Hell's Army

Chapter Three- Hit the Road

Zadrian hated the nightlife.

It was a time for the sinful, the reckless, the depraved to crawl out of their hovels and infect the city like animals scavenging for their next adrenaline rush. It was a time for the drunk, the misogynistic, the unruly.

Plus, one man had thrown up on Zadrian's shoes.

He dodged past a group of giggling students, their eyes glazed over, all swaying slightly in unison like they were part of some surreal dance.

He went into the Setan City Pub, and the smell of beer and grease washed over him. He scanned the rowdy crowds, spotted a lonely blonde man sitting alone at the bar. He waded through the smoke and bad breath, over to him.

The deer head on the wall glared down unseeingly at him as the man smiled humourlessly into his drink, said, "I was wondering when you'd pop up. Big man sent you, did he?"

"You ran away," Zadrian said. Not a criticism, not an accusation. Just a fact.

"Yeah," Follows said, draining his glass. "I did." He ground his cigarette into a silver ashtray, and Zadrian frowned.

"You're smoking. You told me you were going to quit."

"I lied. Humans do that."

A few feet away, a burly man gave a roar of triumph at the pool table, his dirty singlet stretching far too thinly over his wobbling belly.

"Why are you here, Follows?" Zadrian asked, a little tiredly. He wasn't in the mood fro one of Follows' little rebellions.

"Sally and Jonathan are dead."

Zadrian blinked. Of all the things he thought Follows was going to say, that hadn't been one of them.

"They died protecting Frelser," he said.

"But they wouldn't have had to if it weren't for me. I was the one who introduced them. I was the one who convinced them to get married."

Zadrian would never understand why Follows thought it was his duty to take on any and all guilt concerning those around him. It was like he wanted to spend his life in misery. Why could he just accept the plan God had set out for the world.

"God was using you to find the two people most-" Zadrian began, but Follows cut him off;

"God was using me to get them to meet so they would eventually wind up in the basement, so Ingleseid could find Frelser. He knew they would die."

"The demons killed Sally and Jonathan."

"And that never would have happened if I hadn't interfered with their lives," Follows countered, slapping his hand on the table. The bartender was starting to give them funny looks. "They would still be walking around right now- getting jobs and finding someone and falling in love and being happy. Their families' lives wouldn't have been ruined. Their child wouldn't have been orphaned. But that didn't happen because of me."

"You think God used you to kill Sally and Jonathan?" Zadrian asked, trying and failing to hide his confusion.

"I think he used me to create a situation with the most ideal outcome for the human race. That situation didn't include Sally and Jonathan."

"God isn't a system, Follows," he argued. "He isn't ruled by events and connections. Lower beings like ourselves can't hope to understand his true benevolence."

Follows looked up at him with tired, tired eyes. "Yeah? Well, this lower being quits."

"And this is your plan?" Zadrian said, a little louder than he's meant to. A few eyes keen to feast on something other than abysmal normality trailed onto him. "To hide away in a bar, drinking away your anger at God? How does that make you any better than him?"