Head hunting

Sirens howl off in the distance, but this street is both dark and quiet.  The buildings are all new facades, towering above the pedestrians, dwarfing both them and all their concerns; you are but petty compared with us they say.  They even cut off all sunlight from the street; although if you stare upwards there is still a thin strip of sky visible (and the buildings can give you vertigo then, as they seem to converge, closing in on you), but the street is forever in shadow.  Forever on the edge of darkness.  And so I slip from a doorway in the shadow that wasn't there before I opened it, and isn't there again as I step away from it.
A man starts, side-stepping nervously, not sure if he just missed me in the stygian gloom or if I somehow appeared there like magic.  He's wearing polished shoes, a pin-striped suit; he's almost a caricature of himself, and he'd see it if he bothered to look in a mirror with the critical eyes he's employed for.  Then he's around me and beyond me, heading for the end of the street and the comparative safety of the City.  I allow myself a tiny smile, rearrange my jacket minutely, and look around.
The buildings are all new facades, but they're built onto older cores, the central sections of many of these buildings were built over a hundred years ago and then reinforced and built up.  Deeper still, there are still shadows of buildings that stood here earlier, building burned in a great conflagration that spread through the night, cinders and bright sparks lofting into the air and being spread on the wind, driving the luckless residents along before them to the banks of the river and testing their faith that water cannot burn.  It seems fitting then, that when I locate the familiar chemical scent of Aloysius's soul, he's in the building that was first to burn.
The woman on the security desk is severe, though hidden beneath her clipboards of permitted visitors and temporary passes I can sense a trashy magazine, something that tracks celebrity behaviour and invents it when the celebrities are trying to behave themselves.  She looks at me, and for a moment I let her see who I truly am.  Then this mortal form reasserts itself, leaving behind just a whiff of brimstone in the air, and she wrinkles her nose.
"You must be here for Mr. Bouiren," she says.  "I'm sure you know the way."
Her nose wrinkles again as her brain tries to work out what she's just said and why she's just said it, but I'm moving to the banks of elevators, all of which descend to the ground floor as I approach.  One is empty, and I take it; the others are filled with puzzled people who are starting now to argue about who pushed the wrong button and took them all to the wrong floor.  As my doors whisk shut their voices vanish, but the maigre feast-taste of their souls lingers on my tongue.
Aloysisus, not Mr. Bouiren if you were wondering, has a corner office on the eigthteenth floor, looking out over a collection of smaller buildings.  The river is somewhere in his view if you hunt for it, which I know he never does.  He glares at me when I walk in.
"The door is for keeping people out," he says.  "And I know it was locked.  So who are you and why do you have a key to my office?"
"Think of me as a headhunter, Aloysius," I say, sitting down uninvited in his upholstered visitors chair.  Smoke begins to rise from it, tiny twisting curlicues that hang in the air like heat haze.  "I have a job offer for you.  Something I think you'll be dying to hear."

Still beneath La Greche

Something crunched under foot and Rosco immediately dropped into a fighting stance; his knees bending, his centre of gravity lowering, his feet swivelling apart to improve his balance.  His eyes felt tight as they still tried to focus on the nothing in front of him, his brain insisting that there couldn't really be no light.
"Ha. Ha."  The whisperer's voice sounded hoarser now, and his (her?) speech was slowing.  "A fighter, are you?"
"How can you see me?" said Rosco, his head turning, listening intently, trying to work out which direction the voice was coming from.
"I can feel.  Your.  Heat."  whispered the voice.  "It is.  Much.  Strong. Er.... Than so many–"
"Enough!"  Rosco could feel sweat forming on his forehead, and a droplet of it rolled down the back of his neck, surprisingly cold.  His inability to see was frustrating and scaring him, and the laboured struggle of the whispered to get any words out set his nerve ajangle.  "I'm hot, I get it."
The whisperer laughed again, a dry, rustly and surprisingly dirty sound.  "Egotist," he (she?) said.
Something futzed and a weak light spilled out from Rosco's helmet lamp, revealing the wall near his face once more, the rope coiled on the floor, and the gritty black sand on the floor.  He stayed tensed in his stance, suspecting that the whisperer wouldn't move until the light gave out once more.
"These bones," he called out.  "I can't see any."
"You're not near.  Them." came the reply.
Rosco looked around, moving his head carefully and smoothly, hoping not to cause the light to turn off again, and was rewarded with the persistence of the beam.  The cavern extended off to his left and in front of him, but behind him and to his right was a natural corner of rock.  Wondering how safe he really was he picked up one end of the rope and edged his way to the left, determined to be able to find his way back if his light went out again.
Eight steps were enough for the first bone to come into view; a long bone, heavy looking, with a ball-joint at one end and tatters of flesh still clinging to it.  It was abhuman, but more disturbing were the evident teeth marks all along it.
"Is that enough. For. You?" gasped the whisperer.
"It's a bone," said Rosco, reaching out slowly, still tense, still ready to spring.  He picked the bone up with his free hand.  It was heavy, but not as heavy as the broadsword he'd trained with, and the length was similar.  "Perhaps it's even a weapon."
"Do you think.  That.  It's.  Enou–"
"Enough of a weapon?  Against someone who can't get three words out without running out of breath?"
Again, that papery laughter, like a moth were fluttering giant wings from where it perched on a rose-coloured wall.
"Why would an. Attacker.  Tell. You–"
"Oh crap."  Roscomboltin carefully swivelled around, but the small circle of light still showed no signs of anyone else, or even any more bones.  Somewhere – he still couldn't locate it – the whisperer chuckled to itself, and then, back where the other end of the rope was, the rope suddenly went slack as though the rest of it had been picked up.

The caverns below La Greche

Roscomboltin, who would love to be Rosco to his friends if he could make any, felt the rope slip. He fell in the utter darkness, panicking. The rope caught on something, jerked, and he bounced on the end of it. Something metallic shrieked, and he fell a couple more feet, jerking to a halt again. Then it was over, and he was swinging like a pendulum, his hands feeling for his hard-hat, trying to get its lamp working again.
He took the hat off and ran his hands over its ridged contours until he found the lamp housing. Then he pounded on it with the ball of his thumb. At first nothing, and then suddenly some broken connection somewhere was remade and a weak yellow light spilled out from the bulb. Relieved he shook it, and the light strengthened.
He put the hat back on and looked around. The nearby wall was a deep pink, reminding him of roses that he'd not seen since coming to the La Greche, but otherwise the cavern just opened out and there was only blackness wherever he looked. When he looked down, he was startled to discover he was hanging mere inches above the cavern floor. He swallowed hard, wondering how close he'd come to hitting it, possibly breaking bones or... or worse.
He unclipped and dropped the eight inches to the floor. It crunched, and when he rubbed his feet he realised that it was a gritty black sand on rock. He looked up, admiring the rose-hued wall again, and his smile slowly faded as he wondered where black sand could come from if the walls were this colour. Rosco put a hand out for the rope, and as he pulled on it it came free from wherever it had caught and fell, coiling noisily on the floor. He dodged aside; rope that long was heavy and he didn't want to be caught under it.
"Well, well," said a voice in the darkness. "A... visitor again. It has been... such... a long time." There was something suggestive in the voice, and Rosco thought it might be hunger.
"Who's there?" He turned slowly through a full circle, peering in the hopes of seeing the speaker, but never seeing more than empty darkness.
"Think of me as... one of the... fallen. Not unlike... you, ha, ha."
Rosco noted the strange pauses, wondering if the speaker was short of breath.
"Well met!" he said, not meaning it at all. "So, is there another way out then?"
"Not... ha, ha, not... that I've found."
"Looks like I'm climbing then," said Rosco, trying to sound cheerful. He didn't feel cheerful though; the hole he'd come down through was probably in the middle of the ceiling, not near the walls, and climbing to that, in near darkness, would be suicidal. But then, staying down here with this strange speaker also seemed suicidal, and at least climbing he could die on his own terms.
"Ha ha, you should look... around first. There are... ha, ha things you should... see."
"Things?"
"...Bones."
"I'm probably a better climber than them," said Rosco, but his confidence was ebbing fast.
"Did I... say they'd tried to cli...mb?"
The black sand. Rosco realised that there was more here that he needed to know about before he continued.
"OK," he said, trying to sound friendly now. "So, who are you? Can I see you?"
The light on his hat went out, plunging him into a darkness that was starting to feel oppressive.
"Ha, ha, ha," laughed the voice. "It would seem not!"

Hell Knight

The best question I've ever been asked is how something like Hell can have enough structure for there to be Knights. If Hell is a howling, incandescent chaos of tortured souls suffering for eternity, who is there to swear fealty to? What can be offered in return for such service? And what is there for Knights to do?
The problem most people have is that they don't realise the full extent of Hell. Each religion has its own version, its own rules on who gets sent there, and what happens to them when they arrive. Many philosophers have created visions of Hell as well, though they may not have realised what they've done, and every human capable of imagination can fashion a Hell of their own. Hell is vast, and there is room for almost everything in it.
The Greeks had visions of Hell as the abode of the dead, with a supreme ruler; the Italians, after Dante, had visions of Hell as a multi-circled domain wherein people were punished according to their sins. Typically, only the Christian religions are desperate to roast people alive and torture them indiscriminately, and though those pockets of damnation are growing here and there, they're considered by most residents of Hell to be a little gauche and underdeveloped. They're the third-world countries of Hell.
This leaves plenty of space of human to instate the feudal society they seem to default to, so there are hierarchies and rankings, class systems and levels of equality in many regions of Hell, and some of those rulers are strong enough to be able to grant titles that are either meaningful or respected in other regions as well. Not all Knights come from such places, but I do. The proof that I am a Knight are the tattoos on my wrists and the way they coil around each other when brought together. The ruler I swore allegiance to is Caledon, who commands Escabon, La Greche, the Maigre Strait and the Citadel of Romance. His plans for expansion are well known, and likely to succeed.
As for what I do, I recruit for Caledon. Not for his armies -- there are enough souls in Hell to fight the wars -- but for his administration. I head-hunt, in the corporate sense. I find people with the necessary skills for the positions that are open and persuade them to join.
Hell is not timeless, as many people think, but time passes at different rates depending on where you are. Mostly time is dense and heavy, and the lower you go the faster time passes, the heavier it weighs on the souls there. But there are places where time reverses and flows backwards, and places where it reveals its fractal nature, and with knowledge a Hell Knight can use them to enter the world where he pleases.
Hell can be both entered and left, so long as you have the right mindset and know what you're looking for. The Greeks had no problem with the living visiting Hell and leaving again, so many of the doorways look like temple entrances and allow passage in both directions. Christians see Hell as a final destination and so their doorways are one-way only and can't be subverted: it's part of the structure of hell. But they make it easy to get in: any door can be turned into a gateway to hell if there's enough Christians nearby.
And so I am a Hell Knight, and I have recruitment to attend to.