All the Gates of Hell (27 page)

As for her mother, Jin felt very strange to be reading about the death five years previous of a woman Jin had hugged barely an hour ago. Jin thought that, perhaps, she should be immune from strangeness after what all had happened to her in the past few weeks, but that didn't seem to be the case.

Jin quickly tracked down bank statements and other basic items of life and gave herself a crash course in what it meant to be Jin Hannigan now. She didn't have a job so far as she could tell. If the bank statements were accurate she didn't need one, at least for a good long while. Both realities seemed to have agreed that she'd be without a job, since in the one she'd just left there was no working Legal Aid Office, at least temporarily. It wasn't very different from before, really. Hardly worth mentioning except for the part about feeling absolutely and utterly alone.

The odd part was that Jin didn't think that being alone was an altogether bad thing. For example, she didn't how she would have coped if the reordering of creation had gifted her with a live-in lover, or caused her mother's sister Aunt Bernadette to move in, a relative so smugly self-righteous and humorless that Jin had trouble believing that she and Jin's mother were from the same gene pool. Jin took some grim satisfaction when she came across a letter in her files from Aunt Bernadette berating Jin for not moving in with her or another relative after Margaret's "death."

Good for me
, thought Jin. Then she felt a tug at her wrist and she groaned.
Dammit, not now! I've got my own shit to deal with
.

The tug ignored all that. Yes. Now. It was gentle but persistent. Firm. Implacable. Jin sighed. How was she supposed to solve someone else's problems when she was such a wreck herself?

You're not a wreck
.

For an instant Jin thought that the Guan Yin That Was had intruded into the reality of Medias, but no. The thought was solidly her own, and Jin knew it for truth. She couldn't use weakness as an excuse, much as she wanted to. She was grieving, yes, but that wouldn't stop her from doing what she had to do. Jin spied the golden thread at her wrist and she followed where it led her, or rather followed willingly as it pulled her along.

It seems such a fragile thing
.

Jin risked opening her Third Eye enough to take a good a look at the thing as she dared. At first this didn't tell her any more than what she already knew -- that the thing was normally invisible, that it appeared to have a luminous golden quality when viewed with the Third Eye and took on the appearance of a delicate thread, almost like silk. It was only on closer inspection that Jin saw the individual strands that made up the thread, almost like a tiny rope, and that there were small points of light moving along those strands, and that in turn those pinpoints of golden light were made of things that were neither thread nor gold: Jin saw what looked like tiny people moving in repeating patterns. She wondered if she was looking at memories, or things that were currently happening in the person's life, but past this point her perception failed her. Jin knew there was understanding to be had within the golden thread but, at the same time, it was just beyond her reach.

I bet the real
Guan Yin
would understand
.

Jin squelched the thought. Just now,
she
was the real Guan Yin, and as the real Guan Yin there was a part of her that did understand, and that she could trust to do the right thing when the time came. Annoying as she was, she hadn't failed Jin yet.

The thread led her down to Pepper Street and toward the familiar alleyway leading to the Gateway to All the Hells, but then it did something strange -- it went right past the alley. Jin frowned, but kept following. After a few yards the thread actually doubled back. Just when she reached the alleyway once again, the thread did the exact same thing except it went beyond the alley in the other direction before again doubling back.

"What the blazes is going on here?" she asked aloud, to no one in particular. "It's almost as if..."

Jin dismissed the thought at first, but when the thread again proved capricious and its true direction elusive, Jin had to consider her conclusions once more and she finished the thought. "It's almost as if whoever is on the other end of this thread knows I'm coming and doesn't want me to find them... but that doesn't make any sense!"

It also wasn't going to work. Jin opened her Third Eye and followed the thread again, only this time she ignored the tangles, ignored the circuitous route, and looked beyond all that. If she were correct, then she knew where the thread was really going and the Third Eye verified it. Jin saw much more of the
nothing
underlying Medias than she really wanted to, but the thread itself, after numerous switchbacks, did indeed disappear down the corridor to the Gateway.

Jin ignored the tangles and went straight down the corridor. In a few moments the thread resolved its contradictions and led her unerringly forward, while the tangles vanished behind them. Jin glanced behind her and saw them melt away. Before that, the pull she had felt made Jin think of the thread as an "infinitely elastic" cord, and that it simply compressed as it pulled her on. Now she saw the thread dissolving once she passed the place it had been but, in either case, it had to lead eventually to the right person.

Assuming someone wants to escape, could they
?

Jin had her answer when she reached the Gateway to All the Hells. The cord led to one of the numerous doors, but did not pass through. Jin found it lying in a tangle on the ground and, like all the other tangles, it vanished when she stepped past it.

"Guardians!"

In a moment they were there. YES, IMMANENT ONE?

"Who passed through this door a moment ago?"

WE CANNOT SAY.

Jin nodded. "Which only means one thing -- it was Shiro."

WE DID NOT SAY SO.

Jin smiled grimly. "No, you did not say so. I did. Where is Teacher? Back in the First Hell?"

HE'S HERE.

Jin blinked, then looked at where the three statues stood. Teacher leaned against the dais. He was barely recognizable at that distance and Jin couldn't tell if he was looking her way, but she was pretty sure that he was. She left the guardians and set out on a brisk walk toward the dais. Jin realized she hadn't been there in a while but, as she got closer, she also realized why. It wasn't that she had no real need or reason to go there; she was actively avoiding it. The sight of her own serenely smiling self was annoying in the extreme, and every time the Guan Yin That Was had managed to visit her Jin's reaction had just gotten worse. She tried to take that into account as she considered what to say to the King of the First Hell. What she had not and could not have taken into account was Teacher's first words to her.

"I heard about Joyce. I'm sorry."

Jin blinked. "I don't understand."

Teacher looked a little wistful. "Which part? That I knew, or that I'm sorry?"

"Why would you be sorry? Don't you deal with people like Joyce every day? It's just one more turn of the wheel, isn't it? She's reborn into Medias and gets another shot at whatever she didn't get the first time."

Teacher shrugged. "Well, not automatically. It's possible for a person to make things worse and be sent to a lower hell. That's my call. Umm, that didn't happen, in case you were wondering."

"I'm glad for that much. But I still don't understand why you say you're sorry."

"I say it because it's true, Jin. I know what you're feeling, simply because that's the way humans feel when someone near to them dies. I'm expressing concern and sympathy like any other human would, because there's really nothing else I can do."

"It's different for me. I saw Joyce after she died," Jin said. "Down in the Ninth Hell. I know she survived. I know death isn't the end."

"I saw her too. The one doesn't change the other."

Jin smiled a faint smile. "You're right, it doesn't." Jin leaned back, put her hands on top of the dais and hoisted herself up to sit there, her legs dangling over the sand. "I was following Shiro," she said.

"I suppose you expect me to deny that it
was
Shiro?"

Jin shrugged. "I wondered."

"You're a smart girl, Jin, when you're thinking clearly. Who else in the known universe wants to be near you and yet lives in fear of you? Shiro. Who would flee Guan Yin in her aspect as Deliverer? Shiro. There was no other possibility, really."

Jin took a deep breath. "Are you finally ready to help me, then?"

"I've been trying to help you from day one, but if you mean 'am I going to risk interfering in what I don't understand,' then the answer is still 'no.'"

"Then why were you here waiting for me? You were, weren't you?"

"I told you that part already. Because of Joyce. Because it was the human thing to do. For what little it's worth."

Jin thought about that for a moment and then nodded. "For what little it's worth: thank you."

"You're welcome."

"I do have a favor to ask, though. I want to talk for a minute. You don't have to say anything you feel you shouldn't, but I want you to listen to me. Will you do that?"

Teacher glanced at his strange wristwatch again, checking each hand's position against the symbols of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. "I'll be glad to, at least for a little while. Hell doesn't wait on anyone, and that includes me."

"All right, then: Shiro, apparently against his will, has reached a point where he's vulnerable -- a strange use of the word -- to Guan Yin as Deliverer, and made a conscious decision to avoid me as surely as he avoids my demon form. Besides the ability to physically destroy him in my demon form, as Guan Yin I also have the power to send him on to you for his next judgment. Killing him I could do anytime provided I was willing to risk the consequences, but the fact that he broke the connection between us tells me that the state of 'being ready for deliverance' is not either on or off, as I had thought. Opportunities can be lost or, apparently, discarded. Why did Shiro discard his?"

Teacher finally went off script. "I'm not going to tell you that, Jin. Not because I can't or won't, but because I don't have to. By now you know the answer, or you're an idiot. And you are not an idiot."

Jin nodded. "He doesn't want transcendence. He wants me."

Teacher grinned. "Duh."

Jin smiled a grim smile. "Careful, Teacher. You're coming close to interfering."

"Not a bit. It's not interfering to tell you what you already know," Teacher said, looking a little affronted. "Though, like most mortals, you don't always
realize
what you know. And I say that on good authority."

Jin smiled. "Let's go with that for a moment. Guan Yin married a mortal. Why would she do that? It makes no sense until you realize that the answer is obvious. She did it for the same reason she does anything -- to release someone suffering from torment. And Shiro was and is suffering. It's a hell of his own make and design, but he's in it. He carries it with him wherever he goes."

"Yes, but what she tried to do didn't work."

Jin shook her head, slowly, and she grinned. "Nice try, Teacher. Sure, as a mortal it's very hard for me to take the long view, but it's safe to say the Guan Yin That Was did not have that problem. I no longer think this is 'Plan B' or anything of the sort. I think Guan Yin's original plan has not failed --
it's
still
going
on
, and we're in it."

Teacher sighed. "Even if you're right, and let's, for the purpose of this delightful discussion, assume you are. So what? All this doesn't solve your problem."

Jin smiled. "I didn't want to solve it, Teacher. I wanted to understand what it
was
, and I think I do now."

Teacher smiled. "Really? Would you put a wager on that?"

Jin didn't even blink. "Name the stakes."

Teacher just stared at her for several long moments, then shook his head. "No, I don't think I will take that bet. But I really would like to know."

"My problem is this. Or rather, the question I have to answer: what can I can do for Shiro as Jin Lee Hannigan that I can not do as Guan Yin?"

Teacher was silent for several seconds. "You'd have won, you know. I do not know the answer and wouldn't tell you if I did. I will tell you just one thing, though, for what little it might be worth: Shiro already believes he knows the answer, and I pray with everything I have that he's wrong. He believes that Guan Yin, as the mortal woman that you are now, can finally and truly love him the way he loves you. That he can 'fix' whatever went wrong the first time."

"I felt something for Shiro that I'd never felt for any mortal man I've ever met. I thought it might be love. I was afraid it was. It wasn't, was it? It was the karma we share, he and my mortal self. You said that Guan Yin doesn't accumulate karma, but she was mortal then just as she's mortal now. But she's never going to love him the way he wants."

"I hope that's true," Teacher said, looking thoughtful. "I'll even go so far as to say that I think it's extremely unlikely. Yet we're both mortal at the moment Jin, with all the hormones and confusion and delusions that naturally go with that state, so don't tell me it's impossible -- I know better and so do you. So, I think, does Shiro. He believes this is his chance, and he's not going to let go of it."

"He damn well is; I'm going to make him let go."

Just then Frank and Ling appeared in separate doorways of light.

"Immanent One," Frank said, "we followed Shiro, but he proved elusive. We believe he came through here -- "

He stopped, blinking in surprise, when both Teacher and Jin burst into laughter. Ling just shook her head, looking disgusted.

"Mortals..."

(())

Chapter 22

After Teacher returned to the First Hell, Ling and Frank remained behind. Jin, for her part, remained perched on the dais, looking thoughtful, for some time. She finally rose, stretched, and started to walk around on top of the dais among the statues of Guan Yin, Lung Nu, and Shan Cai.