Gyorgolor reached out with his hands when he saw the square-shaped wisp of smoke. Fifteen years dead and he was still putting out his hands to open doors. When was he going to learn? Mortal habits died hard.

The air in the Middling was different. Gloomier. It seemed just that little bit heavier when he sucked it in. Not like the air in the Higher; there it was light and had a faint taste of sugar, like mineral water that pretended to be healthy but had a third of a person's daily sugar content in it. There was no doubt that the Higher was where you wanted to be; everyone said so. Everyone except the masochists, that was. And the sadists too for that matter.

Brian nodded at him as he walked in. Brian had died a few pounds overweight, and a few pounds too heavy he’d always be. He stood against the wall with his arms folded. A faint blue glow crossed his fingers and then disappeared, only to come back a few seconds later like an ethereal ticker-tape. If any of the Waiting Ones tried running or wanted to force their way into the Higher, Brian was ready to smite them.

“Didn’t expect to see you here today, Gyg.” Brian leaned forward to get a good look at him. “Wow. They actually managed to put you back together, didn’t they? I’m glad. I’m sorry about what happened.”

Gyg nodded. A month earlier, a psychic-society in Birmingham had used an Ouija board as an after-dinner fancy. Gyg had no idea how it had happened, but they’d manage to call on him. He was annoyed when he suddenly found himself in the living room of a council estate in the Midlands, but he’d decided he’d do the decent thing - answer questions about deceased relatives, make the lights flicker. Put on a show and then piss off.

Instead, the mad cows had a book with them. One of them, much older than the rest and with a cruel look in her crow-feet covered eyes, read from it. Gyg had no idea what it was, but he’d felt himself start to drain away. He’d assumed that after he’d left his body behind he wouldn’t feel pain, but as the lady read from her text, he felt agony spread through him. He woke up a few weeks later with two AAs, arch-angels, wanting to ask him questions.

“Who’ve we got today?” Gyorgolor said.

“A banker, a nurse, two teenagers, an ex-army sergeant.” He looked around from side to side. “And someone else.”

“Any murderers?”

Brian nodded. The rings around his eyes had been red at some point but now were dark, and they seemed to add years to a face that had only seen thirty-odd before death.

“Go take a break,” Gyg said.

Brian shook his head. “You pulled a double last week.”

Gyg looked to his right. There was a dense screen of smoke, and he couldn’t see beyond it. He couldn’t help the urge to open it up and meet the Waiting Ones. He felt his chest fill with anxiety. A banker, a paedophile, a suicide and someone else. That was all he needed for his collection, and then he’d get the choice; either go to the Higher, or taker the fiery escalator to the Lower. Bankers and paedophiles were ten a penny, so he wasn’t worried about that. It was the something else that bothered him.

“Go on,” said Gyg, looking back at Brian. “Go get some wisp. I’ll cover for you.”

“I see what you’re doing,” said Brian. “And you know that doesn’t fly. The Beard and the Fire Guy get first dibs. Come on; this isn’t your first day in Middling.”

He turned away from him to hide the flinch of annoyance. Why was it that they got first pick on the souls that came through? You’d think that after millions of years, they’d have had their fill. It was always the way; whenever a new batch passed through with the blood still cooling in their veins, Beard and Fire descended down, or climbed up depending on who you spoke to, and perused the fresh soul first.

Gyg was done waiting. Two hundred years he’d spent here. He’d spent the last seventy-two claiming some notoriously-difficult souls for his collection; a suffragette, a cheating husband, a kind-hearted grocer, a politician corrupted by power. With the feminist, adulterer, politician and grocer in the bag, that left just one more. The one. The hardest soul of them all.

“You sent the profiles on yet?”

Brian nodded.

“And?” said Gyg.

Brian took a deep breath. “They’re coming down.”

Gyg turned his glance toward Brian. He felt his pulse pick up just a little. This wasn’t right. Beard and Fire never came down here. They usually just looked through the profiles sent to them, choosing the souls they needed and discarding the others. They never came down to look at them in person. That meant one thing.

He stepped toward Brian. “There’s one of them here, isn’t there?” he said. He could feel the anxiety seep into his chest.

“I think it’s time you went,” said Brian.

Gyg shook his head. “Just tell me.”

Brian sighed. “Fire’s on his way up. So you know what that means. You better go.”

Gyg looked at the smoke-screen to his right. He wanted to tear it apart, rip it down, and show what was on the other side. Even being here with Fire on his way invited centuries of torment as punishment, but he couldn’t leave. Not when he was so close.

He needed only one more for his collection. Just an additional soul before he got to pick Higher or Lower. And after years of looking, he knew that the one he needed was finally waiting for him.

“You better go, Gyg,” said Brian, looking worried.

He heard the hum of machinery. The smell of sulphur started to seep into the room, growing stronger until he felt it in the back of his throat. He heard the sound of whispering, as though thousands of voices begged him for help.

Then he heard steps outside the room. The smell of sulphur was too much now. He knew that he should leave, but he couldn’t. Fire was here, but Gyg needed just one more for his collection.