Balance (The Divine, Book One) (2 page)

When
it did, the resulting reality was cathartic. At least I still had something.
Something I could build upon, strive for, be challenged with. I may have lost
my vessel, but the soul was still sentient. I got back to my feet, wiped my
eyes with my hand, and looked at Mr. Ross.

"I'm
ready," I said. He didn't say anything, but he looked pleased, as if I had
passed some kind of test.

When
we reached the top of the sand dune, we were greeted by nothing but white,
empty space. Who knew that nothing could be so amazing? I gawked.

"I've
seen this at least a million times," Mr. Ross said. I believed it.
"I'm still amazed by it every time."

"What
is it?" I asked.

"Think
of the beach as a staging area. I'm the Collector. I pick you up here. From
staging, you can go to any number of places depending on how you've been
assigned. Most people get moved on to a secondary staging area where they're
met with by an acquaintance if we have one available. We try to find somebody
who's already learned the ropes to help them with the transition. If they don't
know anybody, or maybe nobody ever liked them, they get moved on to
orientation, which is divvied up by religious belief. A few get reassigned up
or down, usually because of a 'clerical error'." He actually did the air
quotes. "You're a special case. You get to meet the Boss."

Special
case? Up or down? Boss? Too many questions, but I never got to ask them. He put
his hand on my back and shoved me into the nothingness.

When
we came out on the other side, we were standing on a busy city street that
reminded me of New York. It was an instantaneous thing, a smooth transition.
Right foot forward to land on the sidewalk, left foot still planted in the
sand. Thankfully my clothes matched the environment, a pair of jeans, black
t-shirt, and a leather blazer. I bet I looked cool.

"New
York?" I asked.

"You
tell me," Mr. Ross replied. "You made it."

"What
do you mean?"

"I'll
let the Boss explain it to you." He motioned me towards the building we
were standing in front of. I looked up at the huge mass of glass and steel
stretching as far up into the sky as my neck would crane. A hundred stories, at
least. As we slipped through the revolving glass door, I noticed a small sign
etched in the glass in a really fancy script.

Alighieri
Corp.

The
inside of the building was incredible. A huge reception area with a ceiling
that easily reached two hundred feet, a solid wall of glass to the left and
right, and a massive tapestry hanging behind a semi-circular reception desk
where a young brunette was typing something into a computer. On either side of
the desk were two pairs of elevators. Mr. Ross swerved left and hit the ‘up’
button. I took a closer look at the tapestry while we waited.

It
looked familiar. A man in the foreground wearing a red robe and a funny hat,
holding open a book. To the left a bunch of naked people dancing their way
downward towards a fiery pit and the Devil. To the right a walled city, and in
the background a spiraling mountain that led upwards to a ribboned sky.

I
turned to Ross. "Is that?" I didn't get to finish. The elevator doors
opened and he pushed me inside.

"The
Boss," he mumbled, telling me to keep quiet and save the questions. The
elevator doors binged closed and we started rising, slowly at first but I could
feel us building speed. I tried to organize my questions into some kind of logical
order, but logic was failing me and besides, the ride was too short. I felt my
stomach lurch as we decelerated way too quickly. Could dead people vomit?

The
elevator doors opened and I stepped out, feeling the softness of thick
carpeting beneath my leather boots. That was nothing compared to the view. The
entire floor was surrounded by what seemed like a solid pane of completely
invisible glass, and I could see out for miles. The angle was no good to look
down on the city itself, but I could see now that tall mountains, with
snow-covered slopes and plenty of jagged peaks, ringed us. At the foot of the
mountains was a thick forest, and before that the tail end of the city, just as
dense as I imagined the area around this building to be. There were no roads
leading out of the city, at least not that I could see.

About
fifty feet forward, directly in front of the elevator was an ornate mahogany
desk. Sitting behind the desk in an equally ornate chair was a tall, thin man
with short white hair. He was turned so I could only catch his profile, but I
could tell even from here that he was wearing a finely tailored suit, and a
heavy gold Rolex dangled from his bony wrist. Mr. Ross led me over to him.

The
man spun the chair to face us as we approached. His lips spread in a tight
smile and he leaned himself onto the desk to drag himself to his feet. He was
shorter than I had thought, standing a full head below me. He stuck out his
hand.

"Buongiorno,
Signore," he said. I took his hand in my own, making an effort to be firm,
but not break anything. He felt like he would crack under the slightest
pressure. "My name is Dante."

He
had a soft Italian accent, but it was different than I was familiar with. By
that I mean, not like in the Godfather. "Landon Hamilton," I said. I
was sure he already knew that, but I didn't know what else to say.

"Of
course," he said with a laugh. He dropped my hand and waved me to a chair
that hadn't been there a second before. "Please, take a seat." He
looked at Mr. Ross. "Thank you Mr. Ross. You can go. I believe you have
another pickup."

Mr.
Ross looked at his watch. "Yes," he said. He didn't leave by
elevator. Instead, he just vanished.

Dante
eased himself back down into the chair. "Now, where were we? Ah yes, you
are surely wondering what is going on? Would that be a good estimation?"

"Dead
on," I said. He stifled a grin.

"I'm
sure you've already surmised that you have left behind the state of existence
often referred to as 'being alive'. You did so in quite a violent manner in
fact, being blown to bits by a certain 'hottie'." He stifled another grin.
At least he was amused. "Believe me when I say you should be glad for the
fact that it was quick. Better to come to a sudden end than to suffer."

That
might actually be true, but I was twenty-three years old. "Better to live
another, I don't know, fifty, sixty years," I said.

"So
you think," he replied. His jovial expression faded somewhat. "Things
are not as simple as they may seem from that side of the coin, Landon. Not
simple at all."

"I
really have no idea what you're talking about," I said

"No,
you wouldn't. Are you familiar with the Catholic Church?" he asked.

Familiar?
My mother dragged me to Church every Sunday morning for most of my childhood. I
had spent my adulthood teetering between a healthy fear of God and a complete
lack of belief in anything special. Considering that second part had already
been proven wrong, maybe I should reconsider the first.

"I
spent a year as an alter boy," I replied.

Dante
stood up again and began pacing the room. After a few trips back and forth
behind the desk, he spoke again.

"It's
a lie," he said.

"What?"
I wasn’t sure I had heard him right.

He
took a deep breath and sighed. "It's a lie, Landon. Not a total
fabrication of course, there is a God, and as you may have determined Heaven
and Hell are real. So is the place in between."

That
was one question answered. "So I'm in Purgatory?" I asked.

"You're
in Purgatory," he confirmed. "But it's not what you think. None of it
is."

I had
a feeling he was going to say that. Who knew it took eternal sleep to be woken
up? "Do you care to explain?"

Dante
resumed his pacing. "It is difficult to explain, Signore. We are speaking
of thousands of years of history. I will start with the simplest description."
He paused, trying to think of how to say what he wanted to say so I would
understand.

"In
all things there is balance," he said. "It is the single most
important law of the Universe. If something expands, it must contract, if it
goes up, it must come down. Even God must adhere to this law, because it
transcends even Him. This is the reason for Purgatory. It is necessary for the
balance of goodness, and evilness. When God created mankind, and named it good,
he tried to push this balance to his own ends. Such things are not to be."

I
knew some of the stories in the Bible. "The serpent."

"Yes,"
he shouted, smiling and clapping his hands together. "Not a serpent of
course. That is just a story in a book, a representation of the truth, a
simplification much as I am attempting now. Mankind could never have been
inherently good, or inherently evil, because the Laws of Balance would not
allow it. To use an analogy you may understand, the more he pushed these
boundaries, the more feedback he received. He created the seraphs, the angels,
to try to steer us back on the path of righteousness, and they began to
fall."

"The
Devil?" I guessed.

"As
he is known in some circles,” Dante said. “He was an angel once, but he was
corrupted by temptation. He sewed dissent amongst the ranks of the angels,
making false promises and filling their ears with believable lies. He gained
immeasurable power before God realized his one and only mistake, the only one
he could ever make. God restored the balance by giving Hell to the Devil. He
then created Purgatory to put some distance between the two, in order to
minimize the damage that could be caused by shifting tides. So it was for many
thousands of years."

"But…"
I knew there had to be one. There always was, wasn't there?

Dante
sighed again. He walked over to the window and gazed out at the mountains.
"The Devil and his minions thrive on chaos. He gains nothing from balance,
and lusts only for power. He twists mankind to his will when he can, and forever
hopes to tip the scales in his favor.

For
many years this was as expected, and thus the balance was held steady. Two
thousand years ago, a problem arose. God decided to get back in the game. He
was unhappy with the status quo, unhappy to have been denied in anything. The
war began anew with the birth of His son."

I
rose to my feet and went to stand at the window with Dante. His eyes darted
over to look at me, and a surprised expression spread across his face, and then
vanished.

"Jesus
was crucified,” I said. “Wouldn't that have rebalanced the equation?"

"Crucified
yes, but also martyred. His death created the underpinnings of the Catholic
Church, the most powerful of God's armies. I was once a staunch ally of the
Church. I fell in love with an angel, and was granted a rare opportunity to
visit all three realms. Heaven is a wondrous and beautiful place, incredible to
behold, and Hell is just as opposite."

Now I
was really confused. "So why not stay in Heaven?"

 "There
is a war going on, Signore. It may seem that there are only two sides, but
there is a third, and it has very few soldiers. If the Devil gets his due, the
world of man will fall into chaos and ruin. It will be ruled by violence,
death, and famine. All of humanity will be hunted to extinction by the
creatures of the Underworld."

"So
we root for good right?" I asked.

He
shook his head. "It is certainly tempting to do so, but if the world is
overwhelmed with good then God will have leave to do as he wishes. You have
heard of the Rapture?” I nodded. “He will take only his most faithful servants
up to Heaven, and he will destroy everything else in order to make right his
miscalculation. Do not think badly of Him for it, Landon, it is not for any ill
will to us, but because that is His nature. He does not understand that there
is something greater than Him, and as such He will lay challenge to this
universal law. He cannot see that He is destined only to fail in this. In any
case, this is why there must be a third side, and this is why we fight for it.
If either good or evil wins, the world as you know it will cease to be."

It
was a scary thought, and a hard one to accept. My mother had spent my entire
life teaching me to be good, to obey the word of God, to hold the moral high
ground. Okay, I hadn't exactly mastered it, but I tried to be a decent person
overall. My incarceration was for identity theft and fraud. I had tried to
cheat the system, not hurt anybody. Yet, now I was being told that by doing
good I was threatening all of humanity?

"How
can it be wrong to do good in the world?" I asked.

"It
isn't wrong, for the balance must be maintained. For every old lady you help
with their groceries, there is someone being teased for their appearance. For
every prayer you send to God, there is a curse being uttered. Such things are
of utmost importance, and thus the infinite circle continues."

It
made sense in a way I did not completely understand, but was able to accept.
The more I thought about how the world did its business - war, humanitarianism,
greed, philanthropy, stealing and charity, the more I came to understand the
pattern. I moved to stand directly in front of Dante, so I could look him in
the eye. I squeezed in between him and the view.