The Wrong Goodbye

decades on the shelf. Not much of a choice, if you ask me.

“So,” she asked when I was done, “you’ve no idea why this Collector targeted you?”

“Nothing concrete. But if I had to guess, I’d say a demon put him up to it —I haven’t been too popular among the Fallen since I killed Merihem and Beleth.”

She cocked her head a moment, trying the theory on for size, and then she nodded. “That does make a certain sort of sense —a great many in the Depths were incensed they didn’t get to see you burn for what you’d done.”

“Those two got what was coming to them,” I said, perhaps a bit too defensively.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. But the question as to whether your actions were justified has little bearing on the predicament in which you currently find yourself. I assume I needn’t remind you what your punishment will be if you fail to bring Varela home.”

“No,” I said. “You needn’t.”

“Good. What I will remind you of is the fact that your failure would also reflect poorly on me, as well as attract a great deal of attention to the both of us that I would just as soon avoid. And if that happens, you can be sure that I will take my time in turning you over to them so that I can dole out a little punishment of my own. Pleasure and pain are inextricably linked, Collector, and I assure you, though I prefer the former, I am every bit as proficient in the latter. By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll be begging to be shelved.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“I’d suggest you do a little more than hope.”

“I told you, I’m working on it. Don’t count me out just yet.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” she said. “So, the gentleman outside —his is the soul you stole back from this rogue Collector, thinking it to be Varela?”

“That’s right.”

“And now he’s to serve as your dowsing rod.”

“Something like that.”

Lilith smiled. “I confess, Collector, I’m impressed —that borders on clever.”

“I have my moments.”

“Yes,” she said, “you do. I only hope for your sake you have enough of them.” And then she said something that completely floored me, and put the lie to the cool confidence that oozed from her every pore. “Tell me, Collector, is there anything you need of me?”

That one question was enough to let me know that Lilith was afraid —that she was feeling the pressure as surely as was I. That one question scared the shit out of me. Because Lilith wasn’t exactly the helpingothers kind —not unless her ass was on the line.

“That depends —you got any idea how to locate a missing soul?”

“If he were a living human, perhaps, but unfortunately for the both of us, the only dead person I’ve the ability to locate is you.”

“And I’m guessing talking to the higher-ups isn’t going to help.”

“No, it most certainly would not. I’m afraid that my superiors are among those who would like to see you burn for what happened in New York. They’ve been ordered to stand down on that regard, but I’ve no doubt that they would leap at the chance to get at you another way. What I will do, though, is keep an ear to the ground; perhaps I can learn something of use about your little Collector friend —such as where he’s gone off to, or what he intends to do with the stolen Varela.”

My little Collector friend. Right. Of course, having Lilith dig into the whole Danny thing was less a help than it was something else for me to worry about, but I couldn’t tell her that. So instead, I just said thanks.

Lilith turned to go, and as she did, a fat, black bug crawled out of the sink-drain beside me. It was followed by some sort of improbable, spindly-legged thing the color of dry leaves, and then two iridescent blue-gray beetles, who wedged themselves in the drain trying to both claw out at once. As I watched in growing horror, a blood-red centipede slipped past them, its many legs scrabbling for purchase against the yellowed porcelain basin.

“Lily, wait,” I said, not taking my eyes from the swelling ranks of insects rising in the sink beside me. 'There is one other thing.”

“Yes?”

“Any chance you could call off my Deliverants a while? Just until I sort this out.”

She smiled at me, then —a sad, wan smile, surprising from her in that it was more sympathy than pity. “Would that I could, Collector, but I’m afraid Deliverants fall outside of hell’s dominion.”

“Outside of hell’s dominion? What does that even mean? If hell isn’t in charge of them, who is?”

“Pray you never find out,” she said.

Pray. Right. ’Cause that’s been working well for me so far.

“Oh, and Collector?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatever it is you plan on doing —do it soon.”

And just like that, she was gone.

13.

By the time the sky began to lighten in the east, I was exhausted. My skin was twitchy, my limbs heavy and ungainly. My stomach was a roiling mess. I couldn’t blame it, really. Aside of a Dr Pepper and a bag of Doritos picked up at the truck stop a few hours back, I hadn’t eaten much in days —and that shit only barely qualified as food. Gio’d insisted we needed something; I guess I shouldn’t have left him in charge of picking out the something that we needed.

Not that the crap we’d eaten bothered him any —dude was slumped open-mouthed and snoring in the seat beside me, same as he’d been the past two hours. I confess, I was more than a little jealous. My eyes were bleary and itchy as hell, and my lids were getting pretty heavy —every couple of minutes, I had to fight to keep them from crashing down. It didn’t help that this stretch of road was nothing more than two dull strips of sun-bleached blacktop split by a couple feet of bare dirt and surrounded by mile after mile of flat, brown desert. Add to that the lonely graywash of the predawn half-light, and the fact that we hadn’t seen another car in hours, and it was pretty tough to stay awake. I felt like I was stuck in the borderlands between day and night, between sleep and wakefulness —the sole witness of a world no one else would ever see.

At least the quiet gave me time to think. Problem was, my thoughts were all questions and no answers. I wondered what the hell Dumas was playing at, having Danny take Varela’s soul. I wondered if I was going to track Varela’s soul down in time to save my hide. I wondered if marching into a skim-joint full of demons who hated my living guts with no real plan and no protection was going to get me anything but evicted from this skin-suit. I wondered if my eyes were open.

The problem with that last one is that if you have to wonder, it’s a good bet that they’re not. Too late I realized my chin was resting against my breastbone, and my eyes were watching nothing but the backs of my lids. I jerked awake, the bitter tang of adrenaline biting at the back of my throat. While I’d dozed, the Fiesta had drifted across the barren center divide, its headlights slicing across the oncoming lane and illuminating the desert beyond.

With knuckles white, I wrenched the wheel clockwise. Once more, the Fiesta careened over the median strip, shocks squeaking in protest all the while. Then she leapt back onto the pavement, dragging undercarriage and loosing a flurry of sparks. Tires squealed as I brought her parallel with the roadway, the Fiesta’s rear-end swinging wide and then finally skidding into place. I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding and willed my panicked heart to slow.

And that’s when I realized we were no longer alone on the road.

He was a withered old man, rail-thin and barely clad, hunched over a gnarled gray walking stick that was really nothing more than a bit of driftwood. He stood inches from the Fiesta’s speeding bumper, so close in fact, the headlights passed by him on either side. It was too late to stop —too late to avoid him. At that moment, I was