Page 6 of Judge of Saints and Sinners

He knew too much.

He was too close.

Cursed.

The memory hissed at me from the recesses of my mind.

I could feel the world slinking across my brain, the visions from my life flashing behind my eyes as I watched Rocky open the door to the hall. This time I didn’t bother looking to see if anyone was out there.

Nothing else mattered now, except getting away from here as quickly as possible. Rubbing my eyes, I walked down the hall to the next door on the right, the corner apartment, number forty-eight. A traitorous tear slipped out as I stepped in and closed the door behind myself.

The light switch was always wonky, and you had to flip it one or two times before the orange-toned fluorescent bulbs scattered across a dingy popcorn ceiling turned on. I was so distracted by the flickering light that at first I didn’t notice the shine of two perfectly round orbs glowing back out from the corner of the room.

My heart raced, my palms grew damp, and my knees snapped together. Taking a short breath, my decision to run already in my head, I flipped the switch the final time, praying this time it would take.

It did.

My tiny, sparsely furnished studio apartment came into view. On the floor was the braided rug that Rocky had given me when he got another this past summer. A mattress was sitting in one corner, next to a clearance-sale bookshelf that held my most precious possessions. The kitchenette, complete with dripping faucet that looked like it was from the 1950s.

And right in the center of the space sat the absolute biggest dog I’d ever seen in my life. He stared at me with such relaxed countenance that at first I didn't move, didn’t even breathe.

I didn’t have a dog.

3

Nephesh

The wine splashed slightly when I poured it, staining the ornate stone countertops a pale red as I plunked the bottle down on the sideboard. My private chambers were on the top floor of the courthouse, along with a multitude of spare rooms that were so far untouched and unfilled. My needs were minimal, and the only reason I remained sleeping on this floor as opposed to below in my office space was the impressive view that I had designed outside the windows. I moved to one of them now, staring across the Underworld horizon. My realm was the center of the Underworld in many ways.

From here I could see the vast Styx, winding past the heart of this world, the Court of Hell, where my father ruled from. And as my brother Kharon patrolled the river, so did I patrol the dam, the magical filtering system that even now glowed in the dark night.

My magic hard at work. I snorted, choking down another sip of the liquid. My brother Elon was not home, as his home was dark tonight, perched atop the island that split the Styx.

No doubt he was chasing some rogue nasty who was attempting to escape from Tartarus. He had his hands more than full with the darkness that had crept into our homes, giving souls access to escape, to become corrupted.

We knew that the Drude was at the center of all of it.

But to what end? We couldn’t decide. What we knew was that every time a soul was stolen from the Underworld, our powers dimmed. I palmed my chest for a minute, the pinching pain that was my constant companion was especially irritating tonight.

But then, losing your soul mate should hurt. Especially when it was my fault.

Lights flickered below, likely a change of shift in the battalion of Brotherhood warriors who served my realm. Their dancing torches distracted me from my pain as I looked down the trails that connected the courthouse to the immense dam. The dam, my most impressive creation to date, held fast against the constant onslaught of souls and water that beat upon it. This was where souls were sorted, the branching of the river slipping there, taking the good to Elysium and the bad to Tartarus.

For the good, there was a land flowing with milk and honey, or whatever the hell Elon was serving nowadays. And in Tartarus, those deemed too dangerous to be reborn and too difficult to be allowed in Elysium, those souls were kept in cages like the animals they were.

And all of that was decided by my magic.

The river itself was beautiful, the lifeblood and current of our world, carrying the souls of the living world right outside of my windows. I snorted, sipping the dark wine. The beauty of the river, or the ingenuity of my creation, wouldn’t matter soon anyway. This world and our kind as its makers would cease to exist before too long. Unless my brothers managed to save us all.

Sighing, I turned back to my living area. I stared around with bleary eyes, trying to decide why this place irritated me so. The apartment itself was fine. Nothing like Arafel’s castle or Kadmiel’s tower. There were no twisting corridors or gaping darkness, thank Hades. I had had enough caverns and tight spaces to last me an eternity.

My magic had ignited a nearby sconce, the happily dancing flame glowing over me as I sat down, half-empty glass in hand. I eyed my stack of books. Mostly historical. A passing fancy to try to decipher what I had missed during the fifty years I’d been imprisoned beneath the Underworld.

In summary, I’d discovered that the living world was still a mess of their own making and I had very little patience or empathy for the way the human souls were spending their time. It was a disgrace. Even if I was powerful enough to go back to the living world, I would likely be disappointed by what I’d find. Once I’d been consumed with spending time there. Now I was more than content to stay here, watching my father’s kingdom burn around us.

A rueful smile tugged at my lips. Of course, when I was in the living world more, I was usually attending to my father’s business, and it didn’t exactly leave a normal taste in any living soul's mouth. I was a monster at my father’s command. Distantly, I wondered if he might someday confess who he had used while I was locked away. A devil without his weapons was a weakness.

And Lucifer hadn’t done his own dirty work for centuries. Why would he, when he had five sons who were all more than capable of doing it for him? If I judged his preferences of weapons to be his affection, then I was his favorite.