Page 28

I just needed a moment to chill after a full day of seeing clients, and fruitlessly searching for Death’s missing souls. Unfortunately, there’d been no mention of any recent hauntings or ghost activity in the Roxburgh area on any of the human ghost hunting websites or online groups I’d found.

“Mags?”

“Yeah?”

“When you deliver a soul to Limbo, do you ever see Zinny?” I’d wondered, but I’d never asked before. I don’t know why, maybe fear that she might have seen something…bad.

She shook her head, her eyes softening, and held out the bowl of popcorn to me. “I’m usually in and out pretty fast. I always look for her, but that’s not really how it works. When I’m there, I’m in that soul’s own “personal” limbo. Like the space they occupy there is created from something in their memories. I’m there, but I’m not there. Once I pass through the forest and reach the end of the skull path, I’m in that spirit’s eternal resting place. Not in Zinny and Death’s world, or Limbo as they see it.”

I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed. “So I take it you have no leads on the missing souls you want to share?”

Mags shook her head. “No, dammit. The other reapers have been looking as well. Hadeon’s had no luck either. You’d have a better chance than us, though. I only see a soul here on Earth when they’re ready to move on, same for Hadeon and the rest of Lucifer’s reapers. We’re not like you, we’re not mediums.”

“Me and Zinny found nothing. I have a few ideas, though.” How I was going to execute those ideas, I still didn’t have a freaking clue. “Can we keep Death’s warning between us for now? No reason to freak everyone out just yet.” My family had tried to help us find the souls when Zinnia first came home, and like us, for an entire month, the whole family had turned over every single stone, searched every bit of information at our disposal, and had come up with nothing. Telling them what was at stake, the possibility of Zinnia being trapped there if I failed, would only freak everyone out when there was nothing more they could do.

“You got it. Mom and Else would lose their minds. You’re the expert here, Jazzy. I’m at your disposal. We all are. You need help, say the word.”

I didn’t feel like an expert, far from it, but I did have a place to start. One that wasn’t quite as horrifying as going to the head demon’s place of residence, an old, decommissioned asylum, and poking around his bookshelves. “Well, actually I will take you up on that—”

“What’s up?” Willow said, walking into the living room.

“Wills, hey, what are you doing here?” Mags asked, as surprised as I was that she was here this time of night.

I couldn’t decipher the look on her face. Her green eyes came to me. “I need to speak with Jazzy, actually. Got a minute?”

“Yeah, of course.”

I followed her from the room, and the vibe coming off my cousin was seriously tense. She was worried. Maybe even scared. “Everything okay?”

“Not exactly.” Her hands were shaking.

“Wills?”

She looked down at her hands, at the way they trembled, and shook them out. “Don’t mind me, I’m kinda freaking out, probably for no good reason. It’s Ren. He fought in the pit earlier. The way Warrick describes it, he was blinded by rage and didn’t care if he got hurt.”

I gripped the back of the chair so I didn’t react in a way that gave my feelings for Ren away because instant panic filled me as well. “Is he okay?”

She nodded. “Physically, he’ll heal quickly, but he’s struggling and keeping it to himself again. I finally got out of him that there’s a soul hanging around him. He said it’s getting closer. It touched him. It marked him, Jaz, burned him. I tried not to let him see how terrified I am. But I’m so scared he’ll go fox and run away and I’ll lose him all over again. He needs you, your gift. Anything I do will only be temporary, and Ren needs a more permanent solution. We need to know what’s really going on. Do you think you can help him?”

Whatever was going on between Ren and I, none of it mattered, not when it came to this. This was serious. The last few years, Zinny had taught me all she knew. This was my specialty. Whether or not I’d wanted this gift, I had it, and I’d learned all I could to master it. “I’ll need to assess the situation, but I’m confident I can help him.”

Her tense shoulders lost some of their stiffness. “I told him I’d be by tonight.”

Nerves zipped around my belly. “Let me grab a few things and we can go.”

“It’s one of them, isn’t it?” she said stopping me. “One of the people he was forced to kill.”

“I think so, yes,” I said as gently as I could.

She nodded, and I rushed upstairs and gathered everything I thought I’d need, then we told Mags we were heading off for a bit and left for Ren’s place. The last time I’d walked past there at night, Breanne had been outside, wearing one of Ren’s shirts. Would she be here now?

Wills strode up to his door and knocked before opening it and walking in without waiting. “Renny? We’re here.”

I looked around. His place was tidy but not overly homey. There was a shirt tossed over the back of the couch and a couple empty beer cans on the coffee table and not much else.

“Hey,” he said, distracted as he walked in, and I had to stop my gasp when I saw the damage to his face. His gaze sliced to me. “Jaz…I didn’t know…Willow never said…”

Willow’s gaze slid from Ren to me and back, worry crossing her face. “Zinny and Jaz are the only witches in the family who have the gifts you need.”