He dove down and touched the soul but went quiet. After several minutes, he called out. "Banana."
Michael and Gabe grabbed his arms and hauled him up. He recovered pretty easily. "Politician," he explained.
We all nodded understandingly. We knew the type. The man probably hadn't any memories that involved direct torture. There wasn't blood on his hands literally.
Only figuratively.
We passed one that might've been Vincent, but when I got close enough, I knew it was female, so we kept going.
With the next, Gabe stuck out his lip. "Please don't be animals," he whispered and lowered himself to touch the soul.
It only took a few moments for him to yell the safe word. We pulled him out and he wrapped his arms around me. "Serial killer," he said. "He was never caught, either."
I hugged him tightly, giving him all the comfort I could. "Did you see the act?"
"No, I saw him cataloging his trophies. He killed hundreds of people all over the world. He was so random with it, nobody ever connected him."
I gave him another moment to gather his thoughts, then we continued.
And it was my damn turn again. Shit.
The worst souls always did the worst things. There was slim to no chance that what I'd see wouldn't put a tiny scar on my heart.
And this was my punishment. We saw the worst. In Abaddon, we were able to farm out the work, keep from seeing these things, and keep our people from seeing them directly. Once a soul was judged and sent to Abaddon, we let the demons do their work and punish the soul. Or rehabilitate it.
And all in all, there weren't all that many souls like these. We just happened to be looking for one of the worst of the bunch.
And our punishment, as rebels, as heretics, was just this. We were tortured by doing the torturing. It was our job. It was our destiny. And we took it very seriously.
I dove in headfirst and fell into the middle of a courtroom. Oh, thank goodness. Surely nothing too bad could happen in the middle of a courtroom.
This courtroom was full of people of all ages, races, and sexes. A man sat on the witness stand.
"How do you plead?" The judge asked in a British accent.
Okay, so we were in England.
"He's guilty!" someone in the crowd screamed. The sound of a gunshot ricocheted around us. I ducked instinctively and whirled around.
A woman stood in the middle of the crowd with a small handgun pointed at the man on the stand. "He did it! He killed my little girl."
Police poured in and subdued the woman as the man on the stand stared at his chest in shock. Red blood seeped out of him and soaked the cloth of his white button-down shirt. He gasped for air and slumped over.
The scene changed. He'd relived his death, and now his memories were starting over.
Oh, no thanks. Whatever he did to that woman's little girl was something I had no desire to see. "Banana!" I called as the image of a thick wood surrounded me.
They pulled me out and looked prepared to help me recover. "I'm okay," I said. "I caught the memory of his death, which wasn't so bad. He was shot by a victim's mother."
We continued, but the lingering pain and torment in the air, the cloud of regret, grew thicker and thicker. "This shouldn't be," I whispered. "What's going on?"
"The souls are slower here, do you notice?" Luc asked. "They aren't flowing like they were."
We stopped and looked around. I studied the flow of multicolored auras. "It's getting higher, too." I shot forward, flying fast and scanning for a soul that could be Vincent. The souls grew denser and denser, higher and higher as I went. I had to move upward until my wings brushed the invisible upper barrier of the realm. Eventually, I was forced to stop because the souls were so packed in, I couldn't go farther.
"What if he's in there?" Luc asked. "Wading through that will be awful."
I sighed. "I think we have to."
We spread out and backed up, lowering ourselves about halfway. "Push the memories away. If we hold hands, we won't be sucked in. Keep moving forward and look for Vincent. We must remain cognizant."
Gripping each other tightly, we proceeded slowly.
Memories flashed through my mind. I processed them, blocking out the really bad stuff as best I could.
Most of the souls here didn't need much rehabilitation. They'd been too greedy, or too lustful. Too angry. Too slovenly. In the grand scheme of things, those problems were fixable.
We made it to the end without finding Vincent. Carefully, we turned and retraced our steps until we finally broke free of all the memories.
"There shouldn't be a wall there," I said. "We should've gone into Purgatory."
Lucifer nodded. "I'm afraid Vincent is already there."
I pursed my lips. "If we went through all this for nothing and he was already in there, I'm gonna be pissed."
"We have to get these souls freed. Some of them wouldn't even be kept in Abaddon. They'd be processed for rebirth immediately," I said. "But they're stuck here."
Michael nodded. "Most of these souls don't deserve reliving their worst memories over and over. Or their best, really. It's painful for them to know they can't return."
The pain in the air was palpable. They were all hurting. We had to help them.
12
"If I'm being honest, I have to say I don't think he's here." Luc stood inside the gates of Purgatory and looked around.
The world seemed gray when standing there, everything was hushed, and a sense of expectation and impatience filled the air. The light in Purgatory was similar to Abaddon outside the castles. We never found an actual source for it, yet there was always light. Like ambient light.
Abaddon was never dark. Of course, there were fires here and there, like the human legends said, too, so that added to it.
No
