like a military officer. Just his serious tone of voice made you want to get up and salute. “She needed information about the Magians and wanted a source she could control, so she could stay quiet about them—or, if things went bad, she could manufacture an excuse that she'd been investigating them all along. But I never trusted her.”

“That sounds exactly right, sir. And it makes a lot of sense. But the problem is, it's not true.”

A very long pause this time. “What?”

“You heard me. It's not true. Do you want to know what
is
true? Clarence's training, that whole little mini-spy-camp of Anaita's, a kind of under-the-table Counterstrike unit not answerable to the heavenly hierarchy, was arranged by an archangel named Samkiel. And Samkiel's one of your oldest allies, I found out. Now why would he do that for Anaita? Unless you asked him to.”

“Son, this is getting dangerously close to—”

“We both know what this is getting dangerously close to, Karael. Sir. And you can silence me any one of a thousand ways. But since we're both here, you might as well hear me out first.” Yes, I knew this was ridiculously dangerous—I'm not
that
kind of stupid—but I couldn't stop now. I'd been waiting too long to put it all together. “See, the only arrangement where everything makes sense is that Anaita wasn't working alone—that she was never working alone. Somebody else must have known exactly when the first soul-snatch was going to take place, because only the folks involved would have been able to put out the alert so quickly and have angels and demons swarming all over Edward Walker's house like that.”

“Eligor—”

“Didn't really have a reason to screw things up for Anaita when her plan was going to do Heaven more harm than it would Hell. Doesn't mean it's impossible, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.”

“But why would some
partner
of hers want to ‘screw things up,' as you so eloquently put it, son?”

“I'm not sure. A warning? Or just to get some things into the public records as quickly as possible—insurance that could be used later on? We may never know.”

The silence hung thickly. “And?”

“And then the thing with Samkiel. Why would you approve him doing that for Anaita unless you were helping her out—or pretending to? Because if she wanted the protection of being able to claim she'd been investigating it herself in case things went bad, well, then her partner would want the same thing. And what better protection than being able to say, ‘I sent her to my old ally Samkiel precisely so I could keep an eye on what she was doing. If I'd known she was involved in a crime against Heaven, of course, I would have acted immediately' and blah blah blah.”

Karael's voice was even flatter than usual, and usually you could balance a full drink on it without spilling a drop. “You know that proves nothing, son. It's just speculation.”

“This is
all
speculation, of course, sir. It's kind of what I do.” I tried to sound more confident than I felt, but it's hard to be really brave when you know the person you're accusing of high crimes can extinguish you as easily as a birthday candle on a cupcake. “But it leads to the most critical unanswered question—what did Eligor want? Why would the Horseman risk his own standing in Hell, give his enemies the means to destroy him if they found out, just to make a deal with Anaita? Who we already know was a bit unstable, not as careful as she should be, prone to silencing allies, and not generally beloved in Heaven?”

“Tell me.”

“Because he didn't really want a deal with Anaita—he wanted to make contact with someone else. Someone he could make a long-term alliance with. Someone who
didn't
make the kind of mistakes that Anaita made, and who would almost certainly become even more powerful after she was gone. Somebody like
you
, Lord Karael.”

It was a magnificent silence, which gave me plenty of time to wonder what it would feel like to be erased from reality.

“So you're suggesting that I was involved with Anaita's madness from the beginning?” Karael said finally. “That she thought I was her partner, but in truth I manipulated things from behind the scenes all along the way, and then left her to hang when the time was right?”

“In a word, sir—amen.”

“Then it's your turn to answer a question, Doloriel. If all this was true, why haven't I destroyed you, too? Why would I leave a loose end like you dangling?” The air of good-old-boy, drill-sergeant familiarity that always colored Karael's speech in my presence had abruptly disappeared. He was clipped, precise, and as calm as a deep, deep pond, but I could see the darkness roll through his glowing presence like a storm. “In short, why do you still exist?”

“That's the one thing I don't know,” I admitted. “I don't believe bumping off witnesses is really your style, but I doubt that's the most important reason. It might have something to do with what Anaita said about knowing me when I was alive, but maybe that's not even true, or if it is true, it's irrelevant to the bigger picture.” I had run out of tricks and revelations. I suddenly realized the next words might be the last I ever spoke. “I can only guess that for some reason, sir, you think you might need me someday.”

The roil of darkness coagulated, and for a moment I was facing something from which no light gleamed, as though Heaven had tipped sideways, and I was looking down into a hole full of ultimate nothingness. Then, as suddenly as an eyeblink, it dispersed, and I was looking at Karael's misty but luminous shape again.

“An interesting guess, Doloriel. You will never know if it's right—in fact, you'll never know if any of this is right—but you will definitely know when I
do
want something from you. I'll tell you one thing now, and one thing only. I have ambitions. Ambitions that you couldn't begin to understand.”

I couldn't help myself. “But why would you want to change anything? It's Heaven, right? Heaven is perfect.”

Karael squeezed out the gleam that indicated a smile. I honestly could not tell you what kind of smile it was, amused or angry. He'd stopped pretending to be my bluff, gruff commanding officer and was now something much more distant and difficult to read. “We all have choices, Advocate Doloriel, whether we are angel or mortal. We make our own path by those choices. And since we are all different, it stands to reason that some of us make better decisions than others. Those who make the best decisions should be allowed to do so for the good of all. Do you understand?”

I couldn't tell whether I was hearing the plain, unvarnished truth or just another excuse for a fascist takeover. I came extremely close to pointing that out, but there was no question Karael was different from Anaita, and I really had no idea what he planned. Maybe he was right. Certainly the Highest couldn't be too pleased about how things had been running lately. So for once I kept my mouth shut.

He seemed satisfied with my silence. “Exactly. As for your being useful, well, you had better hope so, Doloriel. Leaving aside all this conspiracy talk, you are an angel who was a single tick of the great Paslogion away from utter destruction. I'd suggest that in the future you do what you're told. At least when I'm the one telling you.”

And just like that, Heaven vanished and I was back in a hospital bed, full of hurt and stitches, but also—and quite remarkably—still alive and still in possession of my very own soul, however ragged around the edges it might be.

I
SPOTTED HIM
from about a block away, on the corner of Broadway and Spring, last-minute Christmas shoppers flowing around him like a tall, sharp rock in the middle of a stream. Of course, in that long coat and Dickensian top hat he was hard to miss. My pale friend was doing a funny little two-step, of course, scarf fluttering in the brisk wind. Everything seemed back to normal.

“Mister Dollar Bob!” he said when he spotted me. He tipped his hat. “Such a pleasant thing to see! So happy to notice you are all attached, body-parts and such.”

“Yeah, Foxy, same to you, I guess.” My body parts were intact and connected, all right, but my knees were still wobbly from the previous day's interview Upstairs. “How's business?”

He performed a little samba-move, one hand pressed against his belly
—step, step, spin, stop.
“Very good now. Was a little worried. Foxy Foxy is not in the munitions field. He does not make bang-bang guns like your other friend Mister Orban. War is bad for business.” He smiled, his teeth impressively white considering they had to compete with his albino complexion. “But now—no war! All happiness, all good things. So now Mister Fox is happy, happy!”

“War? You talking about Heaven?”

“Of course! When the folks Upstairs or Downstairs have a really big fight, all of us mousies hide in the grass.” He laughed. He really did sound relaxed.

I wished I felt the same, but the cold, gray day really fitted my mood. I'd survived my face-to-face with Karael, but that, I felt sure, had been only because I was no threat to him whatsoever. In fact, I was totally irrelevant. I'd been through Hell, literally, lost everything I cared about, all to get some answers, but the only real answer seemed to be, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” And I wasn't even going to receive that last consolation of the stubborn idealist, a hero's death. I was walking around alive only because I didn't really know how to do anything else. And because I needed to leave the apartment occasionally to buy more booze.

“Yeah, well, I'm happy for you,” I said. “Enjoy the holidays.”

“Hold on, Mr. Dollar B. I have a message for you.”

“Message?”

“A friend is waiting in the square. You might want to drop by.”

I could think of a couple of possibilities, none of which I liked much. “I'm relieved to hear my enemies are now willing to wait politely to kill me, instead of pushing and shoving to get to the front of the line.” Just thinking about it made me feel sour. It was one thing living in a self-induced alcoholic coma, another getting taken down like a punk in the middle of the Pioneer District, in front of God and everyone. I took a quick look around to make sure Pumbaa the Nazi wasn't crouching somewhere nearby, waiting to avenge his beloved Timon.

“You have a very unique humor, Bobby Money Man,” said my dancing friend. “Everyone knows. It's fun! I wait breathlessly for the chance to do business with you again someday.”

“I hope not too breathlessly,” I said, but when I turned around again he was nowhere to be seen, gone like a white fox into snow.

I walked into Beeger Square carefully, eyes open and a hand in my pocket. The bench looked so cold and windblown that I almost felt sorry for the figure sitting there, but I'd seen that small, hunched shape before.

I walked slowly across the square toward her. Yes, “her.” Temuel was wearing his little-old-Latina-lady body again. A battered shopping bag sat beside him, threatening to tip over and blow away any moment. I stared, not quite willing to sit.

“Well,” I said. “Merry Christmas. Or close enough. What's a couple of days to an immortal?”

“You're still angry.”

“Wow, good guess.”

“Please, won't you sit down?”

I wasn't clutching my gun any more, but I wasn't feeling particularly friendly, either. “No, thanks. So you're working for Karael now?”

Temuel shook his head. Because of the body he wore, Fellini Peasant Lady Type A, I half-expected him to make the sign against the evil eye. “I can't talk about it—any of it. I told you it was complicated. Well, it
is
complicated.”

“You know, hearing that isn't as enjoyable as it was the first two dozen times.”

He pulled a thermos out of the shopping bag, unscrewed the top. “I'm sure it isn't. But what would you say if someone asked you the same questions?”

“What do you mean?”

He didn't answer right away but poured the cup full of something that wafted steam. “Coffee?”

I took it, sniffed, then sipped. It was strangely sweet. “What's in this?”

“Horchata. It's South American, I think. You're supposed to drink it cold but I like it in my coffee.”

Normally I'd have run like hell to get away from sweetened, milky coffee, but the dank, sobering chill of the season had sunk through my clothes and skin, into my bones. I took another sip. “It's okay.”

“You didn't answer me, Bobby. What would you say if I ask you the same sort of questions?”

“What questions?”

“The obvious ones. Why did you risk your life and soul for your friend Sam? Why did you travel to Hell? Why did you make a deal with one of the most powerful demons in existence and try to bring down a high angel by yourself?”

“I don't know. Because I couldn't see any easier ways to do it. Because the deck was stacked against me and I didn't have much choice. It wasn't an organized plan, that's just how it turned out.”

“Or, in other words
, it's complicated
.” Temuel held out his hand for the cup, which I discovered to my surprise I'd emptied. He screwed it back onto the top of the thermos. Then something clicked for me.

“You were working for Karael all along, weren't you?”

“Nothing is simple, Bobby.”

“That's your excuse? Just like me, you did the best you could. Is that what you're saying?”

“I'm not saying anything.” He stood up. “I'm giving you something.” This time it was an envelope he pulled out of his tattered bag and placed in my hand. “But I can tell you one other thing before I go. You've probably noticed that I went out of my way a couple of times to keep information about you from my superiors.” He gave me a tired smile, exactly the kind I'd expect to see on the face of an older lady who'd worked too hard all day for too little thanks. “But it wasn't to protect you, Bobby. That's beyond my capabilities.”

I stood up too. “What's that mean?”

“I can't protect you from the major players. I don't have the power. If they want to hurt you, they can hurt you. No, I was just trying to protect your privacy. Sometimes we all need a little privacy.” He nodded, then turned and walked away, shoulders bowed as if the tattered paper shopping bag weighed a hundred pounds.

“What the hell is
that
supposed to mean?” I shouted, but Temuel only raised a small hand and waved as he disappeared into the Friday afternoon crowd of workers heading for their cars, their homes, their lives. Real lives—the kind I didn't have.

What the fuck was he talking about? How had he protected my privacy? He'd handed me over to our employers easy as selling a puppy to a medical lab. Yeah, he gave me a car—a fucking ugly car, to boot—but private? Everyone knew about it. Hell, half of Heaven had been following me around as long as I'd been driving it. So what did he keep from them?

It was only then I realized I was still clutching the slightly soiled envelope he'd handed me. It wasn't that easy to get it open because my fingers were cold, but when I did, all I found was a single piece of paper. The words were printed and the note was unsigned, but I knew who it was from.

 • • • 

Your first assignment. San Judas main railway station at 6:15 pm. Track Eleven.

 • • • 

So my new boss—who I now felt pretty sure was also Temuel's old boss—had a job for me already. I should have been pissed off at being ordered around like a hired driver, and I was, a little bit, but I was also deep into a stretch of several long days of not giving a shit about anything. All I'd been planning to do tonight was get hammered and watch television with the sound off, anyway. Maybe Karael needed someone picked up. Maybe that's why Heaven let me keep the taxi.

Hurray—my new job! I wondered if I'd have to report my tips.

I was going to do it, of course. If it turned out to be too depressing, I could always throw myself under the San Francisco commuter express, which would at least liven up my weekend.

 • • • 

It was weird that the note hadn't told me what to look out for, but I was guessing it was going to be Karael himself, come down to earth for one of his infrequent visits. Maybe he was going to give me a personal briefing on whatever dirty work he wanted me to do. Well, I'd play along, but Karael was going to learn that he didn't have as much of a hold on me as he thought he did. See, I'd lost pretty much everything, so what did I have left to be scared about? Destruction? Don't make me laugh. At this point, an eternity of darkness and silence seemed like the nicest, most soothing thing I could imagine. I suppose Hell was the real implied threat, but even that didn't have the terror for me it once had. Torture no longer seemed like that big a deal. It was only pain, whether for a moment or an eternity. I've learned how to do pain.

Because I was looking for a tall, soldierly figure, the type Karael seemed to choose on Earth, I didn't notice the much smaller passenger at first, even though most of the other arrivals had already swept by me, bumping their luggage along and talking urgently into their phones. Then the announcer's voice, which had been reading a list of destinations over the public address system, suddenly turned into echoing nonsense in my head as the small, slender woman pulled off her wool hat and her straight, white-gold hair fell down onto her shoulders like a flash of sunlight on snow.

I should have run to her that instant, grabbed her before she disappeared again forever, but it felt too much like a dream—the weird kind where you can't make your body do what you want. In fact, I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. There she really, truly was, wearing some ridiculously gorgeous skirt and coat combination, looking like a young Ivy League co-ed just arrived for the first time in 1930s Paris, and I could only stare, my heart somersaulting inside my chest.

Then at last my brain found the levers, and I could move again. I ran to her, grabbed her arm and spun her around. Her eyes flared open, a moment of fear before the gasp of recognition. Then we were holding each other so hard that it hurt. We kissed and kissed and kissed.

If you've ever had this kind of reunion, you know the frustration and the glory. You can't say what you're thinking, because the words wouldn't make sense. You can't do what you really want to do, because there are laws and things, and the police would come, and also you'd wind up in a dozen people's internet videos. So all the energy and surprise and sudden need went into our kiss. We had our mouths pressed so tightly we were breathing through each other. Caz was crying, ordinary tears of water and salt, not the icy flakes that had dotted her eyes the last time I saw her. I might have cried a little, too. I'm not usually the weeping kind, but it is a human body I'm wearing, you have to remember. I'm not a stone.

At last I loosened my hold on her; then, holding her lip with my teeth until the last gentle second, I ended the kiss. I looked hard, but I already knew. Even Hell couldn't make an imitation this good, this real. “It's really you, isn't it? Really you this time.”

Her eyes were shiny. “I could hit you, if that would make things feel more ordinary.”

I might have been laughing, then. Might have been crying again. “I don't have the words, baby,” I said when I could talk. “But let's . . .”

“Oh, God, yes!” she said. “Take me somewhere. I don't care how squalid. It can even be your apartment. Just take me somewhere and fuck me until I faint.”

Sexual need shook me like a terrier shakes a rat. I struggled for a second before I could string words together. “I have the perfect place, actually.”

“Then let's go. Now! I only have the weekend, then I have to go back.”

“Back?”

“To Kainos. The angel told me I have to go back Sunday night. Don't let's waste time talking about it, Bobby!”

I steered her across the station and toward the parking lot, our steps echoing up in the high ceiling with hundreds of others. For the moment we were just two people—two people who could do what they wanted, at least for a short while. “Sunday, huh?”

I was drowning in happiness even as I realized what a perfect trap I had fallen into. I should have known Karael was too smart to make the kind of mistakes Anaita had. He had me in a way that fear could never accomplish. He was going to use Caz to keep me on a leash.