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Eighteen
“Mom!?” Bunny felt a flood of relief as her mother wrapped her into a tight hug. Her eyes stung with tears, and she clamped them shut as she embraced her mother.
“What are you doing in here?” Connie demanded tearfully, pulling away. “Your time isn’t for a long time! How are you—”
“You’re not meant to be in here, either,” Bunny pointed out with an undignified sniffle. She swiped her tears away, keeping her voice low. “I know that Death didn’t take you. What happened?”
Even though she couldn’t see her mom’s face, Bunny could feel the movement of Connie drying her eyes, too. “The man who brought you here,” her mom explained, “they call him the Soul Dealer. He’s an archdemon.”
The short-lived but white-hot rage Bunny felt for him sparked anew. “That fucker,” she growled. “What did he want with you?”
Her mother’s hand landed on Bunny’s chest, feeling for the chain around her neck. Connie’s fingertips brushed against the moonstone pendant briefly. “This.”
“Then why didn’t he take it from me?” Bunny asked, confused. “He saw me wearing it! I was unconscious—long story,” she added as an aside, “but he could have taken it from me any time he wanted. Why didn’t he?”
“Because he learned his lesson trying to take it from me.” Connie’s voice was drier than week-old bread, as though her hatred for the Soul Dealer had sucked all the joy out of her. “A celestial has to give their pass willingly. I wouldn’t give it to him, not even when he tortured me. So he cleaved my soul from my body, hoping to possess me and give it to himself.”
“The hellfire,” Bunny murmured.
“Yes,” Connie said. “My body died… and he imprisoned me here.”
Bunny frowned. “Why does he want the pendant in the first place?”
“You have access to the mortal plane. You come and go as you please.”
A chill shot down Bunny’s spine, which was quite a feat in the heat of their dark cell. “Mom,” she said slowly. “Are you saying that he used you as bait?”
“Not just me,” Connie replied darkly. “Your pass alone isn’t enough. If the Soul Dealer possesses the charms of Life and Death…” She exhaled, agitated. “I dread to think what he would do with them.”
Bunny’s phone chose that moment to ding loudly with several text notifications all at once, making both women jump.
“Fuck sake,” Bunny hissed, reaching for her back pocket to silence the damn thing. “I can receive texts in the bowels of Hell, but God forbid I want to watch an episode of Drag Race on my phone in the break room!”
Her phone blared to life as soon as her fingertips hit the screen, making her squint at the sudden light. But when her eyes adjusted, it wasn’t her screen she was looking at. It was her mother’s beautiful face. The women were both sitting cross-legged, facing each other, knees touching. Connie’s beautiful face could have been Bunny’s, if Bunny were twenty-five years older. They smiled at one another, Connie lifting a hand to cup her daughter’s cheek tenderly before Bunny glanced at the notifications on her screen. She sighed with relief.
Connie instantly defaulted to worrying. “What?”
“Death,” Bunny replied, flicking through the messages. The notifications were all some version of ‘where are you’, and she couldn’t help but feel a little bit glad that he still cared even though she had broken the rules. She swiped her lock screen away and started to type a reply.
“Don’t answer,” her mother said, reaching out to place her hand on top of Bunny’s. “That’s exactly what the Soul Dealer is hoping for!”
“But he’s the only person I know who’s even close enough to being able to help us,” Bunny pointed out. “What other choice do we have?”
Footsteps boomed down the tunnel outside the cell.
“Quick!” Connie whispered frantically to Bunny, who tucked it quickly into her back pocket. The footsteps continued to approach. Whatever was coming was freaking huge—so much so Bunny wondered how on earth it was fitting in the tunnel itself. The women skittered over to the far corner of the room, just as the footsteps thundered to a stop outside the door.
“It’s only a matter of time, my Lord,” Bunny heard the Soul Dealer mutter under his breath right outside. “My constituents tell me that he’s already spoken to the bitch at the gate.” She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at his stupidity—if you were going to talk about your dastardly plans, it was probably best to do it where your prisoners couldn’t hear you.
But the next voice knocked the sass right out of her. It almost hummed, filling the air with vibrations that, when combined with the heat, immediately made her feel nauseous.
“Excellent,” it purred. “And the Life pass?”
“See for yourself,” the Soul Dealer said smugly, throwing open the door.
Bunny lifted an arm to protect their faces from the influx of heat and light from the tunnel. Peering from beneath her sleeve, she could clearly see the outline of the Soul Dealer in the doorway. Behind him was a hulking shadow that was somehow darker than even the cell they had been thrown into. It was covered in spikes, and when it moved into profile, Bunny could see long, alligator-like teeth gnashing together when it spoke again.
“Well, well, well…” Excess salvia smacked between what she assumed to be its lips. “You have corrected your own blunder, at least.”
