Thirteen Hells and Mr. Fell

The last time Clark stood in this office, she was still technically holy.

A Noble. A Saint. One of those shiny souls Reaper Resources liked to flaunt in their orientation pamphlets to prove that the afterlife wasn't all gloom and bureaucracy. That was seven years ago.

An eternity, if you measured time in pain. Longer still, if you counted the ways she'd bled.

The office hasn't changed. Which, somehow, makes it worse. The same divinely sanctioned furniture. The same curtains—starched stiff, like they had opinions about modesty. And that same stained-glass light that still filters in as though it believes in grace.

Once, it made her feel small. Now, it just makes her feel like a fraud.

She bows when the Chief appears.

"You look good," the Chief says. "For someone who went through Hell."

"I survived," Clark replies. "Like I promised."

The Chief gestures to the chair and she sits. Her spine is still, soldier straight. But her hands betray her, twisted together hiding tremors in the shape of reverence or restraint.

"Your transfer caused a ruckus," the Chief says, opening a thin folder that looks like it might hiss if touched improperly. "But the captain got all the celestial seals in order. A few higher-ups stalled. One tried to claim they'd misplaced the forms."

She smiles, but her eyes do not.

"They liked you down there. More than they should've. You wouldn't think Hell pays attention to treaty clauses, but they fought harder for you than most angels would've. Cited enough bylaws to stop your ascension."

"I've heard," Clark says, clipped. Cautious.

"He wanted visitation rights." The Chief's voice is almost amused now, like she's recounting a joke with teeth. "Tried to sneak in diplomatic immunity. Even a blood-binding clause."

Clark shifts. Subtle, but sharp. Her fingers curl into her palm until her nails break skin. She blinks.

Once. Twice.

Not for fear nor grief. But the memory of Hell.

"And?" Her voice lands like a blade laid flat against the table.

The Chief leans back, fingers laced with ceremonial calm. "Denied. Luckily, the powers tipped the scales for us." A pause. A glint of something close to respect, maybe. Or just morbid curiosity. "He called you his favourite. Azazel doesn't have many."

At the name, the light in the room seems to falter. Not dim, just... hesitate.

She doesn't flinch. But something in her bones does.

The Chief watches her carefully. "Do you know why he called you that?"

Clark blinks again. Her nails have drawn blood.

"Yes." Her voice does not tremble. "Because I believe in Hell. I believe it is... necessary."

She's no longer quite here but back in the flames. Among the screams.

They come back to her, those times.

Of how easily she became the architect of agony. How her hands moved without trembling. How she recited the laws while tightening the straps, quoted scripture while pulling teeth.

She delivered punishment the way a blade delivers a killing blow—cold, impersonal, inevitable.

Because in Hell, mercy is disobedience.

She looks up then. Meets the Chief's gaze with eyes stripped of softness.

"All those years I was a scourge, I always told myself it wasn't cruelty, that they deserved it. That it was justice. And Azazel thought I was more than loyal to the cause of Hell. He—" She swallows, "... admired my devotion."

The Chief stands, and for the first time, crosses the space to take Clark's face in her hands. Her touch is light.

"Then I expect the same kind of devotion now," she murmurs, "here, in the Veil."

The air clears, just a little. The memory retreats like ash on the wind. And for a moment it feels like being touched by something holy.

"As you command," Clark nods. "Thank you, for giving me the chance to serve."

The Chief shakes her head softly. "The Veil might have thrown down the rope, but you climbed up yourself. Most see the rebel that ascended—but I know what it cost you. The only one you should thank is yourself. You earned every thread of that suit."

Clark lets herself smile a little.

But the moment doesn't linger.

"Now then," the Chief says briskly, pulling another folder from the stack. "I see your habit of refusing hasn't changed. You turned down the penthouse."

"I—" She is taken aback with that remark. "I don't sleep. I barely eat. It felt... too much."

The Chief nods. "Still, your performance has been exemplary. Retrieval rates are strong. And I hear you've had a hand in that ECHO Trace system."

"It's Anya's brilliance, really. I just lent her a hand."

Clark is starting to fidget. This is beginning to feel like a performance review, and though it is resoundingly good, it's making her uncomfortable.

The Chief can see her distress on the small praises. She closes the folder and Clark exhales, relieved.

"I know those are not the things you want to hear from me. But the thing you asked seven years ago."

Clark's head snaps up. Her breath catches.

"Do you still want it?" the Chief asks.

"Yes."

When she was here the first time, she wanted the truth. The one she wasn't allowed to see when she wore the halo of sainthood.

Now, she's of the Veil.

Now, they must allow her.

"Come with me".

--

The path to the Archives is not marked on any map. The Chief leads her through corridors that should not exist—narrow halls that bend space, rooms that breathe, and staircases that descend into the marrow of the Veil itself. Each step Clark takes feels heavier than the last.

They arrive at a vast door carved from obsidian, etched with gold and silver veins, pulsing with memory. It is not a door that opens. It is a wound that splits slowly, reluctantly, as if the space beyond resents being seen.

The Chief stops.

"This will grant you access," she says, handing her a black card with a golden ring on its face. "Walk inside. The Custodian will meet you."

"You're not coming?"

"You must do this alone."

And Clark walks in.

The room beyond is cathedral-vast and library endless—rows and rows of tomes, scrolls, and memories bound in ink and bone. There is no ceiling that can be perceived, nor walls. It smells like silence and feels like being inside nothing with everything.

And then, he appears.

Old as consequence.

The Custodian.

He is not tall, not exactly. He simply occupies more space than he should. Time bends slightly around him. His coat drags across the marble like a mourner's veil, and his voice—

His voice is slow.

Low.

Heavy as the end of things.

"That card says you're someone the books should talk to."

Clark nods, shows him the sigil. He regards it without touching.

"Top shelf clearance. Not many earn that. Fewer survive what they find."

He turns.

She follows.

They walk in silence, save for the faint creak of reality groaning around them. Finally, he stops by a section marked with a number system only the Custodian can see.

"These are all yours."

Clark stops breathing seeing the shelves. There are so many, it will take forever to go through anything, not like time is an issue. But she might spend all her reaper life in this place.

"All the days of your lives," he says, "Where shall we begin?"

"I—" she does not know how to respond.

"Of course, an arrangement has been made, to make it more manageable."

He gestures to a descending line of white tomes that have appeared on a nearby shelf. "These are your lifetimes. Thirteen volumes. Start from the top, if you're feeling sentimental."

She reaches for the thirteenth. She knows this one. But still she flips it open.

And she sees them one more time, her parents.

She lingers—just long enough to feel it again—before taking the next.

Twelfth.

It doesn't take long before she drops it.

Hands shaking.

That wasn't a life, it was a cage.

She gathers herself, picks it up and takes the next one.

Then eleventh. Tenth. Ninth.

Each book is worse than the last. Misery compounded like interest on a curse. Lives unlived, joy stolen, pain carved into the seams of each soul.

By the second, she's on the floor, breathing like grief is trying to crawl out of her lungs.

There, she was sold. A captive. A slave. Dead before her second decade, nameless. And like the other lifetimes, she died alone.

She looks up.

There's nothing after that.

No first volume.

"Where is it?" she asks. Barely breathing. "The first one."

The Custodian's voice is behind her now. As though he's always been just behind.

"You've seen the others," he says. "The first was the worst and it's not here."

"Why?"

"It's been chained in a place where darker things lie. Locked away in the Old Archives—the one I used to guard, long before this current hall existed. It is older, deeper, and far less forgiving. We don't send many there anymore. Not unless we must"

He pauses, almost like he's listening to something far away.

"What you seek was buried there. For your protection."

"I want to see it," Clark says. "I want to know why I've lived like this. Why—"

"Five hundred years," he says.

She stares at him.

He nods.

"Twice a saint, did you know? You bartered your sainthood the first time. Bought a soul's redemption with your own suffering. Paid in thirteen hells."

Is that why I've been miserable in every lifetime? she asks herself. Because I was permitted to be?

"Whose soul?" she whispers.

The Custodian hands her the black card. Gently.

"That's not something even this can grant."

Clark's hand rises, fingers brushing the red thread tied into her hair.

"It's him, isn't it?" she says. "This thread is supposed to lead to him. It's been severed long before, and now leads to nowhere."

"I cannot tell you that reaper. You must ask permission." his voice echoing like the tolling of an old, indifferent bell. "And maybe, just maybe, they'll unchain what's left of your beginning."

She laughs. Bitter and broken.

"Permission from whom? Who could be higher than the Chief?"

He tilts his head, like a clock about to stop.

"There are beings older and more powerful than her. You were once held in their favour. Then you fell. You fell on purpose. You gave up grace to be a suit."

He turns to leave.

And then she is alone.

With only the dust, the silence and the memory of every life that broke her.

--

The hallway smells of old parchment, fallen starlight, and secrets you only find if you're very unlucky—or very important. The Custodian is already waiting, as all good custodians tend to be.

He sees me and bows low, as is tradition, or perhaps just good manners.

"How much did you let her find out?" I ask, without preamble. It's late and I'm not in the mood for foreplay.

"Up to the second one," he says, in that tone people use when they know you won't like the answer and are pretending that makes it better.

"That much?" I lift a brow, which is the polite celestial alternative to throwing a chair. "That means you let her remember him. That other one. What do they call him again?"

He considers this like one might consider a particularly stubborn splinter. "The Intervention."

"Oh, right." I snap my fingers. "The Intervention. As if that ever worked."

I shake my head, more amused than I should be. "You let her see him, but not the other?"

"Orders from the Loft," he mutters, which is the celestial equivalent of "Don't blame me, I just work here."

I sigh. "They're still interfering. She shattered her halo in Hell, had her soul cracked open like a walnut, and they still care?"

He shrugs, which is no small thing for a being who generally prefers to move as little as possible. "You know how they are. They like second tries. Third ones too, if no one's watching."

We lapse into silence, the kind that smells like something burning in the far corners of time.

Then he turns his too-sharp eyes on me. "Why didn't you help her? You could've broken the seal. Let her see everything. With you, she might have remembered it all."

Another silence. Not guilty. Not proud either. Just... the silence of inevitability.

"It's not time," I say at last. "She needs to earn it."

The Custodian laughs, a dry and mirthless one that sounds a bit like a rusted hinge on the gate to the end of the world.

"Half a millennium and she's still being tried for her worth?"

I smile. Just a little.

"Like you said," I replied. "We like trying."

--

Clark always liked this spot.

The grand balcony of the Halcyon Crown.

It sits so high above the city, fifty stories up, that the skyline looks like it was folded neatly into the horizon.

Clark comes here sometimes. To think. After long nights and longer battles with the dead and now with painful memories of her old lives.

It's cold here and quiet, just what one needs after flames and chaos.

Tonight was supposed to be like the others: peaceful. Alone.

Until the suite doors burst open.

She turns her head lazily from her perch on the railing, legs swinging over the void, as a team of security rushes in. Sharp eyes. Sharper suits. A woman in heels walks with purpose behind them. "Check every corner. I want no surprises."

Clark lifts a brow. Interesting. Someone's finally staying here.

And then he walks in.

The man in the tailored suit. Crown pin glinting on his lapel.

Francis Fell.

Her breath catches—not visibly, of course. But something shifts. Deep in her chest, where memory has begun to claw its way out from dreams.

She knows that face.

She saw him in a life she lived long ago, on the fifth one.

He was a painter then.

She was his muse.

And he had looked at her just like that—eyes wide, mouth slightly parted, as if the world had tilted sideways and he was the only one who noticed.

For a moment, they just stare.

Then—

"No," he says, sharp and startled. "Is she trying to jump?"

Clark blinks.

He lunges forward, alarm sparking through his frame. "Miss, don't move!" He glances at his security. "Someone stop her!"

But no one moves.

No one looks at her.

Except him.

A slow, delighted smile curls across her lips. As it happens, the human can see her.

She hasn't let him. And yet, here he is.

"Sir," says the assistant—Inez, "maybe you should rest. It's been a long day."

He hesitates, eyes flicking between his frozen staff and the girl sitting on the edge of the world.

Then he exhales, smoothing a hand down his tie like he can press the strangeness back into place. "You're right. Let's call it a night."

The others filter out.

He pauses before Inez leaves. "I don't want any calls or anything, do you hear? No disturbances."

"Understood, Sir."

And when the doors shut, he turns back to her.

"So," he says, like they're strangers at a bar and not two souls who almost once belonged to each other. "Are you a ghost?"

Clark smirks. "You really can see me."

"No kidding." His eyes sweep over her.

She hops down from the railing, her voice warm with mischief. "Do I look like a ghost?"

He leans back against the bar, tilting his head. "No. You're too hot."

She snickers. "You're taking this well."

"I've had worse hallucinations."

She watches him. He doesn't know yet. Doesn't remember her, not the way she remembers him now: in candlelit rooms, with smell of paint, and hands that used to revere her like art on a canvas.

He turns toward the bathroom. "Stay here. I'm getting a shower."

She laughs. "Aren't you even a little curious?"

He stops, glancing back. "I am. But I'd rather not smell like a press conference while I interrogate a possibly paranormal woman. When I get back, let's have a drink."

Clark doesn't leave, instead she takes her time exploring the inside of the suite.

It is lavish in a way that only obscene wealth can justify—marble floors, gold accents, floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the city skyline.

Even though she's come here often, she only ever stays sitting on the glass balcony.

Now, with an actual resident, it feels different.

She wanders past the bar, running a finger along the crystal decanters. Whiskey, brandy, scotch—all top shelf. Not surprising. A man like him doesn't do cheap.

The sound of running water drifts from the bathroom.

Clark's lips curl.

Most people who see unwanted entities react with shock, fear, desperate prayers to whatever gods they believe in. But him? He sighed, made a half-hearted joke, and decided to take a shower.

She steps toward the bedroom, glancing around. His suit jacket was draped over a chair. His watch, an expensive piece of machinery that cost more than some houses, lay discarded on the nightstand.

She picks it up, turning it over in her hands and sees a name engraved behind, Francis Fell.

Wait.

She looks back at the newspaper on the table, with a headline of a scandal between a congressman's wife and a wealthy young man with the same name—it's him.

Amusing.

Steam rolls out of the bathroom, followed by Francis—shirtless, towel slung low. She lets herself look. This is nothing, she has seen him naked before. He has a different name then but he looks the same, a dreamboat.

He pours a drink. "You stayed."

"Got nowhere else to be."

"So what do ghosts drink?"

"I'm not a ghost."

He lifts his glass. "Right."

She steps in close, her voice soft. "What do you think I am?"

He studies her. There's something familiar in his gaze now—like déjà vu brushed against his spine and lingered.

"You're not normal," he says.

Clark hums. "Rude."

She reaches forward and her fingers touch his chest.

Francis sucks in a breath at the contact.

Not in fear. Something else.

Recognition, maybe.

A ripple of memory. A heartbeat's whisper: You've felt this before.

Clark lowers her hand. "Still think I'm a hallucination?"

He stares at her.

"No," he says. "But you feel like something I forgot. Have we met?"

She smiles. "No."

Francis taps a finger against his glass. "So, what does a—" he gestured vaguely, "—whatever-you-are do for fun?"

Clark pretends to consider. "Lurk."

Francis chuckles.

"And you? What does Francis Fell do for fun? Aside from congressmen's wives?"

He gives her a slow, knowing smile. "You know who I am."

Clark holds his gaze, unblinking, unbothered. Then points to the newspaper on the table. "Quite a celebrity."

"She was sad, I was trying to help." He takes a sip. "Tell me your name at least. You pretty thing."

"Clark," she says. "But 'pretty thing' works too."

He huffs a laugh. "I used to be better at this." He hands her a glass.

Clark swirls the amber liquid inside.

Francis watches her. "You don't drink?"

"This stuff doesn't work on me."

He nods, lifting his own glass. "Then stay for my company."

Clark leans closer and clinks her glass against his. "Neither does that. I'll see you around, Francis."

And then she's gone.

Vanished like smoke on the wind.

He stares at the space she left behind, heart drumming with something he doesn't understand.

He sets his glass on the counter and murmurs, to no one:

"...Clark."