Page 2 of Judge of Saints and Sinners

“Are there more?” I didn’t look at him, just fiddled with my fingers, letting the flames scurry across my knuckles. I savored every burn from the brilliant red flames before calling it back to my core, where it danced along my maimed soul.

The one my mother and father had ripped in half.

“No more today.” Peter’s bearded face was guarded when he stepped away, moving across the vast inner chamber of the courthouse. More temple than courtroom, the vaulted ceilings displayed a variety of artwork from across the ages. Each painted by a soul coming to atone.

I glanced over my shoulder, through the paned window. The Underworld outside was dimming to a dusk-like color scheme. The brilliant oranges blurred across the skyscape and blended higher and higher into a thick dark blue.

Almost like nighttime, like the rising and falling of the sun and moon. It was my father’s little homage to the living world that he performed each day. He claimed that it comforted the souls we had in our care. But I wondered if perhaps it was a remnant from his days in Heaven with the seraphim that he kept to this traditional layout of time. Either way, it was doubtful that Lucifer would confess to me.

Whatever it meant to Father, it meant to me that I could rest. Recharge and await another day tomorrow full of exactly what today had been. “Goodnight, Peter,” I said coolly, turning back to my head juror.

The willowy figure stared back at me, his endless eyes sharp. “At your leave, my lord.” He raised his palms in a farewell. Along the immense back wall of the courthouse, an elaborate mural was painted. Upon it, there was a stationed jury, eleven members, their faces and emotions frozen in place. They were so life-like that even now, I could almost picture their faces moving, turning to look at me, begging me to free them.

The bright colors, the once dark and sharp lines of their forms, were beginning to blur and fade. Further proof of my weakness. My world was quickly becoming a relic. Something from another time, another world. I stared at it, willing the robes they wore to move, to sway, or display any of their former abilities to move or speak. But there was nothing. How long had it been? My head ached when I tried to remember.

The last fifty years had been—fuck, I couldn’t think about that. My fists clenched, and I relished in the sting of my demonic claws digging into the soft humanlike flesh of my palms. My lips curled in distaste. I two parts of who I was were constantly at odds with each other.

No wonder I was a miserable bastard to be around.

Peter had reached the mural, turning to face me in a smooth motion. His ghostly fingers were steepled, and I could tell he wanted to impart some great wisdom onto me. When I was a younger male, I might have let him. But now, we were far past that. There was no room for growth in my life. There was only repetition and the dull gray of what passed for my normal now.

And yet. I owed him more than I had to give. Pulling my shoulders back, my lightweight shirt tightening across my shoulders, I nodded to him. Granting him the permission he requested. “What is it, Peter?”

With his back pressing lightly against the painted plaster, the juror's face turned stormy. “I can feel a change today, in the wards and”—he looked at me—“in you. Every day that I go to rest, I accept that I may not make it out.”

“Peter, I—” I began, but he cut me off, speaking over me.

“I’m not worried for myself, my lord. I’m worried for you. You have not been the same, and I understand your pain, but sire…will you be alright on your own?”

I hated that his voice was worried, concerned.

My teeth ground, fangs catching on my lip as I snarled into the empty room. “That won’t happen.”

The juror’s head tilted, his words low and rushed. “Someday it will, my lord, and I want you to be prepared—”

“Stop your prattling, old man. You do not have permission or leave to speak to me like this. I am still the lord here, not you.”

Peter’s chin rose, his dark gaze stilling on mine. “Of course you are.” Slowly, haltingly, he bent at the waist. “Forgive me, my lord, Judge.”

Shame, or the closest I’d felt to that in decades, filled my gut. But as I stepped forward, to demand Peter wait so that I could…what would I do? What could I do? My hesitation was all it took for Peter to bend his legs, holding at the knee as he released one last sigh into the Underworld air.

With a blink that ate up a century, Peter stepped back into the mural. The magic wall opened up, spreading around him like quicksand, the essence of his form, his appearance, even the worried lines at his eyes stretching itself over. Then color bloomed, filling Peter in until a lifeline image of him was painted in form, frozen in the moment, a monument to the power of my judgment and the courthouse.

I walked forward until I was level with the mural. I longed to reach out and touch the painted version of my jurors. There were twelve there, with Peter being the most powerful, the first soul I had brought here and granted an audience.

He helped me build this place, to create the process that all souls now experienced. The others I had added for various reasons. The barbaric warrior from a long-dead dynasty who possessed a depth of awareness and curiosity that had shocked and impressed me. Even the woman on the end, in her pearls and collar, who brought a sharp eye to every soul’s judgment. They each served a purpose ,and when my power was there, they had been capable of handling nearly all the souls' judgment on their own. Between the courthouse and the dam, I was nearly out of a job for a few years.

And now…now it was a shadow of the system it had once been. My power was the mechanism behind all of it. And now, it just didn't move as it should. Perhaps the same as its master. My blood dripped from my palms to the floor, but I barely noticed, my eyes consumed with taking in every inch of the remaining mural aspects.

I wondered if they were watching me back, though I knew it was not likely. They’d always told me that they saw a distorted version of the world while they were in this form. I couldn’t risk them knowing how much Peter’s words filled me with fear, especially since it was the same worry that I’d been harboring for the past year.

My power, triggered by the torment of emotion, rumbled through my body. A mockery of what I once could do, but still, a testament to the heavy infusion of demon blood that coursed through my veins.

I longed to press my hand to the painting, to see if maybe that contact might awaken something once more. Back to how things were, when my power could easily free the twelve chosen who served on my jury. As my power had waned, I’d been slowly unable to call each of them from their rest in the cursed painting.

No, I couldn’t risk them seeing me like this. Peter’s obvious call out to my failure and weakness was enough.

Now, the mural was a painful reminder of what this world used to be. What Peter said could be true. Someday my ability to pull even him, the leader of my chosen, would be gone. And it would be my waning magic standing between a wall of lost souls and the afterlife. My claws dug into my palms once more, and this time I could feel the heat of my own blood as it spilled from my fists to the floor, where it slowly disappeared.