felt-like a man who had been swimming near the shore and suddenly realized the current was pulling him far, far out to sea. Could this be real? Did Habari truly represent some dissident faction of Heaven or was he an agent of Eligor’s? Or could he even be Eligor himself? Clearly, whatever he was, the being who called himself Moses Habari had abilities I didn’t quite understand. If he had taken Walker, a living man, through a Zipper to Outside and then showed him a soul about to be judged, without either the prosecutor or the advocate knowing he was there, he was doing something so far beyond the rules I knew that it might as well have been magic. The higher angels and, presumably, the higher demons can do things we rank-and-file can’t, but they are also very powerfully limited by the Conventions when they manifest on Earth, even Outside. I could believe that Habari and his lot (if he wasn’t some kind of lone wolf) might be willing to break the Conventions, but how could they get away with it? The whole system was set up to make sure a Principality or a Hell-Duke couldn’t just go strolling around Mortalville breaking the rules. I couldn’t even imagine how anyone could get around it and still do what Habari had done.
I didn’t have any answers. I felt like Woodward and Bernstein talking to Deep Throat in a Washington garage, learning that their story reached all the way to the White House. But I doubted that either of those two reporters worried that their discoveries might threaten not only their immortal souls but also the very foundations of the universe.
I really, really wanted a drink. Instead, I went back to reading the extraordinary document that had been hidden in the atheist’s bible.
But even as I began, in the days and weeks ahead, to believe more and more in what Habari and his colleagues were trying to do, there was a sticking point: to be certain the experiment would work (and it was going to be an experiment, an unprecedented one, since Habari said no soul had ever before been stolen out from under the noses of Heaven and Hell) this first “extraction,” as he put it, would have to be performed like a military operation, with care, precision, and perfect timing. That would not permit waiting for the first volunteer to die a natural death. Needless to say, I was not pleased to learn this.
“You are our ideal candidate, Edward,” he flattered me, “but in the time we might wait for nature to take its course with you we will lose hundreds, perhaps thousands of other suitable souls to our twin rivals.” Naturally I asked him if they couldn’t find someone else like-minded who was already close to death, but he said no. Perhaps it could be done when they were certain it worked, he explained, but to begin with they wanted someone strong in mind and body at the end, someone prepared and fully understanding what was to happen.
“But what about my wife?” I asked. “I’ll lose the chance to be reunited with her after death!” Now that I believed in life after death, I wanted nothing more than to see Molly again.
Habari looked sad. “Even if you saw her, Edward, you wouldn’t know her,” he said. “And she would certainly not know you. The souls of the departed do not keep their memories, or at least, that is what we understand. Those who speak for the Highest are close-mouthed about it, but we do know that the departed do not simply go on as the people that they were, at least not in Heaven. Sadly, the same is not true in Hell. This is one reason a third way was needed. But we have a greater goal, and although I can’t tell you what it is, I can at least say that if we are successful in all we plan, it is possible that one day you and your Molly will be truly reunited, this time for eternity.”
I mourned a long time over this, but at last, after much soul-searching (a phrase that means quite different things to me now, than it did only a short time earlier) I agreed to be the Magians’ guinea pig. Habari and I began planning my death….
I skimmed through the next two pages, which was about how Walker put his affairs in order but without making it obvious what he planned. I’m sure he was not the first prospective suicide to have done such a thing, but he was certainly the first to do it while planning to scam both Heaven and Hell. My admiration for Walker grew as I thought about it. What he had done took guts, real guts. Like one of the early astronauts he had been given a lonely role to play, but without the potential for glory if he succeeded. He even referred to himself as an “after-naut,” a joking term he had picked up from Habari.
Disappointingly but unsurprisingly, Walker had very little to say about what was supposed happen to him after he connected the hose to the exhaust pipe of his 7 Series BMW, except that he had been assured he need do nothing, and that Habari and his “people” (a pretty dubious term, I think you’d agree) would handle all the details. I couldn’t help wondering whether they had succeeded. Certainly Walker’s soul had gone
He closed with part of a poem by a writer whose name I didn’t recognize, R. W. Raymond.
He signed the last page,
Yours in hope,
Edward Lynes Walker
twenty-eight
I feel weird admitting it, but the first person I thought of calling when I finished reading Walker’s astonishing letter was not Sam, or Monica, or even my bosses upstairs (although I’d have to, of course) but Caz. Since we’d parted, I’d been carrying around the memory of what we’d done together-how we’d
But, oh, dear God, how I missed her. It hadn’t been just lust, or even simply love-as if that could ever be simple. We had felt right together. We were twin souls separated by a million years’ history of war and hatred and treachery. If the whole thing hadn’t been so painful, it might have been funny. I mean, was there ever a more doomed relationship?
I sure can pick ’em.
But now it was time for your friend Bobby Dollar to force himself back to the issue that was literally at hand, the pages of Edward Walker’s confession-slash-suicide-note piled in my lap. Everything Habari had told Walker might be true, of course-clearly, he was no ordinary reverend doctor. But Walker still might have been duped, especially if Habari was working for someone like Eligor-which, after hearing about the powers Habari had exhibited, seemed increasingly likely. I had already established a tenant/landlord connection between the Magians and the grand duke; not exactly a smoking gun, but in this game, I find coincidences generally pretty suspicious. Heaven moves in mysterious ways and so does Hell, but they have their fingers everywhere and seldom by accident.
Whatever my own speculations were, though, I had to make a report to my bosses and quickly. I may be a lousy angel and a grumpy, ungrateful employee, but I’m not a fool, and Walker’s story could represent the thin end of the wedge for some Opposition plan to short-hop each and every human soul after death. Even if it was something less dire than that, it was still way too big for me to be coy about what I’d found. Honor, duty, and the always-popular covering of my own precious
Not because I was going to tell her any of this, but just because I had to do something about the ache I’ve already mentioned, I called Caz on the emergency number she’d given me. I was close to blurting out actual feelings but had a sudden, frightening image of a Heavenly court martial playing back the voicemail while they all shimmered ominously at me, so I left her a bloodless message to the effect that I wanted to speak to her, then headed across town toward the company office to make my report.
I tried Sam’s phone, too, but only got his voicemail. I hoped that meant Monica and the others no longer needed to sit vigil by his bedside answering his calls. On top of all my other worries I felt like a total jerk that I couldn’t visit my best friend, but there was no sense borrowing trouble. I rang The Compasses and had a brief chat with Chico. To my relief, he reported that Sam was out of danger, which meant he was not going to have to get another body. Getting a new one is an iffy thing at the best of times-lots of recuperation and a recovery pattern
