Devil Linda VII

The first thing that Linda discovered that she knew was that the detective’s main suspect for the murder was Mathias. However he had no proof and therefore had not actually reported to his superiors his suspicions. She looked deeper and discovered the motivation for his suspicions and wrote them off. He was mostly thinking how easy it would be to assign the guilt of the murder to a man who was a suspect and already dead in a car accident. The detective wasn’t a man who concerned himself with justice, he was thinking about the fact that there would be no interrogation or tedious court if the blame could be put on a dead man’s shoulders. The only fact that the detective actually had against Mathias was what Linda already knew, Mathias and the old lady had had no love lost between them.

Linda was the most interested in knowledge that the detective had on the subject of Mathias’s life. What hell had on each spirit was only what the watching demons could catch and while the watching demons were very good, they never caught everything. For instance they had not caught whoever had killed the old woman, it would have been a lot easier if they had, nor had they caught a lot of Mathias’s childhood.

It was for reasons like that that crimes went unpunished sometimes at first, but the person never actually escaped forever. There was someone higher then both god and the devil and from what Linda understood that person never missed any crime. The explanation from Dante had been vague and confusing but from what Linda understood that person wasn’t a human like the rest of them and therefore could simply reach inside someone and know everything that person had ever done. That was the thing that assigned the reincarnation, the day that Linda had heard of it she had sworn her best behavior, she knew that one day she too would have to go through its hands.

Mathias had no known relatives alive, something that Linda hadn’t realized actually ever happened. He was truly alone in the world, he had bounced between foster families until he had come of age, not getting attached to any one family and he had finally found himself without a home at the age of eighteen, and with no prospects. It had been an advertisement for a handyman and person to do general yard work in a news paper that had brought him to the old woman. That was interesting but had no actual connection to the case Linda decided.

What the police knew about the old woman was almost exactly what hell knew. There was nothing there. She had been married, had kids, had her husband die, had her children leave home, all but one who had kept on as a sort of live in maid, and then had been murdered. No actual reason had even been found for why anyone would like to kill her, nothing had been stolen, no one had made death threats, it was truly confusing.

The next day Linda went to work again in a less then happy frame of mind. She got through a lot of her work just like every day but it was obvious, even to the usually carefully unobservant Dante that there was something else on her mind. He finally commented on it and she threw down her pen and faced him.

“I’m still bothered by Mathias’s case,” Linda admitted.

“You could still give him a harsher sentence,” Dante suggested.

“I didn’t mean that, that’s what you were bothered by in his case. I’m bothered by the fact that we didn’t know if he had killed the old woman or not. We should know these things.”

“Some things just have to be left to the higher being. It is what gives us this task but it doesn’t expect us to manage everything, it is happily forgiving.”

To be continued...

Devil Linda VI

It occurred to Linda that going around asking about a murder might not be very tactful and might even be considered down right suspicious since it had never been solved in the human world and she was obviously not a policeman. She could shape shift of course but for that she would need a human template and she would also need the knowledge that went with it. If she could find the officer who was in charge of the old woman’s death that would be easy because then she could get all of the information from him. All it took was putting her hand on his hand and she would be able to become him and know everything that he knew. Of course she would only have that information while she was him but she could write down everything that mattered before turning back into herself. That would be the easy way except that she didn’t actually know how to find the officer in question.

Linda suddenly realized that she was still thinking like a normal teenager, she wasn’t doing problem solving with the abilities that she had. She had taken into account her ability to shape shift but she had ignored that if she was never going to be seen again in all likelihood in this part of the world then there was no point for her to worry about what people thought of her at the moment. If worst came to worst she would just send Dante up with a team of demon’s to wipe some memories, it took a lot of power and he would complain about it but her orders were law. She turned and headed to the police station.

“Can I help you with anything?” asked the police woman at the desk when Linda walked in.

“I have some information on the murder Margaret Thatcher that I thought I should share,” Linda said, though she still felt a bit nervous.

“This isn’t a prank or anything is it?” asked the police woman, looking Linda up and down doubtfully. “You do realize that our tip system is very serious.”

“I wouldn’t come to the police if I didn’t really know something,” Linda said in an indignant voice.

“Have a seat and the detective in charge will be with you shortly,” said the policewoman, picking up the phone and dialing an extension.

The detective, when Linda met him, seemed nice enough, but very over worked. Still he cleared a place at his desk, got out a notepad and told her to have a seat and talk to her. She felt a little bad about doing what she was about to but still, justice had to be done she assured herself. She had to know more about the murder.

“My name is Martha,” said Linda, holding out her hand for the detective to shake. It did the trick, she was in contact with him and she was now him herself. She pushed a bit of her power through their hand connection and felt him lose consciousness, he would be out for a while and when he woke up he would remember having had a normal conversation with her, finding out that she was just looking for attention, lecturing her about responsibility, threaten to call her parents, and then letting her flee the police station looking scared out of her mind. That would give her time to sort through all of her new thoughts. She pulled his notebook near her, she would need to write all of this stuff down to bring with her.

To be continued...

Devil Linda V

“Dante, is this old woman part of hell? Can she be brought in for questioning?” Linda asked, turning to where her second in command was standing at attention.

“She has already passed on,” Dante said, with more curtness then usual. It was obvious that he thought that Linda was spending far more effort on this case then it was worth.

“So we can’t check what he says against what she says? In that case I am closing this case,” Dante looked relieved and Mathias looked scared. “We really can’t prove this one either way with no information so I’m just going to pretend that this never happened. I can’t call you innocent with no proof of innocence but since there wasn’t really an appeal I’m not going to raise your sentence.”

“Wait,” Mathias said, struggling against the demons who led him out of the throne room. “This isn’t fair, investigate, find out the truth, I’m innocent I tell you.”

“You were far too nice to him,” Dante said, once they were alone and the door was closed. If he ever did decide to chide her it was always when they were alone, to make sure that he wasn’t undermining her authority. “If this gets around we are going to be swamped with appeals from people who think they might get lucky too.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t do it often, I don’t know what came over me,” Linda admitted. She knew as much as anyone that there was no place for humanity in a devil. No one would complain if she was unjust to the spirits under her control, or was needlessly cruel, but being fair and kind had no place in her business life.

The rest of the day Linda got on with her life as normal, well as normal as her life ever got. Still the whole day she had the case from that morning floating around in the back of her brain. She even kept Mathias’s file sitting on her desk even though she had declared it closed. He was facing a very long sentence, as she had already told him, she couldn’t imagine what it would be like if he wasn’t actually guilty.

Since she could only work in her office during the hours her double was working in the fast food place Linda was able to stop working around five in the evening and got home. She got the report from her double about what had happened at work so she could say what work had been like if her parents asked. Just because she was no longer at work though didn’t mean that her job was done. Once dinner was over she was able to run up to her room with the files that she had brought to look at from hell in preparation for the next day. There was another file that she had brought though, one that Dante didn’t know she had brought. She sat there and flipped through Mathias’s file once again. He just didn’t seem like the sort to kill an old woman the more that she read; though she knew that wasn’t proof anything. She suddenly came to a decision and stood up from her desk again.

“I’m going over to a friend’s house, I’ll have my cell phone with me,” she called around the doorframe to her parents where they were watching TV, before running out of the house. If she stopped to think she knew she would stop herself, this was being stupid, she wasn’t supposed to do things like this. You weren’t supposed to take interest in individual spirits. Nonetheless she dove into an alley and snapped her fingers, and she was instantly standing right outside the scene where the old lady was murdered.

To be continued...

Devil Linda IV

“Sent down here on a murder charge, never caught or convicted in the human world, it’s a long sentence you’re facing,” Linda told the man frankly. She always felt it was best to tell people upfront what kind of condition they were in. “By insisting on an appeal you are risking an even longer sentence if proven guilty. You can still back out and serve your original sentence now rather then continue with this.”

“I keep saying, I didn’t kill the old lady,” said Mathias. “I didn’t do it. Can’t you guys just tell if I have sinned or not? Especially with something this serious, can’t you just look at me and tell.”

“I wish it was that easy,” Linda said wistfully. She could remember a time when she was a kind when she had thought that the supernatural solved everything, that was of course before she had become a part of the supernatural herself and found out that it was just like everything else in life. It had things that it could do and things that it couldn’t. “We can see some things but not everything. And we can look at evidence; the evidence shows that one Margaret Thatcher, age seventy four at time of death, was killed in a violent manor. When her spirit was questioned she told us that you were the one who killed her.”

“She was lying then,” said Mathias, vehemently. “I never killed anyone. The old lady had it in for me.”

“The dead have no reason to lie, it’s all the same to them at that point,” Linda said, shrugging.

“You never met the old lady, she was crazy vindictive and she hated me. I worked for her for three years, I know. She had it in for me but she wouldn’t fire me because she couldn’t find someone else who could work for as cheap as I would and I couldn’t leave. There aren’t a lot of jobs open to people with no references, connections, experience or high school diploma.”

“What did you do for her while you were working?” Linda asked.

“I did odd jobs, stuff on her house, worked in the garden. She had plenty of money so she could afford the just under living wage that she paid me to break my back for her every day,” he sounded bitter and Linda didn’t blame him. She could see where getting paid almost nothing for doing a job that most people could have earned a fortune on would turn anyone bitter. His bitterness didn’t help his case any however.

“Did you ever get into actual fights?” Linda asked. She could see Mathias’s face contort as he tried to think of an answer and then it smoothed out again.

“Of course we fought. I told you she had it in for me. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find out that even after death she had found a way to try and mess up my life. We were always yelling at each other, and once or twice she even threw stuff at me, but I never hurt her back. No matter how angry she made me she was still an old lady and I don’t hurt old ladies,” there was a note of pride in Mathias’s voice that made him seem more honest in that statement then Linda would normally believe. She had been doing this job long enough to know that there were good liars in the world but she had never heard them lie with such conviction and pride before, which made her more inclined to believe him.

To be continued...

Devil Linda III

“What is he accused of having done that got him sent here?” Linda asked. She had felt bad at one time for what she basically viewed as torture of people for their crimes but it had been explained to her again and again how important they were and she was willing to judge trails fairly at this point. At one point she would have shown more mercy then justice but she had been told that things always come back to haunt you no matter what so they might as well punish the spirits before they went on to the next life where they would be punished instead. She had asked what about murderers who have been caught and are put into jail in the human world, did they get punished in hell as well. Dante had very patiently explained to her that their time spent in a human jail and being punished by humans was taken into account in hell, just like all things were taken into account in heaven. Nothing ever went unpunished or unrewarded, in either place. If the person was considered to have been punished enough for their crime then it was wiped off of the books and he would be allowed to start over. That conversation had comforted Linda a lot and made her a lot more comfortable about doing her job. No one else was going to do it after all, there could only be one devil.

Dante took the folder from the old woman and handed it to Linda to look over. She read the name Matthias Roscoe on the front, before opening it up. She had at one time felt uncomfortable reading in front of so many people, waiting for her to finish but she had grown used to it. It wasn’t like they could do anything without her and her judgment suffered if she didn’t read all of the details.

“Send him into the throne room in half an hour,” she told Dante without even looking up, she was already totally immersed in the man’s life.

The throne room of hell was decorated as you would expect of the devil’s throne room. It was yet another place where traditionalists had clearly had a lot of say in how things were going to be. The armrests on the throne had skulls on them and the room was in general red and black themed with bone decorations. Linda thought it was tasteless but she did have to admit that it was appropriate and therefore left it alone. The one addition she had made to the room was a chair for the condemned to sit while she was going over the case. It might have been considered disrespectful and she had to admit that it seemed a little silly to worry about the comfort of a damned soul but she had always believed in innocence unless proven guilty and if they were appealing they weren’t guilty for sure. She wouldn’t punish them unless they were proven guilty for sure.

The man sitting in the chair today was a young man of about twenty-three or twenty-four who was looking distinctly uncomfortable. He had obviously tried his best to look nice but that wasn’t easy with no comb, change of clothing, or shower. With the heat, outside of Linda’s temperature controlled offices, it was difficult to stay nice looking for long. Linda wondered absent mindedly how much of Mathias’s sweat was from the heat he had come from and how much of it was from the fact that he had a lot staked on the next few hours. Hell did not encourage appeals and therefore they didn’t happen very often, they were a gamble and if you were proven guilty after appealing your sentence went up. Linda had figured out early on that the only people who appealed were the truly innocent and the psychotic who though they could get away with anything.

“Stand up,” ordered the demon guard by Mathias’s side as Linda walked into the room. Mathias obediently stood and even managed a vague attempt at a bow, though Linda suspected that he had probably only ever seen one before in the movies.

To be continued...

Devil Linda II

Like herself the demons had originally been normal human’s who had been randomly chosen to be her minions. You had to keep things modern; you couldn’t have three hundred year old demons serving a thirteen year old devil, it just didn’t work. With people not being chosen for looks or anything of that sort Linda felt they had been lucky at least with appearances for her second in command demon who now popped into existence next to her. Even his name, Dante, was vaguely appropriate, though personality wise he was about average. He was tall, with long black hair and a toothy smile that would make small children run away crying. He also took his job very seriously which sometimes unnerved Linda a little but she was usually able to write that off as simple work ethic.

“You’re late,” Dante commented though there was a studied lack of reproach in his voice. He also took his position as a subordinate seriously; actually he took almost everything seriously. Linda had once asked him if it didn’t bother him, the fact that he was thirty and had to answer to a seventeen year old. He had answered very stiffly that it was his job to answer to the devil and it didn’t matter who it was. She had heard that he had served under the last devil who had, by the time that Dante had become a demon around the age of thirteen, been a very old man who wore his underwear on his head. She supposed that the training he had gotten in that situation could carry him through being loyal to anyone.

“Sorry, mom was being nagging again,” Linda told him, and she snapped her fingers. Instantly they were her plush office in hell. It wasn’t empty however; her lieutenants had obviously been waiting for her. They sat at the conference table, from the youngest who was about ten, to the oldest in her eighties. They stood and bowed when they noticed that she had arrived and waited for her to sit at the head of the table, which she did. The bowing and court formality made Linda nervous and she had wanted to do away with it but she had been informed that no matter how modern they became in other things some traditions would remain.

“So what is on my list to do today?” Linda asked in a resigned voice. She knew all too well that it would keep her busy all day no matter what it was that they had thought up for her. Usually she had to plead off in the end on account of her family and dreaded the moment that she would move out and have to work down here full time rather then just a part time schedule based off of what was offered at the hamburger joint she was supposedly working at.

“There is a man who would like to appeal his placement here in hell. We aren’t sure how long the appeal will take so we’ll go from there,” said the old woman, looking down at her clipboard. She took care of Linda’s scheduling Most of the demons looked at themselves as being at odds with god but the old woman had made it very clear that she believed herself to be doing god’s work by punishing those who had sinned. Linda had once made the comment that she didn’t think that demon’s went to heaven and it had taken her a very long time to clear up the cold silence that had descended between her and her secretary afterwards.

To be continued...

Devil Linda

Humanity has the strange habit of thinking of thinking of the personifications of Death, Time, and things of that sort of immortal but this is incorrect. All things live and die and personifications are the same as any of the rest of us. Not just the personifications even, God and the Devil also live and die in a human lifespan, and heirs appear for both of them. This is a very good thing for the sake of humanity because humans change over time and it is nice to have our deity and personifications change as quickly as we do. Usually when such a creature dies a normal human, not necessarily one that exudes the qualities you would expect of their position, takes over for them.

It was simply by luck that that the current devil was a rather goth teenage girl, though her personality was far short from being demonic. Indeed she could only be called normal. It was generally understood that after she got older she would have to start living most of her time in the underworld but since she was still only seventeen she still lived with her parents and she only allowed the demons to bother her outside of the house. Telling her parents that she was the devil seemed like a bad idea. It did make talking about what her plans for the future were with her parents seem unrealistic and silly though.

“I still don't understand why you decided to drop out of high school Linda,” her mother started on the old and familiar rant. You are ruining your life this way, you can't get anywhere if you don't at least have a high school diploma and a college degree is much better.” Linda thought for a moment about the position of extreme power that she was guaranteed and almost laughed but she knew that would only offend her mother and that she would then get a further lecture on lack of respect.

Linda really liked her parents, which was the whole reason that she had insisted on staying in their house instead of instantly going to live in hell when she had inherited. There were very nice rooms reserved for the devil that she was passing up for her parent's little suburban home. After she moved out she had promised her demons that she would move into hell and only come up every once in a while to visit her parents and let them visit her. Of course that meant that she would have to lead a double life so her parents wouldn't worry but as far as she was concerned they were worth it. Hell had no shortage of money, the road to hell was almost famously paved with it, so it wouldn't be hard for her to buy a little house and pretend that she had a job.

“I have to go to work mom,” Linda interrupted her mother's rant but she kissed her mother on the cheek before heading out the door. She had told her parents she had gotten a job at the local hamburger joint and she even had a demon double working there in her place in case someone decided to check up on her.

To be continued...