Radicle (Terminal trilogy #2, can stand alone)

3: Holy names

 "Too close- Far too close." A man was breathing at my neck. A demon? I could see the Hellmouth just a few feet from me. Surely the humans were wiser than to wander about here.

"Aw, just leave 'im." Said another man with a particularly lax vernacular.

"Far too close." The first man urged again.

"He won't be coming back here again though, that's for sure."

"No, I won't." I promised, speaking through my teeth. Were these two guards of some sort? That was sure to make my entrance to Hell hard. And what about my contact? Where was she?

"I don't like this. I just don't. He's snooping too close. I've been working too hard on these last deals to lose them now."

"What you think you'd lose them for anyways? Letting some sad chap not die? Or what, you think he's some spy? We don't have to worry about him. Let's go. These souls carry a much heavier burden on me than they do on you, and I'm desperate to unload them."

"Ai." Sighed the more aggressive man, and he retreated his knife from my neck. I could hear him walking away, and as I got up and I saw the two of them jumping down into the top of the Hellmouth. I itched at my ring- they were carrying human souls, and it felt wrong to let them live.

But they were already long gone by the time I decided to draw my sword-of-light, and I sighed and moved on. If I had killed them, there would have been problems. It would not be a good start to infiltrating their society.

I sat on the Hellmouth's roof and peered into the square hole at the top. How long was I going to wait? Would my contact come first, or would nightfall? Perhaps it really wouldn't hurt to just jump in and head to Hell- I was oddly excited about the event. Perhaps it had something to do with being locked up in Heaven all my life. It was rare enough to even go to the woods, let alone some sort of human-inhabited mirror of them. And of course, let alone- let alone- Hell.

Something hit me on the side of the head. I leaned over and picked it up: it was a pinecone. Another one came flying at me, and I grabbed it in mid-air.

From behind a tree, a girl emerged, clapping. "Good job! What reflexes! They teach you that in your army, flyboy?" She walked over to me, and again I drew my sword- but I lowered it as she got closer. My contact. Right.

She was rather small, I thought, certainly quite skinny and astoundingly tall. Her hair, a tawny color, was in a soldier's cut. Her skin bore no marks of conflict however, but her face seemed to fall into the sort of carefree smile that suggested a kind of weariness.

I waited for her to greet me, but instead she seized my hand, shook it, and jumped into the Hellmouth. I followed her into the darkness at once- it wasn't a far drop at all. There was an odd sense of falling after I had hit the ground, and I figured I had traveled through another pit of magic. In a process that left me dazed, I opened my eyes and found myself in a small room at the bottom of a very large pit. The contact girl was already moving, so I decided not to look around but simply to follow.

"Your name?" I decided to prompt. She was being awfully rude, not speaking first.

"Tecie Deadchild."

"Tecie Deadchild." I greeted. "Nichael."

"Hm." She said, sounding curious but keeping quiet.

"Excuse me, Tecie Deadchild, but is there anything you are supposed to say to me regarding my mission? Some sort of briefing?"

"Well, for one, you could drop the 'Deadchild'. Oh, that sounds nasty when I say it like that, doesn't it? But no, really, drop the last name. I don't like being associated with it."

"Surely I don't know you well enough for that, Tecie Deadchild."

"Surely you do. We're not living two-hundred years ago. Last names aren't that important anymore. Also, do you really like having to say the words 'Deadchild' every time you address me?"

"I figured it was your title, Tecie Deadchild." It did hurt my tongue to continuously use her name, but I was trying to be as formal as possible. I was not about to get to any level of intimacy with her and drop the names.

"You think I kill kids?" She sounded disgusted, and as we came to a room that contained a steel box of movable metal, I saw that she was.

"Well- isn't that part of being a demon?"

"No?"

"Oh. Okay then." I was not about to apologize, but I did feel bad about causing such offense.

She sighed. "Your mission here is exactly as stated. We're smuggling you in for one day, you have a short briefing with The Few, you pretend to leave, I hook you up with an apartment and funds and carry your reports back for you."

"Who are The Few?"

"Hell's government-society hybrid. They run everything. Went through a real rough patch five years ago though, so they're not quite back to full strength. There's usually twelve of them, but since the incident, they're down to ten."

"Ten?" What an irrational number. Nothing could get done with so many trying to lead at once."

"Haven't got around to hiring anyone else." I wasn't particularly interested in the topic, but she did not catch on. "I don't even know if they ever will. I mean, maybe Alexander Scott- that's our supreme leader guy- will force them to after a while. He's really into the whole zodiac theme The Few have going on. It's just that human resources and tech support are two jobs that probably shouldn't be a major factor in society to begin with. At least when it comes to ruling it."

I was poor at showing polite interest. "Hm." Was the best I could muster.

"Sorry for rambling there. It's not very important. So Michael- ever been in an elevator before?"

I had not. But it was not the most pressing matter to address at the moment. "Nichael." I said. "Ne-kay-ale." I tried to say it as slowly as I could. How could she mess up the pronunciation so terribly and so blasphemously at once?

"Nickal. Right. Sorry." I cringed at her flounced language again, but I knew it was mostly her native language's fault for sounding so odd.

"Saying Our Michael's name so openly is very offensive. His name is his Grace."

"Right. Sorry. What are your thoughts on elevators, though?" She seemed excited.