They arrived after my pulse flatlined.

It was an early autumn morning, and the sun kissed the green fronds of the carrots in the garden. I should have been out there, weeding, but I was in bed, dying.

Or dead, to be more accurate.

And being dead wasn't what I had expected.

As a firm believer in atheism, I had expected the curtain to fall when my heart stopped. I had expected darkness to shroud me while my mind dissolved in entropy. I had expected THE END.

But there I was, the old man lying dead in his bed and still watching the perfectly white ceiling above me, even though my eyes were closed. A fat bluebottle walked its expanse along a Brownian path, probably waiting for my body to decay.

The pain in my chest was finally gone. I was neither cold nor warm. My mind idled, unfettered and serene.

As I said, being dead wasn't how I had expected it.

Yet this story is not about me. It is about them.

She was the first to arrive, walking through the door of my bedroom—the closed door of my bedroom. A late teenager, I would have guessed, red-dyed hair, a tattooed flame rooted between her eyebrows and reaching into her forehead, golden rings piercing her nostrils. She wore a black Hell's Angels t-shirt and black jeans.

Just some punk, you might say.

If it hadn't been for her horns.

They were maybe an inch long, and their tips looked sharp. Their green color contrasted nicely with the hair that surrounded them.

She stopped at the left side of my bed. "Hey, old man." Her grin revealed a row of pointed teeth. "How's it going?"

"Hello?" It was my voice. It didn't come from my mouth, though. I just had thought the word, and there it was, intoned like a question.

"Not what you expected?" she asked.

"Not really." I tried to shake my head. It didn't work.

"Death is never how they expect it." She huffed. "But you atheists are the worst. When the shit hits the fan, you have no idea what to do."

"Who are you... or rather, what are you? And what do I do now?"

"I'm a deputy devil level three. You can call me Furia. And all you have to do is get up and follow me." She gestured at my body. "Not literally, of course. Just your s... your spirit."

"And where do we go?"

"Oh, that place comes with many names. Some call it Hades, others the Pit. But I prefer H—"

A flash of light on my right side stopped her in mid-Hell. The flash dissolved, and a young man stood in its place—pale skin, long, white robe, flickering halo.

"Hold thy tongue, fiend!" His voice was a resonant baritone, inconsistent with his thin frame.

He had a pair of white wings. The things were folded, their top ends well above his head. They gave him a surprisingly flightworthy look.

Furia pointed her finger at my unmoving chest. "He's mine." The words were a hiss.

The white guy crossed his arms. "What makes thee think that?"

"He's an atheist."

The man frowned, opened his mouth, and closed it again. "Wait." He fumbled in his robe and retrieved a golden tablet, fondled it, and frowned some more.

"Wow, that's cool," Furia said. "Do you have gadgets now? May I have a look?" She held out a hand.

He took a step back. "Stay away from me, spawn of the abyss." Then he waved his tablet. "It is a prototype. I am beta-testing it. Anyway, it says here that even though he is an atheist, he has a good heart." He looked at me. "... metaphorically speaking, at least."

Furia walked around the bed and approached the man.

"Halt, daemon!" His voice was low like the foghorn of doom.

She scowled. "Not a daemon, birdy. Deputy devil level three. And I just wanna have a look." She reached out for the tablet.

"Don't thou dare. I have ExorzApp installed here."

She frowned. "Like in exorcism?"

He nodded.

"But exorcism has been banned in the Truce of Constantinople."

"Not for lower devils. One is still allowed to exorcise them."

She glowered. Then she lifted an eyebrow and stared at the wall behind him.

Frowning, he turned to follow her gaze.

She used the moment of distraction and grabbed the device from his hand.

"Give it back!" he shouted.

"No way, birdy. And if you come any closer, I'll smash it." She stuck her tongue at him. Then she gazed at the device. "Oh, that's Latin, man."

"Of course it is Latin. It is a modern machine. The Archangels push for Hebrew, but you have to move with the times."

She snorted.

"And now thou givest it back."

He reached for his tablet. She jerked it away from him, but she lost her grip on it. The thing flew from her hands, hit the wall, and finally landed on the floor with a nasty, splintering sound.

"No!" He picked it up and moved a finger over its surface. "The glass is broken, seest?" He turned it towards us, showing a spiderweb of fine cracks spanning the screen.

"Oops." Furia kept an eye on him while moving back to her original position, thus placing the bed, and my corpse, between him and her. "It still works, doesn't it?"

He operated the tablet. His frown deepened as he stroked and tapped it. "It does not obey my fingers anymore. Not everywhere, at least."

She bit her lip as she watched his ever more frantic tapping and stroking. "Look, I'm..." She hesitated.

He shook the device then tried again, his mouth a thin line and his head bobbing left and right.

"Hey, bird-man, I'm..." She tried again and stalled.

"They will gloat," he said. "They will love this."

"Who?" Furia tilted her head as she watched him, lower lip still tugged in.

"The Archangels. They are all against things electrical. For them, it has to be scrolls, scrolls, and more scrolls. Nothing modern. I already hear them saying that scrolls don't break when you drop them."

A fat tear left his eye and journeyed down one of his cheeks.

"Hey, listen..." she said. "Er... what's your name?"

"Ferdinand."

"Fine, I'm Furia. Listen, Ferdinand, this tablet, it's just an earthly thing. You should set your mind on things above." Doesn't your bible say something like that?

He shrugged. "I would not know, BibleApp will not start. HarpApp neither." He sat down at the edge of my bed, wings limp and drooping.

She walked over to him and stroked his white feathers. "Hey, big bird. I'm sorry."

He stared at the wall. "They will close the project down. It will be all scrolls again, and no more scrolling."

She took the broken tablet from his lap and turned it in her hands. Then she looked at him, and a grin found her lips. "Let me try something."

She left the device on my bedside table and faced me. "Hey, dead old man, did you have candles and matches?"

"Yeah," I answered, "in the top left shelf of the cupboard over there." Her eyes followed the immaterial hand I gestured at the piece of furniture.

As she went to retrieve the items, Ferdinand's gaze followed her.

She returned with two candles, placed them on both sides of the tablet, and lit them. Then she pulled out a strand of her hair. She walked over to Ferdinand, ran a hand through his mane, and pulled.

"Ouch."

"Be strong, my feathered friend." She turned her back on him and returned to the candles while entwining red and gold hair into a bi-colored braid.

"Darkness and light," she muttered and let the hair dangle over the left candle, "in fire unite."

The flame singed one end of the braid. She turned it over and held it above the other candle.

"Fiend and fair," she said, "united repair."

The braid caught fire. She let it drop on the tablet, and thick, black smoke rose from it.

A smell of sulfur wafted through my bedroom.

Ferdinand got up and approached. "What art thou doing?"

"Shush. And give me your hand." She grabbed his. "Just trust me. When I squeeze, reach into the smoke."

"Okay..."

"White and black," she said, raising her voice, "heal the crack."

They both held their hands into the coiling smoke.

A hiss, like air escaping.

A keening sound, like a cat being kicked.

A blue, strobing light, like a police car passing.

The smoke was undone.

The candles were unlit.

The tablet was uncracked.

"Wow," I said.

"Wow," Ferdinand echoed.

"You see?" Furia added.

"Was that..." Ferdinand's voice was unsteady. "... black magic?"

"Hmm." She shrugged. "It wasn't exactly white... But it was for a good cause."

Hesitantly, Ferdinand reached out for his device and caressed its smooth surface.

"Thanks... Furia."

She put her hands in her pockets and eyed her shoes. "Any time."

"Er..." He looked at her. "Black... or off-white magic is said to have side effects."

"Maybe."

"And what is the side effect of this one?"

"It's a melding charm." She shrugged.

"So?"

"It... melds." She shrugged once more.

He looked away from her and concentrated on his tablet. "Hey, look, ExorzApp starts again."

"Do you want to exorcise me?"

He blushed. "Er... no, not really. I think I may delete it."

"I'm happy to hear this." She looked at him, and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

He was concentrated on the tablet, tapping it.

She pointed at its screen. "What's this here? The orange square with the fat W on it?"

"Er... nothing. Just a lowly app."

She shrugged, then her gaze fell on me. "And what do we do with our dead old man here?"

"Ah, yes, there is him." Ferdinand looked up and scratched his head.

"A good-hearted atheist," she said.

"There is no place for someone like him." He poked my belly.

"Right, neither up there." She eyed the ceiling. "Nor downstairs." She pointed at the floor.

"But there should be a place for him," he said, "do thou not think so?"

"Yeah."

"He is not the only one." He gazed at her. "I have seen others like him."

"I wonder how many there are. Misfits, I mean, who don't fit into these old categories." She gestured at his tablet. "Could you run a search on that? Browse the database for others like him?"

He nodded, tapped, frowned, and tapped again. "There are millions."

She took a step closer to him and nudged his side with her elbow. "You know, there's this quiet place down at the lake. An old mansion. No one ever goes there. People say its haunted. But it's not... not yet. Ample room for lots of spirits to enjoy the ever-after there."

"Thou thinkest of some kind of Purgatory B&B?"

"Yeah."

"Wouldst thou... need help setting it up?" A violent blush replaced his pallor.

She smiled at him. "Maybe. Would you... be interested?"

"Thou must know that I am weary of old, self-righteous Archangels. Wouldst thou... have me?"

"Sure. My bosses would hate it, though."

"So would mine."

"Who cares?"

"No one?"

They looked at each other and said nothing. Then they smiled.

She finally broke eye contact and looked at me. "And you? Would you want to be our first client?"

"Sure. Hell sounds scary and Heaven boring. Count me in."

Furia made a little jump and grinned all over her face. She touched Ferdinand's forearm. "Hey, we're in business!"

They high-fived.

And that's how it began. The Purgatory B&B. Me and my spirit friends haunting it. And Furia and Ferdinand living there, happily ever after.

They had a bunch of kids, by the way. But that's another story.

My contribution to the Forbidden Love contest, prompt 2.

1970 Words (without these last two lines)