“You can relax a little bit, Kirsty,” my Reaper—or possibly ex-boyfriend—said. “I believe you are right about Conrad Iver’s intentions. He will return to the Coil. While Reapers can teleport directly to the Coil, Conrad must take the long route.”
That made sense. Only select beings can teleport. I remembered Judge Julius
Conrad would have to find his way up the slippery slope, past the gee-gnomes, and through the void. That could take a few hours.
Maybe we’d get lucky and he’d get stung by a gee-gnome, although it appeared likely his DNA had already been altered. Better the known evil, I thought. Who knew what a second hellish transformation would do to him?
I was just beginning to relax a bit—if by
“Oh, Kirsty. Have you been, like, de-sensei-scythed already?” Crystal’s heavily mascara’d eyes grew wide.
“Have I been what?”
“It’s like, you know,” Crystal began. “It’s when, like, someone very old and very wise takes away your scythe so you can’t reap anyone.”
“Or, like, cut yourself,” Tiffany added, shaking her dyed blond bangs into her eyes.
I couldn’t imagine what my friend Amber had seen in these two. The three women had been joined at the hipster when I’d first met them, but now Amber was dating Ira the fallen angel and it didn’t look like the Death Valley girls would ride again anytime soon.
“No, I never got my scythe. Weren’t you at the graduation ceremony?”
They both shook their heads, straw-like hair swirling with the motion. I half expected chaff to separate and float down. Or possibly dandruff. Dyeing was so hard on the hair.
Also? Dying.
So, they hadn’t come to support Amber when she’d graduated just because they’d both flunked out. And they’d sworn to be friends for afterlife. No wonder Amber was done with them.
“Oh, that’s right. We heard Lucy Phurr, like, refused to give it to you. ’Cause you were still alive on the Coil.”
If Crystal started back in on the coma-toes thing, so help me, I’d grab Dante’s scythe—again—and reap her where she stood. I had no idea what would happen if I did. We’d only studied what happens when you reap a human whose time is up on the Coil. I was beginning to think my Reaper education was still rather sketchy, despite the semester of in-class work and the semester of fieldwork. I guess they expected us to learn on the job, which I would love to do if only my mentor were speaking to me.
“No. Well, yes. Sort of. She granted my appeal and sent me back to the Coil. I finished my unfinished business there and died for real this time.”
“So you’ve been disembodied, then?” She nodded sagely—if sages could be dumb blondes. Then screwed up her face. “Or is it discom-bod-ulated.” She looked at us helplessly. “I have such a huge-mongous vocabulary it’s hard to keep all the words straight.”
It takes a village to raise an idiot. Dante laid a hand on my arm to keep me from strangling her. He knew me so well. Plus it would be a wasted effort since we don’t breathe anymore except from habit.
“The sergeant will see you now,” Schotz’s assistant announced. At my sputtering, “But . . . but . . .” he added, “He can teleport directly into his office.”
I looked at Dante. Why did we teleport to and from big open spaces? Was he that bad at parking?
“B’bye,” Crystal and Tiffany chorused, clomping out the door. I was glad to see them fade off into the sunset.
Or sunrise, actually. It was still pretty early.
Dante and I entered Sergeant Schotz’s office, standing at attention until he growled an “At ease” in our direction.
Dante assumed parade rest while I slumped into one of the guest chairs. That earned me a glare from Schotz, so I climbed to my feet and tried my best to copy Dante’s stance. It was surprisingly restful, but I didn’t get the parade part at all.
“So I assume you two’ve heard about that soul you brought in last week.” Sergeant Schotz lifted his eye patch and rubbed the eye beneath it. He pulled the patch over the other eye, blinked a few times, then darted an angry glance between Dante and me. “That he managed to escape from the incompetent idjits that work at Hell’s Cells. In fact, if I find out—”
“Yes,” I cut in, not willing to admit we were part of the incompetent idjits club. “We, uh, know that Conrad escaped.” I deliberately said nothing about the transformation we’d witnessed. “What do you want us to do?”
“What I want you two idjits to do is hunt down that skegger and bring ’im back alive. No, dead. Er, whatever his status is now. This skegger has been reborn with an unknown assortment of demonic powers and, according to his file”—Schotz gestured toward a manila folder open on his desk, papers, parchment and not a few Post-it notes spilled out in a messy heap—“he’s not a nice guy.”
I could have told him that. I waited, hoping for some new information.
“That skegger tried to play Lucy false. Making Deals is our trademark. If word got out that he successfully flouted his Deal, it would ruin Hell’s reputation.”
Hell’s reputation was a lot worse than its bite. We all learned back on the Coil that Hell was a terrible place, but really, it’s not so bad.
Especially when you consider the alternatives. I shuddered, thinking of what I knew of Heller, the next and much worse Hell dimension over.
So this was a PR thing. We couldn’t have an escaped soul running around telling people he was too bad-ass for Hell. Or that Lucy couldn’t handle her souls. Might make us look bad. I mean good. No, I mean . . .
“So what you’re saying is that Conrad is evil and Hell really isn’t, but we don’t want people to know that, right?”
At the sergeant’s nod, I relaxed and cracked my knuckles. Time for some spin doctoring and I was just the spinster to do it. But before I could dance around the problem, Dante cut in.
“Sir, if I may?”
“Yes, Dante? What?”
“Kirsty is fresh out of the Reaper Academy. Chasing down a dangerous runner is really a job for an experienced Reaper.”
“And that’s why I’m sending you with her.”
“Permission to speak free—” At Schotz’s impatient wave, Dante leapfrogged over the rest of the formal request and dove into his actual statement. “I think perhaps Kirsty and I shouldn’t work together right now, sir. There are some issues between us that might pose a distraction.”
Oh, God. He didn’t want to be with me anymore? Was that the best excuse he could come up with?
Because I’d been a way bigger distraction when we
“That’s why they call it punishment, idjit.” He glared at Dante, then at me. “Idjits, plural,” he corrected. When we both looked stunned, he rolled his eye and clarified. “This is punishment for everybody. We’re an equal opportunity Hell. This Conrad guy’ll get his when you find him. Kirsty, you caused the problem by reaping the skegger with Dante’s scythe even though you knew you weren’t supposed to.”
I ducked my head, letting my hair fall on either side of my face like snowy-white curtains.
More ostriched than ducked, actually.
“And Dante,” Schotz continued, “you let her. You should know better. Now you got another black mark on your record.” Schotz pulled out a piece of parchment and pointed to two grimy smudges on Dante’s otherwise pristine file. “So, yeah, I’m sticking the two of you together for this one. You’ll just have to grim and bear it. Plus, if you can’t get Conrad Iver this time, I’m going to have to take away your scythe for good.”
Oh, no! Hadn’t we settled that when I’d died and . . . But no, that was all about me. Judgment on Dante was
