“Okay, assuming you aren’t lying about the dying and coming back part—and I can believe that given the records I have on you—you still have to come back with me. You’re an urban myth as it is. You’ll be famous.”
I think of the toilet paper and the soap marker slurs I’ve endured since I survived October’s attack and made the news. Now most Nashvillians can recognize me on sight. Victim or not, the Church still thinks I’m soulless because I don’t go anywhere when I die. “I’m kind of famous here,” I tell her. “But not in the good way. I’d prefer a life of obscurity actually.”
Her lips tuck to one side and she nods. “Actually, I know what you mean.”
“Besides. This is weird,” I point at my body. “I mean, even for me this is weird. I’ve only ever been in a morgue once before. Something must have gone wrong with the replacement.”
My hand hits my forehead.
What if Ally is in danger? What if she was hurt in the replacement and I wasn’t there to protect her. Her body wasn’t here. But would they have taken her somewhere else? And what happens if I leave my body? Do I stay dead? No rebooting? I’ve never been pulled out of my body before. I have a feeling that taking the ferry with some reaper might be the point of no return.
“Oh man, if the kid died I’m going to have to give the fifty thousand back.” I consider how the spear might have impaled me and went right through Jonathan. Sadness swells in my chest. He seemed sweet. “Who brings a Roman centurion to a Greek party?”
Then it dawns on me. The absolute opportunity I’m squandering here. Answers about the afterlife.
“Oh my god! You have to tell me what happens. When we die where do we go?”
She opens her mouth. “Well, that depends.”
I grab her shoulders and shake. I’m practically bouncing on my toes in order to gain the truth of the universe. I’ll know what no other living creature on Earth knows. I’ll finally have answers for Ally—and maybe peace of mind for myself.
Except before Lana answers me, a shadow fills the morgue. I step left, looking around the “reaper girl” and see an enormous beast. It’s as big as a horse, skeletal, and looks like the kind of nightmare that eats puppies for breakfast.
If I still had a beating heart, it would have stopped.
“Uh, is that thing with you?” I point at the monster looming. “Because if that’s a Limb City thing, count me out.”
Lana Harvey
Another hellcat?
As Kevin’s mentor, the soul he’d harvested was assigned by me. With this making two attacks in one day, that meant my docket had been compromised and someone was getting personal. And just when I’d scored the harvest of the century. Fuck my luck.
My celebrity catch had looked prepared to crawl back inside her body before, but now she was downright desperate. She slapped her ghostly hands against her cheeks as she stared down the hellcat that had materialized in front of the wall of cold lockers.
“Wake up, Jesse. Wake. Up.” Her voice dropped to an urgent whisper.
I resisted the urge to quote Arnold at her. Come with me if you want to live. She was already dead, after all. Zombie, vampire, NDR—whatever. She had a soul, and a soul could be harvested. Souls were also easy to trick, in my experience. Maybe letting her believe the hellcat was with me would help make up her mind.
I held my hand out to her again. “Fame and fortune in Limbo City, or midnight snack for Fluffy. Your choice.” I tried not to let my voice crack as I presented her options, but it was hard with the looming hell beast across the room.
Jesse bit her bottom lip and her eyes darted from me to her body to the creature. She tucked her hands in against her chest, as if afraid to touch me. To be fair, I had my other hand stuffed down in the pocket of my robe, fingering around for my coin so I could use it to get us the hell out of here, once she came to her senses.
I gave Jesse a tight smile and pulled the coin out for her to see. Nope. Nothing suspicious going on here.
Her eyebrows shot up. “Is that all you got paid to collect my soul? I’ll double it. Hell, I’ll triple it. I get paid fifty grand to die all the time. Can’t I just give you fifty grand and you can go away?”
“Already up to bargaining.” I snorted. “You process fast.”
Jesse’s bottom lip pushed out and she scowled at me. “That’s the going rate for not dying in today’s market—”
The hellcat cut her off with a low, warning shriek, and her hand flew out unexpectedly, colliding with mine. The coin was knocked from my fingers. It arched through the air before rattling against the tile floor and rolling under the opposite gurney with the covered body—the only obstacle between us and the hellcat.
“Shit.” I ground my teeth together and glared at Jesse. “That was our ticket out of here.”
A nervous laugh escaped her. “I’m staying anyway, so just… just…” She flicked her hand at the hellcat. “Put a leash on Fluffy over there.”
The creature hissed and its talons scraped against the tile, raking at it like a chalkboard. It was preparing to maul us, and now our only out was, well, out.
“Afraid I’m fresh out of leashes. How fast can you run?” I asked as I grabbed Jesse by the shoulders and steered her toward the sliding doors that led out of the morgue.
“W-what? I don’t run.” She twisted in my grasp and shot an annoyed frown over her shoulder. “I’m paid not to run. I die, remember? That’s what I’m good at.”
“Yeah, well this isn’t the kind of death you want to stick around for.”
I grunted and gave her a final shove through the sliding doors. They didn’t open for us, but now that Jesse was non-corporeal, that didn’t pose a problem. I suppose I should have let her in on that fact beforehand, I thought as I watched her face smash against the hallway wall, but we had a hellcat on our heels.
I grabbed her arm and tugged her upright before pulling her down the hallway behind me. The hellcat screeched again and Jesse was suddenly beside me, keeping pace.
“So I can walk through doors but not walls?” she gasped in between breaths. “How the hell does that work?”
“Phantom mechanics,” I answered without looking at her.
“Say what?”
“It’s complicated.” I left off the bit about how I’d slept through most of that class because Josie had forced me to take it with her. Also, it had been a hundred years ago. Who remembers anything after a hundred years?
Speaking of remembering, a jumble of Latin incantations were ping-ponging around inside my head. Kevin had used the fire blast successfully—though could being covered in demon guts really be considered a success?
We reached the end of the hallway and paused, but not for long. The hellcat’s throaty panting and the clickety-click of its talons spurred me into action. I yanked Jesse left down the next corridor before tearing off again. After another sharp turn down an adjoining hallway, I spotted a nurse exiting an unmarked room.
“Help!” Jesse waved her hands trying to flag down the nurse. “This crazy lady unleashed hell on earth and is trying to steal my soul!” With her cockeyed ponytail, puffed up cheeks, and only one sneaker, she looked like the crazy one.
“The living can’t see or hear you,” I said, trying to steer her into the darkened room.
Jesse reached for the nurse anyway. Her hand slipped right through the lady’s shoulder, the effort hardly raising a goosebump. The nurse straightened her cardigan and frowned down the hallway, looking right past us. Then she shrugged and headed off to the elevators.
I nudged Jesse toward the room again, and while she managed not to fall on her face this time, she did hold her breath as we passed through the door. Mortals were so strange. I stole a quick glance down the hallway, making sure the hellcat hadn’t caught up yet, and then followed Jesse inside.
The room was dimly lit by a sliver of light that spilled through the tiny window cut into the door. As my eyes adjusted, the outline of radiology equipment came into view. It was ei
ther an MRI or a CT scanner—I could never tell them apart. They both gave me the heebie-jeebies. The first time I saw one, I wondered if the humans were trying to build a portal to hell.
“So,” Jesse said, having finally caught her breath. “Come here often?”
A few moments ago, I would have sworn she was flirting with me. But her tone had lost its pick-up-line quality.
“Sure. It’s a Friday night hotspot,” I said. “Super exclusive though. Everyone’s just dying to get in.”
She rolled her eyes and slumped to the floor, pressing her back up against the white concrete wall before retying her one shoe.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” I said, risking a glance through the window in the door before I squatted beside her. “We have to get back to the morgue and find my coin. It’s our only chance.”
“Chance to what?” Jesse snapped. “I’m not going anywhere without my body.” She frowned and glanced down at her ethereal form before catching sight of my smirk.
“Is that so?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Shut up. You know what I mean.” She pulled her knees up and rested her arms over them. “Besides, you haven’t told me anything about this Lim-bo City, but if there are more of those things over there, you can count me out.”
“That thing is a hellcat, and it shouldn’t be here. It shouldn’t be anywhere,” I added under my breath.
The creatures weren’t good for anything but nightmares and mayhem. Plus, their acidic blood was hell on clothing and woodwork. I thought of Kevin and the helljacks and swallowed the lump forming in my throat.
The fire blast was a last resort. It required a fair amount of space between the blaster and the blastee too, unless I wanted a facial made of demon entrails. Kevin had gotten lucky. He’d probably had at least ten yards on the beast. I wasn’t sure I could get that much distance in the confines of the hospital. Even if I did manage it, I’d have to remember the damn incantation first.
“Hello?” Jesse snapped her fingers in my face. I’d been focusing so hard on recalling the bits of Latin I needed that I hadn’t heard her.
I shook my head. “Yes? What?”
“I asked what kind of range I have as a ghost. You know, how far away can I get from my body before… poof, or whatever?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re not going to poof.”
She blinked at me, and then a small grin pulled up one side of her mouth. “So I could go for a stroll through Nashville and walk through any door I like? Just take a little looksee at how a friend might be doing? In the shower?”
“Oh, now you want to leave your body?” I huffed. “Look, you have to come back to Limbo with me. There’s a hellcat loose on this side, and it’s caught your scent. It won’t stop until it’s tracked you down, and once it does, it will eat your face off.”
Jesse stood and paced to the other side of the room. She tightened her ponytail and tucked the stray bits of hair behind her ears. “I don’t know how else to explain NRD to you, but you’re clearly not getting it. My body will regenerate, and my soul—I—will be there when it does. Whether you like it or not.”
“Gah!” I raised both hands in the air and curled my fingers into fists. “You’re the most impossible soul I’ve ever harvested. You know that?”
Jesse’s shoulders pulled back and a smug grin stretched her mouth wider. “Did you really expect someone who’s died 76 times to come quietly?”
“I expected you’d be a no-show and I’d be eating pizza by now.”
“You have pizza in Limbo City?” She looked intrigued. Maybe I could woo her with more wonders waiting on the other side—if only we had more time. A growl echoed out in the hallway. The hellcat had picked up our trail.
Jesse ducked down beside me. “What happens if that thing eats me before my body wakes up?”
“What do you think?” I swallowed and pressed my lips together. This was getting ridiculous. I needed the soul’s full cooperation if we were going to get out of this mess, and there was only one way to get that. Lie my ass off.
“I can put you back in your body,” I said. “But only if you’re touching it. We need to get back to the morgue.”
Jesse pressed in closer to me, babbling some half-baked plan under her breath. “So, you could maybe run out in the hall and lead the thing away from here, while I go to the morgue and hop back in my body—”
“It will come for you before it follows me,” I said, cutting her off. “You’re easier prey. Besides, I have a better idea.”
I tugged my robe over my head, stripping down to my jeans and a black tank top. The robe was too hot and restrictive to be fighting for my life in, which was undoubtedly what I’d be doing very soon. I emptied the pockets before tossing it aside. There were plenty more where it came from.
My loot wasn’t quite enough to MacGyver anything spectacular—a hair tie, stick of gum, and can of angelica mace. I handed the can to Jesse and stuffed the gum in my pocket before pulling my hair back.
“They have beauty salons on the other side too, I take it?” Jesse shook the can and gave the nozzle a quick press, misting the air.
“Don’t waste that. It’s your only protection against the hellcat,” I said.
She raised both eyebrows. “Then why don’t you take it. I don’t plan on getting that close. Aren’t you supposed to protect me or something? Isn’t that part of your job?” Her voice hitched an octave, and another low growl responded from the hallway. Closer this time.
My hand trembled as I pressed a finger over my lips and reached down to fetch a hunting knife from my boot. Then I pointed at the portal-like scanning machine centered in the room. I nodded when Jesse curled up her nose in understanding.
“This is a terrible idea,” she hissed as she climbed up onto the table and crawled backwards, nestling herself deep inside the narrow tunnel. I moved around behind the machine and gave her socked foot a squeeze once it reached the other side.
Jesse let out a clipped squeal. Then she tossed a wide-eyed glare over her shoulder at me, but whatever she was about to say was halted by a rattling grumbled just outside the room.
I pressed myself against the side of the machine and inched around it just enough to get a clear line of sight to the door. I had seen a hellcat before. I’d even killed a few. It didn’t make them any easier to look at.
The creature’s snout, a grizzled mass of wet cartilage, broke the surface of the door first. Its two enormous nostrils contracted as it huffed the air, and then its whole head was in the room with us. Smoldering eyes filled the dark with a hellfire glow. Jesse whimpered, and that was all it took.
The cat pounced on the scanner table, dark wings flapping as it struggled to keep its balance. It snapped and snarled at the opening of the tunnel, wedging its head inside as Jesse screamed bloody murder. It was the cue I was waiting for.
“Ha!” I arched my arm around the side of the machine and plunged my knife into the creature’s neck, burying it to the hilt with a premature victory cry.
The hellcat didn’t seem to register any pain. I decided I should give it another go, but the knife refused to come free. For all my effort, my only reward was getting smacked across the face by a leathery wing. I stumbled backward and tripped over a pile of extension cords.
On to plan B then.
Before I could reach Jesse’s feet, her screams cut off suddenly. My heart dropped into my stomach, but as I grasped her ankles and pulled her through the backside of the tunnel, I heard the spray of the angelica mace.
“Ear to ear and in the mouth!” Jesse’s shouting echoed in the scanner tunnel. “Make them suffocate! That’s what Ally says,” she finished as I pulled her upright and away from the scanner.
The hellcat made a horrible retching noise, like it was winding up to loose the hairball of the century. The noise was only made worse by the echo of the tunnel it was struggling to crawl through. It wouldn’t be distracted for long, and when the mace wore off, we were fucked. It was time to bai
l.
“Go, go, go!” I grabbed Jesse’s arm and yanked her toward the door.
The can of mace rattled in her hand as we crossed the room. “I thought you were going to stab it or something. What kind of two-bit reaper are you?”
“I did stab it.” I ground my teeth together and jerked to a sudden stop.
Another hellcat snout poked through the door just before we reached it. Shit. Jesse noticed it a second later, and we both scampered to the opposite side of the room from the scanner, ducking behind a clunky, portable piece of equipment.
“There’s not much left.” Jesse shook the can of mace. “What the fuck are we supposed to do now?”
“Shhh, I’m thinking.”
I snatched the can from her before it could draw the new cat’s attention. One was bad enough, but two? There was no way we’d be running from the room now. Without my knife, the mostly spent angelica mace was our only weapon. I dug around in my pockets again anyway, praying to Khadija that I’d find something new I’d overlooked before. But there was just the stick of gum.
I’d worked with less. I popped the gum in my mouth and chewed it as quietly and vigorously as possible, while Jesse scowled at me.
“Think faster,” she hissed through gritted teeth.
The second hellcat was slowly filling the room, slinking through the door like a ghostly dragon. Threads of smoke coiled up from its mangey frame, as if it had recently incinerated some unsuspecting prey. We’d just have to incinerate it first, I thought as the Latin I’d misplaced breached the surface of my mind. Though what good it would do in such close quarters was not a question I was looking forward to answering.
I spit the gum into my hand and molded it over the nozzle of the mace can before glancing back at Jesse. She still didn’t look convinced that I knew what I was doing. Hell, I wasn’t entirely convinced either.
“Stay down,” I mouthed. She gave me a sarcastic thumbs up.
I pressed the gum down tight over the mace nozzle and chucked it across the room like a grenade. It hissed and sputtered as it hit the far wall, and the second hellcat launched for it, the beast’s talons scratching noisily against the tile floor. It paused just behind the scanning machine where the other hellcat was trapped.
Limbo City Lights (Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc.) Page 11
