by Kat Cotton
I could see why Earnest was so driven to make these kills. I’d be awful to change into that half-dog, half-man form. If I’d known, I’d have stood back and let the dogs go for it. But, too late now.
“There are plenty of demons,” I said. “Isn’t it just like killing flies?”
“Not all of us attract demons like you do. We get assigned cases,” Duke said. “When one job is done, you get put back at the bottom of the waiting list for the next one. Of course, we can find them ourselves, search for demon-like murders, that kind of thing. But then you have to be especially careful that you’re not stepping on someone else’s territory. That’s the worst thing you can do, but some of us aren’t too worried about that.”
The way he glanced at Earnest suggested that Earnest might be one who’d overstepped the boundaries.
“You’re assigned a territory?” I asked.
When Lilly had told me that she couldn’t leave their “circuit”, she hadn’t been talking about a performing circuit but a demon killing one. It made sense now.
Duke nodded.
This whole society thing seemed awfully full of rules but it did prove one thing. Daggers & Sequins were clean. They weren’t killers, of humans anyway. If anything, they protected people.
“And there are other zombies or whatever you guys are... in other places?”
“There are carnivals all over the world,” Duke said. “It’s the perfect way to move around and cover our tracks.”
I could hardly tell him that those tracks hadn’t exactly been covered and there was a massive file back at headquarters to prove it. I got the feeling that none of them were exactly on the ball when it came to modern technology. That’s why Earnest could barely use a phone. Yes. All these weird things started to make sense now.
I waited for Nuno to open the van but instead he unbolted the trailer.
“Huh? Aren’t we going to see these Society people?” I asked. “That’s what you said.”
Nuno began dragging the Wheel of Death out of the trailer. Duke rushed over to help him.
“We can’t just drive there,” Lilly said with an eye roll. “It’s not in this world.”
“The Wheel is a portal.” Duke rubbed his hands together with glee. Portals seemed to get him almost as excited as knives.
“No. Wait. No.” I put my hands out. “You’ve been strapping me up to that thing and now you tell me it’s a portal to another dimension. Just hold up. This is not right. There’s got to be a whole range of health and safety issues related to that. Wait, is that how you do it? With the knives? The knifes are never going to hit me because of the portal.”
I liked the sound of that. Portal magic beat the hell out of relying on Duke’s skills.
But Duke laughed. “The knife show is real. I’m just incredibly gifted.”
I narrowed my eyes. That was not what I wanted to hear.
“The Wheel spins left for the act,” Earnest explained. “Spin it right and the portal opens.”
That seemed almost too simple.
“Is that why you didn’t want us to bring it on tour? Because you didn’t want the portal? But why?”
Shaking his head, Earnest gave a chuckle. Damn it. I thought we’d gotten over the chuckling thing.
“We have other ways of moving around but this is safest way for mortals. Well, hopefully. I’ve never known a mortal to move to the other world while they’re still alive.”
I stared at the Wheel. It just seemed a regular hunk of wood full of knife holes. Faded red stripes radiated from the center. This thing could take us to another dimension? It seemed ludicrous. And incredibly unsafe.
“Are you ready?” Duke asked, gesturing at the Wheel. “Step up to the most extraordinary ride of your life.”
Lilly slapped his arm. “Can it, Duke. You’re not onstage now.”
Nuno grinned and gripped the side of the Wheel.
“Wait,” I said. “I’m not sure I am ready. I have no idea what I’m getting into here.”
“Fine with me,” Earnest said. “Pack your bags and get out.”
When he put it like that, I had no choice. Curiosity burned me. I’d get to see something that I doubted any living human got to see. I’d go into the afterlife. Even while that made my stomach twist with fear, I had to do it. I had to know.
“Wait, again. I’ll be able to come back okay?”
“No guarantees,” Duke said. “I assume so but it’s never been tested.”
Great. The dogs yapped around my ankles. They seemed to know what was going on and were pushing me to decide. I gulped.
“Okay, let’s do this.”
Nuno gave the Wheel a big spin. The red lines blurred and the Wheel made a clunking sound I’d never noticed when I was on it.
Earnest picked up the dogs, one under each arm, and hurled himself against the wood. I waited for a crash but he disappeared inside.
“This is so cool,” I said. “It’s like Harry Potter.”
Duke and Lilly stared at me blankly.
“Harry Potter? You must know...”
But nope, no reaction.
Duke grabbed hold of me and faced me to the Wheel.
“When I say go...”
“I hurl myself at that thing?” Even though I’d seen Earnest do it, I had my doubts.
“Yep. It’s simple,” he said. “I’ll count to three.”
I nodded and prepared myself.
“One.”
Then he gave me a rough push. What happened to two? What happened to three? My eyes closed as I rushed toward the Wheel. This wouldn’t work. It couldn’t. Then... whoosh. I fell. I floated. My stomach wanted to come out my mouth but, before I could even scream, I smashed into something hard.
A floor?
I hadn’t thought about what would be on the other side. Clouds and misty shit or something ethereal, but this place was like a rundown waiting room in a government office. Wooden benches lined the walls, with an old coffee table in the middle. A few posters welcomed me to Purgatory. The place smelled of floor wax and disinfectant.
Before I could take in any more, Earnest grabbed my arm and pulled me to a seat just before Lilly came tumbling out of nowhere. Nuno and Duke soon followed her.
“Welcome to Purgatory,” she said. “The waiting room for hell.”
“Not all of us are going to hell,” Nuno answered.
I stared. Nuno could talk? Of course he could talk here. His voice was so smooth and comforting, it made me sad that he didn’t get to use it all the time.
“Speak for yourself. I’ll be mighty disappointed if I’m not on the naughty list.” Lilly sat on the bench and picked up a magazine. “They haven’t changed these in decades.”
“So, what now?” I asked.
“We wait,” she said. “That’s what Purgatory is all about.”
Chapter 25
AFTER A WHILE I GOT up and paced. “How much longer?” I asked. I tried checking the time on my phone but that no longer worked.
“Stop pacing,” Duke said.
“That’s easy for you to say. That wooden bench is wearing a groove in my butt.” I had no idea how long we’d been here. Maybe minutes, maybe months. My stomach grumbled and body felt leaden.
“She’s not cut out for this,” Nuno said. “She’s mortal.”
“Yes, and unlike you guys, my time is limited.”
I still paced the room when a stout woman came in holding a clipboard. The beige suit and sensible shoes she wore gave no indication of any personality at all.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.
“No,” said Earnest. “But this is an emergency. You see, she—”
The woman held her hand up. “No need for me to know the details. We’ll get to you in time.”
Before she left, I had an urgent request.
“Wait. Is there are bathroom here?” I asked. Did people need to use the toilet in the afterlife? I sure hoped so because otherwise things could get dire.
“Follow me,” the w
oman said.
Lilly jumped up. “I need to go, too.”
The woman side eyed her but didn’t stop her from following us. I wasn’t sure if Lilly was aware that she still wore her night dress, and I wasn’t sure if she cared.
“I didn’t really need to go,” Lilly whispered to me. “I was just bored.”
I kind of guessed that.
We walked down a featureless corridor with closed doors until the woman stopped and indicated a room.
“I’ll wait for you,” she said, leaning against the wall outside.
That made me wonder if she less of an assistant and more of a jailer. Surely we could be trusted to go to the bathroom on our own.
I rushed into one of the two cubicles. When I came out, I gave the place a good look over. The bathroom was as dingy and beige as everything else I’d seen here. Some light came in through a frosted glass window over the hand basin. I needed to know what was on the other side of that window. I jumped up on the window ledge and tried opening it. There was no latch, nothing but a ton of dust. Didn’t they have cleaners in Purgatory?
Lilly gasped when she came out of the other cubicle.
“You can’t open the window. They bolt them shut so you can’t hear the screams of eternal torment.”
I jumped down from the ledge so fast. Eternal torment wasn’t something I needed to hear.
Lilly laughed.
“You’re so gullible,” she said. “Actually, I have no idea what’s out there either. All I’ve ever seen are beige rooms and beige corridors and I’ve been here a ton of times. I guess that’s why no one ever says ‘as fun as Purgatory’.”
Someone banged on the door.
“They’re ready to see you now,” the stout woman called.
“Typical,” Lilly said. “Make us wait around forever then call us in when we’re in the bathroom.”
We followed the woman back down the corridor.
“What happens anyway? Someone is going to judge us?”
“Yep, they’re big on judging here. We’ll get taken in to see an officer and they’ll make a judgment on this case. Either you go or you stay.”
“That’s not so bad. I mean, worst case scenario, I get kicked out of the troupe. Which would be bad but at least I’d get away from Earnest.”
“The worst-case scenario is that you get cast into the fiery pits of hell,” she said.
I waited for her to laugh and tell me I was gullible again. She wouldn’t trick me that easily this time, though. But Lilly didn’t laugh. She didn’t say another word. I’d never wanted anyone to laugh as much as I wanted her to laugh right now.
“You’re kidding, right? Please tell me that was a joke.”
I shivered at Lilly’s serious expression.
“I wish it was,” she said. “I mean, I’m not sure about that fiery pits of hell part but you won’t be going back.”
“No way. Earnest said I’d get kicked out of the troupe, not life.”
He’d fooled me. If I’d known how much was at stake, I’d have never agreed to come here. Anger welled up in my chest but I pushed it down. This was no time to get angry.
The woman stopped in front of one of the doors. Duke, Nuno and Earnest were already inside seated in front of a large desk.
Nuno jumped up and grabbed a couple more chairs for us.
“Thanks,” I said.
“No problem.”
I still wasn’t used to Nuno speaking. His voice came as a shock every time.
The door opened again and a woman came in wearing a much more stylish suit than the assistant. It was like something from the ‘40s fitting perfectly on her thin body. She had her hair in a bun and a no-nonsense expression. I folded my hands on my lap. This woman would make the most important decision of my life. I needed to look like I wasn’t about to pass out.
“This is most irregular,” she said. She looked at Earnest. “Surely you could sort this out without our intervention. You completed the training module on human relations. This situation is extensively covered in that module.”
“The issue here isn’t nearly as clearly defined,” Earnest said. “This woman is no regular human being.”
The woman raised her eyebrows.
“She has powers,” Earnest said. “She says she can vanquish demons, which I’m sure is a delusion on her part.”
She scrutinized me like she noticed me for the first time. That gaze seemed to penetrate my brain, reading my thoughts. I shrunk back in my seat. I didn’t want her reading anything in my head.
Earnest explained what had happened.
“She stole my kill. I’d told her to wait outside but she didn’t listen.”
The woman sighed. “You should deal with that yourself.”
“This person shouldn’t be part of the troupe in the first place. You know we don’t let outsiders in.”
Duke cleared his throat. “We got clearance before we auditioned. There were no suitable performers available at the time. I’m sure you’re aware” he looked at Earnest, “that we need to maintain the illusion that we’re a performing troupe and to do that we need to put on a professional show.”
While the woman flipped through some papers on her desk, I squirmed in my seat. This all seemed so dry and boring. How could they talk about paperwork and training modules when my life was on the line? I needed a decision and a glass of water. My leg itched but I didn’t want to scratch it or do anything to call attention to myself. That woman had looked at me enough.
“Yes, that all seems in order. Where you aware that she had additional... umm... gifts when you auditioned her?”
“I suspected.”
“That should’ve been reported. We need to have a record of anyone who doesn’t fit the usual human profile but there’s such a backlog on that. The Irregular Humans Department has never been a credit to us. All those long lunch breaks and holidays. The only way we can keep track of these things is if you report it yourself.”
Duke nodded.
“So, what exactly are we dealing with today?” She pursed her lips.
“I would like Jayne to continue with the troupe. Earnest wants her to go.”
“Earnest is in charge since your disappearance,” she said.
“That is true but he is so close to filling his quota that we need to work toward a future without him. Jayne has proved herself useful in the past and I think she’ll continue to assist us.”
“She’s much stronger than we are,” Lilly added. “And she can pick locks.”
Lilly probably shouldn’t mention the lock picking so freely in front of Duke. He might not be so happy when he got home to a trashed apartment full of demon gunk.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” the woman asked me.
The way she looked at me made me wonder exactly how much she’d worked out about me. Did she know I was an undercover cop? Did she know even more than that?”
I started to speak but my throat seemed to have dried up. I swallowed, wanting to get this over with. Surely the woman would see I’d done nothing wrong.
“I’d like to stay with the troupe,” I said without looking up.
“In that case, I will set you a challenge for you to prove yourself. If you pass this test, you’ll have to agree a very specific set of conditions to ensure you don’t interfere with our operations in future.”
I nodded. That didn’t sound too bad.
Then she told me the challenge and my stomach dropped. I should’ve known this wouldn’t be easy.
Chapter 26
“YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT?” My eyes bulged from the sheer hopelessness of this challenge.
Duke nudged me to imply that I shouldn’t speak like that to this freaky Purgatory woman but the challenge she’d set me was impossible.
“I can do anything but that. I can’t go to that place. I can’t. I just can’t.”
“They interfered with our operations. We can’t allow that. All I’m asking is that you bring the person responsible to j
ustice. Otherwise, you’ll be judged as failing.”
“Well, I fail then. If I get kicked out of the troupe, so be it.”
I didn’t look directly at her but stared at the empty desktop, praying that’s all it’d be. I’d pack my bags and return home. That’d be the best solution all around
“That’s not what she means by failing,” Lilly hissed at me.
I looked up, wanting to see how the woman responded. From the cold, hard look in the woman’s eyes, Lilly definitely wasn’t kidding. I’d been tricked into this and now my soul was on the line.
Chills went through my body.
There had to be a loophole. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t react. I could only grip the edge of my chair, struggling to keep it together.
“I can’t be damned to hell for all eternity for this.”
The woman cleared her throat. “Of course not.”
I smiled. That seemed workable.
“Not for all eternity, anyway,” she added. “Eternity takes a lot of paperwork. Maybe a few millennia.”
That couldn’t be too bad, surely? It’d be hell, literally, but there’d be an end in sight.
“So, what you’re saying is that Jayne has to hunt down the person or people who took Duke and kill them?” Nuno said. “And then she’ll be able to continue working with us.”
The woman nodded.
“Hold on. I have to kill them? But what if they’re human? I can’t kill people.”
I needed to get the details on this. Murder, as well as being generally wrong and illegal regardless of the circumstances, might also condemn my soul to Hell. The few millennia might be a better option.
“We have reason to believe they may not be human. There are far more creatures on the earth than you are aware of.”
“Who are ‘they’?” I asked. The circus was huge. It could’ve been anyone.
The woman shrugged. “We don’t know. That’s for you to find out. If we had all the details, we’d get our own vengeance.”
“It’s one of us,” Lilly said. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it? That’s why you need Jayne to kill them. Because we can’t kill one of our own.”
The woman gave an enigmatic smile.
