The Book of Daniel (15 page)

Saint Peter’s temperament remained as placid as the surface of his face. “I understand your anger, Daniel. Everyone has to go through some kind of readjustment when they come here, and it’s not easy trying to make sense of it all. I can only reiterate what I have been saying all along: you do not need to worry about your family, neither your wife nor your child. Worry first about your spiritual circumstances and everything else will fall into place. Eternity lies ahead, Daniel. You should give careful consideration to where you wish to spend it.”

His words did little to soothe me. I opened my mouth to reply, but nothing came out, the enforced silence once again gripping my voice. My anger stirred even more vigorously at this injustice, but I was powerless to do anything about it.

“Try to be calm, Daniel. Righteous anger has its place—as you know, God Himself would often unleash His anger on the world, before the blood of the lamb washed away mankind’s sins—but your anger is not righteous. Your problem is that you have been angry at God for so long that it has turned to hate. I understand your desire to lay the blame for what has happened at God’s feet, to condemn Him for His apparent silence in the face of all your adversity, but the operative word there is ‘apparent’. Perhaps you have been so engaged in shouting at God that you have not paused for long enough to listen if there is any reply. As I said at the start of our conversation, silence is the beginning of all wisdom.”

The echoes of Saint Peter’s words lingered in the air. I should have been given days to absorb any one of his revelations individually, a chance to digest the implications of each radical paradigm shift as it was delivered; to be given them in rapid succession, one after the other, was almost literally mind-blowing. You would think that with eternity stretching out ahead of me, whoever ran this place could have broken me in a bit more gently. But then, considering who that person was, I guess I wasn’t too surprised.

A million questions burned in my mind. With a huge effort of will, I did my best to still my thoughts, and tried to analyse my situation logically. According to Saint Peter, I would have plenty of time to do so. He stood there, patiently waiting, almost as if his batteries had run down. Did he run on batteries? Make that a million and one questions. I shook my head free of the cobwebs and tried to think.

Thanks to Sam and his relentless trail of destruction, I and everyone I cared for had been killed—that much was undeniable. But if what Saint Peter was saying was true—and the fact that I was standing there in a cathedral after having been killed suggested that it was, that there was definitely some kind of life after death—then those who had died were not necessarily lost to me permanently. To get to them, though, I would first need to do whatever it took to put a smile on God’s face, and from the sounds of it, one aspect of that was going to involve participating in His poxy little war. The idea of having to do so went against my every instinct, but if that was what was needed to get back together with Jo, then I would do it. I had been in enough other battles before where I would rather have been somewhere else. The alternative was, as Saint Peter had said, to sit there refusing to play the game, and that wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I certainly couldn’t go back to where I had come from, and even if I could, there was nothing there for me anymore anyway. Better to make a go of the situation I found myself in now, where there was at least some kind of hope, than to give up.

Of course, it was one thing to agree to play along with the physical side of my punishment—and that’s how I was seeing it, as punishment; make no mistake about that—but I was still immensely sceptical that I would be able to fulfil the other part of the contract: to grow to love God. Sure, I could probably fix a smile onto my face if forced to shake His hand, but somehow I didn’t think I was going to be able to bluff my way past the creator of the universe. I had no idea how I was going to get around that particular obstacle, not in the face of so many persuasive arguments to the contrary, but like Saint Peter said, I was going to have plenty of time to figure it all out.

“Alright then,” I said, eventually. “Count me in. I’m not happy about it, but if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that God doesn’t care whether or not you’re happy with His way of doing things. I just want to get this over and done with, so let’s get started.”

Saint Peter sighed. “Daniel, of course God cares. You’ll see, one day. But I’m glad you’re agreeing to actively participate in the situation here, even if you don’t like it. You see, with a flexible attitude like that, you could be out of here very quickly. Come, let us go to meet your comrades.”

“You mean the other members of whatever battalion or division I’m joining? How exactly do you organise the army here, anyway?”

“We don’t. There are only two types of warrior here: those who are fighting for their salvation, and the angels. Whenever you and your comrades are sent into combat, you are left to form your own alliances, friendships and command structure. It’s all about free will again, Daniel; the angels are not there to command you or restrict you as you progress, but rather to act as counsellors and arbitrators. Although they are extremely capable of defending themselves and New Jerusalem should they need to, they do not proactively engage in combat. The only time they will intervene is if you become overwhelmed—and are deemed worth rescuing. On the other hand, if you are found wanting, then I’m afraid that they will leave you to your fate: consumed, digested, and shat out into Hell.”

When I’d woken up that morning (or whatever morning it was), I’d never really expected that my day would turn out the way it had, but I certainly hadn’t expected to be hearing Saint Peter, the guardian of that most holy of places, using such colourful language. If I were capable of raising just one eyebrow, I would have done so.

“You might well look shocked, Daniel, but such words are appropriate. The depictions of Hell that you know from art and literature back on Earth are nothing compared to the reality. There is no way you can even start to imagine what it is like down there. For your own sake, as well as that of Joanna and the others you love, you must not give up, either on God or on yourself. You have already demonstrated that you are not a quitter, but out there, it will be tough, make no mistake. At times, you will wish you were dead—dead in the sense of complete and absolute extinction, rather than the state of existence you currently find yourself in—but you must not give in to such temptations. The demons of Satan’s army are not your only enemy here in Purgatory, Daniel. Look to yourself, too.”

“Yeah, very profound. Thanks. But I think my brain’s had just about as much as it can take for the moment. Look, I appreciate you trying to scare the hell out of me, or into me, or whatever, but none of this abstract stuff seems to be getting me any closer to getting the fuck out of here. Jo couldn’t ever convince me to change my mind about God either, no matter how much we talked about it, so don’t take it too hard. How about we concentrate on the practical side of things instead? If I’ve got to fight, then let’s go and fight. Come on.”

Saint Peter turned and began to walk slowly towards the main cathedral doors. The back of his head was just as featureless as the front, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was still looking at me, perhaps disapprovingly, as he made his way along the nave. I did my best to avoid what might have been his gaze, choosing instead to focus on the wondrous architecture of the cathedral. As we walked past row after row of seats, all of them empty, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen anyone apart from Saint Peter since I had arrived.

“Those comrades you mentioned earlier seem to be pretty thin on the ground. Where
is
everybody?”

“Most of them are out on the battlefield at the moment, Daniel. You’ll find it much busier here later on, at the end of the day’s toil, when the soldiers return to the city to meditate and pray.”

I looked at the austere seating, as hard and inadequate as any I could remember seeing in churches back on Earth. “It doesn’t look very comfortable.”

Saint Peter paused mid-stride and turned towards me slightly. “Purgatory isn’t supposed to be comfortable, Daniel. That’s the whole point. But you’ll cope. You’ve been in enough wars to know that the body can quickly adapt to great measures of hardship, and that’s especially true for a new body like yours.”

We reached the massive doors much more quickly than I had expected. Like the rest of the cathedral, they towered above us, and were decorated with carvings so elaborate that I doubted they were made by human hands. If I hadn’t just been told otherwise, I would have thought these were the fabled pearly gates themselves. Or maybe they actually were. Just as I was about to ask Saint Peter, the doors began to swing open—with no visible sign as to how or why—and the sight that was revealed to me knocked the question clean out of my mind.

Chapter 10

T
he first thing that struck me was the sky: cloudless, as red as cancer, and stained with a faint haze of smoke. The intensity of the colour was breathtaking, and when I inhaled in astonishment, a smell hit my nostrils, metallic, burnt and rotten. After the purity of the air in the cathedral, it was like a slap. I looked around for the source of the smell, at the same time taking in what sat beneath the sky: in all directions, as far as the eye could see, mile after mile of buildings, surrounded along the horizon by a continuous, towering wall. An enormous fortified city. But in every way that the cathedral was magnificent, the other buildings were pitiful, ruined, many of them little more than bare frames struggling to stand against the harsh wind that swept across the landscape. An occasional attempt had been made here and there to form primitive walls, but most of the stones had been strewn across the streets as if kicked there by an angry giant.

Even as this thought occurred to me, the true cause of the city’s wretchedness suddenly revealed itself. With a deafening roar, a glowing missile of some kind, the size of a bus, hurtled out of the sky and slammed into a small huddle of buildings not far from the cathedral. Soil and debris were thrown high into the air, and a deep tremor rumbled through the flagstones beneath us. An unearthly wail coiled out of the site of impact.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked, taking an involuntary step backwards.

“That’s one of the Fallen, Daniel. A type of demon that you’ll soon become all too familiar with. The Enemy catapults them over the walls in the hope that they will somehow be able to fight their way through to the city gates and open them from the inside—but it’s a foolish tactic. Most of the Fallen don’t even survive their landing, and those that do are usually too badly injured to put up much of a fight. Not that this seems to stop them from coming over the walls. As you can imagine, Satan doesn’t care how many of his soldiers are needlessly sacrificed.”

I fixed my eyes on the dust billowing up from the point of impact, part of me hoping to catch a glimpse of the demon, part of me dreading that I might. Through the clouds that seethed around the newly devastated buildings I could see figures streaming towards the source of the howling, but the dust and the distance made it impossible for me to discern any more than that. Shortly, the sounds of battle emanated from the fog, in many ways as familiar as an old friend, but with one terrifying, clanking exception.

“Uh, what exactly are the good guys in this war of yours armed with?”

“Swords, of course. What could be more biblical?”

“You’re kidding, right? I won’t last five minutes out there! Apart from in the movies, I’ve never even
seen
a sword, let alone used one.”

“Your new body will surprise you, Daniel. One of the improvements you’ll find is a complete competence with the blade you’ll shortly be given.”

“What about guns? Couldn’t God provide us with guns instead?”

“Of course He could, but He hasn’t, and with good reason. Think about it. Where is the struggle, the testing of the mettle and the man, that comes from pulling a trigger and watching a distant foe tumble anticlimactically to the ground? Where is the glory or the honour in striking an opponent who is unable to strike you back? What better spur to victory than to look into the eyes of evil, to smell its breath, and to see that evil extinguished as you ram your blade home? You are here to work for your salvation, Daniel, and work you shall. There are no guns in Purgatory.”

Saint Peter was clearly keen on the subject; unsurprisingly, I didn’t share his enthusiasm. Despite his reassurances that I was suddenly an expert in swordfighting, the idea of going toe-to-toe with demons was more than a little intimidating. Terrifying, more like.

“So the demons are unarmed, too? I mean—they don’t have guns either?” I said, correcting myself. I was still trying to get used to the idea of participating in a war with weapons other than firearms.

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly. Although there are no guns here in Purgatory, certain types of demons are capable of spitting or throwing projectiles of various kinds.”

“But that’s not fair!”

“No, it’s not. You’re right. But whoever said life—or the afterlife—was fair?”

This was getting better and better, but before I could protest, Saint Peter crossed the threshold of the cathedral and went out into the city. Not that I expected protesting to do any good; I already understood that arguing wasn’t going to get me anywhere, least of all back together with Jo. With a deep sigh, I followed Saint Peter out of the cathedral, still keeping a careful eye on the now-silent cloud of dust.

We emerged at the top of a huge, broad flight of steps leading down into the city. The stairs were flanked on either side by other beings—machines? angels?—similar to Saint Peter, all as still and silent as he had been when I had first awakened. The only movement was the flapping of their robes in the wind. Each held an enormous two-handed sword against its chest, blade pointed directly upwards and gleaming dully in the light, and by the time we were halfway down the staircase, I was surprised to find myself almost looking forward to using one of these impressive-looking weapons in combat. The memory of the demon’s shrieking—and the fear it had awoken in me—was already being blunted by curiosity about my surroundings and eagerness to seize control of my destiny once again.