Page 106 of I Hope This Email Finds You in Hell

“You got what you wanted. It’s fixed.”

“I don’t care. Look at her! She’s dying.”

Footsteps come closer. I want to open my eyes, don’t even remember closing them, but my lids are too heavy. All of me is too heavy.

“Yeah, well, you offed my assistant, so let’s call it even. I actually liked that one, and now that you staved off the impending Reckoning by fixing the veil, who knows when the next one will occur.”

“It’s not the same,” Luke bites, cradling my body to his chest. “She’s mortal. There is no Reckoning for her, no revival. She dies and she’s dead.”

Maybe I already am. But surely death can’t hurt this much.

“That sounds like a personal problem.”

“Save her.”

Luke doesn’t sound like any of the Lukes I know. His voice is a commanding stab meant to draw blood. Some far-off part of me wonders if this is what he sounded like as the devil. Cruel and demanding.

“We both know I’m not in the business of saving.”

“But you can,” Luke counters. “I could, and so can you. Please, Dante. Send us back. Let me get her to a hospital. She’s running out of time.”

“Send you back,” Dante muses. “And then what? Everyone saw you here tonight. What would I tell the hounds? The other devils? That I was merciful? Mercy is what fucked me over from the start. I should have killed you instead of sending you to the overworld.”

“Then strike a deal with me,” Luke proposes. “They’d never question a deal. I once told a very pretty lie that I was sent to the overworld to hunt the monsters that escaped into it. Let me make it true. Pardon us both to the overworld, and I will make sure every subject of yours that escaped is sent back. I will be your hunter.”

“There are supposedly hundreds. Are you willing to devote yourself to finding them? Devote yourself to me?”

“Yes.” Luke doesn’t hesitate. My grip on consciousness slips. “Do we have a deal?”

Thirty-five

“Get ready for the scariest thing you’ve ever seen!”

Aurelia’s high-pitched giggle rings through the late-afternoon air as she strides out from behind the shed in the back corner of Amelia and Krystal’s yard wearing what is supposed to be a turkey costume. Trailing behind, her little sister, Kassidy, picks up rogue feathers that flutter to the grass.

“Isn’t it scary?” Aurelia asks me. “We just ate me!”

“Absolutely terrifying,” I agree from where I sit on the top step of their deck, nursing the mug of tea Amelia handed me.

“Aurelia!” Amelia exclaims. “Take it off. We have to return it to school on Monday in one piece and it’s practically deteriorating.”

“Maybe her ruining it wouldn’t be the worst thing.” Krystal joins us on the deck as Aurelia squawks in protest. “The musical was cute and all, but the costumes could use a refresh.”

Amelia rolls her eyes fondly, but it’s impossible to miss the fear lodged deep in her gaze. The reality that all of this—eating turkey and stuffing crowded around the table—almost didn’t happen. She reaches for Krystal, something I’ve noticed her do a lot in the three days since we flew back to Tarrentown with Poppi and Yasmine after getting cleared to come home. Like Krystal, they both are on the road to a quick recovery.

Me, less quick.

“You may not have been poisoned like the rest of us, but you were pretty roughed up,” Krystal explained to me when I woke in the hospital a week ago. She was beside me, already having been cleared by the hospital she, Poppi, and Yasmine had been taken to after being found unconscious at Santa Monica Pier. “Bad concussion, some bruised ribs. A horrible wound on your side that they think might be from a bear or cougar? It’s like you got mauled. You’ve got enough stitches in you to knit a sweater. And you want to know the most fucked-up thing?”

I didn’t, but I never thought I’d hear another word out of her mouth, so I clung to each. “What?”

“You were found in a dress. Like, a whole-ass gown. All glammed up like you were going to the Met Gala or some shit.”

I was grateful, in that moment, to be alive. To be back in the overworld. My world.

I was less grateful when I remembered the cost.

Luke made a deal with the devil to save me. Got me to the hospital in time for doctors to stitch me back together. Listed Krystal and Amelia as my emergency contacts so I wouldn’t wake up alone.