Page 85 of Grave Humor

“This is all your fault,” Hammel snapped, striding over. At his side, he wore a gun.

Did everyone in the damned town except me have a gun? On second thought, they probably did. Nobody in Sunset liked being told what to do, and guns offered the illusion of authority.

Hammel was definitely the type to want to maintain his authority.

The gun was a problem, although I had good reason to believe the problem wouldn’t last long. The devil’s gaze locked onto it, and I recognized when Lucy transformed from family man to the beast capable of bringing ruin to the world if he escaped his chain.

A single twitch towards the gun would end Hammel’s life, and I saw no need to prevent the inevitable. No, however satisfying trying to scramble my ex-boss’s brains with a honey rock rind, I’d take the quick and merciful route.

I’d stand up for myself first, though.

“Nothing that has happened here is my fault. It isn’t my fault your wife died. It isn’t my fault you can’t bring back the dead. It isn’t my fault you’re a cheap bastard. It’s also not my fault you had no idea what you had in your basement. It’s definitely not my fault you can’t listen to reason. I suppose it is my fault for putting up with your abuse for so long, but I didn’t have a whole lot of options in this one-horse town.”

Thanks to Hammel, that had changed.

“Abuse?” My ex-boss snorted. “You should be grateful anyone would take an uneducated waste like you.”

Hammel opened his mouth to continue his verbal assault, but the devil went from seated to pouncing, his hands and feet transforming from human to claws and hooves. Lucy’s form rippled, and the horned beast of legend drove the wayward man to the grass. Bone crunched, blood spurted, and death came, not at a scream, but on the sigh of a final exhaled breath.

The devil vanished in a cloud of brimstone, taking Hammel’s body with him when he went. Something remained, a haze in the air as though something I couldn’t quite see lingered, waiting.

“That is the imprint of a passing soul,” Gabriel explained. “This is what you need to witness.”

I’d seen ghosts before, but the mirage before me lacked the same presence and substance of the incorporeal dead.

Eoghan sighed. “And, as expected, the coward screams.”

I heard nothing. “Does he?”

“I would scream, too, if my brother had his claws dug into me and dragged me to hell,” Michael confessed. “It is not a pleasant journey. The soul is gone already, but this is an echo of its passage. Azrael has turned his back on this soul, for this soul is not worthy of such comfort or companionship in death. Eoghan would rather not deal with him, but he will—once the soul settles a little.”

“And what about me, then?”

“Be patient.”

“They need to accept their death before they can move through the boundary in full,” Eoghan said, setting down the honey rock rind and giving the hazy apparition his undivided attention. “Like you, I don’t truly need to do anything for a soul to move through the boundary. I just get to listen to them scream most of the time. That happens when someone dies close enough for me to witness, and I become aware of the soul’s passage. Sometimes, the departed seek me out when they struggle to go beyond on their own.”

“And what about the ghosts?”

“What about them?”

“Why do they linger?”

“They had a good enough reason to stay, I suppose. They can leave if they want. Nothing holds them here but themselves. That is what I am. That is why I am here.”

Azrael chuckled. “For all he is a vengeful creature at times, your Eoghan has never denied anyone their rest. There are those who have been barred through other ways, but that is no fault of his.”

“Except me,” I muttered.

The archangel laughed at me. “Oh, he would have broken his rules for you, of that I have no doubt, but it is the universe itself that makes us as we are. We cannot die for we are death. You’ll get used to it.”

“I still don’t understand what I’m supposed to have witnessed here. It’s a shimmer.”

“Just wait a little longer,” Azrael soothed. “While the soul leaving the body is instantaneous upon true death, the souls linger somewhat before fully crossing the boundary. It takes some time for it to move on. When it does, you’ll understand.”

“I have determined archangels enjoy being as vague as possible.”

“We are often told we are assholes,” he replied in an amused tone. “Here. It begins. My brother is shackling his latest toy, and the rest of the soul is being pulled into whichever hell has been chosen for him. Perhaps the universe means to take the merciful route with your awakening. But this seed of life forms while the soul pays for its crimes in life.”