Limbo City Lights (Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc.)

by Angela Roquet

  “Run?” Jesse asked, popping her head up over the top of our meager fort.

  I shook my head and stood before taking aim with my palm. “Sanctus Incendia!”

  A stream of fire shot across the room, hitting the mouth of the scanner tunnel squarely. The flame turned blue where it narrowed inside the machine, and the trapped hellcat screeched out a high note that would have broken glass if it had been of this world.

  Jesse curled into a tight ball and pressed her hands over her ears. That’s when the first wave of demon guts splattered across my face and chest, shooting out of the machine like a cannon. Ugh.

  The room was already blistering hot, but it wasn’t enough to finish the job. The other cat was still moving, and my window was closing. I upped the energy shooting through my scorched palm, forcing it through the tunnel to where the beast had taken refuge.

  The flames hit the far wall and spread until they licked the edges of the room. Another shrill note followed, and when it died, so did my stamina. The flames flickered out, leaving the room unmarred… except for the ghostly residue of demon guts that clung to every surface.

  Jesse stood slowly and assessed the room as she tugged her hoodie down. “Who knew fighting demons could be such a workout.” Then she rolled her shoulders stiffly. “Maybe you should have led with that move instead letting Fluffy have a go at me first, eh?” The sarcastic edge of her voice was dulled by relief.

  I shrugged and wiped the demon slime out of my eyes. As long as I got this soul back to Limbo and received fame and glory, I’d happily write this little mishap off as a hazard of the job.

  “Aw, man!” Jesse groaned.

  A spike of panic ripped through my chest as my head jerked up. I half expected to find a third hellcat waiting for us. But Jesse just held up her foot, revealing a glob of demon guts stuck to the bottom of her remaining blue shoe.

  She sighed. “Just one more reason why I can’t wear nice things to death replacements.”

  I waved both arms down at myself. My clothes were completely coated in a chunky film of burning goo. “Tell me about it.”

  “Guess fashion is a small price to pay when we’re in such gutsy lines of work.” She wagged her eyebrows at me and grinned, though it was a bit strained considering our obliterated company. “So what now?” she asked. “Who cleans all this up?”

  “The humans can’t see it.” I stepped over a pile of steaming entrails, leading the way to the door. “It will all decompose eventually, just like any other soul matter.”

  “Soul matter?”

  “Soul matter: the cosmic mojo that makes up all things,” I answered in my best documentary voice before waving her onward.

  “After you.” She crinkled her nose at the closed door. After surviving a hellcat ambush, I was surprised she still had it in her to be so annoyed by the metaphysical advantage.

  I snorted and stepped ahead of her. When she didn’t emerge a few seconds later, I poked my head through the door again. “Jesse?”

  She was gone.

  “Jesse?” I stepped back inside and checked every square inch of the room. There was no other way out. She couldn’t have just disappeared.

  I rushed back to the morgue, in case she had somehow managed to give me the slip in her attempt to reconnect with her body. But there was no sign of her—of her soul or her body. The only proof that she’d been there at all was a bloody, broken spear, abandoned on an empty gurney. The novelty of it reminded me of her claimed profession.

  Who gets stabbed with a spear on purpose? I huffed and grabbed my hips with both hands. Seemed to me that fashion should have been the least of her worries.

  Jesse Sullivan

  The first thing that comes back to me after a death replacement is the pain, and this time is no different. My chest is sore. Regrowing muscles will do that. My heart feels okay, but the heart isn’t much of a complainer when it comes to physical torment. It’s the emotional turmoil that gets my cardiac muscle.

  I open and close my hands. I note the buzz in my head that’s probably a mixture of dehydration and severe hunger. My rumbling stomach concurs. I squint against the light.

  “Hey,” Ally says. She’s grinning down at me. I’m so happy to see her. If she’s here smiling at me, then that means she’s okay. Whatever went wrong in the replacement that landed me in the morgue, it wasn’t something that happened to her. And I’m good with that. I’ll take all the bad stuff if it means that Ally doesn’t have to. “You’re awake.”

  “And not in the morgue,” I tell her. “That’s a step up.”

  Ally cocks her head. Her blond hair falls forward and she tucks it behind her ears. “How did you know you were in a morgue?”

  Good question. I start to search my thoughts, tracing back from the moment I opened my eyes and the surge of pain was on me. I was in the morgue and the replacement had gone wrong because a spear went through me. I know this because… because…

  “Well, you’re right,” she says. “There was so much commotion when the police came that it was hard to keep track of you. Half the kids at the party took off running, which didn’t help. I told a paramedic to bring you to Kirk’s funeral home, but that paramedic stayed behind to help a kid with a concussion and the driver never got the message. I’m so sorry, Jess. You must’ve woken up at some point before Dr. York located you and checked you out of the morgue. That must’ve been so frightening.”

  “There was a cat.” No, that isn’t right. “A horse cat?”

  Ally frowns. “What are you talking about?”

  “A girl and a giant horse cat. But she wasn’t with the horse cat. It was released by some vengeful… dentist?”

  Ally laughs. “Must’ve been some dream.”

  “No!” I struggle to sit up. I throw my legs over the side of the bed, only vaguely registering the soft glow of the hospital room around me. “No, it wasn’t a dream. I think I know what happens when we die.”

  Ally’s face lights up and she leans into the hospital bed rails. “Oh really? Tell me. Inquiring minds want to know.”

  Great, now she’s expecting the awesome reveal. Proof of heaven and the pearly gates. Her face is so expectant and genuine that I’m prepared to make up something just to please her.

  “It was George from Dead like Me. And she has a horse cat, or the horse cats are bad, I’m not sure. But they take you to… a city?”

  Ally is trying not to burst into laughter.

  “I swear! There’s a city with a super strange name. I think. I’m like 88% sure. Okay, well sure might be too strong a word.”

  Ally squeezes my hand. “Let’s hope we don’t find out for sure for a long, long time.

  She pulls something from her pocket and two metal discs clank against one another as she slips a chain over my head. The chain is cool across my throat.

  As soon as the dog tags settle against my chest, it’s gone. Whatever happened in those moments between life and death are totally gone. Fading fast like an interrupted dream.

  I guess I’m okay with that. If it means I get to stay here with the people I love.

  Lana Harvey

  The sound of Kevin and Eliza’s laughter cut off sharply as I topped the ramp up to my ship. My apprentices sat on the edge of the hatch platform, a greasy box of pizza between them. The humor slowly drained from their faces.

  “What happened?” Eliza gasped. She covered her mouth and coughed violently. The helljacks at Kevin’s feet whined and put their paws over their muzzles, as if trying to block out the familiar stench.

  “I saw the soul,” I said, disbelief and regret saturating my voice. “She’s real, and I almost had her.”

  “The repeat CNH?” Kevin gave me a quizzical frown. “You sure about that, boss?”

  “Of course I’m sure.” I glared at him and threw my robe down on the deck floor. It was soaked in demon goo that I’d wiped off my face and arms. My skin still tingled with the acidic aftermath, but I’d take a shower soon enough. I needed pizza first,
my grumbling stomach reminded me.

  When I reached for the box, Kevin and Eliza both inched away from me.

  “You were gone for quite a while…” Kevin said. An apologetic grin stretched across his face as I lifted the lid.

  A single slice of pizza was left. Grease puddled over the cheese, and the chunks of pineapple looked dry and shriveled.

  “Worst. Apprentices. Ever.”

  I scowled as I crammed the soggy piece of pizza in my mouth and made for the guest cabin. I needed a hot shower, and then maybe I’d go ring Regina’s neck. Hellcats were only okay if I got a medal out of the deal. And Jenni needed to be updated about these fancy souls.

  My scowl deepened as I wondered if she’d believe me any more than Kevin had. Maybe I could convince her to put Jesse Sullivan on my docket the next time she decided to croak for a fat paycheck. Zombie or not, she couldn’t keep this up forever. Sooner or later, her occupation would catch up with her.

  And I’d be waiting.

  POST-MORTEM

  “For time and the world do not stand still.

  Change is the law of life.

  And those who look only to the past or the present

  are certain to miss the future.”

  —John F. Kennedy

  The sky port south of the harbor in Limbo City was an industrial monstrosity. Its squared-off concrete pillars lacked the character and charm I admired about the creaky old docks, and the hangers were claustrophobic cubicles that made for awkward unit meetings. I hated it, but there was no way I’d be going back to wasting daylight sailing the Sea of Eternity.

  Kevin propped his elbow on the wide seat of his Solarsky X12, the latest model of the popular air bike. We had some breathing room this afternoon. Ellen was on vacation and Eliza was still in the field, so it was just me and Kevin meeting in the Special Ops hanger, with enough free space for us to comfortably dismount and stretch our legs.

  Kevin’s left eye blinked twice from behind the purple lens of his harvest visor. I could see the neon outlines of his docket through the glass as it flickered across his interior screen.

  “The schedule has changed since this morning,” he said with a frown. His right eye twitched and a new screen opened on the visor. “Another reaper, Ben Holt, has been taken to Jai Ling’s Memorial Hospital.”

  I hugged myself to stave off a shiver. “What’s his condition?”

  “Stable,” Kevin answered, nodding his head ever so slightly to get the memo on his screen to scroll down.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Ben was the only other reaper left in my generation, at least on this side of the grave. I hadn’t seen Tasha Henry in decades, and Mira Hart’s mangled body had been found washed up on the shore of Limbo City just last month.

  Kevin’s lips pressed into a tight line. “Ben’s remaining souls have been redistributed. To us.”

  “Great.” I resisted rolling my eyes. It would only cause my own visor to glitch—a bug I was sure Warren had intentionally failed to fix the last time I went in for a service upgrade.

  “Do you want me to split them with Eliza?” Kevin asked.

  “Would you mind?” I gave him a pleading smile as I climbed onto my Jetstream Quatro.

  “How else am I going to make the payment on this thing?” Kevin snorted and slapped a hand on the leather seat of his bike. Then he tapped a button on the side of his visor, and I watched as half the docket on his screen zapped out of frame. “I’m predicting hate mail in three, two—”

  “Son of a mangy hellcat,” a voice blared through the speaker imbedded in the band of Kevin’s visor.

  “There’s my girl.” He grinned and mounted his bike. “Looks like a late dinner, my sweet.”

  “I’ll say.” Eliza grumbled something more that I didn’t hear over the hiss of the Jetstream as I powered it on.

  I nodded to Kevin and exited the end of the hanger that spit out over the sea. My bike dipped at the sudden shift in distance, and though I’d done this a thousand times before, the seat still sucked up my ass like I was about to plunge into the shoreline. When I didn’t, I drew in a ragged breath and waited for my heart rate to level before accelerating the bike out over the sea.

  Both of my spectral cuffs were full, a hundred and twenty souls in all, and I needed to deliver them before heading home to change. The big convention for the Hell Committee was tonight, and Bub wanted me there with him. I almost rolled my eyes again just thinking about it.

  It had been three hundred years since Bub had cut ties with Cindy Morningstar and abandoned the Hell Committee. The reins had passed through multiple hands since, but when his best friend Asmodeus was appointed as the new ambassador for the Afterlife Council, I knew it was only a matter of time before he recruited the Lord of the Flies.

  Even with the fresh faces and three hundred years behind us, I couldn’t forget that the Hell Committee had been responsible for the upheaval of mine and Bub’s lives. They’d sent him deep undercover and threw his reputation, his home, and his innocent butler to the hellcats. Not to mention my heart. That wasn’t something I planned on forgiving, not even after three hundred years.

  I liked Asmodeus, but not enough to share my consort with him. Unfortunately, that wasn’t up to me.

  I tried to put the matter out of my head as I zipped over the Sea of Eternity. This was dangerous territory. No one on an air bike had suffered an attack. Yet. I wasn’t about to become the first.

  Someone, or something, was targeting sea vessels. So far, Ben Holt was the only survivor. I wanted to go see him, but I knew Jenni would have the hospital on lockdown until she had a chance to ask the same questions we all wanted answers to.

  My evening was booked anyway. A blinking light in the corner of my visor screen kept reminding me. I was sure the message was from Lilith Enchanted, a swanky dress boutique in Pandemonium, letting me know that they’d delivered my dress for tonight. It was the only thing I was looking forward to about the evening.

  The radio tower at Hell’s edge flickered in the distance, and soon after, the speaker on my visor buzzed.

  “Good evening, Captain Harvey. Port seven is open.”

  My chest tightened at the sound of Maalik’s voice, and an emotional cocktail stirred in my gut. It was a residual effect of our complicated history, part intimate nostalgia and part bitter betrayal. Maalik had killed my mentor. But he’d also saved my life. And I’d saved his. My feelings for him had run the full gamut. It made it difficult to be around him for any length of time. Avoiding him had been easy after his century-long term on the council was over. But now that he was manning the gates of Hell again, it was decidedly more challenging.

  “Captain Harvey?” Maalik’s voice broke through the visor speaker again, and I realized I hadn’t acknowledged his invitation.

  “Port seven. Check.”

  I maneuvered the Jetstream over a yacht waiting to dock at the sea port and decelerated as I pulled inside the smaller docking station built into the cliff that bordered the edge of Hell. Then I secured my bike and made my way to the booth outside, where Maalik directed traffic by radio and accepted soul deliveries.

  “I heard about Ben,” he said, glancing up from the holographic model of the gate and surrounding ports that glowed across the booth’s control dash. Maalik’s silvery wings twitched as our eyes met.

  I nodded and looked away, choosing instead to focus on the ships coming in and out of the port below. “He survived, so maybe we’ll know something useful soon.”

  “Yes.”

  That was the extent of our small talk. I handed over my spectral cuffs and watched as he clicked them into slots on a wall inside his booth.

  The first prototype of Warren’s spectral cuff had been a clunky gauntlet only intended to hold eight souls for up to three hours. After Warren founded Eternity Tech and recruited the brightest of his nephilim brethren, his innovation had exploded. The cuffs were hardly an inch wide now. They could hold sixty souls each, for up to forty-eight hours if necessa
ry. They were also compatible with the new phantom plumbing that had been installed at all the afterlife gates.

  Maalik flipped a few switches on the booth wall. Then a loud whirring filled the air, but it only lasted a second. When it was over, Maalik unfastened my cuffs and handed them back through the window.

  I reached to take them from him, but he held firm until I looked up again.

  “Be careful, Lana,” he said before letting go.

  * * * * *

  I hauled ass on the way home, flying over the Styx as fast as the bike would carry me. The desert wind in my hair and the red sky twisting rainbows through my visor helped calm my nerves.

  When I reached the manor in Tartarus and parked my bike on the dock at the edge of the river, a thick tentacle reached out of the water. Purple suckers popped along my leather pants as it wrapped around my leg.

  “Sorry, Ursi, but I can’t play tonight. I’ll make time tomorrow. Promise,” I said, patting the slippery appendage as it sank back into the river. A sullen groan bubbled to the surface, and then a series of smaller bubbles trailed around the dock and disappeared under the houseboat where Ursula went to sulk.

  As I made my way up the stone path leading to the manor’s front door, my hellhounds circled around from the backyard, baying and nipping at each other as they raced to greet me. Kevin’s helljacks weren’t far behind. They’d been staying with us since the first mysterious sea death.

  Kevin and Eliza had abandoned their cabin on the ship in favor of a loft at the new Academy Suites, but there was a strict no-pet policy. The Academy was a historic site, after all. With no new reapers needing to be trained and the decline in enrollment for advanced courses, Jenni Fang had dedicated a floor at Reapers Inc. to the continued education program and allowed Grace Adaline to renovate the academy into an upscale apartment complex.