occasionally spicy

Chapter One: Gabriel

I've been dead for a while this time. I'm usually dead for a while, but this is different. I've started to remember things I shouldn't, things I generally don't have time to get to before I'm born again to rough it on earth.

It's my fault I'm stuck here, between lives, trying hard to find a way to waste the time without losing myself, my soul, here.

There are only so many times you can defy the almighty before he shows you that Old Testament Wrath you'd think he'd have grown out of by now.

I suppose it could have been worse. He could have hurt Her to punish me, I'm glad he didn't. I remember living a thousand lifetimes and then some with her, but I picked this fight all on my own.

She was different. She saw the life first; I saw what was wrong with it.

The magic never got old to her. Waking up in a new life always filled her with curiosity, wonder. I close my eyes at night to try to sleep even though I know I can't, and I see them, those beautiful questions for the sky in her dark eyes.

She was always better than me. Whatever we're made of, she got the lighter part of it. You could see it sparkle in her. It was my favorite part of being alive.

I suppose that light is why I'm here looking for redemption in hell. Something bad happened the last time I died. I suppose it's always bad when people die, I think I've forgotten to be scared of it again.

But something went truly wrong last time. I saw the light like I always did, but that time it was red.

Redder than the thick carpet my boots are sinking into. The door in front of me stretches up too high and too wide, grandiose, a goat-head doorknocker taunting me in the middle of it.

I've known Satan since the beginning, I think. I've never asked for his help; I can't say precisely why. The flames that flicker in his eyes don't exactly scream trustworthiness.

But it's been a few years without being reborn and I'm getting desperate enough to knock on the door to hell.

Maybe if the one in charge spoke to me it would be different. Instead, like always, all I'd gotten was a cold, empty silence. That's why I've got to find my own way out, back to life again. To fix the cycle before I lose what shred of humanity I have left.

The sound of the knock echoes for a moment before the door swings open on its own. Some song from a movie from the 1970's is playing down the hallway, red disco balls clashing with the gothic architecture.

Everything is black and red here, flames outside dark-tinted windows but it's not too hot. Definitely an easier version of hell than the classic lake of fire scenario. Guess the man upstairs has a tendency to exaggerate, I wonder what else he's lied about.

At the end of the hall is a throne. It's large but looks small in the obscenely vaulted room, upholstered with red velvet and silver rivets.

I'm wondering if he's not home when the music swells and he appears in that sudden way of his in the throne, legs thrown saucy like over the arm as he grins at me, that suspicious flicker in his eyes.

I wish he wouldn't appear out of thin air like that. It's alarming enough to kill a man twice.

He's a small man, his small stature only more obvious with the platformed leather boots he's wearing. The rest of his wardrobe is just as scary sexy, appealing to the dark side of whoever finds themselves unlucky enough to see him.

He twirls a pink curl around his finger and bats his eyes. Hardly the red man with horns and tail used to frighten children. Truthfully, he belongs in neon lighting with a cherry cocktail in his hand more than he does here, among the flames.

"Well, well, well, Gabriel," he starts, looking me up and down and pausing to bite his lip for a moment. Better just to stay on task than address the vague temptation about him. He's the devil, of course he's distracting.

"Howdy, Satan."

He laughs and perks up in his seat, swinging his legs, clad in lace-up leather pants, so tight they squeak a little in the silence as he studies me like he hasn't seen me before. I suppose it has been a little while.

"Howdy to you too, Cowboy, making those bootcuts work for you I see," he says. I am usually a cowboy, once cowboys exist. I don't mean to be, I don't remember my other lives when I'm on earth. No one does. Looking back now, it has happened a lot though. I don't think I could talk different if I tried.

"I'm here to make a deal," I tell him. I'd rather stay on task than be distracted by whatever devil magic he wears like an aura.

He swings his legs around and leans forward, the smoldering embers in his eyes brightening into dancing flames, ominously.

"Oh really?" he asks, feigning surprise like he can't read my mind. I know he can read my mind. Hence why I'm working real hard not to acknowledge the deep v-cut of his silk shirt.

"I need to get back to earth. I've been here too long."

"That you have," he agrees, hopping out of his throne to prance a circle around me, rubbing his hands and chuckling to himself. He offered me a deal when I first got here, and I didn't take it. I assume he's feeling good about himself that I finally came around.

"Can you do it?" I ask, as he stops in front of me and leans in to search my face, for what I couldn't say.

"Of course I can do it," he scoffs, snapping his fingers. In his hand appears a red cigarette, which he lights by blowing a tiny flame through his pink lips. He takes a long draw, the scent of cinnamon on his breath when he exhales dark black smoke. "It's going to cost you."

"That's the general idea of a deal," I say, trying not to be impatient. Once I made up my mind, the urgency started building in my chest and tightening up my throat. I need to see her again, know that she was okay.

Satan laughs again, the sound bright and crackling like a particularly sap-filled and popping log on a fire.

What he wants in exchange I don't think I can give him, but I agree anyway. I'll face the music when I come to it.

He grabs my hand and turns my arm to see my wrist, drawing again from his cigarette before blowing a smoke ring shaped like a pentagram at my skin. It settles with a sizzle but only burns slightly as it marks my skin with an upside-down star in a circle.

---

I didn't know what to expect when he snapped his fingers and sent me back to earth. Being born as a baby is usually how I get there, and as disorienting as that is, arriving as a man isn't much easier.

I forgot how much stronger the rain smells on earth than it does in the land between lives. It's a bit intoxicating, the scent of wet pavement.

Pavement. How long was I gone? I died in the mid 1800's last time, yet I'm looking at electric lights and vehicles compelled by combustion engines.

It takes a moment too long to remember not to stand in the middle of the road. Before the car hits me, it stops, and the eyes of the driver make my heart stand as still as my body is.

"It's you," I say, though she can't hear me. There's a look of shock on her face, I can't tell if it's recognition or just because I appeared out of nowhere. I don't fault her for letting off the gas and rolling towards me until I meet the hood of her car, then the windshield, and finally the damp ground.

I'd be surprised too if my long-lost soulmate suddenly showed up in front of me. Not that I think she knows who I am. I suppose I'd be surprised if anything suddenly showed up in front of me, as physical matter doesn't have a tendency of doing that.

The clouds move by above me, it's late afternoon by the golden way they're alight. They're beautiful, but hardly compare to the face that appears above me, her hair in a bun with the strands sticking out like the feathers of a startled tropical bird.

"Are you okay?" she's asking me. I keep staring at her, smiling and I can't stop. Her fingers are cold when she checks my neck for a pulse, and I resist the urge to press her hand there to warm it.

But I don't, because she doesn't know me. She shouldn't. Not this life, not yet.

"Hey there, Stel."

Probably the wrong thing to say if I was trying not to shock her further. For a moment, those glorious questions flood her deep brown eyes, the color of smoked hickory in the shade.

As uncertain as she seems, she helps me sit up, squeezing my head gently in her soft, soft hands. I just keep looking at her, I can't stop.

"Did you hit your head?" she asks, and I realize she's shaking.

"Don't reckon I did." Truthfully, I don't know, honestly don't care. She still has that dark freckle above her lip.

"You gotta get out of the road," she says. "Can you walk?"

She's right about that, and I let her help pull me up. Her hands around my arm are still quivering and I hope she's not cold. It's the worst when she's cold.

"What year is it?" she asks me, which is funny because I didn't know that before she hit me with her car. Looking around, I can see better that we're in a parking lot. Probably a good thing, since she was going slower and didn't plow me over like a mailbox.

"Skip," I tell her, and sit on the curb. She joins me, still looking panicked, though I am fine. Not bleeding, nothing broken. I've seen much worse.

"How did you know my name?"

I'll admit, I didn't plan what I was going to say. All that time in death I spent thinking of her, I never could decide how to explain who I was. How the universe worked. That we'd met before, more times than I could count. That I knew what she liked to eat, and what she didn't. That I knew what her hair smelled like and death couldn't make me forget it.

It was a lot to drop on someone, and I had no proof to show her.

Maybe I did hit my head because the words come out without waiting for permission.

They're hard not to say with those big browns sparkling in the spreading sunset, clear enough I can see the clouds in them.