The descent to the Aetheric Bridge was a journey into the architectural skeleton of the universe. Judge Malakor, accompanied by Thorne and Caelum, led the three agents—Zippo, Shetan, and Gerry—down a spiraling staircase of solid light that bypassed the vibrant Paradi and plummeted into the grey fog of the Great Divide.
As they descended, Malakor handed each of them a heavy, pulsating scroll. "Open them," he commanded. "Behold the life of the monster you serve."
The scrolls unfurled, projecting flickering, holographic memories of Marianne's time on Earth. The three agents watched in grim silence as images of the Devil Killer flashed before them: Marianne perched on a rainy rooftop, the muzzle flash of a rifle illuminating her cold eyes; Marianne moving through a burning warehouse; the trail of bodies she had left in her wake.
"She was a predator," Malakor hissed. "But even predators have shadows. Your task is to find the one soul who looks at that carnage and still feels a love that is unconditional. You will identify him, and then—" Malakor's eyes gleamed with a cold, bureaucratic malice, "—you will ensure he crosses over. He cannot enter the afterlife alive. You must facilitate his death and guide his soul back to this bridge."
Gerry let out a sharp, cynical bark of laughter. "So, we're playing Reaper now? Finding a saint who loves a demon, and then murdering him? You Judges really are a piece of work."
"You will do as you are told, Borrower," Thorne snapped. "Or the Stitchers will be the least of your worries."
They reached the end of the light-stairs, where the bridge stretched out into an infinite white void. Blocking their path was the Mighty Dreese.
He was a terrifying sight—a sixty-foot-tall entity with four faces that looked in all cardinal directions simultaneously. His skin was the color of bruised clouds, and his twelve arms held various instruments of measurement: scales, clocks, and heavy iron keys.
"Who seeks to disturb the Silence?" Dreese's voice didn't come from his mouths; it vibrated through the marrow of their bones.
Malakor stepped forward, bowing deeply. "Mighty Dreese, we present three 'Redeemed Observers.' They seek passage to the Mortal Plane to settle a debt of closure. Here are the petitions of Non-Harm."
Dreese's four heads spun in a dizzying blur before stopping to stare at the three agents. One of his massive hands reached down, the fingers as thick as tree trunks, and lifted Shetan off the ground by his collar.
"This one reeks of the 2nd Hello," Dreese boomed, his eyes glowing with an acidic yellow light. "The sludge of the fighting pits still clings to his heels. You bring me the Corrupted and ask for the Veil to open? You think I am a senile gatekeeper, Malakor?"
"They are under my seal!" Malakor cried, his voice trembling.
Dreese dropped Shetan, who hit the bridge with a heavy thud, and turned his gaze to Zippo. "And this one... her hand is a graft of stolen flesh. She is a creature of greed and survival. If I let her touch the Earth, she will feast on the living like a parasite."
"We are not here to feast!" Zippo shouted, her defiance flaring despite the overwhelming pressure of Dreese's presence. "We have a job to do!"
Dreese leaned down, his four faces inches away from the group. "The Earth is not a playground for the damned. For every hour you spend there, you will feel the weight of your sins ten-fold. Your forms will be translucent, your voices whispers. If you interfere with a destiny not marked for the Void, I will pull you back and weave your souls into the bridge itself to be stepped upon for eternity."
He slammed a massive iron staff onto the bridge. A rift of shimmering, chaotic color began to open in the white void.
"State the name of the target," Dreese commanded.
"We do not have a name yet," Malakor admitted. "We seek the 'Unconditional Love' of the Devil Killer."
Dreese let out a sound like a mountain collapsing—a laugh of pure derision. "You seek a myth. But go. If you find this fool, bring him to the edge. But know this: The Veil does not like to be cheated. If you kill a man before his time, the price will be paid in your own essence."
With a violent shove of air, Dreese's magic caught the three agents. Zippo, Shetan, and Gerry were sucked into the rift, their screams muffled by the roaring sound of the transition between worlds.
Malakor watched them vanish, his face a mask of desperate hope. He had sent a thief, a brawler, and a cynic to find the purest thing on Earth. It was a fool's errand, but it was the only way to save the afterlife from the Sovereign's heart matters.
The transition between realms was a violent tearing of the spirit, a sensation of being shredded and reassembled in a heartbeat.
The three agents—Zippo, Shetan, and Gerry—materialized in the middle of a rain-slicked intersection in the heart of a grey, suffocating city. The air tasted of exhaust and rot, a sharp contrast to the sterile ozone of the High Court.
They arrived just as a sickening thud echoed through the street. A young man, Cael, lay crumpled against the pavement, his blood blossoms blooming across the asphalt after being struck by a speeding vehicle. Above them, a frantic scream pierced the air. Mrs. Drustin, Cael's mother, had watched from their fourth-story window. Overcome by a sudden, jagged grief and the delusion that her world had ended, she stepped off the ledge. She hit the ground moments later, her body a broken echo of her son's.
Shetan stood over Cael, his purple-seamed arm shimmering translucently in the mortal rain. He looked down at the dying boy with a look of pure, clinical detachment. "Is this one of them?"
Gerry leaned over Mrs. Drustin's twisted form, her eyes scanning the dying woman's fading life-force. "No. This is just the usual human tragedy. Messy, loud, and beneath us."
A crowd of humans began to gather, their faces blurred and panicked to the agents' spectral eyes. Sirens wailed in the distance. The three agents didn't move to help; they didn't feel a flicker of pity. In the Hellos, they had seen far worse than a quick death on a street corner.
"The dragon said we need a soul that loves Marianne," Zippo reminded them, her voice a ghostly hiss that the humans mistook for the wind. "These two are just casualties of a bad day. Let the meat-sacks handle the cleanup. We have a monster's past to dig up."
They turned their backs on the dying pair, walking through the solid walls of the nearby buildings as if they were smoke, leaving the screams of the living behind them without a second glance.
Back in the shimmering heights of the High Court, the atmosphere was one of rigid, fearful discipline. The Triad Selection was over, and the three chosen maids were being inducted into the inner sanctum.
Sana stood before the massive, obsidian doors of the Sovereign's private bedchamber. She was dressed in the finest gossamer silk, her hair pinned back with pins of frozen starlight. Her heart raced—not with fear, but with the exhilarating scent of power.
"Sana," Gretchen, commanded. "Your primary duty is the sanctity of the Sovereign's rest. You will clean the bedchamber. You will ensure the moonstone floors are polished to a mirror finish and the linens are scented with the breath of the 4th Realm. You are never to speak unless spoken to. You are never to touch the Sovereign unless he commands it."
Sana bowed low. "I understand, Mother Gretchen."
While the other two maids, Lyra and Kaelis, were led away to the Great Library and the Dining Hall, Sana entered the room. It was a space of terrifying beauty—vast, cold, and smelling faintly of the Book of Purity's antiseptic spells.
As she began to polish the dark stone, she noticed a single, stray thread of grey wool caught in the corner of the rug—a remnant of Marianne's servant dress from the night before. Sana picked it up with a look of utter disgust, dropping it into the waste-bin.
"I will scrub every trace of that animal from this room," Sana whispered to herself, her reflection in the obsidian floor looking back with a predatory ambition. She began to work, her movements a graceful, silent dance, determined to make the room so perfect that Zoe would have no choice but to notice the difference between her services and the others.