Graveyard Shift (2 page)

“I’ll go fetch him.
” I felt like a drink myself after Josie’s little fit.

“If you’re not back in twenty minutes, I’m tossing your refugee and ta
king the coin for your other souls,” she warned.

“I’ll be back in time
. I just gotta change first. I’m not going inside Purgatory wearing my work robe.” I looked down at the frumpy garment and sighed. While it looked good on Josie, it made me look like Marilyn Monroe’s evil twin.

I headed for the captain’s quarters before Josie could start another arg
ument. She was a pain in the ass, but she was one of the few reapers I trusted.

Shuffling through my dresser, I found a pair of leather pants I had bought at Athena’s Boutique
. Athena had set up a nice little shop in Limbo after sulking for nearly a millennium over her decline of followers. It was doing her a world of good, and I was growing a rather charming wardrobe. A black tank top and my favorite pair of boots completed the outfit. I thought about doing something with my hair but decided I didn’t have time. Josie was in a bad enough mood. If I was late, I knew she would make good on her threat to leave.

I
cocked an eyebrow at myself in the dusty oval mirror next to our bunk and made a mental note to give Josie back the tube of cherry lipstick she had loaned me. Anemic hooker was not the look I was going for. I combed my fingers through my black ringlets and left.

Limbo City was just as crowded as the market and harbor
. The Fates’ employees were busy shopping. Fresh souls happily filled the streets and sidewalks, only stopping for a moment to move out of my way. They knew I was a reaper, and it made them nervous. A reaper had brought each one of them over at some point.

The Three Fates used to recycle the souls on their own, but it made for tiresome and constant work
. Some time ago, they discovered a way to keep a small fraction of souls in Limbo and persuaded them to work at the factory in exchange for a grander entrance back into the human realm. I can tell every time I harvest a soul from America. More and more celebrities are sprouting up all over the place.

I passed the Muses Union House and Bank of Ete
rnity before reaching Purgatory Lounge. Gabriel’s musical voice spilled out as I opened the door.              

“I haven’t had this much fun since I told Joseph his fiancée was knocked up by God!” the angel slurred
. He sat at a booth with two nephilim, fallen angel half-breeds.

“Gabriel
! What do you think you’re doing?” I plucked a feather from one of his wings, and he fluttered them in protest.

“Owww
! What was that for?” he whined.

His drinking buddies eyed me suspiciously
. Their wings were smaller, but their bodies larger. They weren’t as attractive as real angels, but they were close.

“The ship is sailing with or without you, Gabriel
. If you don’t leave here with me now, you’ll have to find a ride over later. I don’t think Peter will be very pleased with you,” I scolded him.

“Peter’s halo’s gotten a little fat these days
. I tried to take him on vacation with me, but he doesn’t seem to think anyone else is fit to man the gate,” Gabriel laughed.

“I can’t imagine why when
archangels keep coming home drunk.”

“Give it a rest, Lana
. Josie must be rubbing off on you. You used to be fun. What happened?” He hiccupped and slid an arm around my waist to pull me down in the booth with him. The nephilim across from me gave a sheepish smile.

Gabriel was getting careless with his reputation lately
. If another heavenly host spotted him mingling with the offspring of the fallen, he’d never hear the end of it from Peter. He’d be stuck with cherub tasks for a decade.

“I was just telling Bob here,” Gabriel slobbered, “how I can do wha
tever I want, because when people get to Heaven, who do they wanna see? Me! Right after Jesus and Mary, but still. I’m not gonna lose my job. I’ve been busting my halo for thousands of years. Thousands! I think I deserve a little fun now and then. Don’t I Lala?” His head rolled onto my shoulder.

Lala wasn’t exactly a nickname
. Gabriel only used it when he was tanked, which was about half the time.

I sighed
. “Gabriel, Josie will leave us both here and take my commission if we don’t go now.”

“Fine, party-pooper
. See you boys later.”

The half-breeds nodded and went back to their drinks
.

Gabriel left his arm around my waist as we made our way back to the ship
. I didn’t stop him because I didn’t think he could walk upright otherwise. We got plenty of strange looks.
A reaper and an archangel walked out of a bar.
I almost had to laugh.

“About time!” Josie shouted at us from the deck where she untied the ropes holding our ship to the dock
.

It was quieter now
. Most of the reaper ferries had already departed for the afterlives. Gabriel spread his wings and flew up ahead of me. Feathers rained down as he ran into a mast and fluttered like a spooked chicken to catch himself.

“Don’t fly on my ship while you’re drunk!
” Josie was still in a sour mood. She turned her hostile glare to me.

I grinned at her
. “Told you I’d make it back in time.”

“With the state he’s in, I wish you hadn’t.
” She turned away to pull up one of the sails. “A little help would be nice.”

I stomped over to the next mast and untangled a web of ropes
.

Once we were out of the harbor and the noise faded behind us, I went to check on Lial
. He was curled up on a couch next to James, who looked relieved to see me.

“Miss Lana, I don’t know if I have enough time to prepare him,” he said, nervously tugging the cuffs of his robe.

I nodded. “Just do your best. I’ll take care of it when we get there.”

I hadn’t told James that I had a coin, and obviously Lial hadn’t me
ntioned it to him either. It wouldn’t have done much good, seeing as neither of them knew how our coin worked.

Our coin wasn’t just used as currency to make pu
rchases. It held a doorway to the other realms. It would have been nice to just transport the souls to their afterlives with a coin, but if we did that, our boss would take it out of our commission. So we sailed the Sea of Eternity.

“I’m the king of the world!” Gabriel shouted at the head of the boat, nearly falling overboard
. Only the flutter of his wings saved him.

“Gabriel!” Josie growled.

“He’s already paid, so let’s just get this over with,” I said as she shot me another nasty look.

“Next time, we’re charging more
. I like order on my ship—”

“
Our
ship,” I corrected her.

We were both possessive of O’Malley’s boat
. It’s not every day that you come by a legendary female pirate’s ship.

The sails were open and gently tugged us along t
owards our first stop, Summerland, my favorite of the afterlives. Not too crowded. Lots of nature to take in. It was a nice break from the bustling city life in Limbo. The pagans were friendly and didn’t seem to mind the occasional reaper on vacation.

“You wanna go out for a beer when we get home?
” I tried to smooth things over with Josie. Her scrunched up face lightened a little and then flushed.

“I can’t.”

“Look, I’m sorry for messing up your schedule.”

“It’s not that
. I have a date,” she whispered so Gabriel wouldn’t overhear.

“Oh, really
? With who?”

“It’s not a big deal.
” She toyed with the ropes of the nearest sail.

“Come on, who?”

She blushed and leaned over the railing. “Horus.”

“Josie.
” It was my turn to lecture her. “You know he’s just going to try to bribe you into sneaking more souls into Duat.”

Duat was the Egyptian underworld, but its flow of souls has been steadily decreasing for some time.

“No he won’t! They get enough to keep them happy,” she argued.

“When’s the last time we made a d
elivery there?”

“He doesn’t care about more souls
. Osiris is watching over Duat, and Horus has been vacationing for almost a decade now.”

“Just be careful.
”

It wasn’t like Josie to go after one of the old gods
. The laws were more lenient these days, but most of society still frowned on reapers dating outside the corporation.

“Hate to interrupt ladies, but we have company,” Gabriel sang out to us
.

“What now?” Josie stormed off to the front of the ship with me close behind
. We were an hour from Summerland, with three more stops to go. We didn’t need trouble this early.

“Shit.
” I frowned at the horizon.

A ship approached us from the north
. Clusters of dog-faced demons scaled the masts and sides of the black boat, and a dark-winged man stood on the main deck, holding a leash attached to a soul.

“Caim, that bastard
. He’s snatched a clairvoyant soul.” I squeezed my eyes shut. The day just kept getting better.

Caim was enjoying his exile from Hell a little too much, especially since he left with two legions of demons
. After his impeachment, he had gone underground for half a century. Now he was out stalking reaper ferries to loot souls.

“I’ll get my bow
. You better go find your scythe.” Josie took off for our cabin.

My scythe lay next to the hatch where I had left it the last time I had to terrorize a group of Hell-bound souls down in the hold
. There were thirty of them that day. Grim had given me an extra miserable lot after he found out I had snuck a boy, destined for the sea, into Summerland. The Hell-bounds were plotting an escape until my scythe flashed before them.

I grabbed my weapon and headed back to the front of the ship with Josie, who now carried her bow
. She had a scythe too but rarely used it. The bow was a gift from Artemis for delivering a message to her twin brother, Apollo. Artemis set up an archery shop after she saw what a hit Athena’s Boutique was, but her brother still resided on Mount Olympus in Summerland.

“We should really get that soul back.
” I sighed over Gabriel’s shoulder.

“I wasn’t planning on getting that close.
” Josie’s eyes widened with concern as her fingers twitched over the arrows in her quiver.

“You wouldn’t have to,” Gabriel offered
. “Distract him, and I’ll go over and get the soul.”

“Do you really think you should be flying under the influence?”

“I’m an archangel. Give me some credit here.”

Josie frowned and lifted her bow
. “Fine. You ready Lana?”

“Ready and armed.
”

I couldn’t use my scythe long range, but as soon as she let loose an arrow, the demons that could fly would be on us
. I could see Caim’s cocky grin now and the sullen expression of the female soul he had captured.

“Go Gabriel!” Josie shouted as she unleashed an a
rrow.

It was a perfect shot through Caim’s wing
. He twisted in agony and dropped the leash. Josie strung another arrow as I lashed out at two demons hovering above us. I didn’t want them to land on our deck. We’d just had it washed. Demon guts were acidic and would burn holes in our ship if they weren’t cleaned up right away.

Three more of the creatures a
ppeared in mid-air, snapping and snarling. I swung to behead them, only missing one. It landed on the deck and scrambled towards Josie as she pumped Caim full of arrows. I lashed out, catching the creature’s underside with my blade, and flung it overboard with a shriek. Sticky demon pieces splattered my leather pants.

“Lana
! They’re coming over the side!” Josie backed into me.

Four more demons clawed up the side of the ship and circled us
. They were smaller than the others. Three sets of leathery wings scaled down their boney spines. One inched closer, dragging its talons along the deck with a squeal that rivaled a dozen chalkboards.

Josie cringed
. “Now that’s uncalled for.” She lifted her bow and popped an arrow through the little devil’s head.

The rest of the litter rushed us
. Josie nodded to me, and we attacked together. She darted one with an arrow while I gutted another, splashing the deck with steaming gore. The last demon latched onto my boot just as Josie put an arrow through its head, pinning the toe of my boot to the deck floor in the process.

I sucked in a breath, anticipating a sharp pain that thankfully didn’t follow
. The arrow had wedged itself between my toes.