The Lead Warden, Celia, steps to my side, her lion’s tail twitching anxiously behind her. All quasis have an animal tail along with a power across the seven deadly sins. Celia’s is wrath. I have two deadly-sin powers—lust and wrath—as well as a long, thin dragon-scale tail. Totes badass.
Celia yells to me over the din of our power generators. “So sorry to drag you in here again.”
I shout back my reply. “No worries.”
Total Lie. In truth, there’s a ton to worry about. The Towers have had nine code-orange failures in the last week alone.
“The Carriers are unstable again,” explains Celia quickly. “It’s never been this bad.”
“How do the reports look?”
“Fine.” Celia pulls an electronic tablet from her pocket. “Perfect, even.” Her features turn wide-eyed and pleading. “Are you sure you won’t follow the ghoul-rules? Our old Masters were often very wise. Maybe the ghouls left the Orb here for a reason.”
At the very mention of Lucifer’s Orb, my hands ball into angry fists. I kick the ghouls out of Purgatory and what do they do? Hide the ultimate source of demonic magic in my homeland so I can only send souls to Hell. Screw them.
“We’ve been through this before,” I reply. Celia opens her mouth, but I shut off her standard speech before she starts. “I know what you’re about to say. A million new souls enter Purgatory each month. We’re running out of places to put them. That’s why the Towers are ready to burst. But once I send a soul somewhere, even I can’t take it back. No innocents to Hell.”
“Yes, Great Scala. As you say, Great Scala.” Celia starts rapid-fire bowing, which is a new and somewhat cringe-worthy move.
“We need to stop rehashing old territory and focus on the code-red. Which Carrier’s at risk this time?”
Celia points to a cloud that’s resting on the floor. “That one.”
I scan the Tower from floor to ceiling. “No, I don’t think so.” Lately, I can tell at a glance if a Carrier’s at risk. Halfway up the walls, one cloud vibrates ominously. “Show me number thirteen.”
Celia pulls up her tablet and starts pressing buttons. Above me, the clouds shift places until a new one takes up the entire mile-long concrete floor. Number Thirteen. Celia presses more buttons and the puffy structure solidifies into a rectangular shape, ready for inspection.
I walk up to the closest wall of mist; Celia follows right behind. We could easily step inside the Cloud Carrier itself, but that’s not a safe thing to do. Purgatory isn’t exactly happy-fun-time for these souls, and angry ghosts can kick some major ass.
“What level are we on?” Carriers are like cruise ships, only with levels instead of decks.
“A-Level.”
“And how many levels are at risk in this Carrier?”
“All of them.”
Yipes. “That’s not good.”
Our Carriers are driven by quantum theory. Dozens of levels jammed into different dimensions of the same cloud, that kind of thing. Saves us room, but it makes everything dangerously interconnected.
I move in closer until my nose almost touches the containment wall. The interior of the Carrier comes into view. It’s a semi-transparent dream world. Soft grass, rolling fields, sunny sky. Spirits are sleeping under trees or curled onto blankets. Inches of space separate them from each other.
I exhale a satisfied breath. The field’s crowded, sure, but the souls are calm, comfortable and safe. This is the way it’s supposed to work. Unfortunately, A-Level doesn’t tell me why this Carrier was moving so strangely. A memory appears in my mind’s eye. We’ve had trouble on this cloud before.
“Show me K-Level.”
Celia clicks more buttons and a new scene appears. This time, it’s a group of men and women, all ghosts, and all losing their freaking minds. Punching, clawing, pulling hair, tearing shirts, hanging from trees. Screaming incredibly inappropriate crap at each other. I can’t hear what they say, but I read lips well enough to get the gist. Rough stuff.
An anxious weight settles onto my back. All these folks should be sleeping peacefully, like the souls on A-Level. Instead, they’re wide-awake, crowded on top of each other, and pissed.
Before me, a pair of ghost fighters slam into the containment wall. The exterior of the whole Carrier shakes with the impact, sending shock waves through the rest of the clouds. If the ghosts break out here, it can cause a chain reaction across the whole Tower. At this point, my only consolation is that they’re fighting with each other, and not trying to break out of the Carrier itself.
“What’s the spirit density on this cloud, anyway?”
“Four hundred thousand souls.”
I let out a low whistle. “That’ll do it.”
It’s the same story everywhere, though. All the Carriers are packed-to-bursting, and the dead don’t like being crowded any more than the living. It only takes one ghost to wake up, flip out, and start fighting. After that, the whole Carrier’s at risk.
The battle inside the cloud gets vicious. Spectral bodies are hurled into the misty walls. The hazy barriers of the Carrier shake more violently.