Hellfire and Brimstone

by Angela Roquet

  Adrianna gave me an amused look as I put away my phone, but she didn’t say anything off color, for which I was grateful. The tabloids had harassed Bub and me enough, and we were finally enjoying a peaceful stretch of privacy, as far as our relationship was concerned anyway.

  I polished off my drink and held my glass up to get Xaphen’s attention. “I’ll get the next round,” I said, giving Adrianna a more genuine smile. Maybe my destiny was headed to a figurative hell in a handbasket, but I could forget about that long enough to appreciate her earnest apology. And a few drinks.

  After Xaphen replenished us, I tried to recall what I had wanted to say before, and decided instead on, “I miss Saul.”

  Adrianna nodded sullenly and lifted her glass in silent agreement. She took a long drink and caught an ice cube between her teeth, crunching on it as she stared off into empty space. “I never did forgive him for ending our relationship, among other things. I think that’s why he still gets under my skin. It’s hard coming to grips with the things you can’t change, even after so many years. It’s easier to lay the blame on someone else.” She paused to give me another repentant look.

  “You don’t have to keep apologizing. I told you, I get it.” I folded my arms over the bar and smiled, enjoying the groveling even as I downplayed it.

  She nodded and propped one of her elbows on the bar, turning to angle herself toward me. Over her shoulder, I could see our reflections against the wide front window. The web of flashing red lights that hung from the bar ceiling glittered down on us, dotting our hair and the polished countertop.

  “So,” Adrianna said, a more relaxed note in her voice, likely the alcohol kicking in. “Asha says you might rejoin the Posy Unit soon.”

  “Asha speaks?” I snorted. Arden’s sailing partner wasn’t too thrilled about having to transfer to the Posy Unit after Kevin and I broke off to form the now defunct Special Ops Unit. Though honestly, I had a feeling her begrudging attitude had more to do with Arden being in charge than her having to harvest adult souls.

  Adrianna chuckled. “She’s the strong silent type, but when she does speak up, you best listen.” She took a drink and dipped her tongue into the glass to snag another cube. “So have you considered it?” she asked, clinking the ice between her teeth.

  I shrugged. “I have an apprentice to think about now. Freelance is a better learning experience, but damn, if we don’t get bumped up to a regular medium-risk schedule soon… Let’s just say I’m keeping an open mind.”

  “The Posy Unit can be educational,” Adrianna said defensively. “It’s also a great stepping stone to all of the other units, often overlapping with their specialties. The London Beer Flood, for instance. And the Boston Molasses Disaster! Those two could have easily been jobs requiring the Recovery Unit, but I was captain at the time, and the Posy Unit took care of them both.”

  I grinned. “Point taken.”

  “And don’t tell me you don’t ever collect child souls,” Adrianna said, pointing a finger at me. “The Mother Goose Unit might be more suave about it, but Arden would have never changed teams if we had the exclusive market on them.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll talk with my apprentice.” I’d talk with him about the mating habits of hellcats if Adrianna had suggested it. I was just tickled to be having a civil exchange with her. That she was so close to my mentor touched a tender spot in my heart too. “I can’t believe that Saul never mentioned your romantic connection. Was it some big secret you guys had to keep hidden or what?”

  Adrianna choked on her drink and sat it on the bar as she patted her chest and coughed. Maybe I’d gone too far. The alcohol and good will had made me brazen.

  “Wow. Really?” She seemed hurt. “He never was the forthcoming kind when it came to matters of the heart, but not a word?”

  I gave her a gentle smile and shook my head. “Sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think he told me a lot of things.”

  Adrianna rolled her tongue over her lips and gave me a thoughtful look. “Saul and I were a century apart. When my generation emerged, I was assigned to Grace Adaline, and Coreen to Saul. Paul Brom was the last reaper to be personally trained by Grim,” she added in a hushed whisper, casting a nervous look around the bar, as if simply saying his name might get her in trouble.

  I kept my mouth shut and waited for her to go on, enthralled by all the new details about my mentor. Part of me was angry and hurt at all the secrecy, but another more desperate part of me wanted to know more, needed to know more. There was this delusion anchored in my head that if I listened closely enough, maybe I’d hear something that would make sense of all the terrible pieces coming together in a puzzle I hadn’t known existed until recently.

  Adrianna leaned in closer, her eyes taking in mine intimately, as if she was somehow relieved to be sharing this with someone who had known Saul too. “I was taken with him right away. This was long before that ridiculous hat and belt buckle, back when he had real style and class.” She tsked, but her eyes had gone soft and dreamy. “In the late 1400s, he had this long, leather jerkin that he wore a silver sash over. It made him look like a humble prince. I loved it—but maybe you had to be there,” she said, taking in my alarmed face.

  “I’m sure it was great,” I squeaked, trying not to sound as uncomfortable as I felt. Mentors were the closest thing a reaper had to a parent, and hearing Adrianna get all flustered over Saul’s memory was not something I’d expected to have such a reaction to. “Please, go on,” I said, trying to force the distaste from my expression.

  Adrianna gave me a tight smile as she took another sip of her drink. “Anyway, shortly after my apprenticeship ended, we began seeing each other. And then right before your generation was announced, Saul called it quits.”

  “Five hundred years?” I whistled.

  She nodded sadly. “We fought quite a bit through the latter half of the 1600s, for various reasons. He had all these silly fantasies about us running off together for extended vacations. Like, extended, vacations.” She paused to give me a meaningful look. “He threw a fit when I told him I was planning to take an apprentice. He’d just passed the mantle of second-in-command off to Coreen, and he wanted us to take a month off, now that a new generation had come to lighten our burden.”

  I thought back to how upset Saul had been at the Oracle Ball that year. It made more sense now. I wondered how much of this Gabriel knew about, and I was anxious to quiz him after our next poker game.

  “You know what infuriated me more than anything?” Adrianna said, giving me a strange smile. “Coreen always got first pick when it came time to assign the apprentices.” She lifted her hand up to the side of her mouth and whispered, “Because she was sleeping with the boss.”

  I pressed my lips together, trying to hide my grin. I’d learned that tidbit a while back, but I’d let Adrianna think she was sharing secrets if it would keep her talking.

  “Grace usually got second pick,” she went on, “especially after she became head master at the academy. But she and Coreen both declined to take an apprentice that year.”

  My stomach clenched and I bit my tongue, remembering not a second too soon that Craig Hogan had been wiped from existence. So of course she didn’t remember Coreen taking him as an apprentice.

  Adrianna overlooked my uneasiness. “I was next in line, and I’d chosen you.” She laughed at my shocked disbelief. “Why are you so surprised? You were at the top of your class,” she said.

  No, I thought, Craig had been the top of my class. I had been second. Even if no one else remembered, I did. It seemed like I had cheated somehow.

  Adrianna’s tickled expression slowly dissolved. “So you can imagine my dismay when you were assigned to Saul and I was given Vince Hare.”

  It was my turn to choke on my drink, and I was far less graceful about it. Adrianna slugged me on the back when my hacking didn’t subside right away.

  “Went down the wrong pipe,” I wheezed, deciding it was probably time to ge
t out of there before I slipped up and said something I wasn’t supposed to.

  How had I not known she was Vince’s mentor? And did she know that Saul had been sent to take him out? Did she have any idea that Vince was alive? Did she know what he was up to? I doubted that she did with as freely as she’d been talking to me.

  Adrianna slugged my back again as I hunched over the bar and coughed into the bend of my elbow. “Could we get a glass of water?” she shouted to Xaphen.

  “I’m fine,” I rasped, waving him off. “Though I would like to get another one of these to go. Actually, two to go,” I said, tilting up my glass.

  Adrianna gave me a worried look. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “Absolutely.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and then offered her my other for a shake. “Thanks for the drinks and conversation. It was… enlightening.”

  “Any time,” she said, and I could tell that she meant it.

  I paid Xaphen for our second round and my to-go drinks before hooking my bag over my shoulder and shuffling from the bar with my hands full of booze. I looked like a total lush, and after slipping off into a dark alley, it took some serious circus mojo to balance the flimsy plastic cups long enough to work the skeleton coin.

  My watch showed that it was a quarter past ten. I didn’t expect Tasha for another forty-five minutes, but I wanted to be prepared. Sober? Eh. That was overrated.

  Chapter 16

  “I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”

  —Clarence Darrow

  As I caught the skeleton coin on the mortal side and the Jamaican bar came into view, I sloshed mojito down the front of my shirt and swore.

  “Graceful.” Tasha was sprawled on a lounge chair near the pool. LED lights filtered through the water, glowing fiercely in the settling dark of night. The light reached all the way to the surrounding cliffs and reflected off the ocean below, making this nook in the coast look radioactive.

  The bar was mostly deserted, with a few employees lingering inside, cleaning up and counting out registers. All the overheads had been turned up, signaling that the party was over, and the light spilled through glass windows, beaming down at the rocky cliffs. Tasha’s yacht bobbed against the dock built into the base of the bluff, where a handful of patrons were loading into boats and pushing off. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and getting along. No tragic, unexpected deaths tonight.

  “You’re early,” I said to Tasha, circling the pool.

  “So are you. I hope one of those is for me.” She sat upright and pulled a loose knit shawl around her shoulders, knotting it over her bikini top. I offered her a drink, if for nothing else than to free up one of my hands. Then I dropped my bag into an empty lounge chair and touched the wet spot in the center of my shirt. My fingers came away sticky and speckled with mint leaves.

  “Super.” I groaned, and then slurped at what was left of my mojito before plopping down beside Tasha. “So, what’d you find out?”

  “Nothing good.” She tucked her legs up, sitting crisscrossed in her lounge chair. The pool lights touched her face, and I could see the worry lines plaguing her forehead more distinctly now. “I mean, I guess it depends on how you look at it.” She worried her bottom lip with her teeth.

  “Well?” I set my drink down, deciding I’d probably sucked enough booze into my lungs for one night. It proved to be a smart move.

  “Seth is dead.”

  My initial shock was followed by a lackluster sigh. The guy didn’t boil my blood the same way he had back when there was an army at his command. I blinked at Tasha, confused by her distress. Her silence made me wonder if she still adhered to the god’s skewed ideals.

  “Where’s the bad in this?” I asked.

  Tasha’s aura of concern cracked as she raised a patronizing eyebrow at me. “Who do you suppose offed him, precious?”

  Maybe it was the mojitos addling my brain, or else all the new and disturbing facts swirling around in there, but I finally caught on. “You think it was Grim?”

  “Who else?” Tasha chewed nervously at her lip again. “Also, the way he was found… mutilated and in pieces.” She took a shuddering breath. “I don’t think Grim’s done. That much wrath doesn’t get sated in a single kill. Whose blood do you suppose he’ll come for next?”

  Anyone could have answered that question. Grim made quite the spectacle on the rooftop of Reapers Inc. during the Oracle Ball last year. Seth had been his primary focus, but I’d been a close second. He’d almost taken my head off with his bare hands. Not something I’d be forgetting any time soon.

  A cool breeze whistled across the cliffs and tugged at my hair. I shivered and folded my arms over my chest, even though the night air was warm.

  This wasn’t what I had come here for. Why was every path I started down lately veering off into the darkest part of the woods?

  “What about Vince and the souls?” I asked, looking away from Tasha’s concerned gaze.

  “Seth’s dead, Grim’s on the rampage, and all you’re worried about are a bunch of misfit souls.” She huffed and shook her head. “Well, you’re in luck. The news of Seth’s gory end has created mass hysteria, and Vince’s hoard of souls is playing musical lairs. Everyone’s gathering tomorrow night at a new sanctuary. They’re abandoning their current home base for fear it’s been compromised.”

  “So these souls are actually following Vince? Like he’s some kind of cult leader?” I hadn’t wanted to believe Naledi, but it was hard not to now.

  Tasha shrugged. “Look, I don’t know what they’ve got going on. I’ve only been stuck on this side for a few months, and I’ve been enjoying the beach far too much to get myself tangled up in another lost cause.”

  “Then how are you getting all this information? How are your demon contacts in the know? Are they working with Vince too?”

  “No demons,” she said. “I talked to a few souls.”

  My skepticism went into overdrive. “Why would they talk to you?”

  “Look at me.” Tasha nodded down at her carefree ensemble. “Do I look like a reaper to you?”

  “You mean they think you’re a soul?”

  She nodded and stretched her legs out on the lounge chair before leaning back on her elbows. “Why not? I’m not parading around in a black robe, so that definitely helps.”

  “I guess so,” I said, trying to relax in my own chair, but I was too on edge to make it look as casual as Tasha did. My boots squeaked against the white plastic, leaving scuff marks behind. Tasha took me in with a teasing air about her before going on.

  “One of the souls I bumped into actually tried to recruit me, but it was the second one that gave up the goods,” she said with a sneaky smile. “Their numbers are impressive, and even though they have a headquarters of sorts, they don’t all live there together. It’s not a commune or anything like that. All I had to do was ask the guy if I’d seen him before, if he knew Vince.”

  “That really worked?”

  “Like a charm.” She looked awfully proud of herself. “It’s amazing what a boy will spill if you only smile pretty and bat your lashes. He asked if I’d gotten the notice about the shindig, and then went on about Seth—” Her good humor dwindled at the mention of the god and she turned her frightened eyes up at me. “You really should watch your back, Lana.”

  “I gathered that much.” I rolled my eyes. If only she knew how much I’d had to do that for the past two years.

  “I’m serious.” Tasha sat up again, kicking her feet over the side of her chair and resting her mojito on her knee so she could face me squarely. “The things I heard… I know we’re not the best of friends, but you helped me out when you didn’t have to. The least I can do in return is give you a proper warning.”

  I blew out a long breath. “What am I going to do? Run off and hide out on a beach somewhere until this all blows over?”

  “Works for me,” she said in a whispered singsong before reclining
in her chair again.

  “Well, I can’t.” I felt my mouth stretch into a miserable line. “So why don’t you tell me about this lair everyone’s meeting Vince at tomorrow?”

  Tasha barked out a laugh. “Do you really want to walk in on that? You know he’s been collecting these souls for, like, a century now. And they actually seem to like him. If he’s brainwashing them, he’s doing one hell of a job of it. No matter how you slice this shit pie, going into that den spells suicide.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Naledi’s prepared to offer them asylum in the throne realm for now. Vince… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about him, but since damn near everyone else thinks he’s dead, I guess it doesn’t really matter if I off him in the process of getting these souls back.”

  Tasha made a face at me. “They’re souls. A dime a dozen. Why do you care so much about what happens to them?”

  A million replies grasped for the tip of my tongue. Because these aren’t just any souls. They’re super souls! Because I’m the chosen one. Because I’m a pouty brat who wants to do the good thing and then stick her tongue out at the asshat who doubted me. Because I’m dying inside not knowing the truth about the man who molded me into who I am.

  I pushed those answers away and settled for, “Why don’t you care what happens to them?”

  “Excuse me?” Tasha looked at me like I’d grown a third eye.

  “This is what we were made for. Our whole purpose is wrapped up in the fate of souls, in getting them where they belong. Can you really tell me that you don’t care at all? Not even a little?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Tasha groaned. “You really are a goody two-shoes. And here everyone thought you were such a slacker.”

  I felt my cheeks grow hot. “And everyone thought you were a heartless wench, but you stuck your neck out for Tack, a junkie demon who ditched you after you saved his ass.” Her face twisted at the reminder, and I tried to backpedal before I lost any more ground. “My point is, people change. Even reapers. We’re evolving into better versions of ourselves all the time.”