No mention of Hell and no mention of Caz, either—the reason I’d gone to Hell in the first place. Both of them would have been perfect additions to the case against me. The only reason I could imagine was a strange one: Temuel hadn’t told them about any of it.
Was the Mule protecting his missionary work in Hell? Or some swindle of his own? Or had he genuinely been trying to help me? I couldn’t hope to figure it out while on trial, and there almost certainly wasn’t going to be a later—at least not a later where I’d have leisure to think about stuff like that, because I’d be too busy trying to breathe burning sewage while getting pitchforked repeatedly in the ass—so I let it go.
I have no idea how long the trial went on, because, you know, Heaven. The questioning itself was generally formal and straightforward, and there wasn’t much open debate between the angelic judges, at least not so the heavenly public could hear, but I was pretty certain that a great deal of conversation was going on between the five of them. I could almost sense their thoughts buzzing back and forth through the heavenly ether like overexcited electrons or some game of multihyperdimensional Pong. I sometimes thought I could get a glimpse of the argument in the tone of their voices when they did speak, and the colors that flickered through their flames. Anaita took the lead in a prosecutorial sense, and generally, Chamuel backed her. Terentia and sexless Raziel were more careful and asked more general questions, as though trying to better understand what happened. And Karael, although he seldom spoke up, tried to keep the evidence against me from being overstated, balking at exaggerations like the bluff, military type he often seemed to be. He wasn’t exactly on my side, but he didn’t seem intent on bundling me into the Down elevator as quickly as possible, either. I decided if I ever had another afterlife in which to do it, I’d thank him for his open-mindedness.
One thing I did learn, which I hadn’t known before (and hadn’t particularly wanted to know, either) was that Anaita had more clout with the others than I realized. In fact, she was apparently the ephor closest to being anything as simple as “in charge” of San Judas and all its earthbound angels, and I understood for the first time how she could have gotten away with something as big and crazy as the creation of Kainos. Which raised another question: Had Temuel been working for her all along? Maybe that was why nothing that would make him look bad had come up during the trial. Maybe she’d picked me out as her sucker from the first and had used Temuel to lead me right up the ramp into the slaughterhouse.
That still didn’t feel quite right, either, and, as I said, I had other things to worry about just then. Still, there were some angles I definitely didn’t understand about the Mule’s role in my downfall.
• • •
“I Sense That There Are No More Questions Relating To The Accusations,” Terentia said at last when the examination had slowed a bit. I could feel a bodiless stir of anticipation pass through the countless spectators, wherever they might actually have been, at the signal that the end of this whole sordid affair was near. Now it was time for Justice, or so they thought. “Does Anyone Wish To Add Anything?”
And then Karael, warrior angel and hero of the Fall, said something that, for the second time in my otherwise bi-incurious life, made me want to wrap him in my arms and just smooch the holy heck out of him.
“Actually,” he said, “I’d Like To Hear Whether The Accused Has Anything Else To Say In His Own Defense.”
“Why?” asked Anaita in her sweetest little doll-baby voice, but I thought I could feel the fury she was hiding. “Has This Doloriel Not Been Given Ample Chance To Respond Already? Instead He Has Mocked The Proceedings At Every Chance, Avoided Direct Answers, And Trifled With This Ephorate’s Generosity By Making Unnecessarily Snide Remarks.”
“I’m Afraid I Agree With Anaita, Our Blessed Sister,” intoned Chamuel. “The Only Value To Heaven This Angel Retains Is That Of A Bad Example, And We Will Not Receive Any Value For That Until He Has Been Sentenced.”
“Raziel?” Terentia asked. “What Say You, Comrade?”
The mystery that was the fifth ephor didn’t come any closer to revealing itself, but did add (after a long, deliberate silence that would have made me sweat bullets if I’d been wearing a physical body) “I Would Be Willing To Listen To What The Prisoner Has To Say.”
I almost cried out with relief, though my doom had probably been postponed only by a few seconds. Now it was down to Terentia to cast the deciding vote. Her glow dimmed just the smallest bit, and I felt a sense of growing fear that she would deny me this one, tiny chance. Because I had an idea. Yes, it was a bad one. Many of mine are, especially when I’m nervous because someone’s about to destroy me, but it was the only idea I had and the only chance I would get.
“I See No Harm In It,” she said at last. “Doloriel, You May Speak.”
I knew that if I said anything that implicated Anaita, the safeguards she’d put in place would stop me before I got it out. I had to be careful. I’d only have one try.
“Thank you, Masters and Mistresses,” I said. “Instead of making a statement, I have something to ask—a request. I ask you to consider it carefully.” Anaita’s manipulation wasn’t just passive: I could feel her hovering over my thoughts like a fearful miser, ready to snatch back anything useful before I could speak it. My only hope was that I’d surprise her by taking a different direction, so I took a deep, metaphorical breath before plunging in.
“We Are Waiting, Doloriel.” Terentia sounded like her patience was fading.
“Very well. I respectfully request that you delay your judgement in this matter until all the facts are known.”
“What Can This Mean?” demanded Chamuel, like a grumpy old man kept up past bedtime. “Facts? We Have Uncovered All The Facts!”
“If you will delay judgement, and free me temporarily . . .” I began.
Suddenly I could feel Anaita clamping down on me with the talons of her thought, trying to crush what I was about to say before I could manage it. For a moment I thought she’d stop not just my words but my entire existence—I was smothering, though I had neither mouth or lungs—but I’d learned a little during our struggle back at the museum. I fought back against her assault, struggling to keep a small part of myself free. If I’d been about to name Anaita herself I wouldn’t have managed, but my intent seemed to surprise her long enough for me to get it out. “If you’ll free me, I’ll bring you Advocate Sammariel, the one who brought me to the Third Way, and he knows all the answers I can’t give you. You’ve never been able to catch him. Free me for just a little while and I’ll hand him over to you.”
“And How Will You Manage That?” asked Terentia, clearly surprised. “If We Can’t Find Him With All The Power Of This Ephorate, If We Can’t Reach Him In This Heretical Place Called Kainos, How Will You?”
“Because I know how to get there. And because he trusts me.”
I admit that I’ve had prouder moments.
thirty-six:
bobby wins again
FOR ME, there was little or nothing in the way of transition back to Earth, although the five ephors must have discussed the arrangement a bit. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of the main quad of the Museum of Industry where the Mule had handed me over to the Counterstrike unit, by the same bench near the fountain. I was dressed in the same street clothes. My gun was even back in my coat pocket. Crazy, right?
Even crazier, I hiked over to the parking lot and found my taxicab right where I’d left it, shiny with recent rain like a healthy young banana slug. Who had cared about me enough to put me back next to my ride? And why was it still sitting here, instead of being stripped and searched for evidence in some heavenly impound garage?
After all I’d been through, I was as nervous when I got into the cab and started it up as one of those anti-Mafia judges in Sicily. It didn’t go ka-boom, though, just coughed into life with what might have been a bit of a fuel-mixture issue. When I backed out, it left a dry spot in the parking space, as if it hadn’t been moved at all.