Page 16 of Hellbound

Marian wanted to give that low, disembodied voice everything, but her lungs were full of fire.

Her eyes opened to a blurry world of blue and pink. Her body surged with a heady mix of adrenaline and the fading fever dream of her last moments in Hell. The key. She knew where to go, and yet she’d turned away. She had to go back at once, but snake-like shadows coiled around her middle and dragged her backward when she tried to rise. An arm like a steel beam pulled her upright into a lap and pinned her against a solid, warm chest.

She clutched at the arm with quivering fingers. A broad hand splayed across her breastbone, holding her as a wave of spasms wracked her body. There was something stuck inside her. Something she had to exorcise.

The world shifted as she folded over the bracing arm and heaved up salt water. Another hand moved her hair out of her face. When it was over, she sagged boneless against a furnace wrapped in slate wool. She blinked down at the hand over her stomach. The face of a silver Breitling blinked back.

Mr. Vale was holding her.

The ringing in her ears gradually subsided enough for her to register his gravelly, soothing murmurs. She had no idea what he was saying, and she didn’t care.

“Send me back,” Marian whispered. Her throat was full of glass. Broken words dissolved into another round of coughing. “Send me b-back. I know—”

“Stop talking,” Mr. Vale’s commanding voice bulldozed her demand. “Unless you want to aspirate.”

Warm, gentle fingers pressed into her neck, seeking her pulse as she coughed up more water. His touch brought her a strange, analgesic calm that didn’t match his brusque tone.

“I know where it is.” She didn’t understand how her instinct had latched on to its presence, but it didn’t matter. The money did. She wouldn’t let it slip away. But when she tried to crawl out of his arms, Mr. Vale dragged her back into the warmth of his lap.

“I’d expect someone who drowns for a living to know better than to swallow so much water.”

If she could breathe properly or think beyond the single-minded purpose of returning for the key, she’d have had a comeback for him. Instead, she belched up more bile and saltwater. Some of it trickled out her nose.

“Come on.” More coughing. More knives in her chest.

“No.” Mr. Vale tightened his grip. “Your life is worth more than this.”

Marian blinked through her confusion, droplets of water dripping through her lashes onto her cheeks. Since when? She opened her mouth to voice the question, but he’d smothered her face with a towel and roughly wiped away the fluids leaking from her.

Ever so slowly, her fugue abated. She grew heavier, weaker. Death took its toll, and Marian found she could do nothing but lie there as the last dregs of adrenaline drained away. Helplessness following revival was typical. Frenzy and panic, less so. Rarer still, if not outright unheard of? Being cradled against the massive, smoldering body of a demon toweling her off.

The same demon who’d drowned her and brought her back without the artifact he’d sent her to find. The realization that Marian had failed again hit her like another blow to the chest. If Mr. Vale was upset by that fact, he didn’t show it. Instead, he picked her up off the wet ground. The world spun in cotton candy colors as he carried her toward the door.

Marian clutched weakly at his shirt collar. “The fuck are you doing?”

“Taking you home,” Mr. Vale replied.

“No.” The hand on his collar turned into a fist. She slammed it against his chest. It may as well have been made of marshmallow fluff.

“Then I’ll call you a car. After you dry out in my office.”

Marian blinked hard. What the fuck was happening? Half of her was still in Hell. Peeling her mother’s face off and fleeing the rampaging Remnant. The other half was struggling to remember how to breathe and bewildered by Mr. Vale’s behavior. How was it that he could touch her now without making her senses go haywire? Her chest hurt like crazy, but that was typical of the CPR experience. Another cracked rib for the collection.

“I don’t understand,” she said through chattering teeth. “I fucked up.”

“I said I’d pay you one hundred thousand dollars for the attempt, and I will. But you won’t survive another death tonight.”

She felt more than heard those chiding words reverberate up her back.

Panic boiled inside her. She’d let two hundred thousand dollars slip through her fingers. She’d be paid, but it wouldn’t be enough. At least Mr. Vale didn’t appear upset that she’d failed to bring him an artifact—a discovery that ought to have brought her relief.

And the Remnant failed to capture her a second time. Marian grasped for that memory and forced it to repeat in her mind while it was still sharp. The scar on her wrist—the one she’d made—glowing bright red at the Remnant’s touch. The way the Remnant hesitated to take her again.

She considered recounting it for Mr. Vale, but something compelled her to keep quiet. At least until she had a chance to make sense of it.

Not now.

The gym grew unnaturally dark as her thoughts snagged on a small and stupid problem that she stubbornly clung to like a lifeline. Marian wriggled an arm free and pointed behind them as Mr. Vale carried her away.