Page 33 of Death Deals

After a few moments of tense silence, he said, “If this isn’t a dream or some kind of delusion, then that means…” Staring at me, he rose to his feet. “Jade, you’re really back?”

I smiled. “We have a lot of catching up to do, don’t we?”

“Fuck yeah,” he replied. “I’d say so.”

“I see where you get your vulgarity from,” Andre huffed, unimpressed.

I pointed a finger at him. “I’m still a fucking lady. Don’t you forget it.”

Ricky laughed, and the sound scratched at the emptiness inside my mind. My conscious recognized it as familiar, but no other memories stirred. Why would they? I’d lost them all. If it wasn’t for those few hours before my death that the Trials had given me, I’d have nothing else. I wouldn’t even have Ricky.

“Now that we have that settled, let’s move to our next step,” I began, glancing between the two very different men. “How do we trap this so-calledangel?”

The plan was simple, but that didn’t make it any less dangerous.

Ricky and I would go into the strip joint, Murphy’s, and approach CorneliusThe AngelJackson, saying that I’d changed my mind and wanted to join the Scarlet Knights. Andre, the DeMonte vamps, and the Perezes would wait in a secluded place to get the jump on him and his bodyguards.

After the sun set, Ricky and I were dropped off blocks away from the club. As we walked through the dark, we continued our conversation from before, catching up for all the lost time. It was like meeting up with an old friend and a stranger at the same time.

“I still can’t believe this,” Ricky said as we strolled along the sidewalk, passing closed down storefronts and piles of garbage left at the curbside.

I didn’t know what he was talking to exactly, but my answer would be the same no matter what. “Honestly, me neither.”

“I mean, I saw you… Saw the bruises around your neck. I was there when they arrested Ed.”

Another thing I’d asked him after he’d woken up—what happened to that fucker? Like I’d guessed, Ricky had called the cops when Tina came running out of the building. Ed was cuffed and later charged with murder. And my sister… she was put into a foster home.

That last part hurt the most. I felt like I’d abandoned her somehow. Unintentionally, of course—I hadn’t meant to die—but that didn’t make the feeling ease any.

“What’s it like being, you know, dead?” Ricky asked me.

“It’s not boring, that’s for sure,” I said. “I underestimated it in the beginning, but it keeps surprising me.”

“You do seem different.”

Different? That made me pause. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Like you’ve been through Hell.”

“I have.”

He laughed nervously, unsure if I was telling the truth or not. After a moment, he added, “But like you’re bigger and badder for it.”

When I gave him a sideways look, he sighed. “Cut me some slack. I don’t know how to explain it. Just different, okay? Shit.”

We passed a man covered in baggy clothes and tattered quilts huddled beside a water spout. Homeless and freezing in the winter cold. He lifted his dirty face as we passed, I almost fell over in shock.

“Hank?”

What the heck was the Void’s keeper doing here, on the streets of Michigan?

The man squinted as if he was having a hard time seeing me.

Ricky grabbed my arm and pulled me farther away from Hank. “What are you doing?” he asked in a harsh whisper. “Avoid eye contact and keep moving, remember?”

Digging my heels in, I forced us both to stop and peered at the hobo again from over my shoulder.

“But I know him,” I said, still a bit flabbergasted.

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