Grim Reaper's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

The doors slammed shut behind Grim Reaper. Stone ground against stone, and the seam sealed flat. No handle. No gap. The footsteps in the tunnel went silent, locked out. Grim Reaper stood alone in the courtroom with the Devil's empty bench above them. The trap had closed. Win here, or die here. There was no third door. Then the floor changed. The red seats folded down and slid away. The tall columns pulled back. A square platform rose from the center of the courtroom, ringed with taut ropes and padded corners. It looked like a fighting ring, out of place among the scales and the judge's chair. The floor had become an arena, and the Devil meant to be watched. Grim Reaper drew the meter from under their cloak. The needle buried itself in red and shivered. The Devil was close. Very close. Grim Reaper turned, following the twitch of the dial, and stopped. The Devil sat on the top rope of the ring, one leg crossed over the other, grinning. He tapped the rope like a man testing a chair. "You woke my whole house with that toy," he said. "Come up. Nobody claims my throne from the floor." Grim Reaper climbed through the ropes. The scythe was loud, and there was no one left to hide from now. They drew it. The blade caught the fire-light. Ten thousand souls had ended on that edge, but never a devil's. The Devil moved first. He came off the rope fast and swung. Grim Reaper ducked and slashed. The scythe raked his side and drew black smoke, not blood. He laughed and grabbed the shaft. They wrestled across the mat, boots skidding, ropes snapping against their backs. The Devil was strong. He bent Grim Reaper backward over the top rope and reached for the scythe. Grim Reaper let go of the scythe with one hand. They pulled the compact handgun from under the cloak. They pressed it against the Devil's ribs and fired. The shot cracked. The Devil jerked. His grip loosened. Grim Reaper twisted free, swung the scythe two-handed, and buried the blade in his chest. The Devil sagged against the ropes. Smoke poured from the wound. His grin held, then thinned. "Clever," he said. "But you cut too soon." A thread of light pulled loose from his body toward the scythe. His soul. Grim Reaper leaned in to take it. The soul did not come clean. It caught on the blade and split. Half of it sank into the scythe. The other half poured down through the mat, into the stone, into Hell itself. The courtroom shuddered. The bench cracked. The scales above the judge's chair fell and shattered. Grim Reaper held half a devil's soul. The throne had no ruler now. But the other half had gone somewhere down into Hell, and something below had begun to stir.