Valiant: The Covenant Chronicles

[Covenant #5: The Angel’s Share]

Log Date: 10/6/12763

Data Sources: Jayta Jaskolka

Jayta’s Journal

People often think of heaven and hell as two distinct, independent systems. Diametric opposites that never interact, save for the sorting of souls after death, and more isolated incidents when angels need to chase demons back into hell. They think that angels never visit hell; demons never visit heaven; the gods remain in their ivory towers, and their dark counterparts remain in their ebony cathedrals below. Polar opposites that could never, ever overlap because of how different they are.

Yet the truth is anything but that.

Heaven and hell often are, in many respects, two wings of a single government. The problems of one directly affect the affairs of the other, and vice versa; rather than being locked in a tug of war over the souls of mortals, both sides do their best to manage their respective responsibilities in the hereafter. While there are occasional flare-ups and spats over the activities of one side or another, the relationship between heaven and hell is not that of a cosmic war for the salvation of mortals.

It is, more than anything else, the struggle of a government trying to create a just and equitable coda in an imperfect universe.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The House of Regret: The Library Labyrinth

4:55pm SGT

“So, this will be your first task, then.” Mek says, shuffling around one of the tables in the center of the library, books in hand. “Let’s see here, what did Lord Syntaritov want to enable you with?”

I hold out the slip of paper to the mild-mannered serval Halfie. Taking it from me, he adjusts his half-moon spectacles to peer through them at the symbols that Raikaron had scrawled on the paper. “How is this going to work?” I ask. 

“Oh, it’s really quite simple.” he says, setting down the books on the nearest table. “Usually new abilities for a demon are woven into the fabric of the manacles that bind them to their Lord. It’s a painless process, most of the time.”

“Most of the time?” I repeat, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, well, some of the more powerful or complex abilities take a toll on the demon.” he explains, walking back towards the shelves. “But from what I see here, it looks like Lord Syntaritov is starting you out with the basics. The simple ability to heat matter and space, and the ability to compel simple locks. Standard fare for almost every demon that ventures to the mortal realms at the behest of their Lord.”

“Oh. That’s good to hear.” I say quietly. I’d only been told this morning that Raikaron had my first task, and since then, not much else. Eventually, Danya had sent me down here with the slip of paper she’d gotten from Raikaron — preparations, apparently, for what I was about to be sent out to do.

“Let me go ahead and dig up the template; I’m sure I’ve got it around here somewhere.” Mek says, running his furred fingers along the spines of books on the shelves. “Given how simple these abilities are, this shouldn’t take more than five minutes, I should imagine. Why don’t you tell me about yourself while I’m searching? This is only the second time I’ve met you, and we didn’t get to speak for very long the first time.”

“Well, there’s not really much to say…” I say, looking at the shelves that form the walls of the labyrinth’s center. “Just some girl from Coreolis.”

“Nonsense. There’s plenty to say.” he says, pulling a thick tome down off one of the shelves. “We could talk about your favorite music, your favorite foods, your favorite TV shows… we can talk about your favorite season, what you like doing in your spare time. There’s all sorts of things to talk about.”

“Yeah, well. None of that really matters now.” I say, going to put my hands in my pockets, and then remembering that the black uniform I have to wear in the House doesn’t have pockets. “I left all my stuff back on Coreolis, and you all don’t have TV here in hell.”

“Oh come now, that’s silliness.” he says, dropping the massive tome on one of the tables with a rush of dust. “Of course we have TV here in Sjelefengsel. We’re not savages, you know. And if you aren’t one of the damned, the cable packages usually have something to suit your tastes.”

That remark confuses me. “There’s television here in hell?” I ask as he flips the book open.

“Of course there is.” He snaps his fingers. “Oh, you know what? You probably didn’t know that because Lord Syntaritov doesn’t like TV. He hides the TV screens in the walls. Thinks it rots the brain or something. In fairness, he’s probably not wrong.” With that, he starts leafing through the old, cracked pages of the tome. “Lord Syntaritov has always much preferred a good book over any other form of entertainment. He likes collecting stories, just like his ancestor.”

“Oh. I wasn’t aware. About the TV and stuff.” I ask, idling my way around to the table that Mek is at. Unlike everyone else that I’ve met in Sjelefengsel so far, Mek doesn’t feel dangerous. He seems like a gentle, mild person to be around — and that’s refreshing, with how messed up everyone here is. “Do you get channels like the news and stuff?”

“Channels from the mortal realm are hard to come by, unfortunately.” Mek says, settling on one of the pages and running his padded fingers over it. “I believe it’s a transmission issue; most broadcasts that go into a black hole get warped and distorted, and when they come through on the other side, it’s an unintelligible mess. So most channels from the mortal plane end up being prerecorded contraband that gets brought here by demons that are able to visit the mortal realm.”

“Wait, we really are in a black hole?” I demand. “I thought Raikaron— I mean Lord Syntaritov— was joking about that…”

“Why would he be joking? Every afterlife is in a black hole. It’s how they’re kept separate from the rest of the universe.” Mek answers, pulling out a chair for me. “Go ahead and take a seat, dear.”

I take a seat gingerly, looking at the faded writing on the pages of the old tome he’s pulled out. “So… every time we see a black hole, there’s really a heaven or hell in there?”

“Sometimes. There are a lot of black holes in the universe, a lot more than there are heavens or hells.” Mek says, taking my arm and unbuttoning the cuff. “Most black holes are simply unoccupied dimensional real estate, so to speak. If a hypernatural — what many people refer to gods or deities — decides they need a place to put the souls of their followers, then they usually set up shop in a black hole and… I suppose you could call it terraforming? They mold and shape the malleable reality within the black hole to suit their needs. That is how Sjelefengsel came to be.”

“So if Sjelefengsel is like the generic hell, that means there’s got to be a generic heaven, right?” I ask as he rolls back my sleeve to the elbow, revealing the manacle mark around my wrist. “A place where good agnostics and atheists and non-denominational people go after they die?”

“Well, the atheists don’t go anywhere, they just kind of fizzle away if they want.” Mek answers, making wiggly motions with his fingers as if imitating dust drifting away into the aether. “But yes, there is a ‘generic heaven’. It’s called Kolob. I’ve heard it’s a nice place, but I’ve never been there myself, for obvious reasons.”

“Right. Of course.” I murmur. “I don’t imagine anybody in hell would’ve been to heaven before.”

“Actually, there are people in Sjelefengsel that have been to heaven before.” Mek says, carefully looking over my manacle mark as if he was searching for something. “There are a great many residents of Sjelefengsel which actually visit Kolob from time to time, and vice versa. Managing the afterlife is quite a task, and heaven and hell usually work together on certain aspects of it. Helps keep things running smoothly. You know, you probably could ask Lord Syntaritov what Kolob is like — I’m fairly certain he’s been there before on some formal task or another.”

“Am I even allowed to ask him something like that?” I ask dubiously.

“I don’t see why not. So long as you’re being polite about it, I don’t think he’d mind.” Mek says, tapping two padded fingers to my manacle mark, which begins to glow orange before a translucent echo of my manacle projects itself into the air around my arm. “Oh my. Goodness, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a manacle like this.” Mek remarks, leaning back and adjusting his spectacles to get a better look at it.

“Is there something wrong with it?” I ask, concerned.

“Hardly. It’s a very impressive manacle.” he says, leaning closer and peering at it. “Very elegant, ceremonial; the shape and design are a far cry from most other manacles I’ve seen. It was to be expected, since you’re slated to be an avenger of the Sixth Circle, but… this is more than just that. If your manacle is anything to go by, there were probably special or unique conditions written into your contract.”

“What does my contract have to do with this?”

“Everything, really.” he answers, reaching up and turning my arm this way and that, as if to get a better look at the manacle. “A demon’s manacles and collar are the worn manifestation of the contract that binds them. Your contract determines how your manacles and collar look, to some extent; the rest of a manacle’s appearance is a reflection of the relationship with the Lord to whom the demon is bound. Most manacles for lower-Circle demons are ugly affairs, simple and brutish, but the manacles on the servants of Lord Syntaritov have always been a little more elegant than that of other Lords. It reflects the way he treats his demons. But your manacle, it seems, is special even by those standards.”

“Do I want to know what you mean by ‘special’?” I ask trepidatiously.

“Well, it wouldn’t be my place to speculate.” Mek says, letting go of my arm and turning back to the tome on the table. “But here in Sjelefengsel, Lords are not afraid to pick favorites, and advertise that favoritism. Lord Syntaritov, I believe, has something specific in mind for you; though what that is, I cannot begin to fathom.”

“Well if he thinks that I’m just going to roll over and do whatever he tells me to do, he’s got another thing coming.” I mutter. “I’m not some circus animal that’ll jump for him whenever he wants to amuse himself.”

“Oh, come now. Lord Syntaritov isn’t that petty.” Mek says, his fingers dragging over the cracked page and pulling upwards. One of the symbols written on the page glows, a copy of it following Mek’s pawhand and peeling off the page. “If he is cruel, it’s usually for a deep and abiding reason, and not for his own entertainment.”

“I would prefer that he not be cruel at all.” I say, watching as the sigil hanging in the air starts to twist and deform, curling into what looks like a thick link, such as would make up part of a larger chain.

“If Lord Syntaritov had a choice, I’m sure he would prefer to perform his responsibilities without cruelty.” Mek says, turning and lifting the hand with my manacle up a little, so he can hook the link on an anchorpoint on the underside of my manacle. As soon as it clicks into place, the link turns a translucent orange, just like the rest of the manacle. “I like to believe that deep, deep down inside, he is a gentle soul.”

I raise eyebrows at him. “You think that the Lord of Regret, one of the great and terrible Lords of hell, who manipulates people into demonic contracts so he can claim their souls, is a gentle soul.”

Mek’s whiskers twitch, the corners of his eyes creasing up a little in amusement. “I know, it is counterintuitive.” he says, turning back to the tome and starting to leaf through the pages once more. “But I have always had this feeling that Lord Syntaritov — for all his power and dominion — is really just someone that lost his way as a young man. And that, given sufficient impetus, could return to a less cruel path. But the effort required for that would be colossal — just as I am bound by my sentence, and you are bound by your contract, Lord Syntaritov is bound to his master. We all serve someone, and the chains of hell are not so easily escaped, even for the powerful among us.”

“Raikaron has a master?” I say, leaning forward in my chair. “Who is it? Did he sign a contract, like I did?”

“Perhaps. I don’t know; Lords are very close-mouthed about the chains that keep them shackled to their masters.” Mek says, flipping a few more pages. “I do know, however, that he answers to the Lord of Lust; he makes no secret of it, and she will visit the House of Regret from time to time to check in on him.”

“He answers to another Lord?” I ask as Mek starts pulling another sigil off the page he’s stopped on. “I thought the Lords would be equals.”

“There are Greater Lords, and Lesser Lords.” Mek answers as the sigil slowly comes off the page, starting to morph and twist into another chain link. “Lust, being one of the original sins, is a Greater Lord, while Regret is a Lesser Lord.”

“Is Lust really a sin, though?” I say skeptically, lifting my manacled arm so he can attach the second link to the first link. “What makes lust worse than, say, murder?”

“It’s a legacy title. You could argue all day about what sins are worse than others, but in the end it’s more about the legacy of the title than anything else.” Mek says, clicking the second link into place. “Lust has been an original sin since time immemorial, and if you try to change it, a great fuss would be pitched. Technically, the Greater Lords are chosen by popular vote every century, so the composition of the Eighth Circle varies over time, but the succubi and incubi always vote for Lust. I don’t think anyone remembers the last time the role of Lust was demoted to that of a Lesser Lord.”

“You guys vote on it.” I say disbelievingly. “Like you actually hold a democratic vote to determine who serves in the congress of hell.”

“Well, the tradition was for the Lords to fight each other in the Pit over who got to be a Greater Lord and who got to be a Lesser Lord, but they did away with that approach a long time ago.” Mek explains, closing the book. “The sovereigns of Sjelefengsel realized they were losing a lot of powerful lieutenants that way, and replacing them was not easy. So they instead decided to go with elections, and reserved the Pit fights for direct challenges between Lords. Like I told you when we were discussing TV — we’re not savages here, not completely.”

“I just… never thought that I’d find democracy in hell.” I say, still wrapping my head around that as Mek returns the tome to its place on the shelf. Lifting my arm a little, I stare at the orange links hanging from my manacle. “So how am I supposed to use these powers you gave me? Is there some sort of spell I’m supposed to recite or a fiddly-fingers nonsense I’m supposed to do?”

“Nothing so pretentious as that.” Mek says, shuffling back to the table and sitting down, tucking his robes as he does so. “You merely need to think about it, will it, and it will happen. Heat and the compulsion of locks are simple powers; they don’t require much in the way of focus or energy.” He lifts a pawhand, pointing out the first chain link, and then the second one. “This one is heat. This one is simple lock compulsion. Each link on a demon’s manacle chain represents a unique power they’ve acquired either by their own initiative, or at the allowance of their Lord. The more links in a chain, the more powers they have. One day, you may have chains long enough to use as weapons.”

“I don’t want to ever get to that point.” I say, lowering my arm. “I don’t want to be someone that hurts people.”

Mek reaches forward, tapping on the manacle mark around my wrist, and the orange projection of the manacle itself dissolves away. “My dear,” he says gently. “there are some people that deserve to be hurt.”

I’m quiet at that. Even though I know that I can’t, I want so badly to refuse this role I’ve been given. I wanted to be a scientist, someone that made discoveries and helped people through that, not someone that ran around using negative reinforcement to kick people back into line. As a muddled mess of emotions rises up within me, resentment chief among them, I take a deep breath, letting it out and calming myself down.

“Thank you.” I say to Mek, offering a weak smile. “I should probably go now and see what Lord Syntaritov had in mind for me.”

He nods to me. “If you would like to come back sometime, feel free to do so. I never really leave this place, but I am familiar with many aspects of Sjelefengsel, and I would be happy to answer any questions you have over a cup of tea and some biscuits.”

My smile gets a little stronger at that. “That sounds nice.” I admit, standing up. “Have a good night, Mek.”

“You too, Jayta.” he says, giving me a little wave of his pawhand as I leave. “Stay safe out there.”

I nod to him, and start back into the labyrinth of library shelves that makes up Mek’s prison. Following the orange band along the floor to make my way to the exit, I square my shoulders and by the time I reach the exit, I’m moving at a proper stride.

I may not want to do this, but if I have to do this, I’m going to get it over with, instead of dragging it out.

Jayta’s Journal

Few people realize precisely how flawed our universe is.

The simple truth is that the balance of our universe was irreparably damaged by the gift that was given to all those that were born into it. That gift — free will — rules this universe, and is both our salvation and destruction. In such a universe, where the principle of free will is absolute and inviolate, there can never be a perfect society, because a perfect society would require a certain moral homogeneity — and free will, which permits not just freedom of action, but freedom of thought as well, precludes any sort of moral homogeneity. If you give mortals the freedom to act and think on their own, some of them will inevitably act to the detriment of their fellows. The universe is inherently inequitable because of this; or if you would like to put all of this in the simplest terms—

Life is not fair.

But the afterlife, and by extension, heaven and hell, exist as an attempt to bring some equity — some fairness — to a universe that lacks it. The most straightforward way to do this would be to remove free will altogether, and enforce a certain morality; but mortals value their free will, their ability to make decisions for themselves. They only give it up when offered something in return, and even then, some will never give it up for anything.

So if free will cannot be removed from the equation, something else must be supplied to correct the imbalance created by free will:

Consequences.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The House of Regret: Raikaron’s Study

5:34pm SGT

“Come right in, little demon.”

I step into the study as Danya holds open the door of Raikaron’s study for me, beckoning me in. It’s familiar, almost cozy, with its fire burning in the hearth and its high walls of bookshelves, and I can see that Raikaron is standing at the far end behind his ornate desk, staring through the windows that make up the back wall. It’s only when Danya closes the door behind us that he turns around, pulling his gaze from the skyline of Hautaholvi in the distance; there are the last remnants of pensive contemplation fading from his face as he greets us.

“Evening, Jayta.” he says. “I take it Mek has enabled you with what I requested?”

I just give a simple nod in return. I still don’t know how to behave around Raikaron; he sends a shit ton of mixed signals. During the trip to get registered, he was far more conversational and informal with me, but when we’re around other people, he’s got that muted sort of dignity that comes with positions of authority. It’s the kind of thing that keeps other people at arm’s length just by the way you talk to them, and hold yourself.

“That’s good to hear.” he says, walking around his desk and unfolding his arms from behind his back. He’s dressed in black slacks, a whitecollar shirt, a dark red vest, and a tie that matches the color of his hair. Immaculate and impeccable as always. “As I’m sure you’ve been told, we have a task for you. The angel’s share came in recently, and we’d like you to handle one of the cases that they outsourced to us.”

“The… the what?” I ask as Raikaron scoops a folder off the top of a small pile of folders on his desk.

“The angel’s share.” he says, leafing through the folder at leisure. “Our counterpart, Kolob — generic heaven, I suppose you would call it — monitors the realm of the living just the same as we do. Much of their task load involves listening to, and sometimes answering the prayers of agnostics or uncommitted-but-religious mortals. Sometimes, when they decide a prayer needs an answer, but they don’t have an avenging angel to commit to it, they will outsource the prayer file to us here in Sjelefengsel.” He looks up from the folder, giving me a small smile. “These prayers which require darker answers are what we call the angel’s share, since they are requests that come from heaven.”

I can’t help but gape at that. “You’re… you’re basically telling me… that heaven is shortstaffed?” I say incredulously.

“Well, I think they might bristle at that characterization.” Raikaron equivocates. “It’s more like… Danya, how do you think Kolob would phrase it?”

“They would likely claim that they are ‘experiencing a surge in prayer volume’ and that the ‘volume of actionable prayers currently exceeds the resources they presently have available’.” Danya says, using her fingers to make air quotes, though she’s clearly unamused. “If you ask me, they offload these types of prayers on us because something clearly needs to be done about the situation beyond sprinkling a little angel dust and giving someone a sign, but they don’t want to get their hands dirty.”

“Come now, I don’t think that’s fair to them.” Raikaron says, returning his attention to the folder he has in hand. “I know a lot of angels that work very hard, and are dedicated to their jobs. You can’t blame them for offloading some of the ugly prayers on us every now and then.”

“Your sympathy for heaven is uninspiring.” Danya says drily. “We have enough work of our own to do here in Sjelefengsel; I don’t see why we have to be doing both our jobs and doing their jobs for them.”

“As you can tell, Danya is not fond of Kolob’s practices.” Raikaron says with a sidelong look at me. “But at any rate, the prayers from the angel’s share need to be answered, so we can mark them complete and send them back to Kolob to be filed away. Typically the jobs in the angel’s share are easy, by demon standards; usually someone needs to be punished, which is our bread and butter. Moreover, they always deserve this punishment; you might say that we are administering justice on the behalf of heaven.”

“So I’m going to have to hurt someone.” I venture cautiously.

“Trust me, my dear, whoever you’re hurting will deserve it.” Danya says from behind me. “Kolob does not send us prayers where the need for punishment is ambiguous. They are always situations where the need for punishment is clear and unquestionable.”

“I took a look through the angel’s share, and reserved one for you.” Raikaron says, holding out the folder to me. “Since the angel’s share is usually comprised of jobs that are fairly black and white — morally clean-cut, so to speak — we usually consider them ‘easy’ tasks. Something a demon can feel good about, even as they’re carrying it out. Harro and many of my other subordinates usually clean out the angel’s share within hours of the delivery arriving here, but this time I asked Danya to hold the prayers so I could look through them and pick one that you could be assigned to. I thought it would be a good jumping-off point; starting you in the shallow end of the pool rather than pushing you in the deep end, as it were.”

I take the folder and open it up to see a thin stack of forms that have been filled out. Fields with things like location, home address, time the prayer was logged, name of the person that sent the prayer, age, gender, occupation, height, on and on and on. The forms seem fairly comprehensive, all the way down to listing family members and their occupations. On the next pages are larger fields, filled out with the text of the prayer, summary of the request, context of the request… on and on and on.

It all seems very… bureaucratic. I’d never really thought about the concept of prayers, and how they were handled, but I hadn’t imagined it’d be like… this.

“So… what am I supposed to do with this?” I ask, leafing through the forms in the folder. “Does it tell me what I’m supposed to do at the end? On the second to last page, I see there’s a field here labeled ‘recommended punishment’, but the only thing that’s written in that box is the word ‘discretionary’.”

“Discretionary means that Kolob has given us permission to answer this prayer as we see fit.” Raikaron says, walking back around his desk and sitting down in his leather swivel chair. “Go back to the beginning, and instead of skimming through, read through the file in its entirety. You can sit down while you do so. I want you to get a full understanding of this prayer, and your thoughts on it, once you’re done.”

I look back up at him to see if he’s serious; with the way he’s steepled his fingers and is staring evenly at me, it’s clear he expects me to do exactly what he said. Pressing my lips together, I turn and look around; there’s a couple chairs by the fireplace. I head towards them and take a seat, aware of Danya’s eyes on me; opening up the folder again, I focus on the forms again, reading through them from the beginning. While I do so, Danya moves to Raikaron’s desk, and appears to start up a conversation with him in low tones.

It takes me several minutes to read through the prayer file. And when I’m done, I don’t say anything. I just sit there, staring at the wall as I process what I just read.

“This isn’t real.” I say eventually.

Raikaron and Danya’s quiet conversation grinds to a halt. After a moment, Raikaron reaches up and takes off his rimless glasses. “Because people cannot possibly be that depraved, right? Because such cruelty is beyond the grasp of mortals. Because this is the sort of thing that you read about on the crime beat, or hear about the news. Things that you know happen, but don’t feel real because they always happen somewhere far away from you, in a neighborhood that isn’t yours.”

“What file did you give her?” Danya asks, looking at Raikaron.

“The Kanshet file.” Raikaron says, lacing his fingers together on his desk.

Danya gives him an exasperated look. “Now why would you do that? Out of every file in that pile, and you gave her that case? I thought you wanted to ease her into the shallow end.”

“This really happened?” I ask, looking down at the folder in my lap.

“Syntaritovs do many things, my dear.” Raikaron says softly. “But we never lie.”

I sit in silence for a moment longer, listening to the crackling of the fireplace. Then I stand up, taking the folder in hand. “How do I get there?”

Raikaron smiles.

“You’re holding your ticket.”

Jayta’s Journal

In the grand design, free will is the axis around which the universe turns. Pursuant to that is consequence — a principle, a concept, a mirror to free will that creates some approximation of symmetry. The idea that actions and choices have a corresponding weight and value, and that sooner or later, there will eventually be an accounting for the sum total of those actions and choices.

And hell is a critical component of that grand design.

People think most often think of hell as a place of punishment, a place of suffering, and little more than that. It is the place where bad people go, so bad things can be done to them. Most people never think about hell beyond that, or consider it anything more than a bad place for bad people to go. They are not wrong in thinking this, because that is what hell is: a bad place for bad people to have bad things done to them.

But that purpose is part of a grander design. This bad place for bad people embodies the concept of negative consequence, the idea that free will creates an imbalance, and hell is one of the two bodies that corrects that imbalance. Hell exists not for the sake of existing, or on the arbitrary whim of some higher power, but because it must exist. Without it, there is no balance in the universe; no accountability for the freedom given by free will. In a universe of free will, consequence balances the scales. Consequence is justice.

And without hell, there is no justice.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The House of Regret: Lesser Common Room

5:59pm SGT

“So, discretion means…”

“You have latitude in how you decide to answer this prayer, yes.”

I take a deep breath. I’m standing in front of a door in the lesser common room with Raikaron and Danya; it’s one of the many rooms in the House of Regret, but this one is larger, with its own hearth and grand chandeliers. There are sets of couches and furniture around the room; clearly it could be used to entertain guests or host events, but at the moment it’s just the three of us in here, which makes it seem all the larger and emptier.

“Alright.” I say, shifting on my feet. Danya encouraged me to go get changed into the one of the outfits she provided for visits to the mortal plane, instead of wearing the uniform I always wear in the House of Regret. Now I’m standing in laced, knee-high boots, jeans, a v-neck shirt, and a leather duster similar to the one I saw Harro wearing, except mine is new and lacks the scorch marks and wear-and-tear. I’ve put a clip in my hair to keep my bangs out of my eyes, but otherwise I’ve left it alone. “So, do I just… step through the door?” I say, motioning to the door I’m standing in front of.

“Not quite.” Raikaron says, reaching up to adjust his glasses with one hand. “Danya, would you demonstrate?”

Danya holds up the prayer file that I’d been assigned. “Kolob is generous enough to pay the travel costs for the prayers they send to us for resolution. Each prayer file in the angel’s share comes imbued with enough energy to open a portal to the location of the supplicant, and enough energy to open a portal back. The prayer file itself is your ticket to get there and back again.”

With that, she pushes the folder halfway into the slot beside the door until it clicks; lines of crimson light run through the grooves in the wall that lead to the frame of the door. There’s a brief surge of red light that leaks through the gap between the door and the doorframe; pulling out the folder again, Danya holds it out to me. “That is your ticket back. Never lose a prayer file, or give it away to someone else, or you will be stranded on the mortal plane. In your jacket, there should be a pocket on the inside that is perfectly fitted to hold prayer files, and zips shut to keep them from tumbling out, if you encounter action or danger.”

“Understood.” I say, taking the folder and checking inside my jacket. Finding the pocket, I slot the file into it, and zip it shut, then look back to the door again, reaching for the doorknob.

“Before you go.” Raikaron says abruptly, startling me. “As a matter of practicality, most demons that are sent to the mortal plane on errands from their Lords are armed, in case they should need to resolve matters with force rather than finesse.” He takes one hand from behind his back, holding it out; hanging on his forefinger is a silver bracelet, with what looks like a small sportsball bat charm dangling from it.

I raise an eyebrow. “…your idea of arming me is giving me jewelry?”

“Put it on and I’ll show you how it works.” he says, holding it a little closer to me.

I have a feeling that there’s some sort of magical nonsense that’s about to go down, but I take it anyway and slip it onto my left arm. It shrinks a little to accommodate the size of my wrist, which I have to admit, is pretty nifty.

“Now go ahead and pull the charm off.” Raikaron encourages.

My first instinct is to point out that it would probably ruin the bracelet, but I figure Raikaron’s giving the order for a reason. Reaching down, I grab the charm and give it a good yank; it comes off the bracelet easily, and then starts growing in my hand. Over the course of little more than two seconds, it expands and solidifies into…

A sportsball bat, wrapped in barbed wire that’s held in place by tacking nails.

I shout in horror, throwing the bat away from myself and clutching my hand to my chest as it thuds on the floor. The weight, the feel of the wrapped handle, brings memories of that night flooding back. As it goes still on the floor, it vanishes; I freeze, staring at the spot where it was, then snap my gaze towards Raikaron. “What is this, some sort of sick joke?!”

“Anything but. It’s a tradition.” he answers calmly. “If a person commits a violent act that leads them to sign their contract and become a demon, then sometimes the implement of violence is preserved, and becomes that demon’s signature weapon. Enchanted, and bound to them as a reminder of their original sin. Take another look at the bracelet.”

I look at the bracelet again; I almost miss it on the first glance, but then I notice that the little sportsball bat charm has reappeared back on the bracelet, as if I’d never yanked it off.

“That bracelet will keep your bat to a manageable, concealed, travel-friendly size so you can take it with you wherever you may go, in both mundane and high-society settings.” he explains, folding his hand behind his back once more. “To use it, you merely need to yank the charm off the bracelet, and it will morph into that rather indelible weapon you created. If at any point it leaves your grasp, or you drop it, then it will disappear, and reappear on your bracelet as a charm once more.”

My fingers twitch as I stare at the bracelet, with its attached charm. It looks so innocent and unassuming, but knowing that I’m carrying that damned bat around my wrist just makes me sick. Everything in me wants to reach up and yank it off, throw it away from myself, and I start to do that — then freeze when I realize Raikaron and Danya are watching me. After a moment, and taking a few deep breaths, I let go of the bracelet and leave it on my wrist.

“That’s a good girl.” Raikaron says. I give him a hateful look that could burn through steel, but don’t say anything, turning towards the door before me.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask, reaching out to the doorknob. “Since there wasn’t a specific punishment requested in the file.”

“A good question.” Raikaron says. “What do you think should be done?”

I pause with my hand on the doorknob, looking back at him. Those toxic green eyes are steady, watching me with a certain sort of patient curiosity; he’s not being sarcastic or coy. If I’m reading him right, he really does want to know what how I’d answer this prayer.

“Is this a test?” I ask, deciding to come right out with it. There’s no point in being shy about it.

“All things are tests, in their own way.” Danya answers. “Your Lord asked you a question. Do not be disrepectful; answer him.”

I scowl at Danya, then look back to Raikaron. “I don’t know. I would need to think about it for a bit.”

“Take some time and think about it on the other side, then.” he says mildly. “Because the choice will be yours. I will not tell you how you should answer this prayer. I am giving you permission to answer it in the manner of your choosing.”

So it is a test, then. My fingers tighten around the doorknob as I realize that I can’t just fob this off on Raikaron and say I was following my Lord’s orders. He doesn’t want me to be a tool or a minion.

He wants me to be his accomplice.

“How long do I have?” I demand, even though I feel sick to my stomach. Suddenly there’s a lot more pressure on me now, and I feel nervous. I have to get this right, and I can only imagine what will happen if I underperform or overdeliver.

“As long as you need.” Raikaron answers. “Kolob usually prefers it if we get the angel’s share back to them within the week. Any later than that, and the situation usually changes enough that the original prayer request is no longer relevant.” He turns his head, looking at the antique grandfather clock not far from the door. “However, it should be evening on the world you’re heading to, and night is always a good time to do the dirty work of angels. Less chance of witnesses, and all that.”

I take a couple deep breaths. “Alright.” I say, twisting the doorknob. “I’ll be back soon.”

With that, I pull the door open. It swings open to a vista of grass, a ditch, and a field of cornstalks beyond, stretching away for miles. The sky beyond is cloudless, and shaded in hues of blue and purple, fading to black as the sun sets.

Taking another deep breath, I step through and close the door behind me.

Jayta’s Journal

Most people don’t realize it, but the concept of hell is one intended to console us.

We live in a harsh universe. We cannot begin to list the ways in which it is harsh; cruelty abounds in both subtle and obvious ways. The galaxy is rife with injustice, whether it is societal, economic, or racial. People and organizations like the Challengers and CURSE have always striven against these things, but they can’t stamp out every bad thing in the galaxy. Nations, governments, and races have tried since time immemorial to solve the mortal condition, but no matter how close they come, there are always the dark corners that are overlooked, and left unsolved. This is the price of a universe of free will: it can never be perfect, and it can never be truly, fully fixed.

And that’s where the afterlife comes in.

Because the universe is inherently unjust and unfair, the idea of an afterlife soothes something in us. It allows us to believe the end is not really the end — for the end terrifies a great many of us — and it offers us an idea: that no matter how unjust and unfair life may be, the inequalities will be balanced in the long run. Good people will be rewarded, and bad people will be punished.

That idea — and by extension, the very concept of hell — is meant to comfort and console us. Hell’s stated purpose is to punish, and through punishment it offers justice, and in justice, there is equity and fairness — those two things which life does not guarantee to us. The afterlife, hell and heaven both, are meant to console us, and give us what life itself cannot give us:

Justice.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

Shanaurse: District 81

6:53pm SGT

I’d sat here for the past hour or so, waiting and thinking.

The door that the prayer file had opened had manifested on the back of a toolshed, in the far corner of a square lawn. On that same lawn was a trailer home — simple, rectangular, metal plating, with six windows all around, a front door and a back door. The sort of thing that could be stacked by the hundreds in a space freighter, and dropped anywhere there was a patch of flat ground and a need for a cheap, inexpensive living space. Originally used as a cheap way to house settlers on the frontiers of explored space, the inexpensive and quick-to-build homes became a staple and symbol of the lower-class — the best housing that the poor could afford. A common sight in rural areas, migrant centers, and among farming families.

It was still light out when I’d stepped through, and I could hear the neighbors on the lots on either side of this one, so I’d stayed put. The door had disappeared from the back of the shed the moment I’d closed it, but it had left behind the seal of the House of Regret emblazoned on the metal, and a narrow slot like the one that Danya had inserted the prayer file into on the other side. It was pretty self-explanatory, so I hadn’t given it much more thought beyond that. I’d checked around the edge of the shed, gotten a good look at the trailer home, then I’d taken a seat behind the shed, beneath the seal burned onto its back wall.

What do you think should be done?

I’d taken out the file and leafed through it again. Read through the forms, spent time studying fields that had the context of the prayer. Went through the listing of the nuclear family again, and got a sense of the relatives and the history of the family. And after all that was done, I’d gone back and took a look at the first page, studying identifying information for the one that had sent up the prayer.

Gender: female. Age: eight years and nine months.

Out of all the folders in that pile, Raikaron had given me a child’s prayer.

For a long while, I’d sat there, watching the sky slowly turning dark, the stars winking to life. Cloudless and vast, with the corn stalks dancing in the evening wind. I’d thought about what I’d read in the file, what I knew about the prayer, what was being asked. I thought about the fact that heaven had sent this prayer to hell so a demon could answer it, instead of an angel. I thought about how messed up it all seemed. And Raikaron’s question kept coming back to me, a simple, honest question:

What do you think should be done?

The truth was that I already knew the answer to that. I’d known from the moment I’d gotten halfway through reading the file; I’d rendered judgement well before I’d even finished. I’d known what I’d do in this situation; I knew how I would answer this prayer if I was in charge. But I didn’t think it’d be a choice that would be mine to make, so it was just something I thought, rather than vocalized, believing that my opinion was irrelevant to whatever it was Raikaron had planned.

That was until Raikaron gave me permission to answer this prayer how I liked. And suddenly I wasn’t so sure about my judgement.

Because it’s easy to stand in judgement. It’s easy to think ‘this is what a person deserves, and this is how they should be punished’. It’s easy to say something like that, to pass judgement like that, when you’re not the one doling out the punishment. Armchair prosecutors never think too hard about the realities of the judgements they’re passing.

But when you’re the one doling out the punishment with your own two hands, it’s very, very different. It’s not something that happens in a room faraway, somewhere you can’t see it and don’t have to think about. When you’re the one that has to dole out the punishment, it happens right in front of you. It’s raw, it’s real, and you’re involved in it.

Opening my eyes, I see that the last of the purple sunset is fading from the sky. Overhead, it’s mostly indigo darkness, sprinkled with stars; here in a rural area, there’s almost no light pollution, so you can see the vast spread of Myrrdicato’s stars spilled across the sky in a thick band. Our galaxy, and I’m just a little speck on the edge of it.

A little speck, answering the prayers of other specks.

I look down to where the prayer file’s papers are spilled in my lap. Gathering them together, I start to straighten them up and tuck them back into the folder, then slot that back into its dedicated pocket within my duster. Zipping it shut, I stand up, staring over the endless rows of cornstalks, their leaves rippling under the touch of the night wind.

It’s time.

Jayta’s Journal

When I was young, I loved the stories of the Challengers.

That was back before the program got shut down. Some of my earliest memories were of seeing the Challengers on the news, of seeing the Challenger cartoons on the weekends. Tugging my mom’s dress and asking her if I could get one of the Challenger toys every time we visited the store. Wanting to get the Challengers’ kids meal whenever we visited a fast-food restaurant.

I’m sure that was the case for a lot of people in my age group. The Challengers were cool when we were kids; they were everything. They were your heroes, your role models, your idols. They were supposed to represent the best of us; the people you wanted to be like when you grew up. Everyone wanted to be a Challenger. To grow up, become a hero, save the world and bring justice to a galaxy that needed it. And even after the Challenger program collapsed and disbanded, there were a lot of us that still wanted to be Challengers. As young as we were at the time, we didn’t really understand the things that brought it down; the corruption, the secrets, the politics. To us, Challengers that kept on fighting, even after the Challenger Activities Ban, were still heroes. Still trying to protect the galaxy.

As we grew up and became adults, most of us started to understand what happened after the Songbird Incident. Started to understand why the program got shuttered. That should have disenchanted a lot of us, and it did for some of us — but some of us still clung to fond memories of the Challengers before they fell apart. I think it was because there was nothing that really replaced them after they disappeared — CURSE tried, with the Peacekeepers, but it just wasn’t the same. The Peacekeepers were straightlaced, only ever acted when their command structure told them to, and you just never saw as much of them as you did of the Challengers. Some of them did media appearances, talked with the public, but they always had handlers keeping tabs on them.

It was probably for the best, since it meant they were less freewheeling than the Challengers, but it meant that they always felt distant and aloof to me. And if you asked me now whether I’d rather be a Challenger or a Peacekeeper, I’d still tell you I’d rather be a Challenger. They always felt closer to the public, a friendly neighborhood face that stood up and fought for what was right. They felt like someone just down the street from you, instead of someone handpicked from the elite ranks in some faceless, obscure military.

That was the sort of hero that I wanted to be. Someone that could fight for justice, and defend the helpless, but wouldn’t mind hanging out with their friends and having a good time afterwards. But I’d never had any outstanding powers or brilliance or tactical skill, and besides, the Challenger program was several years dead and gone by the time I came of age. It had only ever been a childhood dream, something I’d wished for, even though I knew it would never happen. Or so I thought.

Life, I suppose, has a sick sense of humor in giving me a chance to be the sort of hero I’d dreamed of being, but only after I’d murdered someone in hot blood and sold my soul to escape the consequences.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

Shanaurse: District 81

6:57pm SGT

The prayer was a simple one.

I want a family like other kids have.

I reflect on that as I come around the corner of the shed and start across the darkened lawn. It was ambiguous, broad, nebulous, easy to interpret but hard to answer. The first thing you think to yourself is how do you give someone an entirely new family?

And the next thing you ask yourself is why do they want a different family?

That second question was something that was answered quite comprehensively by the prayer file, and it’s something I’m thinking about even as I reach the stairs leading up to the back door of the trailer home. I hesitate at the first step, worried that they might creak as I ascend them; then I decide it doesn’t matter. Heading on up, I rest my hand on the doorknob and try it; it’s locked, so I will it to unlock. Around my wrist and beneath the cuff of my jacket, the manacle mark glows orange, and the door’s lock quietly clicks open.

Pulling open the door, I step inside, and carefully close it behind me. 

I look around the kitchen that I’ve found myself in, taking in the wan light of the bulbs overhead, the mess of dishes in the sink, the leftovers on the counter. Crumbs on the table and on a floor that hasn’t been swept; the scent of food that’s dangerously close to the decomposition stage. I think back to the environment box in the prayer file.

Single-parent home. Income beneath the poverty level. Would probably have enough to subsist if finances were budgeted properly.

I take another couple of steps into the kitchen, looking around. I run a finger along the counter, noting the layer of grime, then pausing when my finger encounters a pill bottle hidden beneath cheap wrappers that never made it to the trashcan. Gently nudging the wrappers out of the way, I read the label, scanning over the side effects and its intended use, thinking back to the family section of the file.

Mother has variable psychological disorders stemming from childhood abuse and molestation. Issues were never treated; refuses to go to therapy and cannot afford it even if she wanted to (Shanaurse lacks socialized healthcare; mental health issues for the lower class typically go untreated due to expense). Goes through bouts of functionality and non-functionality. Uses leftover medication from a prescription given by her last psychiatrist. Dosage is infrequent and lacks efficacy due to uneven application. At time of writing, mother has been increasingly unstable; only intermittently takes medication.

I let the wrappers fall back over the pill bottle, then pick one up and look it over. Breakfast bars, cheap and quick and affordable. I was familiar with them, since I’d had them pretty frequently when I was in college and living on a budget — they tasted like flavored cardboard, but they were something you could eat on the go and didn’t require a ton of effort. Noticing a trashcan to the side of the kitchen counter, I move over to it and open the lid; as expected, it’s littered with similar wrappers.

The smell hits me in the next second, and I have to brace myself on the counter. Turning my head away, I take a breath of fresh air and hold it, then cover my nose and mouth with one arm. With the other arm, I reach into the trashcan and lift what looks like a tied-off plastic bag; it’s heavy, and oddly bumpy. I only pull it up out of the trashcan enough for the kitchen light to silhouette the dark outline of the little bodies within.

Recent incidents of note: family cat had kittens. Child was helping take care of the kittens. Four days prior to the prayer, one of the kittens got loose from their pen and urinated on the kitchen floor; the mother, who was making dinner, stepped in the puddle. Mother lost her temper, blamed the child for the mess, physically and verbally abused her, then as ‘punishment’, gathered up the kittens and boiled them alive in the pot of water she was intending to use for making dinner. Child was forced to sit at the table and listen until kittens had died. Child has been keeping mother cat in her room out of fear that her mother will also kill the cat.

I lower the bag back into the trashcan and close the lid. Turning around, I move back to the door, open it, and gasp a deep breath of a clean rural air to get the scent of rotting death out of my lungs. After a few more deep breaths, I decide to leave the door open to air out some of the stale, decomposing scents in the trailer home. Then turning back around, I slowly move through the kitchen, pausing at the dark hall leading to the bedrooms.

After a moment, I start forward into the darkness.

Home does not appear to be a safe environment for child. Prefers to be at school; teacher provides surrogate parental figure who reports instances of suspected child abuse whenever the child comes to school with bruises or other visible damage. Local CPS unit lacks the resources to respond effectively to the abundance of reports within the district. High-visibility cases tend to be prioritized over low-visibility cases.

At the end of the hall is what I presume to be the master bedroom, door left ajar, and a little light leaking from within, along with the sound of rushing water. The other doors in the hall are similarly left open, save for one; based off what I’d read in the file, the closed door is the one that belongs to the child, since she was keeping the mother cat in her room to protect her. Resting a hand on the doorknob, I turn it and push it open, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness within.

The smell of cat urine and defecation hits me hard; I have screw up my face and push past the smell to focus on what’s within. I can make out the outline of a bed, a dresser; the glimmer of round eyes on the bed that denote the feline. Movement on that same bed slowly resolves into the outline of the girl, who is alarmingly thin from what I can see of her arms. The file had said that they didn’t have quite enough to eat, but the words on the paper don’t really hit home until you see the reality that wrote them.

At my arrival, the girl scoots back on her bed, pulling her covers up closer to her when she realizes I’m not someone she recognizes. Then she drops them and pulls the cat to her without a word; I watch, unsure of what to do. If I say anything, the mother might hear me, since she appears to be in the bedroom at the end of the hall. I want to reassure the girl, let her know I’m here to help her, but I don’t know how.

In the end, all I do is lift a hand to place a finger to my lips in the universal gesture to stay quiet and hush. Retreating from the room, I pull the door until it’s almost closed once more.

But I leave it open, just a tiny crack.

Given the circumstances and context of the situation, we do not believe the mother holds full responsibility for the child’s suffering due to her own background. Lacking the proper upbringing and social support, in addition to the childhood traumas suffered by the mother that were never resolved in a meaningful manner, we find it likely that the mother was not socially or psychologically equipped to deal with a range of challenges, much less the raising of a child. It is the opinion of the prayer auditor that lenience in judgement is warranted for this case, given the factors at play. However, we cannot fully absolve the individual, as the conduct involved goes beyond what could be reasonably excused by the mother’s past history, and even at this moment poses a threat to the child that sent up the prayer.

Pushing open the door to the master bedroom, I let the carpeting cushion my boots as I step in. Though the room is dark, a slice of yellow light spills from the bathroom, and the sound of water tumbling into a bathtub is louder from here. Moving over to the doorway, I see that the water is running in a bathtub that’s close to getting full; a pair of legs are visible within the water, in such a way that indicates that the mother is reclining within. The view of the rest of the bathtub is blocked by the toilet; I linger there on the edge of the doorway, listening to the gurgling of the water as I reflect on the last pages of the prayer file.

We will make no recommendations of punishment for the mother, as the focus of this case file is the well-being of the child. We do, however, recognize that the child’s current home situation is one in which the child’s well-being and safety is threatened by the conduct and increasingly mercurial behavior of the mother. The child has requested her family be like other, more well-adjusted families. We have determined that this request cannot be granted so long as the child stays with her biological mother, due to the preponderance of issues that the mother has. The child must be removed from her present situation in order to have a chance to grow up as a well-adjusted individual.

However, the legal framework of custody on Shanaurse means that, barring glaring evidence of abuse or extraordinary circumstance, any forcible removal of the child will eventually result in the child being returned to her biological mother. This case will not have an easy or elegant resolution; to that end, we have no specific recommendations for resolution at this time. The case will be escalated, and our only recommendation is that the child be removed from her present situation as expediently as possible, through whatever means are deemed appropriate by those that are given jurisdiction over this prayer.

Standing there on the edge of the bathroom, I lean against the doorframe as the woman reaches forward and turns the water off. She’s young, mid-thirties, perhaps. I had been expecting something else; a doughy hag or a woman with scraggly hair in the midst of a midlife crisis. But no, she’s young. She doesn’t look like the type of person that would hit or abuse someone else, or boil kittens to death in a stovetop pot. She looked like she could be a normal, happy person.

That was the thing about psychological issues, though. They were a disease that could latch on to anyone, regardless of whether you were young or old, rich or poor, ugly or pretty. They didn’t care what you looked like; there were plenty of people that looked fine on the surface, but were harboring struggles beneath. Just because someone had the image of a well-adjusted individual didn’t necessarily mean that they were one.

What do you think should be done?

Raikaron’s question came back to me. Always that same question that felt like a test. He had to have read the file, since he was the one that had picked it out for me. It seemed like it would be an easy task: helping a helpless child, and being given freedom to answer the prayer in whatever manner I thought appropriate. On the surface, it seemed like everything a rookie demon could ask for.

But now I was realizing it was anything but. The mother wasn’t going to magically change into a better person. I didn’t have anything that could do that. And even if I tried scaring her straight, fear only lasted so long without repeated reinforcement. Besides, fear wouldn’t fix the years of trauma the mother endured; it would just add onto the problems that she already had — problems that, even now, she was passing onto her daughter.

The cycle needed to be broken, and the only way to do that was to separate the mother from the daughter.

But even that was hard. The laws of this world, and many other worlds besides, meant that getting a child removed from a home, from a parent, was a difficult undertaking. It was a high bar that needed to be cleared in terms of evidence and witnesses, and if the evidence fell short, the child would end up back with the abuser again. I wasn’t just up against an abuser; I was facing down an overburdened societal infrastructure with systemic issues. No amount of corrective violence on this night was going to fix that infrastructure or the mother, and it wouldn’t protect the child.

I can’t fix an entire society in an entire night. The only option I have here is to find a way to give the child the best possible outcome that she can get within the existing infrastructure.

And I couldn’t do that if the mother was still in the picture.

The child could go into the foster system if the mother was deemed unstable or a threat, but that was something that I didn’t have time to engineer. This needed to be dealt with tonight; the mother needed to be removed from the equation as quickly as possible. The quickest, easiest, and most permanent way to do that would be to kill her — it would prevent her from ever being able to step back into the child’s life. It would close this chapter of the child’s life, allow her to move on—

My fingers curl around the edge of the doorframe, gripping it as I realize how familiar those words sound.

It’s time to move on. Take what you can salvage from this moment in your life, then turn your back on it and move onto the next moment.

I was going to do to this child exactly what Raikaron did to me.

But it was different, right? The circumstances were different. Raikaron corrupted me, manipulated me into killing an innocent girl. I had been wronged, but no one was abusing me. Here, the child wouldn’t be doing the killing; I would be doing that for her. And besides, this woman deserved it, right? For abusing her own child. That was worthy of death, right?

Even as I asked myself the question, I knew the answer. Abusing your child didn’t make you worthy of death. Punishment, undoubtedly, but not death.

But then I thought back to the plastic bag in the trashcan, the section in the prayer file that said she’d made her kid sit at the table and listen to those innocent little things as they drowned to death in boiling water.

And once I remember that, my mind is made up.

I step into the bathroom, making no effort to hide the sound of my boots over the tile. I hear her shift in the water; by the time she’s looking around, I’m sitting down on the toilet cover, since it’s right next to the bathtub. The shock and alarm in her eyes is evident; I can see the questions already forming on her lips. The who are you, the why are you in my house, all the stock questions, tried and true.

And I decide that I don’t feel like listening to them today.

I raise a hand, putting a finger to my lips and letting out a soft shushing sound. Then I swing that same hand around to seize her throat, standing up so I have the leverage to lean my weight on her and push her down into the tub.

“I’m sorry.” I murmur. “But if you really love your kid, you’ll understand why this needs to happen.”

The thrashing’s started before the water’s closed over her head, and I know right away that this is going to be a struggle. I add my second hand to the first, pinning her to the bottom of the tub by the throat; she’s trying to grab the sides of the tub and haul herself out, and adding to that, she’s trying to kick against the end of the tub to get some leverage to push up. She’s a taller woman than me, so if it was just my weight alone, I wouldn’t be able to hold her down, even taking into account how slippery the tub is. I can feel her straining upwards, water soaking into the sleeves of my jacket as she slowly leverages herself towards the surface.

Something rears up inside me, a molten maleficence that I haven’t felt since I first signed the contract with Raikaron. It’s the demon in me, filled with the strength of Sjelefengsel, and my manacles flare to life around my wrists as I grit my teeth in a snarl. The audacity of this woman, trying to defy demonic judgement after what she’s done to her child and what she did to those kittens.

Let’s see how she likes being boiled alive.

The moment I think it, I can see the first chain on my manacle glow, my hands and arms starting to radiate heat. The reaction is instant; she starts to kick out with renewed panic, and instead of trying to pull herself out of the tub, she’s trying to yank my hands away from her throat, though they’re quickly becoming too hot for her to even try. As steam starts rising off the tumultuous bathwater, she keeps thrashing, trying to kick and shove her way out of the tub. Water splashes everywhere, splattering against the walls, the tile, the shower curtain, across my face and shoulders. But I don’t let go, and even though it’s steaming, it doesn’t burn me.

“I know you got dealt a rough hand.” I grunt quietly as the water starts to bubble, and I can feel her neck muscles straining and convulsing as she tries to breathe and gets only boiling water. “I know things happened to you that you didn’t deserve. I know you didn’t choose for these things to happen to you. But you chose to continue the cycle. And I can’t let you do that.”

Her struggles are starting to get weaker; I can barely see her underneath the disturbed water that’s now at a rolling boil. She probably can’t hear me either, but I felt like I needed to say it anyway. To say that it had been said; in case there was a chance that she’d hear, and she’d understand why this had to be done. As her thrashing starts to slow down, and she paws at the water rather than slapping at it, I almost relax my grip, but then I remember that people can come back from being drowned. Tightening my hands around her neck again, I make sure she stays pinned against the bottom of the tub while her struggles slowly fade, and hot steam continues to fill the bathroom.

Thirty seconds pass.

Then a minute.

Then two minutes.

Then five minutes.

It’s only when my manacles start to fade that I let go. The water is still at a rolling boil, though it starts to slow down once I let go of her throat and pull my hands out of the water. There’s so much steam in the bathroom it looks like a sauna. As water drips off my sleeves, splattering to the ground, I stand up and turn around, then pause when my gaze strays across the door to the bathroom.

Standing there near the doorway, half-hidden in shadow, is the child.

I don’t say anything. Neither does she. Steam drifts through the bathroom, seeping out into the master bedroom; even if we’re standing in a trailer home, it feels like I’m in a foggy forest, watching a wild animal caught off guard. I can read fear in those eyes; a little bit of grief too, but not a lot. And that in itself speaks volumes.

“Where’s her phone?” I ask.

The child stares for a moment more, then turns and points into the master bedroom with the hand she’s not using to hold her plush cat. I walk to the doorway to see that she’s pointing to the bedside table. Walking past the child and into the darkened room, I pick up the phone off the bedside, turn it on, then turn to the child. “Can you unlock it?”

She nods, so I hold it out to her. Once she enters the manual unlock code, I go straight to the maps and pin down the phone’s current location, getting the address of the house. After memorizing it, I jump out of the maps and to the dialpad. “Emergency services on this world is the same number as other worlds, right? Triple zero?”

She nods again. I hit the zero three times, then hold the phone to my ear as it starts ringing.

“Triple zero, what’s your emergency?”

“Hello.” Without even thinking about it, I start walking, a perennial habit whenever I’m on the phone. Something I do on reflex, without even knowing why. “I need emergency services at 31 Camley Lane in District 81. I just killed a mother that has been abusing her child. Send what you need to send; I will remain here until the police arrive to make sure the child is safe and does not run off, but after that I will be leaving. You will find the mother in the bathroom of the master bedroom; she has been drowned in a bathtub full of boiling water. You will also find a bag of rotting kitten corpses in the kitchen trashcan; the mother boiled them to death earlier this week in order to punish her child. Is there anything further you need from me?”

“I… see. Please stay on the line—”

“I can’t do that.” I say as I pace out into the living room, looking around at the generally ill-kempt living space. “One last thing before I go. The child is not to be placed with any relatives on the mother’s side. The mother was molested and abused by family members and stepfamily when she was younger. If I find that the child has been placed with family on the mother’s side, I will return and kill them as well, until the child has been placed with a non-relative family in the foster system. Will you relay this to the police?”

“Yes, of course, but can I at least get your name—”

“My name is not important. Dispatch the police. I will remain with the child until they arrive.” With that, I hang the call before the dispatcher has a chance to respond. At the sound of rustling behind me, I turn to see the child standing in the half dark of the hall, staring at me.

For a long moment there’s silence, and we merely stare at each other.

Eventually, I set the phone down, and move back towards the kitchen, and the back door leading to the porch.

“C’mon. Let’s go watch the stars until the police get here.”

Jayta’s Journal

Growing up, I didn’t realize how good I had it.

Not that our family was ever really rich. But our mother loved us, and was determined to raise good people. She taught us the value of honest work, the importance of ambition, and somehow also managed to love and protect us. You don’t think about that when you’re a child, because it only ever seems to be a struggle between you and your parents. But once you grow up, leave the house, are on your own for a while, you can look back on your childhood with the benefit of temporal distance, and it puts things into perspective.

Especially when you meet other families, other people, and realize that what you had in your family wasn’t the standard by any means.

I’d never much thought about it until I got to college, made friends, and listened to them talk about their families. It didn’t come all at once, but the more I heard, the more I realized that my family — a loving family, dedicated to seeing me happy but also making sure I was the best person I could be — wasn’t normal. I had countless friends that were dismissive of their parents or their siblings, were in constant fights with them, had rows with their cousins, or told stories about how their grandparents disliked them or were stingy. I had friends that disowned their families, or had been disowned; that refused to speak to one side of the family; that struggled with their family being disappointed in them. I had friends that hated their missing parent, or simply didn’t consider them family.

There were many thing that surprised me when I went off on my own; a lot of things to be learned as I became an adult. But one of those unexpected things was how many unhappy families there were. It’s not that my family was perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and it wasn’t that I expected all families to be perfect. But the number of people I met that actually, truly hated members of their family, and didn’t want them to be part of their life, had shocked me. From what I’d seen on TV shows, and what I’d grown up with in the coven, I had this idea that broken families existed, but that they were the exception to the rule.

When I finally went out into the galaxy on my own, it came as a shock to realize the truth: there were broken families everywhere. You didn’t have to look hard to find one. You didn’t even have to look, because you could see them in passing. They would come up in conversation easily enough; in a group of three people, there was a good chance that at least one of them wasn’t on good terms with their family, or a member of their family. What me and my brother had grown up with — a mother that led by example and pushed us to be more, but also supported and taught us so we could become better people — was a rarity. More common by far were the broken families, where the bonds of love were weak, or fragmented, or in the worst cases… simply didn’t exist at all.

And though it was sad to see those kinds of families, it also gave me a greater appreciation for the family I did have.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

Shanaurse: District 81

7:19pm SGT

The wood of the porch stairs creaks as I sit down on them, resting my forearms on my knees. The soaked sleeves of my jacket start to dampen the knees of my pants; for a moment, I consider taking off my duster, but I don’t feel like wrestling my way out of it and carrying it around. At a thought, my manacle marks start to glow again, heat radiating from my arms, and soon enough, steam starts to rise off the arms of my duster.

After a couple minutes, the wood creaks again as the child sits down on the porch stairs beside me, hugging her plush.

It’s quiet out here, with only the rustling of the cornstalks and the occasional growl of a faraway vehicle to break the night silence. The openness of the rural area and the farmland are calming to me; outside the stale, claustrophobic confines of the trailer home, I feel much more relaxed. The tension I’d been holding in is bleeding away now that I can smell fresh air, and see a wide-open sky dotted with stars above.

“I don’t imagine it’ll be very long before the police get here.” I say after a long moment staring over the corn fields. “We won’t have very long to talk, so I’ll say what I can right now. First, I’m sorry for what I did to your mother, but I did it to protect you. We know how she treated you, and you deserve better. You deserve a family that will love and protect you.”

She doesn’t say anything, simply hugging her plush tighter.

“Second is that you will be placed into the foster system. They should be placing you with another family.” I go on, lacing my fingers together. “It will probably be scary. You will be moving to a new place, with new people, and leaving behind much of what you know. But these people will be trying to take care of you, and hopefully, loving you more than your mother did. It will be difficult, but try to trust them. Do your best to be a good girl. Try to grow up to be a good person. Find something you believe in, and stick to it. Chase it and hang onto it. Try to make it so that what happened to you doesn’t have to happen to someone else.”

“Are you an angel?” she asks suddenly.

I look aside at her. “No.” I say after a moment, puffing a lock of hair out of my eyes. “I’m a demon.”

She keeps staring at me, but doesn’t say anything. So I look away and start to speak again, though the moment the words are on my lips, she preempts me.

“I thought demons were ugly.”

I hesitate. I could choose to be offended by that. I probably would, if it was a different situation, and I hadn’t just killed this kid’s mother. But now isn’t the time to get offended over sensible misunderstandings.

“Most demons are ugly on the inside.” I say, still staring across the cornfields. “On the outside, they look like normal people most times.”

Silence falls again. Ripples travel over the top of the cornfields, laying bare the shape of the wind, and in the lull between the breezes, I can hear the night insects humming and buzzing.

“Did I do something wrong…?”

I look aside to see she’s hugging her plush tightly. Tears are starting to leak down her face, and she’s staring at the dirt at the foot of the stairs.

“No.” I say quickly. “I’m not here to punish you. I’m actually here to answer your prayer, and make sure you get to a new family. One that will take care of you and love you.”

“But angels are supposed to answer prayers.”

I don’t have anything to say to that right away. Because she’s right. That is something that heaven’s supposed to take care of. Pulling in a deep breath, I let it out in a long sigh, and turn off the heat radiating from my arm so I can reach out and stroke her hair. It feels greasy, like she hasn’t taken a bath in days.

“Yes. Angels are supposed to answer prayers.” I say. “But sometimes, heaven is… a little busy. They need help every now and then. When they can’t answer all the prayers on their own, sometimes they call the demons, and ask us to help them. Whether it’s an angel or a demon, there are people out there to help you, which brings me to the third thing I wanted to tell you: if you find yourself in a situation where people are mistreating and hurting you again, say another prayer. Someone will hear it. They may not answer right away, but they will hear it. Do you understand?”

“Will you come back and help me?” she asks, looking at me as she rubs at the tears in her eyes.

I pause in stroking her hair. “…I can’t guarantee that it will be me.” I answer. “Next time, it should be an actual, proper angel that will answer your prayer. But if all the angels are busy, and heaven sends the prayer to hell, then a demon will probably answer it. I can’t guarantee that I will be the demon that answers it, though.”

“What if I ask for you, though?” she insists.

After a moment, I nod, lowering my hand so I can rub her back. “You can ask for me. I don’t know if it works that way, but you can ask for me. I am Jayta Jaskolka, a…” The words catch in my throat, as if they’re difficult to force out. I can feel the hate rising up within me as I think about them, about what they mean. “… a… servant… no, an avenger for the Lord of Regret.”

I can tell that doesn’t mean much to her. I don’t expect it to; she’s only eight or nine, she doesn’t know anything about hell or the positions or ranks of demons within it. Hell, until a few weeks ago, I didn’t know anything about the roles or ranks of demons in hell. I still don’t know much about that whole ranking system.

“So I just ask for Jayta, right?” she asks.

“Yes. That should be enough. Just ask for Jayta.” I say, before I feel something bump against my back. Turning slightly, I see that the cat has made its way out onto the porch with us, and has sat down between the two of us, leaning against me. Reaching up, I gently pet it, then notice how the girl’s looking at it. “Is this your cat?”

She nods.

I draw my lips tight; reaching down, I gently lift the feline into my lap, so I can pet her more easily. I could feel it purring beneath my fingers, and wondered to myself what it felt. If it knew what had happened to its kittens; if it was grieving. There was no science that suggested that lower-order creatures were capable of grieving, even though it was agreed that some species had the capacity for something approximating sadness. Even if the science wasn’t there, I liked to believe they felt the same things people could feel, even if they didn’t have words to express it, or know what it meant or why they felt that way.

“They won’t let you keep the cat.” I say softly. “I wish they would, but the foster system doesn’t work that way. You won’t be able to take her with you to your next family.” I look over to her to see that this news is absolutely crushing her, so I go on. “If you want, I can take her with me, and take care of her, so you know she will have a good home and she’ll be safe, instead of ending up in the pound.”

She scoots over to sit beside me, so she can pet her cat as she rubs away more tears and snot with her other hand. “Why can’t I?” she whimpers.

“They just won’t let you.” I don’t know how else to put it. “Adults have rules, and pets make it harder for them to place children with foster families. It’s just the way it is.” Watching as she pets her cat, I go on. “If she gets left here, the police will take her and put her in the pound. She might get adopted there, but if she’s there too long, the pound will kill her to make room for other animals. I know she’s important to you, so that’s why I’m offering to take her back with me. I’ll make sure she’s comfortable and safe, and has a good home.”

She nods, biting her lip and petting the cat a little faster, as if she was trying to get in all the pets she could before she had to say goodbye. I watch her for a bit more, then look away again, up at the star-freckled sky, soaking in the quiet night, the calm of the countryside. So different from the death and violence that had occurred in the metal box behind us.

And for a while, everything felt timeless, as if the lukewarm night would never end, and the cornstalks would just keep rippling beneath the dark blue sky.

But eventually, the distant sound of sirens breaks the silence. I bring my eyes back down from the sky to the child, who’s still petting the cat. “It’s time.” I say gently.

She pets the cat quickly, another few times, then leans forward and kisses its head, still crying without sound. Reaching down, I unzip the pocket holding the prayer file, and pulling it out to tuck it under one arm. Picking up the cat, I start to stand. “What’s her name?”

“Cinder.”

I nod to her. “I’ll take care of her. Would you like to walk with me?”

She wipes her nose again, but nods and stands up, holding the plush with the other arm. Reaching down with my free hand, I take hers, and we start down the stairs, stepping down into the grass and crossing the backyard as the sirens draw nearer. I stay focused on the cornstalks swaying back and forth in the wind as we get closer to the shed, and once we come around the corner, the seal of the House of Regret comes into view. It glows in a dim red on the back wall; letting go of the child’s hand, I take the prayer file out from underneath my other arm, and slide it into the slot beneath the seal. Red lines spread away from the seal, eventually forming the outline of a doorway on the back wall, while a doorknob forms on one side of the outline. Sliding the file back into the pocket within my duster, I return to using both arms to hold Cinder as I turn to look at the child.

“Tell me again what you will do if the people that are supposed to take care of you start to hurt you.” I say as the sirens draw ever closer. The red and blue lights are visible now, slowly winding their way through the long country roads leading to this neighborhood.

She sniffs, wiping her nose again as she holds her plush tight. “I’ll say a prayer.”

“Exactly.” I say, shifting the cat in my arms to keep a better hold on it. “And who will you ask for, if the angels can’t answer?”

“For you.”

“That’s right. And what’s my name?”

“Jah… Jayta.” She wipes her eyes. “The pretty demon.”

I don’t say anything at that. I don’t know what to say to it. It’s a little thing, and it shouldn’t mean much, but for some reason, it means a lot to me. Jayta, the pretty demon.

One little thing that I could feel good about.

The wailing of the sirens, and the tensing of Cinder in my arms as they get closer, brings me out of my reverie. Reaching out, I take hold of the doorknob and pull; the outline of the door swings open, sparks swirling as it does so. Visible through the doorway is the lesser common room in the House of Regret, much the same as I’d left it.

“Wait!” the child says as I move to step through. I pause and look at her. “I’m Coquelicot.”

I stare at her, then nod. “Take care of yourself, Coquelicot.”

“Can I say goodbye to Cinder?” she asks.

The sirens are almost at the house now, or so it seems from how loud they sound. But knowing what the cat means to the child, I kneel down, so she can hug and kiss the cat one more time, burying her dirty face its dark grey fur. “I love you, Cinder.” she says in a weak little voice, muffled by the fur. Eventually, she pulls back again, clutching her plush tight to her as she wipes at her eyes.

“I’ll take care of her.” I promise, standing up. “Goodbye, Coquelicot.”

With that, I step through the doorway and back into the House of Regret, closing the door behind me. For a moment, the sirens are audible through the gaps between the door and the doorframe, and then they fade away as the connection to the mortal plane evaporates. I look down at the cat in my arms, then back up at the common room; it’s empty, though a fire is crackling in the hearth. The curtains are drawn back from the windows on the far wall, showing that it’s night across Sjelefengsel, the sky dark and pinpricked with little points of red that are the holes in the barrier around Sjelefengsel. A single armchair is sat beside one of those windows, and sitting in it is Raikaron, his fingers steepled before him. After a moment, he turns his head, those toxic green eyes seeking me out.

“How was your trip, dear?” he asks softly.

I start to answer, but my voice catches in my throat. As a tear starts to trickle down my face, I force a weak, wavery smile as I answer his question.

“It was great, my Lord.”