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Eight
Darkness engulfed them both, underpinned by the slightly plastic smell of incontinence pads and disinfectant wipes. The disconcerting sound of Death breathing right behind her needled Bunny’s conscience, and she edged a little farther away from him while trying not to give away how uncomfortable she felt to be locked in a room with an entity who would snuff out her life as soon as look at her. Maybe it was for the best they were in the dark, after all.
Then again, maybe not.
“Look,” she said, closing her eyes as her face started to heat up and her breathing got shallower. “I really don’t do well in confined spaces. Can we at least turn on the li—”
Her breath caught in her throat as his arm brushed past her waist. She almost gasped, but it became a kind of strained hiccup as she felt him step closer to her body.
Dear God, this was it. She was going to pass out and die in an incontinence supply closet, covered in a mountain of Depends.
“Relax,” he told her, his cool breath ghosting past her cheek in the pitch black. A door handle rattled, and suddenly the closet was flooded with a strange pearlescent light from behind her. It illuminated his face, which was merely inches away. He was looking down at her as though he had been able to see her in the dark all along, but it wasn’t that thought that bugged her so much as the expression on his otherworldly face. His serious facade was gone, replaced by a look of tenderness, even fascination, as his intense black gaze was transformed into a cool gunmetal gray by the unexpected light.
“Holy shitballs,” Bunny gasped, backing away from Death as she stumbled out into the huge room that had opened up on the back wall of the supply closet. Her head swam and she struggled to maintain her footing until she leaned against a huge white marble pillar not far away. The room was huge; in fact, she couldn’t see any actual walls. Pillars extended in every direction, except one.
The space was cut through with an imposingly ornate wrought-iron fence at least two stories tall. The bars were as thick as Bunny’s wrist and twisted into intricate spirals and other filagree designs that held a kind of Gothic beauty. She didn’t know why, but they gave her the absolute creeps. The mere thought of reaching out to touch just one finger to that fence made her want to recoil. She turned to look over her shoulder as Death appeared beside her.
“What is this place?” Bunny demanded, feeling like she might need an inhaler as she fixed her eyes on the tall, mysterious man beside her. “And how the hell did we get here through the incontinence supply closet?”
“This is the lobby,” he explained, slipping his hands into the pockets of his coat as he deliberately skirted around the last part of her question. “It’s where Connie and I…”
He trailed off, his brow furrowing in what could have been considered concentration, if it hadn’t been for the small tic of repressed pain in his jaw. He licked his lips and then took a breath in the manner of a man redirecting his own thoughts.
“Where we did our pick-ups and drop-offs.”
Bunny narrowed her eyes. Just what had his relationship been with her mother?
She pushed herself away from the pillar that helped keep her upright, brushing her hands off on her scrub pants. “Am I supposed to know what that means?” she asked testily, “Because I don’t.”
Any tenderness that had lingered in his expression vanished without a trace. He stared at her for what could only have been one or two seconds, but it felt like a century. His eyes were dark again, pools of midnight, as though they had adjusted to the presence of the light and then banished it.
“She would pick up,” he said slowly, as though explaining something to a small child. “I would drop off.”
Oh hell nope. Bunny’s brows lifted, proportionate to her disbelief. She didn’t give two shits if he was the personification of the most feared forces known to mankind. There was no way she was gonna let him talk down to her. She fixed him with a withering stare of her own.
“There’s no need to be a patronizing dick,” she pointed out, one hand planting itself on her hip. “I’m new to this. You’re gonna have to fill me in. Deal with it.”
The corner of his lips twitched and for a second it looked like he might smirk, before he snuffed out that all-too-human expression, too. He opted instead to notch up his chin by a degree, reminding Bunny of his immortality.
There was no man on earth with a jawline like that.
“Fine.” He set off at a brisk walk, leaving Bunny to follow.
She gaped instead, too fired up to trust herself to speak, let alone call him out for constantly walking off and leaving her for dust. She’d already called him a patronizing dick. Unleashing another string of choice curse words might see her trapped here in this strange place instead of heading back to Arcadian Waters through the Narnia closet. Biting down on the sides of her tongue, she rushed forward to catch up.
A heavy oak desk sat at a right angle to the fence not too far away, its surface inlaid with deep navy-blue leather. A woman sat behind the desk, her white-blonde hair pinned elegantly into a style reminiscent of the 1940s, complete with victory rolls. She was typing into a strange machine that looked like Dr. Seuss’ version of a typewriter and seemed to be concentrating on her task, but Bunny couldn’t help feeling like one of the woman’s eyes was trained intently on them as they approached.
Next to the desk, the fence was split into two equally large, ornate gates. They had a luminescent gold sheen, which helped to differentiate them from the rest of the wrought-iron. Bunny let her gaze rove over them, following the swoops and curves in the design until she could make out what the shapes were. Humans, beasts, and other creatures that could best be described as demons were depicted in the artistry of the gates, fighting against each other in what looked to be some kind of royal rumble. The scene was so unlike what she thought should have been cast in such a pretty golden light that she frowned.
And there, looking oddly out of place to the left, was a metal push-button keypad.
“Are those the Pearly Gates?” she whispered to Death out of the corner of her mouth, not wanting to be overheard by the stern-looking woman sitting behind the desk.
“No,” he murmured back. “Those are the gates of Purgatory. It’s my drop-off point.”
Her frown deepened. “So you don’t know what happens to anyone behind the gate once you drop them off?”
“I know that they either go up or down,” he shrugged. “That’s it.”
