Hell Can Wait — Theodore Judson

Maternus, a brute of a Roman soldier who has spent the past eighteen centuries in hell, wants freedom.

Upon reviewing his misplaced records, the bureaucracy that governs the universe has decided that Maternus deserves a second chance at redemption because the brutal soldier also was capable of offering friendship, of appreciating beauty, and even of loving a virtuous woman.

A demon and an angel must take him back to earth, where human passions, virtues and failings have been downsized, and there Maternus, this lion of a man, must pass a series of tests before he can earn a place in paradise with a girl he saw only once but who is nonetheless the focus of his existence.