“Pretty sure the best version of me is on a deserted beach with an endless supply of these.” She slurped at her mojito before looking at me with a thoughtful frown. “Are you sure you’re not the one who’s brainwashed? I mean, you were special order, precious. You sure that’s not having some effect on your better judgment here?”
My brows drew together and I turned to glare at her. I hated her pet name for me, but more than that, I didn’t care for the insinuation that I was playing the part of a puppet.
It wasn’t that the thought hadn’t crossed my mind—I’d been the throne soul’s girl Friday ever since Maalik introduced me to Khadija. Sometimes, I was able to trade off that feeling for the illusion of a noble knight. Like I was the right hand of the regal ruler of some secret society. Eternity’s last hope. The Obi-Wan of the afterlife. Lately, I just felt like everyone’s bitch. Always being ordered to fetch this or that soul—more so than my day job required anyway.
“It’s not the weight of being a psychopomp alone that motivates me,” I said, turning my head to look at Tasha. “My mentor was sent to terminate Vince. Now he’s dead, but Vince is still alive. I want to know what happened.”
It was true, I realized. More than anything else, I wanted to know what had really become of Saul. Rubbing lost souls in Ridwan’s face wouldn’t restore the Special Ops Unit. Hell, it might not earn me an apology, or even a thank you.
Tasha’s eyes glittered in time with the lights dancing across the surface of the pool. Stretched out on the lounge chairs with our mojitos, we looked like a couple of girlfriends on vacation. I closed my eyes, trying to imagine the sun shining down on us. A life of exile in the mortal world didn’t seem so bad right now.
“I can’t get involved,” Tasha said suddenly. “You get that, right?”
“I’m not asking you to fight my battles. I just need you point me in the right direction.”
She sighed and sipped at the melting ice in the bottom of her cup. “The soul who filled me in is supposed to be meeting me in Atlanta tomorrow night. He said the venue is hard to find in the city, but I’m pretty sure he thinks this is a date.” She smirked and gave me an accusing look, as if to say she was enduring this for my sake. “Meet me at the Oakland Cemetery around seven-thirty. The souls avoid it for fear a reaper will spot them. You can tail me from a safe distance, but as soon as we get to Vince’s hiding spot, I’m gone and you’re on your own.”
“Deal,” I said, my stomach tightening into a sour knot as I realized I’d have to bail on the make-up night I’d promised Bub. Shit. Why did villains always have to throw a wrench in my date nights?
I hated to admit it, but this had been the easy part of the mission. Now I had to somehow come up with a plan to convince all the souls to come with me to the throne realm. But first, I wanted to corner Vince and ask him my questions about Saul. Getting him to talk would be no easy feat, but I had a few cards up my sleeve.
Tasha’s suggestion that the souls liked Vince made me revisit Naledi’s words. He waits in the shadows and thinks only of revenge. His opening draws near, and when he strikes, you’ll be the only one who can stop him.
So maybe she wasn’t talking about Vince. After all, he hadn’t tried to kill me the last time I saw him. My attempt to comfort myself backfired instantly as I realized that only left Grim, now that Seth was dead. I was fairly certain Naledi hadn’t been talking about me fending off that particular strike. Tasha’s warning to watch my back suddenly felt like very good advice indeed.
First things first, I thought. Vince was a weaker mark, with a significantly smaller grudge against me, and I had some idea of how to find him now. Best to start there and leave the impossible for later.
Chapter 17
“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”
—Martin Luther
It was after midnight before I made it home, and I was surprised not to find Bub asleep when I went upstairs to change. The hounds had already migrated from the doggie bed to ours, their backs pressed up against the footboard, more than likely in hopes of going unnoticed. They took up a good quarter of the mattress, and while Bub would complain, I knew that he enjoyed tucking his feet under their warmth as much as I did.
I quickly changed out of my work clothes and stepped into the adjoining bathroom to wipe a wash cloth over my neck and chest where sticky mojito had dried to my skin. Then I pulled on a pair of shorts and a tank top. The lacey fabric smelled like brimstone, and I made a mental note to ask Bub to stop hanging my clothes outside to dry. Maybe in a few days. Definitely not tonight. That certainly wasn’t the best way to start the conversation we needed to have.
As I headed downstairs, I glanced out the wide window that connected across the dining and living rooms and spotted a lantern hanging out in the garden. Bub was hunched over beneath it, his hands working the earth vigorously. A pond on the opposite side of the lantern post rippled as something broke the surface. I hesitated at the French doors, peering through the dark to get a better look.
“There you are.” Bub stood and wiped his hands down the front of his jeans. His bare chest made my breath catch, sweat glittering across taut muscles in the lantern light. He pushed back his disheveled hair, leaving a smear of mud over one eyebrow.
“You’ve been busy,” I said, ignoring the irritation in his tone. My eyes flicked over to the pond, and I decided to sit down on the patio stairs instead of venturing into the garden.
Bub frowned as he made his way over to me. “Did you have fun with Ellen?” he asked, a sharp edge to his voice, as if he was daring me to lie.
“I did.” I nodded slowly. “Then I enjoyed a few drinks with Adrianna Bates at Purgatory Lounge. You can call Xaphen to verify that if you’d like.”
Bub’s eyes narrowed. “That’s where you were when I called, I take it?”
“Did your spy not inform you?” I snorted. “There goes his Christmas bonus.”
“Hilarious.” Bub sat down on the patio steps beside me and leaned in for a kiss. His lips were salty, and the amount of mud coating his boots told me he’d been hard at it for some time.
“What’s with the pond?” I asked, trying to postpone the uglier part of our conversation to come.
“Do you like it?” Bub’s mouth drew up in a lopsided smile. “I wanted to add a few water plants, and I… I—” He paused to give me a tense smile. “I adopted a pet octopus.”
“What?” My head jerked up and I glanced out over the garden again to the pool.
“I stopped in at Hades’ Hound House to grab some more Cerberus Chow, and she was all alone in a tank near the register, with the saddest button eyes,” Bub said sweetly. “Wait till you see her. She’s gorgeous.”
“What’s she eat? How big is she going to get?” I asked, folding my arms with a frown. I decided not to wonder aloud if this was such a good idea when Bub released a disheartened sigh.
“She eats crabs and clams mostly, which are easy enough to come by, and she’s not one of the larger varieties, so she shouldn’t get too big. We’re not talking about Cthulhu here.”
“What are you going to name her?” I asked next, trying not to sound so annoyed.
Bub perked again, giving me one of his more charming smiles. “Ursula.”
“Okay then.” I chuckled and wiped a dried smear of dirt from his shoulder. Bub caught my hand as I pulled away.
“So, are you going to tell me where you went after the bar?”
The question caught me off guard. I’d thought he was content to drop the matter, but apparently not. At least he didn’t sound jealous, which led me to believe he had some idea of what this line of questioning would reveal.
“I met with Tasha on the mortal side,” I said, my gaze slowly pulling up to meet his. “I know where Vince Hare and the missing souls are. And I’m going to get them back.”
“Lana.” Bub sighed and squeezed my hand, dragging it down to rest on his knee. “This is dangero
us, and no one is asking you to do it.”
I pressed my lips together and pulled my hand away, tucking it between my legs with my other one. This suddenly felt like a bad idea, but I’d already made up my mind to be forthright with him, so I pressed on.
“Naledi asked me to do it. If someone doesn’t put an end to Vince’s cult on the mortal side, the next war will be instigated by souls rather than displaced deities and demons.”
Bub ran both hands over his head and then rested his arms on his knees. “What does the council think of all this? I thought they did away with the Special Ops Unit.”
“How do you know that?” I gawked at him. “I only just found out this morning.”
“Asmodeus.” Bub gave me a humorless smile. “He’s been summoned to fill the void I left on the Hell Committee, and he’s none too tickled about it. Cindy told him, and he called to tell me. I told you I don’t send my foot soldiers into the Reapers Inc. building,” he added as though he thought I hadn’t believed him when he told me before. Then his eyebrows lifted, prompting me to answer his original question.
“The council doesn’t know what I’m up to. They’ve been doing everything in their power to stop Naledi from adding more original believers to her growing brood. They don’t trust her.”
“But you do?”
I nodded. “I may not always care for her methods, but she sees what’s coming, and she does what she can to keep the peace in Eternity.”
Bub reached for my hand again, pulling me closer to him on the patio steps. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pressed his forehead to mine. “Promise me you’re not doing all of this to churn up the past.”
Not for the first time, I got the feeling that Bub knew more than he was telling about Saul’s death. The thought gnawed at me, especially when he ordered his minions to buzz all up in my business any time they caught me speaking to someone about my late mentor. Maybe what he knew painted Saul in an unflattering light, and he didn’t want to tarnish my memories. Or maybe he was afraid that I’d follow his pointed finger down a vengeful path of no return.
I searched Bub’s golden eyes, a mere inch from my own, and tried to read the thoughts beyond them.
“Promise me,” he begged again, his voice dropping to a sultry whisper.
“Only if you promise that you’re not keeping the truth from me.”
Bub’s eyes closed and he pulled away abruptly. “Bloody hell. You’re never going to let this go, are you?”
“You are hiding something. Why?” I huffed and shook my head with disbelief. “If you’re so worried about me putting myself in danger to find out the truth, why not tell me what you know?”
“Because nothing good can come of it,” Bub shouted.
The outburst made me flinch, and I recoiled when he reached for me again. Bub groaned miserably. The sound encompassed the full spectrum of defeat. He rubbed his hands across the tops of his thighs, brushing away crumbled dirt from his jeans.
My heart pumped more eagerly, waiting for his next words, and a lump pushed its way up to the back of my throat.
“I told you that I suspected Vince was alive. Remember?”
I swallowed and nodded. “You said there wasn’t any proof though.”
“Just a short-lived rumor, love.” Bub’s face pinched with regret. “Saul had disappeared. He was gone for nearly a week when someone on the council suggested that he was trading on the ghost market. After all, he’d been assigned a high-risk harvest the last day he reported for duty, and the soul was never recovered.”
I shook my head, refusing to believe it, but I bit my tongue to keep from interrupting Bub.
“The very next day, Grim announced that Saul’s mutilated body had been found. That he’d been the victim of a brutal demon attack on the mortal side. A statue was erected, and the rest is history.”
“That was a rumor,” I snapped, clinging to my denial. “You said it yourself.”
“Yes.” Bub glanced down at my hand, like he wanted to take it again, but he refrained. “It was a rumor. But now that we know Vince is alive, after Saul reported the reaper’s death…” He let the accusation hang in the air, while I continued to shake my head.
“Maybe he thought he’d killed Vince and was simply mistaken. That’s possible, right?”
“It’s also possible that Grim sent someone to terminate Saul before he could incite any other reapers into joining his cause.”
“Then why put up a statue in his honor? Why go to the trouble to sugarcoat it all?” I gave up the head shaking and hugged myself, struggling to come to terms with everything.
“Think about it,” Bub said. “Reapers stepping out of line made Grim look weak. He’d already had to deal with Vince Hare. But a second one in such a short span of time? The council would have come down hard on him. They might have even prevented him from introducing new generations. It’s been suggested before.”
I thought of Miranda Giles, the reaper Grim had pulled out of existence right in front of me. No one remembered her insubordination—well, except Grim and me. I wondered if that was the idea. How many other bad little reapers had been wiped from existence and conveniently forgotten for the sake of political gain?
“So Grim called Saul a hero,” I said, filling in the blanks. “And he put up a fancy statue to hide the fact that he’d lost control of another of his minions.” My shoulders trembled and I hugged myself tighter, feeling broken inside.
Bub took his chances and reached out for me again. I let him this time, sinking into his embrace as tears crept into my eyes. “You don’t have to remember him that way. There’s no real proof. Vince being alive could very well be an honest mistake, like you suggested. And no one else has reported a sighting in over a hundred years. All you have to do is let this go.”
“Nice try.” I sniffled against his shoulder. “Not liking the facts doesn’t negate them, and there’s still Naledi’s warning to consider. If the council ignores it, I’m Eternity’s last defense.”
“My gallant death merchant.” Bub rubbed his hands up and down my back and kissed the top of my head. “You smell like a Caribbean bar.”
I chuckled softly and reached up to wipe a tear from under my eye. “The meeting with Tasha was BYOB in Jamaica.”
“I’m filthy, starving, and knackered,” he murmured into my hair, as if to say he didn’t want to talk about my questionable activities anymore. “Shall we take a bath?”
I nodded and took his hand as he stood, letting him pull me to my feet as well. A bubbling noise in the garden caught my attention, and I glanced over in time to spy the set of button eyes that had clearly captured Bub’s heart earlier in the day. A single tentacle broke the surface of the water, almost as if she was waving goodnight.
Bub clucked his tongue. “Brilliant, no?” He grinned and smacked his free hand over his jeans again, dusting off the remaining clods of dirt before we stepped through the French doors.
I wasn’t sold on the idea of having a pet octopus, but maybe she’d grow on me. Though hopefully not in the literal sense. In fact, I was pretty sure I could do without her sticky little suckers coming anywhere near me.
Bub didn’t mind the hounds. He fed them and kept an eye on them whenever I didn’t require their help at work. But it seemed like it was more out of obligation than adoration. To be fair, they had been gifted to me by an ex-lover. I could understand his reservations.
If Ursula had been a gift from the rebel succubus Bub had been pretending to woo while undercover, I’d probably have reservations too. But she wasn’t, and for that reason alone I decided to suck it up and do my best to accept her into our strange little family.
Bub’s gaze fell on the hounds as we entered our bedroom, and he made a displeased noise under his breath. Saul had wiggled his way up the center of the bed. He’d be getting the boot after our bath. Bub ignored the slight for now, choosing instead to scrounge around in the dark for some clean boxer briefs, while I stripped out of my shorts and tank top.
After we closed ourselves in the bathroom, I lit a pair candles and Bub filled the clawfoot tub. It was too late and we were both entirely too tired to get frisky, but the quality time together was nice, even if fleeting. I still hadn’t told him that our date night would have to be rescheduled, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. Maybe that could wait for morning. I didn’t want to spoil what was left of our time together.
A dark thought clouded at the back of my mind, but I pushed it away until we were tucked in our bed, with Saul and Coreen banished to their doggie bed in the corner.
What if things didn’t end well tomorrow? What if Vince chose fight over flight this time? What if his hoard of souls decided to launch their long-awaited war by putting my head on a pike and invading Limbo City?
For all my doubt mongering, I found room in my head to continue questioning Saul’s death. Maybe he had been a traitor like Vince. Worse yet, maybe he was the one who recruited Vince. He’d been Grim’s second-in-command for centuries, a position that earned him an inside look at the boss man’s most corrupt secrets. Coreen had known about Khadija when she had the position, and Saul had filled that spot for centuries before she had. He must have known.
I couldn’t deny that vengeance was motivating me as well. Saul was a good man, a kind man—traitor or not. He’d never wronged me. On the contrary, he’d taught me everything I knew about soul harvesting. And he had shared his home and his boat with me. That alone was enough motivation to crucify whoever had taken him out of my world.
Vince, Grim, a random minion—I didn’t care. Someone had an unpaid bill, and it was time to collect.
Chapter 18
“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.”
Hellfire and Brimstone Page 10