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“I’ll admit I’ve thought about it. I don’t know how I’d go about doing it. What to do with the angels that still want to rebel. What to do with the lost souls. Broken as I am, I don’t even know if I have the strength to do it anymore.”
“Now you have Nefesh to help. Maybe the two of you could do it together.”
“It’s a mad idea to consider as reality. Destroying Hell is an abstract notion. A philosophical argument. Nothing more.”
“Not if you don’t want it to be. You can make it real.”
“This is foolishness.”
“You can do it and let the angels have some free will. Don’t drag any of them back to Heaven. Leave Hell’s gates open and let the ones that want to go back with you go and let the angels who want to stay in Hell stay. And find something better to do with all those damned souls. How many of them are like Father Traven, there on technicalities?”
“This is all very romantic and heartfelt, Stark, but I’d like to point out a flaw in your argument,” says Samael. “You’ll notice that I’m not in Heaven anymore. Neither are a lot of angels. Hell is becoming a very crowded place and not just with rebels and lost souls.”
“Angels are fleeing Heaven in droves,” says Mr. Muninn. “Ruach grows less rational by the hour.”
“So you see, while your throw-the-gates-open argument might have some merit, it’s impossible to implement until Ruach is made sane or removed as Heaven’s guardian. And in the end, all of these arguments might be moot.”
“The Angra,” I say.
Samael nods.
“The Angra.”
“The Angra,” says Mr. Muninn.
“You broke some rules when you took the universe from them. You can break one little rule for Father Traven.”
“No,” says Mr. Muninn.
“I guess it’s a Mexican standoff. Unless you’re going to toss me into a lake of fire or something.”
Mr. Muninn makes a face.
“You’d love that. It would fit right into your martyr complex.”
“Then where are we?”
“I have a counteroffer. A compromise.”
“Okay.”
“Eleusis. The place of virtuous pagans. It’s the most civilized place in Hell. Full of intellectuals and philosophers. The best of the old world. I think your Father Traven would fit right in.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I always hated Eleusis too. It seems to me like another bullshit technicality. Why is it their fault that they hadn’t heard about your religion when it was something like nine people believed in back then?”
“The Word was there on earth. All they had to do was follow it.”
“Let’s not start a whole other argument,” Samael says.
“Thank you.”
“My answer to Eleusis is thanks but no. Traven isn’t staying anywhere in Hell.”
“You don’t respect rules at all, do you?”
“Sure I do. When they make sense. But some don’t and some are out-of-date. You keep saying you can’t change the rules. Shit, man. You wrote the rules. You can break them or rewrite them any way you want.”
“It’s a matter of both strength and inclination, and I’m not sure I possess either at the moment. And nobody but that one,” he says, looking at Samael, “has ever pressed me or spoken to me like this before.”
