"I don't know what he looks like," Azzie said. "I assumed he answered to his name."
The mound of people mumbled and coughed and discussed it among them, as humans, living or dead, are wont to do about anything. And if Azzie had not had a demon's preternatural hearing, he would not have heard the faint squeak that came from somewhere deep in the pile.
"Hi there! Scrivener here! Was somebody asking for me?"
Azzie directed his imps to pull Scrivener out of the pile, but gently, without tearing off any of his appendages. They could be replaced, of course, but the procedure was painful and apt to leave a psychic scar. Azzie knew he was supposed to bring the man back to Earth intact so that Scrivener wouldn't create trouble for the Dark Forces for reaping him prematurely.
Soon enough Scrivener scrambled out of the pile, brushing himself off. He was a small, balding, jaunty little man.
"I'm Scrivener!" he cried. "You found out it was a mistake, eh? I told them I wasn't dead when they first brought me here. That Grim Reaper of yours doesn't do much listening, does he? Just keeps grinning that great big idiotic grin. Plucked me away just like that. I've a good mind to complain to someone in authority."
"Listen to me," Azzie said. "You're lucky the mistake was found at all. If you begin litigation, they'll put you in a holding tank until your case can be heard. That could take a century or two. Do you know what our holding tanks are like?"
Scrivener shook his head, wide-eyed.
"They're so bad," Azzie said, "that they even contravene infernal law."
Scrivener seemed impressed. "I guess I'm lucky to be getting out at all. Thanks for the tip. Are you a lawyer?"
"Not by training," Azzie said. "But all of us down here have a little lawyer in us. Come on, let's get you back home."
"I've a feeling I have a few problems at home," Scrivener said hesitantly.
"That's what life is," Azzie continued. "Problems. Be glad you have problems to worry about. When you come down here to stay, you'll have nothing to worry about. Whatever's happening to you just goes on and on."
"I won't be back," Scrivener said.
Azzie wanted to ask him if he wanted to bet on it, but decided that it wouldn't be appropriate under the circumstances.
"We'll have to wipe your memory of this experience," he told Scrivener. 'You understand we can't have you fellows going back to Earth and telling a lot of stories."
"Fine with me," Scrivener said. "Nothing here I want to remember, anyhow. Although earlier, in Purgatory, I met this blond succubus - "
"Save it," Azzie growled, grabbing Scrivener by the arm and steering him to the gate in the wall that leads to other parts of Hell and, eventually, to everywhere else and vice versa.
Chapter 2
Azzie and Scrivener proceeded through the iron gate in the iron wall and up the spiraling road that leads through the outer suburbs of Purgatory, a region composed of great crosshatched depths and startling heights exactly as Fuseli drew it. They trudged along, demon and man, and the way was easy, for easy are the roads of Hell, but it was also boring, because Hell is the state of not being amused.
And after a while Scrivener said, "Is it much farther?"
"I'm not sure," Azzie confessed. "I'm new in this sector. In fact, I shouldn't be here at all."
"Just like me," Scrivener said. "Just because I fall into a corpselike coma from time to time is no reason for your Grim Reaper fellow to grab me up without making proper tests. It was slipshod, I tell you. Why shouldn't you be here?"
"I was intended for better things," Azzie said. "I got good grades in Thaumaturgy College. Finished in the top three in my class."
He failed to tell Scrivener that all of his class except three had wiped out when a sudden infestation of good blew in from the south, freak metaphysical weather that killed all but Azzie and two others, who seemed to have a natural immunity against good halations. And then there had been the poker game.
"So why are you here?" Scrivener asked.
"I'm working off a gambling debt," Azzie said. "I couldn't pay up, so I had to serve time." He hesitated, then said, "I like to gamble."
"Me too," Scrivener said, with what sounded like an air of regret.
They walked for a while in silence. Then Scrivener said, "What's going to happen to me now?"
"We're going to insert you back into your body."
"Will I be all right? Some people wake up from the dead and are all funny, so I've heard."
"I'll be around to look out for you. I'll stay until I'm sure you're all right."
"That's good to hear," Scrivener said. He walked for a while in silence, then said, "But of course, when I wake up I won't know you're there, will I?"
"Of course not."
"Then I won't be reassured."
Azzie said testily, "When you're alive, nothing can reassure you. I'm just telling you this now. It's only when you're dead you can appreciate it."
They walked on. After a ways more, Scrivener said, "You know, I can't remember a thing about my life back on Earth."
"Don't worry, it'll all come back to you."
"I think I was married, though."
"Fine."
"But I'm not sure."
"It'll all come back to you as soon as you are back in your body."
"What if it doesn't? What if I've got amnesia?"
"You'll be fine," Azzie said.
"Do you swear that on your honor as a demon?"
"Certainly," Azzie said, lying with ease. He had taken a special course in forswearing and had proven adept at it.
"You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"
"Hey, trust me," Azzie said, using the master mantra that makes docile even the most suspicious and bellicose.
"You can understand why I'd be a little nervous," Scrivener said. "Being born again, I mean."
"Nothing to be ashamed of," Azzie said. "Here we are.
"Thank Satan," he added under his breath. Talking long with humans made him nervous. They went around subjects so! The Demon Fathers had offered a survey course in Human Tergiversation at Demon U, but it was an elective and he hadn't bothered to take it. False Dialectic had seemed more interesting at the time.
Up ahead he saw the familiar scarlet and chartreuse stripes of the North Pit ambulance. The ambulance stopped a few yards away and a medical demon got out. He was an obelisk-eyed pig-snouted fellow and very different from Azzie, who was a fox-faced demon with red hair, pointed ears, and startling blue eyes, accounted quite handsome by those who have a taste for demons.
"Is this the fellow?"
"This is him," Azzie said.
"Before you do anything," Scrivener said, "I just want to know - "
The pig-snouted medical demon reached out and touched a spot on Scrivener's forehead. Scrivener stopped talking and his eyes went unfocused.
"What did you do?" Azzie asked.
"Put him on idle," the medical demon said. "Now it's time to ship him."
Azzie hoped Scrivener would be all right: it's never good news when a demon messes with your head.
"How do you know where to send him?" Azzie asked.
The medical demon opened Scrivener's shirt and showed Azzie the name and address tattooed on his chest in purple ink.
"It's the devil's identification mark," the medical demon said.
"You'll take that off before you send him back?"
"Don't worry, he can't see it. That's for us to read. You going along with him?"
"I'll get there on my own," Azzie said. "Let me just see that address again. Okay, I got it.
"See you later, Tom," he said to the blank-eyed man.
Chapter 3