Prologue

The last thing he could remember was the sensation of being pushed into the back of his own mind. Through a haze of actions he watched his body perform, but his mind protested, months passed. Then the single word, spoken by the tall young man with absolute determination, "Yes." and it was over.

Lucifer had left him.

For awhile, he lay on the floor in the derelict hovel somewhere in the middle of Detroit, his body wracked with pain. His face burned, as did his lungs as he coughed up copious amounts of blood. When he spied the pair of polished black shoes cross into his field of vision, he reached weakly for them, gasping for help.

"It's time to go, Nick," a somber voice said. "Your struggle is at an end."

"Help me..."

"I am, Nick. Take my hand." An aged white hand appeared close to his face, the fingers slender and almost inhumanly long. There was something cold about that hand, and Nick withdrew his own. The offered hand lingered a moment more, then the fingers curled into the palm, and disappeared from view. "If you remain here, it will not end well for you."

"I know where I'm going," Nick managed, swallowing hard. "I don't deserve it...!"

"That is not for you to decide, Nick," the voice informed him calmly. "It's not even for me to decide. I am doing you the honor of coming to you myself. Do you truly wish to deny me?"

"Why? What makes you so damn special?" Nick spat out bitterly, the pain in his gut rolling in agonising waves. The voice sighed and the feet shifted. A thin man crouched to look into Nick's face. His eyes were human in appearance, but there lurked something very old behind them. Nick instinctively tried to pull away. "I know you," he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. "Can't you do something? I don't want to die."

"Your body is shutting down; it won't be long now," Death replied. "You can either lay there until it happens - and it will happen very, very painfully and last a dreadfully long time - or you can take my hand and accept your fate for the decisions you have made."

"He promised me revenge!" Nick cried. Death sighed.

"Why must I be the one to explain these things to you people?" he asked of the air. "Surely you can't have expected to be welcomed upstairs after housing the very thing trying to bring it down."

"I've done nothing wrong!" Nick insisted, his words swallowed by another violent coughing fit. Death waited patiently for him to regain his breath. It was coming in wheezes now and he could feel his legs going numb. "I'm not going down there. I can't. They're not there. I won't go where I won't be able to see them again."

"You refer to your family?" Death inquired in a way that suggested he already knew the answer. "Yes, they're not in Hell. That should please you, shouldn't it?"

In response, Nick could only begin to sob brokenly as he thought about Sara and his son. This wasn't fair. All he'd done is permit an angel, something that should have been a holy thing, a blessed thing, into his body so that he might carry out his promises. But deep inside, he knew allowing Lucifer, the Devil Himself, to use him could have only ended in damnation. All he wanted was to die and be reunited with his family; how could that possibly be too much to ask?

"I won't go," he insisted finally. "Even if I die here painfully, I'm not going with you. I'm not going with anyone."

"Suit yourself," Death said airily. "If you think the alternative is any better, be my guest."

"What do you mean?" Nick demanded, but Death had already gone. Resigned, Nick lay his cheek against the splintering floorboards, listening to the distant sound of sirens outside, followed by the pop-pop of gunshots. Tears slipped from the corners of his eyes, drifted over his nose, and fell between his bloodstained lips. He'd barely tasted the salt of them on his tongue when his vision began to blur. A ring of darkness crept in around his vision, narrowing steadily, like the end of a movie fading to black. He slowly closed his eyes on this sneaking black, Sara's name rolling off his tongue as the last of his consciousness fled from him.

When he opened his eyes again, he was laying in bed in a blue stream of moonlight. A wave of relief passed over him as the hope that it had all been a terrible dream flashed in his mind. He exhaled on a grateful cry and rose from the bed, calling out Sara's name as he raced into the nursery.

"Sara!" he cried, rounding the open doorway and entering the darkened room. The empty crib still stood in the center of the nursery, the blue blankets pulled up as though waiting for the baby that slept there to be laid over them. There was no sign of his wife, or his son.

Upon closer inspection, Nick found the crib to be covered in a layer of dust. All along the floor, leaves had flown in from the open windows. The toys along the walls and inside the crib were just as dirty, as thin films of dust and cobwebs made glass eyes matte and soft fur dingy.

Nick drew back from the empty crib, as the cold realisation that everything had truly happened and nothing would ever be a dream again settled in his stomach. He stumbled on the edge of the square throw rug and fell backwards. A bizarre sense of distortion went off in his right hand. Looking down at it, he realised it had passed through the floor. He stared in horror, wholly unable to process what had happened. Experimentally, he wiggled his fingers, heart beating fast and hard in his chest to discover he could discern the empty spaces between the floors of the house. He drew his hand from the hardwood planks with a violent jerk and cradled it against his chest. It appeared as whole as before and the sensation had gone.

So, this was the alternative Death had spoken of. Nick hadn't been inclined to believe in ghosts before Lucifer had come to him; even now he couldn't be sure if he still bought into it. However, it was impossible to deny that he was, indeed, among those lingering between life and death. Despite being able to feel the solid floor beneath him, he knew it was all an illusion, a lie manufactured by his brain to prevent his going mad.

Would he go mad? Nick looked down at his hand again, as though it would provide an answer. How long would he be able to last as a ghost? Why did he come back to the house? Could he leave? Foolishly, he wondered if strange beasts were lurking just beyond the front door, waiting for him to try and leave, like in that movie Sara loved so much.

As he got to his feet, he thought about all of the other ghost movies he'd watched, wondering if it would be possible to use them as guides. What did ghosts do? Haunt things? There was no one here to haunt. Find someone to help them complete unfinished business? To his knowledge, he didn't have anything like that. What if someone came to the house? Would he be compelled to chase them away, like some poltergeist? He had so many questions and no one available to provide them.

Feeling more lost than ever, Nick went over to the window and looked out on the quiet street. A few people walked past the house or to their cars, apparently oblivious to the spectre that watched them. He remained there even when the sun began to rise, turning the sky above a hazy shade of pink and purple.

"What do I do now?" he asked himself. "What the hell do I do now?"

As the sun peered over the horizon, its light normally so blinding, Nick bowed his head, unaware of the fact he'd faded away.