Angel Dust (7 page)

Joey gave me another seriously weird look. ‘
Best friend?
' he said. ‘Like college girls?'

‘Absolutely!' I chirped. He'd understood me exactly. Just like college girls. I beamed up at him. ‘Yes, like do you share secrets and things?'

‘Joey B. share secrets?' he squeaked.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘I'm not asking you to be indiscreet or anything, but did Marcus ever confide in you – as his best friend, sort of thing?'

Joey started laughing. I couldn't really see why. I‘d love to have a best friend. (Having close friendships was rather frowned upon at the Cloisters.) If I'd had a best friend I'd tell her everything: when I was sad, when I was worried, if I had a spot on my nose (I mean if I was human. Angels don't get spots, obviously).

‘Yes, secrets,' I continued. ‘Like do you know his favourite pizza topping, the book he's enjoying reading and um –' here I tried to keep my voice steady – ‘what kind of girls he likes?'

‘The
book
he's reading?' said Joey, looking at me as if I'd put my halo on upside down.

‘And if he has a girlfriend,' I said.

At that Joey's face creased up. ‘
A
girlfriend?' He quite snorted with laughter. ‘No, Marcus doesn't have a “girlfriend”, he has
girlfriends
. He has so many
girlfriends
, he could start up an All Girls School, just on his own.'

‘Oh!' I said, a sudden pang spearing me.

‘Girls go crazy for that guy. He has to positively fight them off,' Joey said. ‘Even then they come back, screaming for more.'

Beside us the road dipped briefly into the shadow of a huge cliff. The Highway narrowed a little to curve through a mountain pass.

‘Oh,' I said again, thinking: Well, if he's going to repent, the whole area of ‘girlfriends' might be a good place to start.

‘Zillions of girls,' continued Joey, completely oblivious to the way my face was falling. ‘They actually
pay
him to see them. Can you beat that?'

Once through the pass, the landscape opened up. Before us lay barren plains.

‘And he treats them like shit. And they still come back for more!'

My fire dimmed and my splendour faded right out.

But all I said was: ‘Oh.' As if the subject was boring and I'd had enough of it.

And then I nearly drove myself mad. Because I hadn't had anything like enough of it. I wanted to quiz Joey. I wanted to shake him, force him to take it all back. I wanted
details
. Huge details. Intricate details. Blow-by-blow details. Sordid details. Secret details. Any-details-at-all details – of every girl Marcus had ever dated.

And I wanted Joey to explain what it was that drove all those girls crazy, so that they paid to get near Marcus. What kept them coming back when he treated them so badly? What was his secret?

But I didn't need to. I knew. It was driving
me
crazy.

Had driven me crazy.

Would drive me crazy.

In fact I was already crazy.

So crazy I'd signed contracts, made promises, and here I was taking his best friend to Hell!

I knew just what Marcus Montague had.

And he clearly had huge amounts of it.

Together Joey and I hurried down from the mountain pass. As we drew near to the river, the air hung more heavily. Over the fields you could see it rising and shimmering, and from time to time you could catch a whiff of it too, a salty, sulphurous smell that made you twitch uncomfortably.

I started to feel ill.

When we reached the river we saw the queue. It was predictable, really: Saturday night, only port for a number of big cities – you can imagine the rest. We were going to have to wait for the ferry for ages.

Not that I minded. I was glad, even. Souls get impatient, the same way people do. So when the ferry came along, everybody was going to be in a rush to get across. That would make it much easier to get out of being cross-questioned. After all, I didn't want Charon bothering me about the life and death of Joey Bigga, did I?

But, God, was it hot! The river slid by – all smelly and greasy. Puffs of sulphurous smoke were constant and suffocating. The sky was streaked blood-red. The vegetation had all withered. The sound of clanging and wailing and (weirdly) of opera music drifted from the far bank. All the souls had lost their glitter. Each one looked as shabby as the next. It was quite horrible.

For the next few hours we shifted slowly forward in the line, the Angels of Death and the dead. There's no obligation on Seraphim to wait when there's a queue. But what with the Extension, I felt nervous about leaving Joey to answer for himself. Plus I had to collect the paperwork from Larry.

Soon my hair hung like a heavy curtain, and my raiment stuck to me. But I resigned myself. (Patience is a virtue and it's always good to practise it.) And as we waited I thought of Marcus. The way he'd seemed so determined to stay true to himself, even as he lay dying. So honest. I admired him for it. I'm an angel. I can't die, but standing there gazing out across that river towards the dull glow of the pits, I feared death. I think I'd have repented anything to avoid Hell.

I was relieved when I saw Larry. There he was, all clean and crisp in his white outfit. (He'd changed and had on white jeans and the cutest white tee under a white jacket.) His golden hair gleamed and his blue eyes twinkled.

All this time though, I have to tell you, Joey had
not
been waiting very patiently. He'd got quite excited ogling girls. And there were some pretty awesome females queuing up at that river to ogle at.

‘Hey, Joey,' I said, ‘you can go over to every girl on the jetty in a minute, after I've signed you in.'

‘Whatever,' Joey said, not taking the slightest notice. He headed straight for a honey blonde with amazing buttocks.

I threw my wings up in despair. Larry didn't seem to mind, though. He crossed over to me, briefcase in hand, looking not a jot the worse for all the heavy air.

‘Hello, my favourite cherub,' he said. (Just for the record, I'm a Seraph, six wings, tall and nothing like a cherub; plus, in the hierarchy of celestial beings – well, much higher.) He flashed me a perfect smile from a perfect set of pearly teeth. ‘Are we ready to close our deal?'

I looked around me. All those poor souls bound for Hell. How blessed I was to have saved Marcus from this. I thought of Heaven, its glistening valleys, its sweet pastures; how lucky we angels were. It didn't seem fair. Somebody should do something about it all. The banks of Styx were surely where God's work should begin?

I nodded at Larry. Of course I was ready to close the deal. I tried to tug Joey my way without success.

‘Hey, Angel-face,' said Larry, ‘don't stress. You've had a rotten night. There's no hurry.'

‘It's just Joey,' I said. ‘I don't know, maybe it's because he's been brought here too early, but he's not getting used to it at all.'

‘Don't worry, there are counsellors on the other side. They'll take him through step by step. He's making friends already.' Larry nodded towards Joey, who had slid completely from my grasp, and already had one muscly arm around the girl with the ginormous bum.

I smiled. I threw my wings up. Let him enjoy himself, then! The pursuit of Earthly pleasures wouldn't be his for long.

‘So,' said Larry, ‘just need your autograph here.' Larry held up the contract he'd shown me in the club. The writing was terribly small. I had to squint to see it. But even as I squinted it seemed to grow weirdly smaller. Must be the light, I thought. I didn't want to be rude and demand to see it, as if I was going to nitpick. I'd already committed myself anyway. This was just some kind of delivery note, wasn't it?

I have to tell you at this point something quite bizarre happened. I was glancing over at Joey by the queue and I swear – on my Holy Oath – I saw that shadowy figure from the corner seat of the nightclub again.

‘I'm really sorry,' said Larry, ‘but tonight's Extension was such a rush job, I've only got this one copy. Can I get yours to you later?'

I peered across at the figure just to be sure, but he'd slipped behind a knot of football fans in stripy scarves. I remembered there'd been an incident scheduled after a match. It'd been on the Manifest. (Quite a few fans had died, and one was only a kid. Thank goodness I hadn't been on Brawl Duty.) The shadowy figure was quite gone.

‘Can I?' asked Larry again.

‘Oh, sorry,' I said. ‘Of course.'

‘Brilliant,' he said.

I took the pen he offered and signed by the cross. It read:

Successful Delivery to Styx

Mr Harry Schratz. So I had heard right. That was strange. But I shrugged. Maybe he preferred his middle name. ‘There!' I signed with a flourish and added a tiny drawing of butterfly wings. In the distance I thought I heard thunder rumble.

‘Fabbo, fabbo,' said Larry. ‘All's done!' and as he spoke two tall dark shapes moved in on Joey.

I glanced over to see what they'd do. But as I turned my head, I noticed out of the corner of my eye the word ‘Marcus' in the small print at the bottom of the sheet. Larry was busy whisking it away, ready to file it in his briefcase, but I read it all the same. This is what it said:

. . . This contract expires on Halloween. If Marcus Montague has not already repented by that date, his soul is forfeit with the rest of his Earthly life at that hour without prejudice. Collection time 12.00 Midnight, 31st October.

‘Oh!' I said.

‘Anything wrong?' asked Larry.

‘Oh no,' I said. It would have been churlish, after everything Larry had done, to moan about the date on the Extension. But he had said three weeks, hadn't he?

Or had I misheard?

I smiled, but some of my gorgeous radiance drained from my face.

‘. . . This contract expires on Halloween.'

And Halloween was only ten days away.

Only ten days.

In ten days, Marcus would still be recovering from his wounds. He'd be nowhere near repenting.

Ten days.

He hadn't even said he wanted to.

But even if he did want to, he was still going to need to turn his life around. How was he going to achieve that in under a fortnight? I opened my mouth to protest, but shut it again just as quickly. No un-kinder sin than ingratitude. Marcus had been given a second chance. For that alone I should be truly thankful. Amen. I was just going to have to make it work.

Straight away I started to plan. Repentance in word and deed. He'd have to go the whole way if I was going to get him into Heaven. Not just a quick ‘I'm sorry' before Passing Over. That would only get him into Purgatorium. Even if I could swing it and get him through the Twelfth Pearly, we really should try for an early audience with St Peter. Not easy. But was it possible?

I thought about it.

Firstly I needed to get him to a priest or a pastor, a qualified representative of God on Earth at least: he could confess, receive absolution, be assigned penance:
Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat: Amen.
That would be a great start. I'd explain it all to him; that bit should be reasonably easy.

Secondly he was going to have to forswear wrongdoing. That was going to be a bit more tricky: no more girls, no more crime (definitely no more girls), no more alcohol, no more meeting up with his gang and
absolutely
no more girls. All straightforward, but for some reason it made me terribly nervous.

The next bit was a lot more difficult: he needed to make recompense. I flipped my mind back to the exam paper I'd done on ‘Penitence, Recompense & the Eye of the Needle: Advanced Paper, Higher Tier'.

Access to Heaven through Penitent Recompense can be demonstrated in three ways. Please discuss:

1. Sacrificial and noble action
   
2. Selflessness
   
3. Taking vows of chastity, poverty, obedience.
   

Yes, he could show he'd changed, either by doing something noble, like saving a life by giving up his own; or by doing a lot of selfless acts over a longer period. Sadly, there wasn't any time for the latter, and hopefully, no opportunity for the former: it was going to have to be chastity, poverty and obedience; starting by giving away all his worldly goods and ill-gotten gains (plus of course absolutely and completely abstaining from girls).

But then came the part that made me the most nervous of all: what if – even if I got him to agree repentance was a good idea – what if he still didn't really
want
to do it? I mean,
really
do it.

That was the catch: Free Will.

If not for Free Will, I could have commanded him to. I could have flashed my eyes, blasted him with a few thunderbolts, sent hailstones to rain around him, until he
did
do it. That would have done the trick. It would've been a lot easier too.

But God had decreed repentance must be done freely and willingly. And the contract had decreed it must be done before midnight on the last day of October.