Ramiel began to crumple the sheet. “So that’s why you need me.”
“Only partially! Though I admit your charming company is leaving something to be desired.” Hero stopped Ramiel’s hands with his own. “You want answers, don’t you?”
Whether it was the question or Hero’s hands on top of his knuckles, Ramiel stilled. A complicated look washed over his face, but before Hero could blink to read it, it was gone. Rami yanked his hands free and took the pen. “I want solutions, to help Claire. We go, we ask if anyone’s encountered such a thing as this ink before, and we get out. No games.”
“No games,” Hero repeated solemnly. Bless the sweet man, he almost seemed to believe him.
Almost. Rami shot him a reproachful look again and scribbled a signature on the bottom of the sheet. He allowed Hero to take it back along with the pen. “And now what?”
“Oh, now.” Hero flashed a smile that was nervy and peaked with a touch of fear. He was already feeling it, that slow, seeping feeling, like he’d more than gone pale. He patted the square spot where his book always rested tucked into his vest pocket, just to be sure. Gods, Hero hated this part. “You know the way to Elysium, right?”
“What?” Ramiel sputtered, and was too shocked to stop him as Hero reached out, sank his fingers into Ramiel’s dour, dusty overcoat, and came away with a fistful of gray feathers. His hand was so pale the feathers looked nearly black in comparison. His book, tucked inside his vest, felt like a hot ember pressing and burning a solid rectangle into his own chest.
“Never mind. Do your best.” Hero’s voice was faint, raspy as old paper even to his own ears. He clenched his eyes shut. This was his very least favorite part of cleverness. “I’ll leave a light on for you.”
The solid weight of the book turned cold. A heat raged through him, and his insides felt turned from solid to liquid to ash. Ramiel made a baritone squawk of protest, and Hero was swept away.
11
HERO
Hell is a place for forgetting. Kind enough, really, because anyone who lands here has plenty they’d be happy to not recall. But makes you wonder, donnit? Where those forgotten memories go when they’re gone from life and death? Maybe there’s a life of “after” for memory too.
Librarian Fleur Michel, 1771 CE
PARADISE WAS NOT GOING according to plan. Not at all. Hero had expected to appear in some elegant version of the Library he’d just left—artful marble pillars, airy, maybe some grapes and wine? Surely at least a comfortable spot and refreshments to wile away the time in comfort until the angel found his own way to Elysium. But no, instead, he’d come to in tall wheatgrasses, which had fought back as he clambered his way out to the field’s edge. Cockleburs clung to his jacket and were working their way into other places, and Hero was unimpressed with this realm’s entire concept of idyll.
Paradise, it seemed, was distinctly rural.
The road was smooth with fresh stone pavers, out of place in the pastoral scene, and Hero paused to survey it. The road cut a neat line between a patchwork of tidy golden wheat fields and meadows luridly feral with yellow flowers. The greenery spilled right up to the edge of a cliff that sheared down to a bay that was a watercolor of impossible blues and greens. A far hill was crowned with the low outlines of a pale city, but nothing so grand and spiraling as Hero had expected.
Still, it was the most promising sign of civilization, the modest farm homes dotting the fields excluded. Hero set off toward it. He’d barely made it over the first rise when a rustle caught his attention above the gentle wind. A disturbance snaked through the wheat field on his right, something graceful and low to the ground parting the stalks. A subtle glance found a mirroring disturbance on his left.
Just once, Hero would have liked to enter a realm without immediately being challenged to mortal combat. Was that too much to ask? He sighed and forced his pace to stay slow and lazy, allowing the pincer formation to close in on him precisely as he came to a small stone bridge. At the foot of the bridge, he turned and scowled at the empty road. “Honestly, if you’re trying to be subtle—”
A roil of muscle and fur glided onto the road, stopping Hero’s breath. Two creatures emerged from the wheat. They might have been female lions had their fur not been distinctly metallic. Fine strands of gold, mottled with copper, flowed over the beasts’ hides. Muscle, sleek and defined, rolled underneath with every sinuous step.
The lions came to a stop in the middle of the road and regarded Hero with unblinking eyes. They gave the distinct impression that they were waiting.
Hero’s mind scrambled for the what. If there was a password for entering this realm, he didn’t know it. There was likely a toll—there was always a damned price in these kinds of places—but he’d hoped Ramiel would catch up before he had to pay it. An angel with a flaming sword would not have been unwelcome just about now.
“Simon says?” Hero tried, then spun and broke into a run.
It was a short sprint across the bridge, made longer by anticipating the razor claws shredding into his back at any moment. Hero risked a glance behind him, but the beasts had followed at a mere saunter. Well, maybe they’d eaten recently. Maybe they were vegetarians. Maybe at this rate he’d outrun them—
A freight train took him at the shoulder. At least, that’s what it felt like as Hero went
