Kurt's first thought was that the elevator music in Purgatory might be worse than the elevator music in the second ring of Hell. While the volume was a lot more tolerable, what sounded like the overemoting tots from an episode of "Barney" singing "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better" grabbed his nerves and ran a cheese grater across them. Thankfully the trip was short and he nearly leapt out of the elevator into the fourth ring of Purgatory, glad to be free of that noise.

Stretching away from Kurt, he saw rows and rows of televisions, a recliner facing each one. On each television, perky aerobics instructors exhorted the viewers to go for the burn, and as Kurt walked around the first row of recliners, he saw the souls that were being subjected to the perk-a-thon. Each one seemed to weigh eight-hundred pounds, their faces like the heads of butterflies poking out of cocoons of fat. These were the slothful, the lazy, and the weight of their sins manifested on them as real weight. Only when they got off their behinds and exercised it off would they be light enough to rise.

"Mr. Gray," Duke called, "we've got to go about a mile that way." Duke pointed in the opposite direction.

Kurt tapped the soul in front of him on the shoulder. "You wanna come with us," he asked. "You know, a walk would do you worlds of good."

The soul continued staring at the TV. "Nah, I'm cool."

"Suit yourself," Kurt said, walking off to join Duke and George. He didn't feel so bad about not helping the soul. The man had the means to help himself, but he didn't feel like it. So let him sit. Sometimes, people have to save themselves, he thought.

He, George, and Duke walked down the rows and rows of televisions, seeing the people enmeshed in their couches. It took a while before they saw someone actually exercising; a woman who looked to have dropped about two-thirds of the weight she needed to lose before she'd rise. Kurt stopped at her row and wondered about blessing her and speeding up her trip, but. Duke turned around and came back to Kurt trying to usher him along. "It's best to let her finish what she started," he said, seeming to guess what was on Kurt's mind.

"Pretty wise for an assistant angel," George said, nodding approval.

"I don't plan to be an assistant forever," Duke said, grinning proudly.

And that's when Nybras struck. Leaping out from behind a row of televisions, he rushed forward, pushing Duke aside, making a beeline for Kurt with his claws reaching for Kurt's throat.

George put a foot out.

Nybras went down, his chest hitting the floor and then his chin, skidding to a stop with his outstretched hands eight inches from Kurt's boots. Before he could get up and scrabble toward Kurt, Duke had a knee on his neck and was cuffing him like they were on an episode of "Cops". Kurt almost expected Duke to start reading the demon his rights as he stood him up and shoved him up against the ring's outer rail. What Kurt didn't expect was for Duke to look to him. "So what do we do with him?"

"How should I know? You're the angel."

"Assistant angel," George corrected.

"If I may... ummm... interject," Nybras said from his position against the rail. "Standard operating procedure would be to cast me down."

"What," Kurt asked, "you mean like throw you over the rail?"

"Unless you are able to open a portal into Hell, that would probably be best. Once I recovered, perhaps I could find the portal into the ninth ring."

"Wouldn't that hurt?"

"Ummm... immensely. But remember that I did try to kill you and cause you to lose your bet, thus committing your soul to the sixth ring."

"He's got a point," George said.

Duke reached down with one hand and grabbed the leg of Nybras's pants, preparing to throw him over.

"No," Kurt snapped. "No throwing anyone over the railing. Just hold him still."

Kurt walked up to Nybras, placed a hand on the side of his face, and then drew it away. "I forgive you."

Nybras turned away from Kurt, jerking Duke off balance, and doubled over, a howl escaping his lips to rival the howling of the imp in the holiometer before it burst into flames. Kurt felt terrible. He hadn't done it to punish Nybras or cause him pain. He didn't know why he did it. It just seemed the thing to do. But he was sure he hadn't done it with malice.

Fortunately, the howling was brief. Nybras seemed to run out of air and didn't wind up for another outburst. He just stood there, bent over and panting. But when he stood up and turned to face them...

"Holy shit," escaped George's mouth.

"What he said," Duke concurred, dazed, pointing to his side in the general direction of George.

Nybras's horns had shrunk to nubs. His large pointed ears had shrunk to the size of a movie elf's or a "Star Trek" Vulcan's. The cuffs clanked to the floor behind him and he brought forward actual hands, not the oversized claws he'd so recently tried to wrap around Kurt's throat. He needed a manicure and his skin was still gnarled and nut-brown, but his demonic features had definitely been reduced.

Nybras looked at his hands, then raised them up to touch his head and face. His eyes went wide and he fell to his knees before Kurt, wrapping his arms around Kurt's legs. "Please," he cried, "forgive me again! Forgive me again!"

Kurt reached down, hooked a hand under one of Nybras's arms, and lifted him to his feet. He reached out, touched Nybras's jaw, and said "I forgive you."

Nothing happened.

Kurt touched Nybras's jaw again, envisioning himself drawing away the demon's burden. "I forgive you."

Nothing happened again.

Nybras began to cry. "Why didn't you just throw me over the edge? Do you know how long it's been since I was cast down? Do you know how long it's been since I heard God's voice, felt God's love? Then you give me hope! Hope! Hope that I could be redeemed, that I could be loved!"

Nybras fell to his knees and sobbed. "'Serve for the love of your master,' they said. God loved me. Satan never loved anyone but himself. I served to try to earn his love... Why didn't you just throw me over the edge?" He fell over onto his side and curled up into a ball, his body wracked with sobs.

He was a demon. Even with the changes Kurt's forgiveness had caused, there was no denying it. Yet, even so, Kurt pitied Nybras. Kurt'd had hope dangled in front of him and yanked away. Nothing on this level, but girls in junior high could be pretty cruel. When Julie Strong had lied and told him that Heather O'Brien liked him... Okay, he thought, this isn't about me.

Salvation and redemption weren't big elements of the faith Kurt grew up in. You followed the rules, you loved God, you loved your family, you loved your community... Kurt stopped. Nybras had said that Kurt took his hope that he could be loved. Kurt had given Nybras his forgiveness, but had he given him his love? Kurt looked at him. How could you love a demon? It wasn't like this was a bad human who could change. This was a demon. They couldn't change.

But Nybras had changed. He had changed from an angel into a demon, and now Kurt had changed him part of the way back. But just saying "I love you, man," wasn't going to cut it. If he didn't mean it, it wouldn't work. He looked at Nybras again. This was once an angel, beloved by God, but he had been cast down into Hell and abandoned. In a way, he was lost... a lost boy. Kurt looked down at him and the pity ebbed away. He felt sad for him, but it was a new kind of sadness, the sadness you feel when someone you care for is hurting. Kurt knelt down next to Nybras and put a hand on his shoulder. "You are loved."

There was no howl this time, just a blinding burst of light, and when the spots cleared from Kurt's eyes, the demon had been replaced by what looked to be a 14-year-old boy. He wore Nybras's suit, but his skin was smooth, his ears round, his hands perfect. A shock of curly brown hair topped his head, draping down in ringlets. The boy sat up, looking at his hands, then touching his face, his hair. "How...?"

Duke stood there with his jaw dropped. "Amazing," George said, chuckling in disbelief.

Nybras jumped up and threw his arms around Kurt, then dropped to one knee and took Kurt's hand, kissing it.

Kurt just stood still, thinking two words over and over and over: "holy shit, holy shit, holy shit."

---

Alain turned off the TV. They got every channel in Hell that was playing on Earth, plus a few more they made themselves, and still he couldn't find anything he wanted to watch. At least his pain had diminished in the last few hours. Either they were giving him some very good drugs or he was actually healing up.

There was a knock at the door of his hospital room. "Ya decent in there," a voice asked as the door opened a crack.

Alain straightened himself up in his bed. "Sure, come in."

The door opened wide and in walked a man in jeans, a denim shirt, bolo tie, white sportcoat, and white cowboy hat. His salt-and-pepper hair was tied into a shoulder-length pony tail in the back and he wore a neatly trimmed beard and moustache, making him look a bit like Sam Elliott in his heyday. Lying in bed, Alain couldn't get an accurate read on the man's height, but he guessed it to be about the same as his. "How the heck are ya," the man said with a cowboy twang, stepping forward and extending a hand.

Alain shook it cautiously. "As good as can be expected, I guess. Can I help you?"

The man smiled. "Question is, can I help you?"

"I don't know," Alain said warily. "Who are you?"

"Oh," the man said, taking off his hat. "The name's Deuce... Deuce X. MacKenna and I'm your court-appointed guardian angel."

The British have a way with words sometimes, and it was a British idiom that best hit the mark when used to describe Alain's reaction to meeting Deuce: gobsmacked.

"I secured your release from this hospital," Deuce said, pulling some papers out of his coat.

"But I'm injured," Alain protested weakly.

"No you're not. You have been restored to full health and had all your vampire powers restored as well. I've filed a breach of contract suit on your behalf for that bit of shennanigans. If Gray doesn't make it, we may be able to invalidate the contract on that alone."

Alain stuck a hand under his bandages and felt his stomach. The gash from the other night was gone. He willed his fangs to drop... and they did. "How do I know this isn't a trick?"

Deuce straightened up, putting a hand over his heart. "'Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done, in Earth as it is in Heaven.'" He paused to let it sink in. "Now, can a demon say the Lord's Prayer?"

"I don't know," Alain replied. "Can they?"

"Good point," Deuce said, nodding. "What can I do to prove to you I'm an angel?"

Alain thought. "Demons are bound by their contracts. Get a piece of paper, write 'if I'm a demon, I'll burst into flames right here and now' on it, then sign it."

Deuce nodded. "Nice." Deuce pulled a notepad and pen out of his other coat pocket, scribbled furiously on it, then signed it with a flourish. He tore the sheet off and handed it to Alain, who inspected it and shrugged.

"I guess you're on the level," Alain said, getting out of bed. "Know where they put my clothes?"

"Under the bed."

Alain looked under the bed and found his travelling clothes; cleaned, mended, and neatly folded. After his time in the Army and over 60 years of marriage, Alain had pretty much given up on modesty. He stripped out of his hospital gown and bandages and put his clothes on as Deuce gave him the rundown.

"I'm going to escort you out of the hospital wing. I'm supposed to escort you back to the hotel wing, where you'll be given a suite and run of the casino while we wait for the outcome of the wager. But if you're amenable, while we walk through one of the outer courtyards, you're going to give me the slip. You'll run around the outside of the next tower to a staging area where they're preparing a weapons drop for the seventh ring."

"There you will find a large cargo container with a quad bike, and some gas cans. You'll go inside, close the container from within, and hitch a ride. When you get there, you'll recruit a raiding party of 10 guys who can follow orders, then you'll come back here and make a lot of trouble."

Alain finished tying his boots and stood up. "And why would I do that?"

"Because if you want Kurt to succeed up there, we're going to need a distraction down here."

Alain walked to the door and opened it for Deuce. "Then let's get to work."

---

Kurt stood before the portal into Heaven with George and the two angels; Duke, the assistant angel, and Nybras, the once-and-future angel. Nybras and Duke were arguing about who would go through the portal first to sing Kurt's praises and prepare Heaven for his arrival.

"I met him first," Duke shouted. "I am his messenger."

"Ahh, but I am his miracle," Nybras countered. "I should be his messenger."

Kurt only half-paid attention. He was still thinking "holy shit, holy shit, holy shit." He'd just gone on autopilot and followed the three back to the elevator, then out of the elevator to the portal. George put a hand on his shoulder.

"They're about to throw down, buddy. You gotta put an end to this."

Kurt shook his head, clearing the clouds, blowing the holies to the right side of his brain and the shits to the left. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he listened to each angel shout "no, I am his messenger."

"Neither of you are my messenger," he said quietly. The two angels stopped shouting and turned to him, giving him sad puppy-dog eyes. "We want to do this quietly, if at all possible. I may be the biggest, baddest thing to hit Heaven since... well... since Lord knows. But if I walk in there with a chorus of angels singing my praises, it's going to look prideful and arrogant. I might just piss off someone we need not to be pissed at me." Kurt sighed. "Let us exemplify humility."

"Humility," Nybras exclaimed. "Why didn't I think of that? It's perfect. And may I say, it's so in tune with your 'vibe.'"

Kurt closed his eyes and counted to ten.

"So," George interrupted, "what can we expect on the other side of the portal?"

"I've never been through this way," Nybras said.

"Me neither," said Duke.

"Hold on." Now it was George's turn to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Duke, how is it that you've never been through this way?"

"I used the portal in the security office."

George pinched the bridge of his nose tighter. "Why didn't you just let us use that portal?"

Duke nodded his head sideways at Nybras. "I didn't want to face the emon-day alone-ay."

Nybras sighed in exasperation and George was about to say something rude, but Kurt spoke up. "Okay, this is how it's going to go. George and I will step through the portal first. Duke, you and Nybras will count to ten — a slow ten — and then follow us. On the other side, if I do not call you over to us, we've determined it's too dangerous to be seen together. Only join us if I call you to us. Is that clear?"

Nybras and Duke nodded their heads. Before anything else could go wrong, Kurt grabbed George's arm and escorted him through the portal.

---

Kurt and George found themselves in a very large semi-circular room, souls feeding out of portals spaced about every fifteen feet along the walls. Velvet-roped pathways funneled the souls from their portals to a set of moving walkways in the center of the far wall. Kurt heard Duke's voice say "ten" as Duke and Nybras popped out of the portal behind them, immediately coming over to join Kurt and George.

"Oh, I know this," Duke said. "Standard arrivals lounge set-up."

"I thought you said you hadn't been this way before," George said, accusatively.

"Not in Earth's Heaven, but this is a pretty standard configuration." Duke looked around and seemed to find what he was looking for off to their right. "Follow me."

Duke stepped over the velvet rope bordering their pathway, crossing three more paths and making a beeline toward a blue door set in-between two portals. The lettering on it was alien to George and Kurt. They hadn't seen any alphabet like it on Earth. Duke saw their confusion. "Angel script," he said. "Says 'employees only'."

Duke unclipped his ID badge from his chest pocket and swiped it across a black pad at the side of the door. There was a beep, then a click, and Duke swung the door open. "After you," he said, ushering the other three through. Duke stepped inside and closed the door behind them. "Follow me."

Duke led them down a stark hallway, the walls painted that same dull white with dull yellow floors that seem to be symptomatic of older civic buildings. They waked nearly a mile before the hallway terminated at another door with a black pad beside it. Duke swiped his badge again, and opened it, ushering the other three out.

They exited into another large hall and Kurt could see what Duke had led them around. The moving walkways fed into lines, each leading up to a gate where an angel greeted each soul, typed a few things into a computer terminal, and then either let it through or had another angel escort it away. On the other side of the gates, souls who got through were greeted by other souls who hugged and kissed them, then led them joyfully from the hall.

"Did you just sneak us around the gates of Heaven," Kurt asked.

"I got the feeling you didn't want to attract attention," Duke said. "If a mortal showed up at the gates with an angel who was cast down... it would have attracted attention."

"Gold star for Duke," George said, patting him on the back. Kurt smiled and nodded. "Now let's get out of here and find someplace less conspicuous to figure out what we're going to do next."

Duke led them to the closest exit, coming out on the right-hand side of a 200-yard-wide staircase leading down from the reception hall to a grand avenue. Kurt stopped and looked around, getting his first view of Heaven.

It was as if someone had spent decades contemplating what made places like Rome and Paris elegant, analyzed why the Jefferson and Lincoln monuments in Washington D.C. made people feel awed, got in tune with the simple beauty of whitewashed seaside towns on the Mediterranean, and brought those all together with the majestic backdrop of snowcapped peaks. It was Shangri-La on steroids. Someone had taken love, and hope, and goodwill, and made a giant city out of them.

"Wow," he said.

Nybras's eyes teared up. "It's been so long."

The four of them stood there, basking in the view, when their almost trancelike joy was broken by a voice shouting one word: "George!"