Life After Death (Return to Limbo City Book 1) Sneak Peek of Chapter 2

  

Chapter 2

“When I was a boy, the Dead Sea was only sick."

—George Burns

 

Even though I now resided in Tartarus with Beelzebub, it was hard not to think of Limbo as home. I’d spent three hundred years in the city, and even its flaws had a certain charm to them. The ancient, rickety dock piers that were constantly being repaired. The nosy goddess shopkeepers. The faerie-inhabited woods scattered along the coast.

These were the devils I knew, unlike the occasional raining fire and brimstone smog that rolled in off the Styx near the manor in Tartarus. The gritty, yellow aftermath stained the windows and clung to my hellhounds’ fur like tar that stank of rotten eggs. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to that—or the professional grooming bills that came after.

Still, it wasn’t as if I could just pick up and move back to Limbo City. Not unless I wanted to live on my ship in the harbor with my apprentices. Holly Spirit, my last landlord, would have been a terrible reference even if my hounds hadn’t left their special mark on my former condo at Holly House.

Ah, well. Thumbing my nose at that holier-than-thou twat had been worth the pricey commute. And I still enjoyed an occasional night out at Purgatory Lounge, or a shopping excursion with Ellen. Of course, it had been several months since I’d last seen Grim’s former secretary. I could accept half the blame for that.

Ellen hated harvesting souls. It was an acquired taste, and she had a millennium of experience in an entirely different occupation that she had enjoyed. I wasn’t the one who had vasectomized the Throne of Eternity and put an end to the centennial addition of new reapers, but Ellen accused me of being the catalyst for Grim going off the deep end—which was fair—and so she considered me the responsible party for her unsavory situation—which was totally not fair.

Whenever we spent time together, the conversation always found its way around to my ties with Jenni Fang. When had I last spoken to her? Did she seem overwhelmed with paperwork? Was her coffee mug full?

I didn’t have the heart to tell Ellen that Regina, the nephilim who had replaced her at the front desk, was working out just fine. I’d had my reservations about the winged newbie her first few months, but aside from a handful of docket mix-ups, she’d managed to keep things in order at Reapers Inc. for the past decade. She’d even collaborated with Warren and the Fates on a new digital docket system.

The tablet interface required serious security measures with facial recognition and duress lock-out codes. Though I was most interested in the features that allowed me to shave half an hour off the workday. The instant data transfer meant daily visits to the office were no longer necessary.

Unfortunately, Warren couldn’t fix my busted scythe without an in-person visit.

I shucked my work robe and parted ways with Kevin and Eliza at the harbor, leaving them to deliver the day’s catch without me. Coin travel was deactivated within the city. With no throne soul, there was no way of changing that. The travel booths were still operational, but I opted to save my money and walk.

I skipped the busy historic district down Morte Avenue and took Council Street instead. As I neared the park, my gaze drew up, taking in a pale crease slashed across the sky. The white lines spiderwebbed over a smear of lilac marring the deeper evening blue. It looked like crinkled paper, or maybe a wispy tangle of clouds.

For how little things had changed in Eternity since the throne had been broken, the realm where Naledi and her Apparition Agency once lived began decomposing almost immediately. The gaping hole Grim had ripped in the sky wasn’t so much healing as it was filling in.

The pocket realm was disappearing. Fading from existence. The travel booths no longer accepted it as a destination either. Gabriel and Maalik had attempted to enter from above, but there’d been nothing to see. No ground to land upon. Ten years later, this faded crease in the sky was all that remained of the throne realm.

Nostalgia stabbed at my heart as my gaze dropped to the bronze statues and marble bench in the park below. Visiting the memorials always drenched me in melancholy, but it also reminded me of how lucky I was. Not just to be alive, but to have had Saul and Josie—and even Coreen—in my life at all.

I shoved my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket and headed on down Council Street, vowing to return for a proper visit soon. Maybe I’d drag Kevin and Gabriel along, too. Or take the hounds for a run around the city to enjoy the cooler air and clear my lungs of brimstone. My Limbo City daydreaming was put on hold as I neared the entrance of Reapers Inc.

Warren still lived at Holly House, but he’d moved his workshop to the seventy-first floor of the Reapers Inc. building, one floor above the Nephilim Guard station. Which also happened to be two floors below the Afterlife Council headquarters. Run-ins with council members never seemed to go well for me, so I avoided them if at all possible. With the exception of Meng Po, whom I visited at least once a month to have tea with her, Jai Ling, and Jack.

A pair of reapers pushed through the double doors, and I jerked to a stop, my heart lurching at the thought of bumping into Holly or Cindy, Ridwan or Maalik. I wished like hell I had Morgan’s invisibility necklace on me, but that would have been a cowardly misuse of the relic. Not to mention the questions it would raise if the security footage was reviewed. I didn’t need to give the council a reason to take anything else away from me.

I sucked in a deep a breath and darted inside the building, avoiding making eye contact with anyone on my way to the elevators. I lucked out and slipped in with a pair of nephilim as the doors to their lift began sliding shut.

“Seventy-fifth floor?” the taller of the two asked, his wings shuddering as he gave me a once-over, taking in the dark hair and pale complexion that marked me as a reaper.

“Seventy-first, please.” I patted the sheath fastened to my hip, making sure it was still there.

The nephilim nodded and pressed the button for the correct floor. The button for the sixty-ninth was already lit on the panel, which could only mean they were new trainees for the Guard.

Jenni Fang’s solution to the hellcats plaguing the mortal side was to send the Nephilim Guard out to investigate and round up any strays reported on harvests. The problem had become severe enough that the latest digital docket upgrade included an automatic incident report feature, but it was spreading the Guard too thin. They’d had to up their recruiting efforts and offer sign-on bonuses.

The elevator paused to let its feathered passengers off before continuing upward, and I heaved a sigh of relief when it reached my destination without stopping to collect anyone new. Part of me resented the anxiety I managed to carry around all these years later. I feared I would always be making a conscious effort to stay out of everyone’s way in this city. No matter my accomplishments. It couldn’t be helped.

“Well, well, well,” Warren greeted me in the lobby of his armory. A blacksmith apron hung around his neck, protecting the green plaid flannel and khakis he wore beneath. “We meet again, my old foe,” he said in a playful, craggy voice. “What have you broken this time?”

“It wasn’t my fault—this hellcat was extra feisty,” I explained before unhooking the sheathed scythe. Warren heaved an annoyed sigh as he accepted it from me.

“These were supposed to be for emergencies only, to keep unruly souls in line. Their design is more for show than battle.”

“It was an emergency!” I insisted. “I could have lost a soul.”

“Lana.” He pressed his lips together. “This is like, the tenth one you’ve either broken or lost.”

“That last one was defective.” My chest puffed out defensively, and I jabbed a finger at my face. “It nearly put my eye out!”

“That’s only because you tried to fold it up with a mangled blade.”

“I’ve worked with butterknives more durable.”

Warren bristled and turned away from me. “You’re lucky I like you.” He pressed the telescoping button on the holster that doubled as the scythe’s grip once it was extended. The shaft unfolded as expected, clicking softly as each piece aligned with the last. Until it reached the very end.

The hooked blade was thin and flexible. It had to be so it would fit inside the cylindrical sheath. And though it was sharper than hell, it was flimsy. As evident by the way the blade at the end of my scythe dangled haphazardly, creaking out a pitiful tale of abuse.

“The hinge is busted,” Warren snapped. “What’d you do, step on it again?”

“No.” I flushed, recalling my first mishap with the gadget. “I told you, there was a hellcat. The blade got stuck behind the beast’s eye socket.”

“Uh huh.” Warren sighed and fingered the loose joint that required repair. “I’ll have Lindy fix this up by Friday. Can I trust you with a loaner in the meantime?”

“Of course.” I gave him a tight smile that he returned with a grimace.

“Yup,” he said, wings twitching. “You’re so lucky I like you.”

“I am, aren’t I?”

“Come on, then.” Warren waved his free arm, directing me to follow him down a side hallway off the lobby. There was no front desk or secretary, but he did have three employees to help make and repair his weapons and gadgets now.

If ever there were a rags-to-riches story among Warren’s kind, it was his. His arsenal continued to evolve in leaps and bounds, from a trunk that had served as his coffee table in a rundown basement apartment, to a spare bedroom in his condo at Holly House, and now to an entire floor in a skyscraper.

I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pride for having played a part in his rise to fame and fortune. For all the grief I’d caused Warren since, I knew he still held me in high esteem. Clearly, if he was willing to loan me a scythe after the way mine looked.

“How’s the soul gauntlet litigation going?” I asked as we curled around a corner and paused at a locked door. Warren groaned. It was a touchy subject, but I was curious.

“The Afterlife Council declined the latest model. Now they want me to integrate it with the digital dockets so that the cuff will only accept approved souls. They’re worried about the damage a soul poacher might do if they get ahold of one.”

“Sure they are.” I scoffed. The Afterlife Council had too much time on their hands with no throne or soul matter to squabble over. So now they had to find other ways to validate their position and pay—even if that was just being a pain in everyone else’s ass. It seemed those closest to me had suffered the most. Like Warren. But he wasn’t letting it slow him down by much.

He pressed his hand to a screen beside the door we’d stopped at and leaned forward so a laser on a second panel could scan his eyes. It felt like overkill, but he was harboring quite a lethal collection.

“Passcode,” a computerized voice demanded.

“Hairy cherub,” Warren answered. A second later, the lock released, and the door popped open.

I snorted. “Some password.”

“It’s not, actually.” Warren grinned. “I can say anything I like. The computer is simply measuring the pitch and tone of my voice to determine if I’m being coerced.”

“Fancy.”

“The door will still open, mind you. For five seconds. Then it will lock again, trapping anyone inside, and the Guard will be alerted.”

I gave the threshold a cautious glance as I followed him inside the room, hoping the system hadn’t detected the anxiety my heavy-handedness surely caused Warren. I was glad he hadn’t entered his techno-security phase until after I’d helped Tasha Henry escape. I was sure they were making good use of this new skillset of his at the Nephilim Guard headquarters, too.

The overhead lights were muted by the black interior of the room. Square shelves filled with scythe sheaths and loose shaft pieces outlined blade-laden pegboards. The opposite wall held bins of hardware and tools for assembling. Only a narrow stack of shelves on the far wall held finished product.

Warren deposited my busted weapon on a stainless-steel table that stretched the length of the room and fetched a new scythe before turning back to me. “Here we go,” he said, pulling it out of my reach as I grasped for it. “Take it easy on this one, yeah?”

“Oh, for sure.” I squeaked out a nervous laugh, and he reluctantly handed over the scythe. I was extra delicate while fastening it to my belt. “See? Safe and sound.”

“Uh huh.” Warren’s shoulders sagged. Maybe he liked me, but that didn’t mean he was confident in my ability not to break his precious creations.

“It’s only for a few days, right?” I offered, trying to soothe his concern. “I probably won’t even need to use it.”

“Uh huh.” A feather shook loose from his wings. Great, he was already molting on me.

We retraced our steps to the lobby, where I thanked him again before pressing the button for an elevator. I was ready to get out of there and head back to the harbor where I could coin home and share a bottle of wine with my demon.

And I would have done just that, if Jenni Fang hadn’t been waiting for me when the elevator doors slid open.

"Life After Death" will be available December 21st, 2021.

Find it at your favorite e-bookstore today! 

https://angelaroquet.com/books_life_after_death