A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

“No, nothing like that. I am an accoun—wait, was. Was an accountant.” The soul tapped gnarled knuckles together. Rami began marking the log when the voice interrupted him on the downstroke.

“Actually… does this count?”

Rami glanced up. The soul had fished a small scrap of parchment out of his suit pocket.

Paper. Real paper.

Not secrets, not dreams. Not soul-type stuff, conjured by a dying soul. Physical, linen-and-wood-pulp and human-ingenuity-type paper.

At the Heavenly Gates, the entrance to a world of souls, that was most definitely worth declaring. Rami frowned and leaned over the desk. “What… That’s not— How did you get that up here?”

“I’m not quite—” The skin around the old man’s eyes knit together like rumpled tissue as he searched around for an answer. “Wait, ah, yes. Black magic.”

Rami stared. “Black magic.”

“Yes, quite. Enochian, if I recall. Bit of a fuss it was.”

Figures it would be Enoch, Rami thought. It was always that bastard. “Right. Black magic. To bring scratch paper to your Heavenly reward.”

Rami reluctantly shoved away from the bench and came around. Broad but not tall, he was forced to shoulder aside some blank-eyed souls in line. Each shuffled to one side without complaint, but the contact still left a residual feeling, the psychic smudge of the dead, that made Rami rub his palms down the front of his gray tunic before facing the old man. “Well, Mr. Avery, was it? Just give it here, and let’s see—”

The moment Rami’s fingers came in proximity of the folded scrap, he heard a loud snap. He jerked back his hand with a grunt. A flare of light slowly dimmed around the paper. For a moment, ink on the inside page had glowed sickly green. It left behind the faint smell of ozone and anise.

It was the smell that alarmed Rami. Nothing at the Gates smelled. Nothing at the Gates had the physical property to smell, per se. An important and convenient fact when dealing with the recently deceased.

The old man smiled. “Well, look at that.”

“I most definitely am now.” The hairs on the back of Rami’s neck crept up as he considered the innocuous-looking scrap. “I need you to come with me, Mr. Avery.”

“Oh, did I pass?” The old man was delighted.

“You did. I just need you to hold that—not too close!” Rami veered away as Avery swung toward him with the paper. He opted to steer the lost soul by the shoulder.

“This way. And the rest of you… ah, well.” He spared one glance for the mass of souls behind him before shoving the old man up toward the Gates.

Mr. Avery was happy enough to be led. For an accountant and an evident practitioner of the black arts, he was an agreeable sort. Rami brought him up short a couple of paces away from a tall figure encased entirely in silver. He took a deep breath and brought his knuckles up to rap on the armor.

An ornate visor pivoted up. A perfectly formed face carried a perfectly expressed sneer. “What do you want, clerk?”

The angel’s youth made Rami’s bones ache. They seemed to staff the Gates with only the newer caste, just to irritate him. “It’s Ramiel, you know.”

“I do. I just don’t care,” the guard said.

“I need to speak with an arch.”

“Arches don’t speak to the Gate, especially not to you.”

“I’m well aware.” Rami fought not to grind his teeth. Because he was a fallen Watcher, his position among the angels was complicated and barely tolerated. “There’s an abnormality they’ll want to hear about.”

“Is that so?” the angel said. The old man next to Rami shifted and finally caught the angel’s gaze. “What have you got there, mortal?”

It was a question that Rami had forgotten to ask, what with all the glowing and the fuss. The old man looked lost for a moment, gazing down hard into his hand at the trembling bit of scrap. He looked up with a brilliant smile. “It’s the Devil’s Bible.”

The silence that hung between the two angels was louder than all the shuffling of a million souls past the bench. Rami was the first to recover.

“If that’s—”

“I’ll get an arch.”

The guard disappeared through the Gates. Effortlessly, as Rami had once been able to do. But instead he was left to wait, occasionally shooting out a guiding arm whenever Avery wobbled too far away.

He sighed at the mass of milling souls that stretched out across the featureless plain. They would be backing up without processing, he knew. It struck him as entirely unnecessary. And tiring. This was Heaven. Souls judged themselves. No one found their way up here unless they were meant to be here. The processing, the Gates, the judgment, it was all a performance someone—likely the only Someone that mattered—had decided was necessary. Once, very long ago, when Rami was allowed past those vast shimmering gates and came and went from the Heavenly court at will, he might have agreed. Now he was just tired.

And he wanted back in.

“Uriel will speak to you.” The angel guard appeared at his elbow.

Rami stifled a groan. “It would be her.” He ignored the guard’s scandalized glance as he pulled the old man along. Avery was busy grinning at his pockets again.

A door appeared in the wall next to the Gates, revealing a narrow pearl staircase. At the top, Rami and Avery stepped out into a nursery of stars.

The dimensions of the room followed the general idea of an office: four walls, a smooth floor, and a high ceiling. But it was as if one had tried to explain the idea of an “office” to an elder god and this was the result. Everywhere, upon almost every surface, clung a thin film of the universe. Stars burst across the floor; an orange nebula cloud of color gestated new suns in the curve of a bookcase accented with brass spindles. It wasn’t a painting or a model; the office was molded out of life. It was a miniature, breathing existence that bloomed color and expansion. So much color, so full of texture and movement after the unrelenting sterility, it was dizzying. Rami blinked his eyes against it.

The only mundane surface in the office was a deep oak desk, but even this was held up with pillars of stars. Rami recognized the angel seated behind it.

Quite tall and nearly as powerfully built as Ramiel, Uriel was all light. Her white-gold hair was trimmed short, and her uniform was impeccable, where Rami’s was dark and faded. The uniform was not much changed from the last time Ramiel had seen it, despite the centuries that had passed. Outrageous buttons and tassels had been replaced with clean military trim, but it was still a leader’s uniform. Still assuredly Uriel. Five seconds in her presence left Rami feeling shabby and mismatched.

Uriel was always as inerrant in her presence as she was with her purpose. Rami had once chalked this up to the confidence of youth. Ramiel was from the original Watcher angels, made before the Fall. Uriel belonged to the batch of angelic creatures made after.

But as the centuries went on, the difference in age became negligible, and he was forced to admit that Uriel was simply better made. Made for power, made for righteousness. Where Rami struggled to be certain of his way, Uriel burned with it.

“Ramiel.” No less certain were the daggers of disappointment that edged her smile as she rose to greet him with a powerful handshake. “I was there when the Host voted to allow you to serve at the Gates. A chance at redemption, a great honor.” She said this evenly, as if it was a decision she would not have made but could be generous enough to allow.

“Uriel.” Rami nudged the old man to sit in an armchair of dwarf stars, cold and lumpy, but stable. “There’s an abnormality—”

“You’ve served well, so far,” Uriel continued. “I’m glad you’ve found your place, my friend.”