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His
intercession, I will take you before Him and grant you the right to leave as
you wish, unharmed, as long as you abide by your word that you are here for nothing more than the rescue of your child.”
    “Agreed, these angels as witness,” Longinus
answered, waving his hand toward Jesus’ companions. They looked offended,
clearly not pleased at being caught up between the two powers.
    Christ nodded. “Then let’s get this over
with.” He turned and marched off, angels circling about to watch his back.
    Longinus winked at me and motioned for me
to follow as he started off after the angelic entourage. Never in a million
years did I think I would find myself in a procession with the Anti-Christ and
Jesus on a quest to see God.
    What had I gotten myself into?

Five

 
    I’m not sure what I expected from God’s
choice of dimensional staging points, but I know for certain I didn’t expect it
to be so…plain. It made Limbo look exciting.
    Low-lying clouds hung across the sky,
blotting out any hint of a color beyond. It wasn’t anywhere near as dark or
foggy as Limbo, but the complete lack of detail and definition were obvious,
whereas in the way station of the dead there was the element of mystery. You
never knew what lurked more than ten feet from where you stood at any given
time. Here, you could see a few hundred feet or damn near forever. It was all
the same: charcoal gray sky, gray horizon, and soggy gray grass. It was like an
accountant’s wet dream. My stomach churned as I took it in.
    We walked to wherever it was we were going,
my mind blanking out on the effort to keep track. Follow the gray is all I
could think of.   Good thing it didn’t
seem to take too long. My legs hurt with every step but that was from the dimensional
trip rather than the walk, plus it seemed to squeegee some of the acid out of my
muscles, which was nice. When Jesus called a halt to the parade, I felt better
than I had when we’d first popped in.
    Christ turned us down a path—or so he claimed
it was a path—and we walked on a little further. That’s when I realized it
hadn’t been the horizon I was looking at but a building. Made of the same gray,
hazy material as the rest of the world, the building soared into the sky as far
as I could see. It blended in at some point, so I had no idea how far it went.
Jesus waved us on and walked into the wall and the clouds swallowed him, the
entourage of angels disappearing one by one. Longinus shrugged at my
questioning look and went in after. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to. Half tempted
to tell him I’d wait outside, but he was gone before I could say anything.
Staring at the swirling place where they’d entered, it felt like I was walking
to the electric chair.
    With God and Lucifer inside the same room
with Longinus and Jesus, I’d determined that was the very last fucking place I
wanted to be. Nothing good could come of me putting myself in that position.
This was as crooked a family reunion as I could imagine, barring a delivery of
Crisco and a DVD of Deliverance . Given
the power levels of the folks involved, if anyone ended up squealing like a
little piggy, it was a pretty safe bet it was gonna be me.
    Longinus’ face appeared out of the clouds.
“Are you coming?” I nodded just to get him to slip back inside. Seeing his
bodiless head floating in midair like that was fucking eerie.
    It looked like I wasn’t being given a
choice of hanging outside. Sphincter tightened, I stepped through the cloud and
into the room beyond. My eyes fluttered at what I saw, blinking to clear away
the confusion.
    The clouds were gone as was the massive
building that soared into the sky. In their place was a small, wooden feast
hall, like those you see in the movies about Vikings. The chill outside,
something I hadn’t even noticed until I came inside, was replaced by a warm,
delicate heat. Fires danced in a number of hearths built into the surrounding
walls. The crackle of flames and the strong