In Hell We Trust

Gumshoe

There were many things that Jack Graves did not like about people. He disliked people who were younger than him and people that were older than him: essentially, everyone that wasn't him. He hated people who talked too much, always going on about the weather or their pets or spouses or other things that Graves quite frankly could not muster the energy to give a shit about. He did not like cities very much, or crowds, or the sound of vast throngs of people as they went about their day-to-day business.

Graves was finding that he hated Hell as well. Especially so.

He walked down the crowded streets of Limbo, head down and mouth set in a rock-solid grimace to avoid the sight of passing sinners as they came to and from their daily work or torture or whatever it was they did, wrinkling his nose at the stench of depravity they carried with them. Graves was a square-shaped man, square-faced, with hands like spades tucked into the pockets of his grey trench coat and a great heavy brow that jutted out like a brick loose from the wall. He covered his silvering hair with a wide-brimmed hat and ground his teeth like he was trying to get them down to a polish. There were stiff wrinkles like canyons on his cheeks and below his steel-blue eyes. He mumbled quiet expletives under his breath. Only an hour had passed since he first arrived in Hell and he was already having a bad time. He made a mental note to remind himself to ask his boss for a raise when he got back. He looked up into the red void that counted for a sky in this wretched place, watched how it boiled overhead like a cauldron of boiling blood and groaned.

This was going to be a difficult mission.

He took the next left, found the crowds even thicker there than they were on the last road. He took out his old phone and experimentally checked the navigation app he had opened. The device traced his path through the labyrinthine streets of Limbo with a red line. It had created a shape similar to something you would see on a five-year-old's sketchpad: hopelessly lost and confused.

Graves suddenly became aware of a presence behind him, following at a conservative distance but growing ever closer. He briefly looked over his shoulder to see a bulky red demon in overalls steadily making his way closer, navigating the crowds of shades like a true pro. Graves smirked in spite of himself.

Alright, he thought. Let's see it then.

The demon got closer, and Graves feigned not being able to see him. An innocent newbie, fresh off the streets, was an easy target, high off of his exuberance from having a small packet of money pressed into his hands by a man in a red tailcoat. Most didn't make it home for the first night without unwittingly sharing their wealth with the city's criminal underworld. Graves tried to give this impression, looking around, feigning wonder and fear, hands in his pockets, oozing insecurity. The demon licked his slavering jaws with a rope-like green tongue and, once he was within range, reached for the back pocket of Graves' trousers.

A blur of motion, a bang, and a whiff of smoke. The demon howled and recoiled with pain, nursing the hole that had newly opened up in his greedy hand. Graves slid something shining and silver into his pocket and looked around. Nobody had noticed or, if they had, they didn't care. With his other hand, he reached into his other pocket, took out a packet of cigarettes, and thumbed one out of the box. He slid it into his mouth, chewed it appreciatively, then lit it with a matte-iron lighter and took a long puff.

It was odd, being dead. The tobacco didn't burn as much in the back of his throat as it did when he was alive.

The passing of a few minutes found him walking into the lobby of a rundown hotel on the seedier side of town. The shade behind the desk, a rat-like looking man with a wiry black combover and suspenders, wearing a button-down white shirt that was irreversibly stained yellow by God knows what. The hotel manager leaned over his desk when Graves dinged the bell and smiled with yellow teeth. One of them was gold.

"How I help?" the man asked in broken English. "You want stay the night, yes? Or you like company? I can get you nice girl, nice girl from Second Circle. Cold, but needing warmth, if you know what I say. Good for ficky-fick. You like ficky-fick, don't you?"

Graves immediately hated him. He snatched the key from the grinning soul and grimaced. "I don't want 'ficky-fick'. I just want a room, for Christ's sake."

The hotel manager went pale at the mention of the name. "Ah, sir, no say that word. It bad. The President say so."

Graves raised an eyebrow. "Does he now?"

"It no good." The man shook his head in all seriousness. "No say name of one who never comes. Not down here anyway. Here, we make do without the Jesus. Here, we have Crowley. Is same, no?"

Graves sucked on his cigarette. "Hmmph."

The man looked around like he was going to get in trouble for something, then waved Graves on. "Have nice night. Pay in morning."

Graves went down the hall to the left and found his room. It was equally as dismal as the outside of the hotel had been: wallpaper peeling from the rotting boards, a bed rife with brown stains on the mattress that had once been white, a couple of things with glowing red eyes skittering away in the darkness of the corner. Graves locked the door and shut the shades. Once he was sure that he had covered all of his tracks, Graves set himself down on the bed, listening to the creak of the bed springs as they struggled under his weight. He pulled out his old phone again and brought it to his ear. The screen glowed blue.

The voice on the other end answered after three rings. "Graves. You're in?"

"I'm in." Graves looked around the room with barely contained disgust. "I've infiltrated Limbo. Though I gotta say, you never told me it would be such a dump."

"It's Hell, Graves. What were you expecting?" A rush of static on the other end. The voice was sighing. "Look, it's not going to be permanent. We had to pull a lot of strings to make sure you ended up here instead of the other place, but the mission requires that you do this. Once you've found what we sent you for, we'll pull you and you can go back to your normal afterlife."

"I know," Graves muttered. "Doesn't mean I have to like it."

"That's a good man, Graves. You're the best investigator we've got, you know. We couldn't risk using anyone else for this assignment."

"Flattery isn't going to work, Peter."

Peter quickly changed the subject.

"You've found a place to stay for the night? Or whatever the hell it is that passes for the night down there."

"Yeah."

"Good." The voice sounded pleased. "Stay there for a while. We'll need you to stay still so we can locate you in Hell. After that, we'll get on with the mission. Stand by for further instructions."

The voice on the other end hung up. Graves put the phone back into his pocket and slumped forward. The tip of his cigarette winked away in the darkness.