Chapter Nine: Purgatory Ajar
Nimrod was seated once more in the slippery leather armchair in Dr. Godwin's study, trying to absorb all that his deceased friend had told him: all that was, even for a djinn as worldly as Nimrod, nearly impossible to believe.
"Let me see if I understand you correctly, Magnus." Nimrod began, not for the first time, and setting his empty teacup and saucer on the mahogany end table. "What you're saying is that Purgatory is a real, honest- to- goodness place? That It's not just something that was made up?"
Magnus sighed impatiently, his fluid blue form rippling as he did so. "Yes, Nimrod. I mean, why wouldn't it be? You never doubted the certainty of Heaven and Hell, and all djinn have visited Limbo, although most just call it the 'Spirit World,' even though the majority of spirits move on to either Purgatory and then Heaven, or straight on to Hell, or else- and this is really rare,- they choose to be reincarnated into something else."
"Indeed." Dr. Godwin, who had finished his own tea long before his son had, and despite the fact that the information Magnus had shared was as new to him as it was to Nimrod, nevertheless liked to pretend that he had known it all along. "And one would assume that the environment in Limbo would be too harsh for the spirits of dead djinn, yes?" Casually, he pulled out an ivory pipe and began packing it with tobacco.
Magnus shrugged. "I dunno. Being a ghost feels essentially the same as being a disembodied spirit, except for the fact that I seem to have more control over my surroundings. And of myself: for example, I can fade in and out of sight, if I so choose." He shook his head. "But all of that is unimportant, Dr. Godwin. What is important is that someone or something expelled all of the spirits previously in Purgatory- djinn and humans alike."
He drifted worriedly over to the window to look at the street down below, blanketed as it was in several layers of slush, mud, and very dirty snow. "The world doesn't seem to have changed much since I died," Magnus observed, his ghostly eyes following the progress of a small red car driving down the length of the street. "Cars are uglier, maybe." His voice was tinged with an odd sort of melancholy. Then, quite abruptly, he turned around and faced the two living djinn, his manner morphing into one of stricken urgency. "The binding is still in place, isn't it?"
"What binding?" Nimrod asked, in exactly the same moment that Dr. Godwin replied,
"Of course."
Nimrod eyed his father suspiciously, as, and not for the last time, he detected the presence of a previously well-kept secret. "What binding, father?" Nimrod repeated, his voice taking on a somewhat menacing edge.
Dr. Godwin hesitated, looking at Magnus.
"Oh, go on and tell him." Magnus prompted, shrugging carelessly. "It's been what- fifteen, sixteen years? Joshua, India and I are all long dead anyway."
Dr. Godwin sighed, and lit his pipe. "Oh, I suppose you're right at that, Magnus. Nimrod, I may as well tell you. You'll recall, just about sixteen years ago, the mysterious and somewhat suspicious circumstances of Magnus' death? In that enormous fire? You know, the one that the police and fire department couldn't make heads nor tails of."
Nimrod nodded slowly. "I seem to remember something of the sort, yes." He threw a sidelong glance at Magnus. "This doesn't have anything to do with the Phoenix Acolytes, does it?"
Magnus exchanged a look with Dr. Godwin that told Nimrod all that he needed to know, even though neither answered his question.
"In any case, Magnus was not the only one to die in an enormous fire on that same day. There were two others, each thousands of miles apart. Magnus, you were in Lima, weren't you?" Dr. Godwin turned to peer myopically at Magnus, who by now was staring morosely down at the street again.
"I was in Berlin, Joshua was in Quito, and India was in Red Gully." Magnus corrected absently.
"Yes, as I said. Berlin. The two others were one Joshua Maidan, a mundane, and India Bailey-Moore. You remember her: she was Layla and Alexandra's friend."
Nimrod nodded again. "And you're absolutely sure that this has nothing at all to do with the Phoenix Acolytes?" He tried, but this time Dr. Godwin merely ignored him.
"Their deaths were the price they paid for the great good they performed for all of djinnkind and mankind." he continued. Nimrod sighed impatiently.
"Would you please get to the point, father?" Nimrod demanded. Dr. Godwin frowned disapprovingly.
"Manners, Nimrod." he chided.
"I did say 'please,'" Nimrod muttered, folding his arms. "But as you were, I suppose. Do go on, the suspense is terrible."
"Very well. Magnus, India, and Joshua were killed because they bound a demon beneath the Earth. And as it happens, it was not just any demon. That demon was one of the Princes of Hell." Dr. Godwin paused, taking a long draw from the pipe, as if wondering whether or not he ought to continue.
"Which one?" Nimrod inquired curiously.
"Does it matter?" Magnus asked quietly. "The binding will crumble before too long, and then more will die in far worse ways than being burned from the inside out."
"It was Beelzebub, the demon of gluttony." Dr. Godwin supplied dully, nervously pushing his half-moon glasses further up the bridge of his nose and momentarily forgetting his pipe. "And Magnus is quite right: when the binding breaks, someone must be prepared to face the demon, else no one alive will be truly safe."
"No one ever is." Nimrod replied coolly, one eyebrow raised skeptically. "Light my lamp, but no one is ever truly safe until they die."
"And even then..." Magnus mumbled from his place by the window. He sighed. "The Phoenix warned us all that we'd die, you know. And yet we went ahead, and Beelzebub punished us by burning each of us from the inside out, not even ten minutes after he was bound." Magnus shuddered. "Even for a djinn, being burned alive is a terribly painful way to die. I can't imagine what it must have been like for Joshua."
"Ah, so this does have something to do with the Phoenix, after all!" Nimrod declared triumphantly. "You know, Magnus, if you knew that you were going to die, then why did you go through with it? Your death, among other things, caused Alexandra to go a bit mad with grief."
Magnus sighed again and finally came away from the window. "Nimrod, you know very well that anything I said in an attempt to justify my actions when I was still alive would be a load of bollocks. And as for my sister, well, I have to say I'm a bit flattered. She really felt that strongly about me?"
"Yes. And somehow it endowed her with the gift- or, more appropriately, curse,- of prophecy without destiny." Nimrod shook his head regretfully. "It's made her difficult to even have a civil conversation with her, at least for much of the time."
"Shame. Say, when was the last time you saw her? Is she still in Afghanistan?" Magnus seemed less eager to discuss this new topic than he was keen to leave the previous.
"Er, well, actually she's in London now." said Nimrod. "She came back in order to become properly acquainted with our daughter."
"You have a daughter? Well, congratulations, man! When did this happen?" Magnus' wistfully serious look was replaced with a huge, rather silly grin.
"Er... about fifteen or sixteen years ago, I believe, but-" Nimrod began, feeling incredibly awkward, but Magnus interrupted with loud, boisterous laughter.
"And to think, just twenty years ago, you kept on telling me that you would never, ever have children, even if your life depended on it!" Magnus guffawed some more. "I mean, I thought that you hated babies! How'd you manage it? I remember when my son was an infant, and let me tell you, that was what I call a doozy!"
"Actually, he still hates babies." Dr. Godwin interrupted swiftly, and with only a hint of smugness, before Magnus could go on to talk at length, somewhat too enthusiastically, about his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, none of whom either of the living djinn had met. "I believe there have been some extenuating circumstances surrounding young Holly's childhood, such as the fact that Alexandra didn't even tell him that they had a child at all until early last summer."
"No one asked you. And who told you all of that, anyway?" Nimrod scowled at his father
"Layla," Dr. Godwin replied, now openly smug, puffing away at his pipe.
"Well, whatever the case, Nimrod, that means that I've got a niece!" Magnus smiled warmly at his brother-in-law. "I'd shake your hand n' all that, but... well, I'm Casper now." he gave a short, curt laugh at his own joke.
"I think that we're getting rather off topic here." Nimrod, who by now had turned almost as red as his jacket and was far more flustered by the attention than he was willing to let on, attempted to bring the discussion back to the dire issue at hand. "We must discover how and why and by whom Purgatory was opened up. I propose that-" He was interrupted, rather rudely, by the brazen ringing of Dr. Godwin's ancient telephone in the front hall, three floors below, every bit as deafening and obnoxious as Nimrod had remembered it from his distant childhood.
Dr. Godwin rose slowly and very reluctantly from his armchair, his old joints creaking and complaining as they always did; the man was, after all, well over 200 years old.
The ringing stopped suddenly, and Dr. Godwin sank back down, vastly relieved. "I had quite forgotten that your butler was downstairs, Nimrod. Quite honestly, I can't think why I don't employ a butler of my own. I wonder if Mr. Pritchard is still looking for a job..."
"Pritchard died several decades ago, father." Nimrod replied tersely. "And no one will work for you because you're a forgetful, cantankerous old eccentric who's rather much of an Ebenezer Scrooge to his servants."
"I thought your mother taught you tact before she left." Was the only forthcoming reply. Nimrod's jaw tightened irritably.
"Nimrod, sir?" Groanin called up the stairs in evident resignation, "It's your Missus. She says she must speak to you immediately, sir. It's urgent."
"I'll be right down."
Sorry I haven't updated in so long... I had to sift through loads of plotbunnies, and also... I didn't really want to throw in YET ANOTHER conversation, but this one's important: it reveals backstory! Anyway, I'll try to have the next chapter up sooner, so please review and don't go away!