either ferried to Heaven, dragged to Hell, or, in some cases when a demon fails to grab the soul, roams Earth as a ghost. No matter what, though, the mortal body dies and remains on Earth while the soul lives on.”
I stared at him, hanging on his every word. This stuff was fascinating. I’d never been much of a real believer in religion, but like everyone growing up in a Christian-dominated society like the United States, I’d learned my fair share about Judeo-Christian mythology. To hear certain aspects of it confirmed—and to be living them—was a bit of a mind-bending experience.
“Contrary to the souls here in Hell,” Azazel went on, “you didn’t die a natural death and leave your body on Earth. In fact, you didn’t die at all. You’re still very much alive, down here, in your mortal body, which you brought with you. As I mentioned, that body is now bound to Hell courtesy of your contract with me and the fact you entered this realm with it alive and intact. But since, as a human, your soul is separable from your body, you can temporarily leave your physical form and travel to Earth with the immortal, spiritual part of your being.”
“But there are limits, right?” I remembered him saying something along those lines when he first mentioned it.
He nodded, his expression grave. “The connection of your soul to your body is tenuous once you leave your physical form. If you stay separated too long, the link will sever, your body will die, and your soul will be trapped on Earth.” He paused, his gaze thoughtful. “And because of the way you entered this realm in the first place, it is not quite clear whether you’d be allowed back in even as a damned soul. You’d be barred from Heaven as well.”
I sucked in air through my teeth. “I’d be a ghost on Earth?”
“At first.” He grimaced. “Maybe. Again, your case is different from other humans and their regular deaths, but even with them…when they get left behind on Earth as ghosts, eventually they all turn into something…darker. There are ghosts, and then there are wraiths.”
That didn’t sound good.
“Lost souls on Earth start out as ghosts,” he elaborated. “And at first, they are more or less who they were in life, with all their memories and their personality intact. They often linger around the places they’ve lived, with the people they knew, and most of them are benign. They are not there to cause trouble, they’re simply lost.”
I was waiting for the But.
“But over time,” he continued, “they deteriorate. They lose their memories, they forget who they were, where they are, until all that is left of them is confusion that manifests as uncontrollable anger. And then they start destroying things and hurting people.”
“Sounds like poltergeists.”
He gave a solemn nod. “Yes, that is one of the terms humans have coined for them.”
“Okay.” I blew out a breath. “So no staying too long, or I’ll end up as a horror movie prop. Got it. Anything else?”
“You’ll be solid and visible to me, but unless you choose to show yourself, no one will be able to see you, and while you can affect the physical world with touch, you won’t feel it. You won’t smell or taste anything either.”
It took a moment, but then it sank in. I pressed my lips together, his words clanging in my mind. Swallowing, I turned my head and blinked against the sudden, unbidden prickle of tears behind my eyes. “When you said I could visit,” I whispered, “you didn’t mention I’d be a ghost.”
Because I would be, for all intents and purposes. I’d have my body here in Hell, sure, but during the visit I’d be little more than a spiritual leftover from my old life, sneaking a peek at a world I’d never again be a part of.
“I said you could see them. And you will.”
“Yes, but not like—” My voice sounded awfully close to breaking. “I just thought—”
“What did you think?” Gentle, his tone was so gentle, despite the words being far too real, too raw, cutting too deep into parts I didn’t want to acknowledge. “How did you think this was going to go? You disappeared.” He snapped his fingers. “How did you imagine you would come back from that for a short visit, without your family and friends asking questions you can’t answer?”
“I could have—I don’t know. I could have told them I’d gotten a job somewhere else, and I’m