This time there was no stumble, no fall. Kurt walked through, stepping in one side of the portal and stepping out the other. He held Junior's hand in a firm grip, but he didn't have to drag him through. The boy came willingly, wanting to be out of Hell, trusting that whatever lay on the other side of the portal would be better, trusting in Kurt to take care of him.

Kurt had never had someone trust in him like this, so completely, putting their fate in his hands. He'd heard stories about dogs, the animal trustingly licking its master's hand as the moment approached when the veterinarian would put it to sleep. And now Kurt felt almost in the same position with Junior, leading him into God knew what with the boy trustingly holding his hand.

I will be loyal and faithful to my Lost Boy brothers, and I will do right by them, and I will trust them to do right by me, and if I break this oath I'll turn into a dirty bug and eat dog poop forever. Junior believed in the oath, or it seemed he did, and Kurt had come to believe in it to the extent that he felt he owed that allegiance to Junior. It was almost as if he'd become the boy's father, or at least an older brother with guardianship.

"All right, Fearless Leader," George said, standing on Kurt's other side, "what now?"

George... Older than Kurt, bigger and stronger than Kurt, with military training, yet he was deferring to Kurt's command. Technically Kurt was the youngest of the group. George was almost 30, and Junior... well, even though he had the appearance of a seven-year-old boy and acted much like one — a very traumatized one — he'd been a prisoner in Hell for over sixty years. Kurt wasn't even twenty-four yet. He didn't feel ready to lead, capable of leading. But Alain had briefed Kurt on what to expect in Purgatory, had put his faith in Kurt to save his soul. Alain had annointed Kurt as the new leader of the expedition, passed the mantle on to him. It made Kurt want to sit down and become a rock, just turn to stone and not have all this responsibility heaped upon him, but there was a lot riding on the outcome of this quest or whatever it was. George's soul, Alain's soul, Junior... and Kurt's own soul.

He took stock of his surroundings. They seemed to be in a small, almost circular antechamber, a seven-sided shape about fifteen feet across. The walls were white concrete, the ceiling about ten feet high, and the floor was covered in reddish-brown septagonal tiles with white grouting lines between them. It was spotlessly clean and a gleaming chrome escalator tirelessly rose to whatever lay above. "The only place to go is up," Kurt said.

Kurt was wearing the pistol in a holster on his belt. With his free hand he unsheathed it and passed it over to George. "Be ready for anything, but don't be conspicuous about it." George took the pistol and held it in front of his stomach, his other hand covering it partially.

Kurt stepped onto the escalator first, drawing Junior on with him. It seemed to rise about thirty feet, concrete bordering both sides, and it was odd, Kurt noted, that there wasn't one beside it, going in the opposite direction, as if no one was ever expected to go down from where they were headed. Breaking through into open space, Kurt got his first glimpse of Purgatory, so shocking that he tripped on the metal plate where the escalator ended. He let go of Junior's hand as he stumbled forward, regaining his balance and looking out at the vista before him. For miles and miles, curving over the horizon, stretched the most immense... was it an office plaza? A shopping mall?

Kurt closed his eyes and shook his head. Purgatory was supposed to be a great mountain with ledges where the penitent souls learned the lessons of the sins they had committed, expiating them before they could move on to Heaven. But this...

He was in the center of one end of a main plaza. Twenty feet above, a mezzanine stretched out along one side, about thirty feet wide, stairs leading up to it somewhere perhaps, and above that, maybe two hundred or more feet, levels began, great long balconies that circled the immense length, overlooking the main plaza. "Junior," George shouted behind him.

Kurt turned back. Junior was floating in mid air and George had a tenuous grip on one foot, keeping him from floating higher. Kurt took a couple of running steps, leapt up, catching a better grip on Junior's leg, and pulled him down to the floor, then pushed on his shoulders to keep him anchored. It wasn't a hard task to keep him on the ground. The pull wasn't great, but Kurt could feel a light straining against the pressure he put on Junior. "George," Kurt said, "hold him."

Kurt took his backpack off and emptied its contents. Putting in one bottle of water, his iPhone, and some CDs, he gingerly slipped it over Junior's shoulders and adjusted the straps. The fit wasn't perfect, considering the backpack had been made for someone Kurt's size, not Junior's, but it was good enough not to fall off too easily. "Let go," Kurt said.

George took his hands off the boy and they watched. He rose slowly, his heels leaving the floor first, then his toes, an expression of fear on his face. Kurt pushed lightly on Junior's shoulder, bringing Junior back to the floor, and put another bottle of water in the pack. He let go again and watched. Junior stayed on the floor. "Walk a little," Kurt said, waving Junior away.

The boy hesitated, looking at Kurt with a pitiful gaze as if to ask do I have to, as if it scared him to put more distance between himself and Kurt, but a reassuring nod got him to do as Kurt told him, walking about ten feet away and then back. "Now jump as high as you can," Kurt said. The boy squatted and then sprang up, his little hands holding onto the straps of the backpack. He went nearly six feet in the air, then came down slowly, looking like an astronaut on a moon walk. Kurt walked over, patted his shoulder and tousled his hair. "Good," he said. "We had a close call there."

"What in the... what was that," George asked.

"When the souls arrive in Purgatory, they're weighed down by their sins. As their sins are expiated, they can move up higher toward the pinnacle, toward Heaven. Junior apparently has no sin..."

"So he was floating up to Heaven," George said, completing Kurt's sentence.

Kurt looked upward, trying to spot the ceiling. There was one, maybe three-hundred and fifty feet up, paned with glass skylights, and light came in through it, ostensibly from some sort of sun. There didn't seem to be any artificial light sources that Kurt could spot, but Alain had warned him that Purgatory did have day and night. Kurt didn't know whether or not to believe it though. Dante's description was far from the mark on this one.

"Let's put the rest of this stuff in your pack, George," Kurt said, bending down to pick up the remaining contents of his own, strewn across the floor. He spotted the bandanna in which he'd wrapped Mick's pinky and picked it up. The final image he'd had of Mick came unbidden into his mind, the man crucified upside-down along the ramp into the arena, the stub on his hand where the pinky had once been, the catatonic, unblinking stare. Mick had saved Kurt's life and the crucifixion was his reward. Kurt put the bandanna into his pocket, wanting to keep the pinky close.

George slipped off the large frame pack and put it down near the pile of stuff, opening it and helping Kurt pack it all in; the ibuprofen packets, the notebook... There were no cigarettes.

They untied the Uzi from the pack and George slung it over his shoulder, allowing Kurt to holster the pistol on his belt again. When the items were all in George's pack, they zipped it back up and George took it up, hooking the straps over his shoulders. Kurt took Junior's hand again, and they walked forward into the plaza, looking for a way up.

The plaza was as long as the eye could see and then some, easily fifty yards wide, but Kurt couldn't spot an escalator or elevator or stairs anywhere. The walls on this level were blank, just tall expanses of white, leading more than a hundred feet up to the first concourse on one side, to the mezzanine on the other. Yet none of it was familiar. He'd seen the entirety of existence, everything, including Purgatory, Heaven, Hell, all the planes of eternity, but it was all hazy, it was all fading...

About a mile in, they came to the edge of a pool. Raised three feet from the floor, tiled along its edge with the same reddish-brown brick and white grout, it stretched on into the main plaza, disappearing over the horizon. It was wide, with thirty foot aisles on each side between its edges and the walls, containing clear water and a blank white bottom. Kurt and George sat down on the edge, Junior standing in front of them.

So far they hadn't seen a single soul, hadn't heard a single sound. It was as if the mall were abandoned. "So what now," George asked, turning to look farther in.

Kurt followed his gaze. "I don't know. This isn't anything like I'd expected. We've gotta go up. I know that much."

"But how? I don't see any stairs, any escalators..."

Kurt brought his feet up and stood up on the ledge. "Junior," he said, reaching down to the boy, "come up here."

Junior took his hand and Kurt helped him up onto the ledge. "I'm going to put you up on my shoulders and I want you to tell me what you see. Okay?"

Junior nodded. Placing his hands under Junior's armpits, Kurt lifted him up to sit on his shoulders. "What do you see?"

Junior was silent. "Stand up if you can." Kurt felt Junior's hands on his head and he held Junior's ankles for balance. The boy was amazingly light, only a couple of pounds, the backpack's weight being partially offset by Junior's buoyancy. "See anything now?" Kurt asked.

"Yes," Junior replied, his voice quiet and meek.

"What?"

"People."

"Sit down and hold on tight," Kurt said, tugging gently on Junior's ankles as George stood up eagerly. Junior did as Kurt said. Holding onto Junior's legs as the boy gripped handfuls of Kurt's hair, he jumped down from the ledge and took off running, George keeping pace beside him.

They jogged down the right side of the pool, the mezzanine above them. They couldn't spot anyone yet, but as they ran, they began hearing faint shouts in the distances. With every step, the shouts grew louder, slowly growing into a distant roar, sounding like thousands of people shouting excitedly. Cautiously, Kurt slowed his pace, George slowing alongside him, but the shouts continued to grow louder at a quickening pace. And then, in the distance, two images became clear to Kurt. On the water a large boat chugged forward, and on both sides of the pool, huge masses of people ran alongside it, shouting and cheering. They were still hundreds of yards off but they ran forward at an inhuman pace, nearly as fast as speeding cars on a city street, somehow achieving incredible velocity as they tried to keep up with the boat.

It looked like an enlarged version of the amphibious troop transports from World War II movies, a few shades darker than battleship grey, and the mass of people extended back, continuously pouring forward over the horizon like a flood of water breaking loose from a dam. Kurt backed up as they approached, not showing any signs of slowing, their shouts becoming an excited roar.

"We'd better move," George shouted over the noise of the approaching mass as he tugged on Kurt's shoulder. Kurt took hold of Junior's ankles and turned, running back toward the pool's edge. As they passed it, they stopped and pressed themselves against the wall, poised to move if the flood of people became dangerous.

The people rushed past them, gathering in the plaza in front of the pool's end, jostling each other as they jockeyed for position, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the landing craft. It slowed as it neared the edge, stopping ten feet from the tiled border, its front panel dropping forward to become a gangplank. The front of the crowd surged forward onto the gangplank as a mass of new arrivals were seemingly pushed out, looking confused, afraid. Most of them started rising the moment they came out into the open air and the waiting souls grabbed for them, wrapped them in embraces, lunged for their legs, trying to catch a grip on them. Souls thronging onto the platform got pushed off the edges and fell into the water, floundering there while others beat at each other and fought to get at the new arrivals.

As the arrivals rose, some of the souls clung on, slowly moving upward with them, most losing their grips within ten or twenty feet, falling back into the surging mass of people only to be crowd-surfed along the top of the throng and thrown into the water, or seemingly denting the mass, knocking down other souls as they fell from greater heights.

Looking up Kurt could see the rising figures, the luckiest ones having lost their hangers on, reaching the lowest levels. As they reached the apexes of their individual rises, each seemed to shake like it was caught in the grip of a rushing wind and was blown onto the walkway of its level, disappearing from sight. Those hangers-on who had been tenacious enough to retain their grips on their hosts were shaken loose and fell back to the plaza, impacting against the hard floor, splashing into the water, or taking down portions of the crowd like dropping bombs. And when the new arrivals had all been expelled, the gangplank dissolved, dropping the remaining throng on it into the water and reappearing as a closure over the entrance to the landing craft as it chugged backward, going to pick up its next load of souls.

The seething mass of people hooted and cried and charged back down the aisles in hot pursuit, leaving the few dazed new arrivals who hadn't floated up and some unfortunate stunned dropped souls and victims of the violence. Kurt watched the bulk of them leave, feeling a severe disgust. The whole incident had taken no more than minutes, but it felt like it would take years to get rid of the foul taste it had left in his mouth.

The new souls who hadn't been too severely injured stepped out of the pool and looked around. Most wore suits or dresses, some in various states of undress. They were of every race, every nationality, all pale and sickly white under the filtered sunlight from the roof panels, no red flames to tint them closer to flesh. A woman, seemingly Caucasian, in a light dress, saw Kurt and George and walked toward them. She stopped five feet away and stared at them. "Is this Hell?" she asked, her voice frightened, her body trembling.

"No," Kurt said. Slowly he lifted Junior off his shoulders and set him on the floor. "This is Purgatory," he said, stepping forward.

The woman looked at him, then looked behind her. "You're not dead, are you?"

"No."

The woman's expression was blank, then she fell to her knees, weeping into her hands. "I'm so sorry. I tried to be good. I tried." She clasped her hands in front of her. "Please bless me."

"Ummm," Kurt hesitated, looking back at George. Junior had taken George's hand and was watching everything with his normally blank stare, not as if interested but not with disinterest either.

"You're alive," the woman pleaded. "You're alive and you're here. Are you a saint?" She looked at George and Junior. "Are they your wards? Are you escorting them to Heaven? Can you take me with you?"

"Ummm..."

"Help me," she shouted, attracting the attention of the other souls behind her. "How can you be so cruel," she cried. "Bless me... forgive me..."

"Bless me too," another soul shouted from near the pool's edge as it approached. "Yes, bless me too," another soul chimed in, the others joining it as they all approached. Kurt tried to think of why they were there. Alain had explained it. The late repentant inhabited the beach, well at least Dante had described it as a beach. They were those who had "found" God too late in their lives, too apathetic to give care to the status of their souls until they had reached their deathbeds or their final years. Kurt didn't like the concept. As far as he was concerned, if someone was good, they should go to Heaven. Just as he'd considered the first circle of Hell unfair, this too sucked royally.

"Bless me," the chorus of souls called, more and more of them approaching. There were perhaps thirty in all who were coming toward him, maybe another ten who lay too stunned to move. Some limped or hobbled, their legs damaged from the falls, others shuffled, half in a stupor from the shock of arriving where they had. "Bless me, please. Bless me." They moved in closer, some falling to their knees and clasping their hands in front of them. Others were more bold, trying to touch Kurt, dropping down on their hands and knees to grovel at his feet.

Kurt moved back, pressing against the wall next to Junior and George. "What do I do?" he asked, looking helplessly at George, his hands up protectively, trying to fend off the souls who reached for him.

"I can shoot them," George replied, slapping at hands with one of his own while he held the Uzi at the ready with his other, "or... you can bless them."

Kurt hadn't been to synagogue very often, neither of his parents being strongly religious, only taking him on the occasional Saturday or the High Holidays. How was a secular Jew from Manhattan going to bless a bunch of half-damned goyim? "Settle down!" he shouted, needing some quiet in which to think.

The souls obeyed, only a few whimpers coming from them as the few stragglers dropped to their knees and looked expectantly to him for his blessing. If he told them he was no saint, that he couldn't help them... He'd seen the throng go after the new arrivals. These souls might try to tear him apart. George could shoot them, but then what? It wasn't like he could kill them. "Dear Lord," he intoned, the sound of his voice quieting even the whimpers. But what to say next? "Ummm... Dear Lord, I beg You to forgive these sinners. Ummm... Grant them relief from their... from their... from the onus of their mistakes. Let their hearts be their merit..." He paused amazed at his cool turn of a phrase. "Let their hearts be their merit and let them rise up from this degradation into the light of Your love. Amen."

Kurt looked at the souls, afraid of what would happen when the benediction had no effect. They weren't floating upward, but they continued to wait as if he could do something more. "What's your name?" he asked the woman in front of him, the one who had first called him a saint.

"Ariana Guerra," she replied, her head still down, her hands still clasped in front of her.

Kurt really did feel sorry for her. In life she must have been a beautiful girl, perhaps happy and full of joy, but here she was only slightly better than damned, and it weighed heavy in his heart to see her suffer. He wanted to do something. If he could help her rise, even up to the first level, she'd be that much closer to paying her debt and moving onward. "Give me your hand, Ariana."

Cautiously, almost afraid to touch him as if she would get burned, she reached out and took his hand. He pulled gently on it, prompting her to stand up. "That was all the blessing I can give," he said sadly, placing hs other hand on her cheek. "I'm sorry. If it helps any, I forgive you."

Ariana clasped the hand he held against her cheek, turned her face and kissed it. "Thank you," she said.

Kurt felt the hand he held tugging from his grip, but she wasn't backing away. She was moving upward. Her hand slipped out of his and he watched her slowly rise from the floor, her speed gradually increasing, moving diagonally away until a hundred feet up she was in the middle of the plaza and continuing upward at an increased pace. At the last level before the ceiling, she shook and was blown to the side, disappearing from sight.

Kurt continued to watch until after she was gone, complete silence surrounding him, and then all chaos broke loose. George was quick to respond, firing two shots in the air from the Uzi. The souls fell back, afraid, but they were like a dog on a chain, straining, just waiting for the right moment to break free and rush forward. Kurt, on the other hand, was in shock. Did he do that? Was it his blessing, his forgiving her? Was it Ariana's willingness to thank him for trying? He didn't know if he could take responsibility, but if he could... He shook his head and moved back to stand by George and Junior. "Saint Kurt," George said with sarcastic deference, a chuckle following it.

"Shut up," Kurt said angrily, then cringed. "Sorry."

"S'okay," George replied.

Kurt looked down at Junior to see how he was handling all this. "You okay?" he asked, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"You saved her," Junior said, looking at Kurt with awe.

"No," Kurt said, shaking his head, "I don't think so. I think she saved herself."

Junior reached up and pulled Kurt's hand off his shoulder, gripping it with both hands. "No. You saved her."

Kurt stared at the boy. What had Junior seen that he hadn't? And how had he saved her? He couldn't understand it. His blessing hadn't made anyone else rise and he couldn't believe that his forgiveness meant anything. He pulled his hand from Junior's grip and stepped away from the wall again. "You," he said, pointing to a meek-looking man, "come here."

The man looked around as if Kurt had to be pointing to someone else, then tapped his chest while looking questioningly at Kurt. "Yes, you," Kurt said, waving him over. The man detached from the small crowd and shuffled over, his head bowed.

"What's your name," Kurt asked as the man stood before him.

"Leon... Leon Jackson," The man mumbled staring at the floor. Though his skin was as pale as anyone else's, Kurt could tell by his features and his voice that he was African-American.

"Where ya from, Leon?"

"Alabama, sir," Leon said, still refusing to meet Kurt's eyes.

"What did you do for a living, Leon?"

"I was a pipe fitter, sir."

"Give me your hand, Leon."

Kurt put his hand out and the man slowly, tentatively, put his own hand in it. "Look at me, Leon." The man raised his head and looked into Kurt's face. It was obvious he was frightened of him. Reaching forward, Kurt cupped his other hand against the side of Leon's jaw. "I don't know if I can help you, Leon, but I'm going to try... There's a weight in your soul, Leon. Can you feel it?"

Leon nodded. "When I move my hand away from your face, Leon, I want you to imagine that I'm pulling that weight off of you." Leon nodded again. Kurt was amazed at this blind trust, this willingness to believe that he could actually do any of this. Kurt didn't believe it. He was talking out of his ass, making this up as he went. He didn't feel an obligation to these people, not like he did to Alain, or Junior, or Mick. But, still, there was some boy-scout instinct in him that made it hard for him to just turn his back on them, to tell them to go screw off when they'd seen him save someone else. Slowly, Kurt pulled his hand back. "I forgive you, Leon."

Leon looked at him for a moment and then began rising. "Thank you," Leon said as his hand slipped out of Kurt's. Kurt watched him rise slowly, gaining speed, until he reached the last level, like Ariana, and was taken by the wind.

The crowd of people started shouting again, pressing forward toward Kurt. "Me next," they called. "Save me!" George fired off a couple more shots from the Uzi and they drew back. Kurt knew it wouldn't work indefinitely. Eventually they would swarm him and George without heed, the gun meaning nothing to them as they realized all it could do was cause temporary pain. Kurt stepped back to join George and Junior against the wall.

"I've got an idea," George said, slipping his pack off and setting it on the floor. Opening it up, he reached in, dug around a bit, and came out with a coil of thin orange rope. "Hundred and fifty feet," he said, handing it to Kurt as he bent down to re-zip the pack.

"Jesus," Kurt exclaimed. "What are you, Felix the Cat? Lock picking stuff, first aid kit, food, flashlights, ammo, rope... What else you got in that bag of tricks there?"

"Not much," George said, standing up. "Some rock climbing gear, a short wave radio, matches, some fishing wire and hooks. Basically wilderness survival... and then some."

"Well, if you find a blonde with big tits in there, I've got dibs." Kurt paused, waiting for George to laugh. George didn't. "So what do we do with the rope?"

"Well," George began...