Harry shook his head, a deep darkness spreading throughout his soul.  There was nothing else left.  “I’m sorry,” he said to Steph’s unmoving form.  “I’m sorry that I caused all this and that I never got to say goodbye.  I used to think I came here every night to get drunk and forget about the past, but tonight I realised that I kept coming back to see you.  You were the only person that allowed me to see that there would be a tomorrow and that it would be easier than today.  It was you that took away my pain, not the booze, but thanks to me there will be no more tomorrows.”

“…Harry?”

The word was soft, below even a whisper, but he heard it.  A few moments passed and Harry started to think that his crippled mind was perhaps just playing tricks on him.

But then he heard it again.

“Harry,” Steph whispered again, louder this time.

She’s alive!

“Steph!  Steph, can you hear me?”

It didn’t seem like she could, but she knew he was there.  It was obvious by the look in her eyes.  ”Harry…I…missed you.”

“I missed you too, Steph.”

She smiled.  “I knew you’d come back.  I always knew you were a good man.  That you…would end up being my hero…one day.”

Harry was stunned.  “I wish that were true, Steph.  I really do, but I let you down.  I let everyone down.”

Steph shook her head, eyes still closed as though she were reciting a dream.  “No, Harry.  The only person you ever let down is yourself.  You’re a good man, but you don’t…you don’t see it.”

Harry wiped the tears and snot from his face.  “You know what I wish, Steph?”

“No, Harry.  What do you…wish?”

“I wish that instead of killing Thomas Morris that night, I’d have met you instead.  Maybe you could have saved me…saved everything.”

Steph’s face lit up in a smile, but then went still.  She didn’t reply.

“Steph,” Harry said, softly.  “Hey, Steph, I just realised that you were my second chance.  I’m sorry I blew it, but I’m going to put it right.”

Harry moved forward and kissed Steph on her lips.  He wanted nothing more than for her to be alive a moment longer so that she could kiss him back, but he knew that she was gone.  At least I got to say goodbye.

Harry stood up straight, tensing his cold muscles and testing each one to make sure they were still working and not completely frozen yet.  Despite taking the steps two at a time on the way down, he took them individually on the way up, taking his time to digest just what he intended to do.  He lit the corridor above with his candle and made his way to the bar.  Lucas was already there waiting for him

Just the man I want to speak to.

“Harry Boy,” Lucas’s normal chirpiness was gone and he sounded solemn, like a guard on death row.  He handed over a beer and took one for himself, lids already removed.  Harry decided whatever happened, it would be the last beer he ever drank.  One for the road.

“Lucifer,” said Harry, sipping the beer.  “It’s time isn’t it?”

Lucas nodded.  “It’s up to you, lad.  To be honest I’m only here tonight because I’m duty-bound.  The apocalypse and all that, you know?  It’s kind of traditional.”

“That can’t be the reason.”

Lucas laughed his charming Irishman laugh.  “No, you’re right.  The truth of it is that Michael summoned me here to see the destruction of mankind.  I guess they think I had a hand in bringing down the ceiling – in leading men astray and all that.”

Harry shrugged.  “Well, didn’t you?”

Lucas swigged his beer down to the bottom third.  “Well, yes and no.  When I first fell from Heaven I hated you all – God’s most prized creation – and I sought to corrupt you all.  I wanted to spoil God’s work and his image that lived in all of you, but you know what I found out?”

“What?” said Harry.

“I realised that I was wasting my time.  Men were doing a fine thing of messing stuff up on their own.  I had a hand, here and there, sure, but Hitler, Bin Laden, Bundy, the nuclear-fuckin-bomb?  All that was on you lot.  The worst, most corrupt men that ever lived are mostly people I’ve never met.”

“Then why does Heaven blame you?  Why have they brought you here to watch us die?”

“Because I fell in love with humanity.  At first I rebelled against God because I wanted to live by my own rules and I sought about destroying you all, but after a while I realised that man wasn’t in God’s image, he was in mine.  Men have spent hundreds of years fighting for their freedom just the same way as I and some of my brothers did against Heaven.  Few hundred years ago, I stopped trying to destroy you and started living amongst you.  I buried my anger with God and stopped being the bogeyman you write about in your religious texts.  I’m no different to you all and just as sad to see that the party’s all over.  The only reason I’m forced to witness it all end is for them to make a point.”

“What point?” Harry asked.

“To prove that anyone that goes against God will not be tolerated.  Me included.”

Harry laughed.

“Why do you laugh, Harry Boy?”

“Nothing.  I guess I just find it amusing to find out that the Devil is benevolent and God is wrathful.”

Lucas laughed too.  “Well, I hope it teaches you to not always believe what the media says.  Especially the ancient Aramaic right-wing media.  The bible got me all wrong, I tell you.”

The two of them shared a laugh and finished their beers.  After a few moments, Harry put his empty bottle on the bar.”

“Time to go, I guess, but before I do, can I ask you a question?”

Lucas shrugged.  “You’ve done little else for the past few hours.  Why stop now?”

Harry took that to mean, yes.  “You mentioned the levels of Hell, earlier?”

“Aye.”

“Which is the worst?”

Lucas didn’t seem comfortable by the question.  “Well…it’s all relative, really.  The punishment tends to fit the crime.”

“I know that!”  Harry was becoming impatient.  He could feel his body shutting down under the constant attack of the cold and he had to finish this before he gave in to hyperthermia.  “But surely some layers are worse than others.  Where do the very worst go, like Judas Iscariot and Hitler?  People like that?”

Lucas thought before he answered.  “Well, if you listen to Dante Alighieri then there are just seven levels, but in truth the regions of Hell are never ending.  Time and space there is eternal, but there is a deepest level reserved only for pure evil.  Light does not exist there and neither does hope of any kind.  It is suffering and despair without beginning and without end; a place where Evil reigns and flays the skin of any soul that dare venture there.  It is a Hell beyond human understanding and no human, not even the vilest, has ever committed sin harsh enough to be sent there.  It is deserving of no man.  It was created to hold me.”

Harry raised an eyebrow.  “A Hell so bad that it was made to torture the Devil himself?”

Lucas nodded and seemed upset by the thought of it.  “Aye, they call it…The Abyss.”

Harry took that information in and held onto it.  The Abyss.  The darkest, most desperate level of hell that is fit only for the Devil himself.  A place of torture beyond anything a man could imagine.  Okay, got it.

“Lucas,” Harry said.  “It’s been a pleasure meeting you and I sincerely hope that the Abyss never claims you.  Sounds strange to say, but I think you might actually be one of the good guys.”

Lucas laughed.  “I have many names, but that’s a first.”

Harry shook the Devil’s hand and walked away, leaving his candle on the bar and entering the darkness.

Chapter Thirty-SIX

Harry opened The Trumpet’s door and looked out over the landscape.  The blizzard had finally begun to die down, its job almost completed.  The world had been rendered featureless.  Everywhere Harry looked was pure-white and buried beneath giant snow banks.  Across the street, the tops of buildings were just about visible, but their doorways were covered up past their tops.  Harry had a feeling that Lucas had something to do with The Trumpet not yet being buried.