Page 76 of Finders Reapers

“How many souls make it to heaven?” I pushed a lock of my hair behind my ear and stilled my leg when I realized I was tapping my foot against the prongs of the stool.

Fletcher shrugged and stuffed a chip in his mouth. “Not many.” He admitted. “But, Hell needs incoming souls. It messes with the ecosystem otherwise.”

“And how do Purgers fit into all of that?” I asked.

“Purgers bring food to Beezlebub. Trespassers they find in the dead forest between the seventh and sixth circle. Their entire purpose is to feed Beezlebub.” Jamal said. “Beezlebub has to eat to maintain his magic.”

“And you can’t eat a soul,” I tried to smile. I was unsuccessful.

“Right.” Fletcher agreed, pointing my direction with a chip.

“My hands are covered in blood,” I stated numbly.

Worry flashed over Fletcher’s features, but Jamal eased me to standing and directed me to the sink, grabbing the soap and pouring a generous amount on my palms. He turned on the water and began to wash my hands.

Rome walked through the archway to the living room. He grabbed Maddox’s knife from the floor and studied the blade. “He’s asleep for now,” Rome assured us brusquely. “I have seen pictures of your autopsy. The bites are the same.”

My words died on my tongue, so I settled for nodding.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Rome asked.

I glanced to the side. “You said you’d seen the tape?” a hint of accusation marred my words.

Rome crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall on the other side of the room. “Maddox went to collect a soul, yes? You went with him.”

“It was a little girl. At the hospital.” My hand tightened around the wine glass before I looked up again. “Could I get something to eat?”

Rome stared at me. His gaze was so intense that it bordered on un-nerving.

Jamal gave me a reassuring smile. “Food and an early night seem just the ticket, love. We can talk about this in the morning.”

I wasn't offered a tour. Each of the guys had their own rooms at the house, and no one offered me a bed after we ate takeout in silence. I was destined to sleep on the couch. I wondered if they blamed me for what happened to Maddox.

I found some blankets in one of the closets, and the couch was a pullout, so I went about setting up a place to sleep.

I sensed that Maddox and the guys were not happy with the changes going on at Quietus. But without a frame of reference, I couldn’t tell what our Grim’s place was in whatever corporate bullshit was going on back at the office.

Charon looked to be the big kahuna, but all I knew was that Mr. Bub wanted the guys watched. He wanted Intel.

I hadn’t believed that Maddox and the others were scheming, but the clandestine meeting with Charon and the demon dog in the hotel suite had made me think otherwise.

I had been murdered, and my murderer was still out there—potentially linked to Mr. Bub and Quietus.

I had a new job where failure to thrive could literally land me in hell on a rack.

I pulled out my phone and typed Cody’s name into Google.

I had been dead for less than a week, and Cody and Pomerella had decided to make their relationship public.

The comments had my back.

As our Queen, Olivia Rodrigo, once said: “Ittook you two weeks to go off and date her. Guess you didn’t cheat, but you’re still a traitor.”

I was done with Cody. Whatever love I had felt for him had shriveled up and died, molding and rotting into disgust.

None of the mainstream news stations had reported any further on my mysterious death—though there was a link to the second victim, who showed the same pinprick marks as I’d had. The news touted it as a rise in spiking cases, and they wondered if the cases were linked and if they had a killer on their hands.

I didn’t know the second victim. A fifty-year-old accountant that lived in Enterprise. Male. Divorced but had somehow kept everything in the process.

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