“What did it look like?” I ask.
“Uh, he was, like, a fisherman. Like what you see in your head when you hear the word ‘fisherman.’ Big orange overall things. Flannel shirt. One of those knit hats.”
I search the Dead, but everyone’s dressed the same. “Care to narrow it down?” I snap.
Then I spot it among a group of men smoking at the end of the lane. It’s just like Ezra described. Waders and a wool hat. Carrying a fishing pole like a scythe.
“Let’s go,” I say, and start running.
My feet thud against the path, kicking up dirt. Ezra breathes harshly behind me, keeping pace. He can overtake me easily, but it’s like he’s trying to be a barrier between me and the hellhound.
What a gentleman.
What a dumbass.
“Go!” I urge just as he cries out.
I turn to find him slack-jawed, the fishing hook through his cheek. There’s a sudden tug, and Ezra’s gone.
No vanishing spirit, no orb of light.
Just gone.
I don’t pause, don’t think, just keep running. It’s too late for him, but maybe I can get to safety.
I try to pick up the pace, my feet slapping against the pavement, but because of that stupid chase through Times Square, IknowI’mslower than Ezra, and since he was purposely running slower than me, I now can’t convince my metaphysical body to go any faster, no matter how hard I try.
I’m not surprised, then, when I feel a sharp pain in my left cheek.
I groan. “Well, fu—”
Twenty-Four
Ezra is vomiting again.
His retching is the first thing I hear when I return to my body, but I can barely process it. I’m shaking, every nerve ending on fire. I curl in on myself as though I can get away from the pain, but I know I just have to wait for it to pass.
This is what happens when you get pulled out of the Afterlife before you’re ready. Ideally, you want to be back in the same place you arrived—in the same position as best as you can—when your Kykeon mist runs out so you’ll have a peaceful transition. Otherwise, the process, well, hurts. This isn’t the first time I’ve been yanked back to my body, so I know what to expect. I know it will pass. Ezra, on the other hand, does not.
He’s whimpering “kill me,” which, honestly, I feel is a bit dramatic. But to be fair, this process isextremelypainful.
Painful enough I pass out.
When I come to, the pain has receded to low-level nausea and exhaustion. Tolliver is patting my brow with a cool cloth. I look over to the blue couch to find Ezra, who is white as a sheet.
“How you doing?” I prompt, words slightly slurred.
He looks at me like I’m speaking another language. “I hate you,” he says, voice strained. “What was that?”
“A hellhound.” I take the cloth from Tolliver and try to sit up. He has to help me a little, but I eventually make it.
If the hellhound in the Boston T had shot me instead of Pete, it would have sent me back to the Beforedeath, and I would have been writhing in pain when the Reapers came looking for theintruder. But when it shot Infamous Pete instead, there was no body to send his soul back to. He was Dead. Most people think the souls of the Dead just cease to exist when a hellhound reaps them, but I know what I saw. It wasn’t destroyed. It turned into a ball of light and went…somewhere.
But never mind that just now. There shouldn’t have been a hellhound there at all. They tend to hang around liminal places where the Dead first arrive, finding souls with obols and ferrying them to the corresponding syndicate. They only really banish living people if they stumble across them.
This hellhound, however, was targeting us, almost like it was sent to catch us. Which makes no sense, because now we’re back in the Beforedeath with a translated journal. Other than the excruciating pain, this job was a success.
So why does it feel like we’re the ones who got played?
