Descent (Kissed by Death) - Tara Fuller Page 0,20

with Balthazar, I’d learned that your ability to keep your mouth shut decided just how twisted that punishment would be. I only hoped Scout had learned the same lesson. One snap of our leader’s fingers and he could give us a taste of the pain we’d left behind in the land of the living. I knew, because I’d felt it. In four hundred years of delivering the damned, I’d met every brand of pain and punishment imaginable.

Balthazar looked back and forth between us, irritation creasing the space between his brows. “I’ve been informed a Heaven-bound soul wasn’t delivered today,” he said. “Any idea what could have happened to him?”

“I’m sorry—” Scout began, but I laid a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“It was my fault,” I said. “And as long as you keep two reapers doing the job of three, mistakes are going to keep happening. I can’t be in two places at once. I can’t keep juggling the pull of two afterlives.”

“Are you telling me how to do my job?” His cold eyes pinned me, warning me to back down.

“No. I’m saying I’ll fix this, but you’ve got to make a change. You’ve got to replace Anaya.”

Balthazar descended the steps and brought himself eye level with me. His cold gaze flared dangerously, and electricity crackled around us. “And how exactly do you plan to fix this?”

“I’ll go get him.”

“That might be difficult,” Balthazar growled.

Balthazar swept his hand through the air and the fog rippled out into a wall, light and color sparking to life, weaving together until an image appeared. Balthazar stepped back and I saw the boy from the wreckage at the café. He was bound and broken with nowhere to hide. Demons circled him in the dark, biting, touching, burning. He screamed when flesh sizzled, and the horde cackled with glee. I tore my eyes from his torment and instead studied his surroundings. He wasn’t in Nightmare Alley. They’d taken him deeper. Into the city. Damn it…it was going to be like trying to find one particular grain of sand in a desert down there.

“No…” Scout sounded sick as the wall of images dissolved back into an empty gray fog before us. “No…he…”

“It’s a fool’s mission,” Balthazar pointed out. “There are no rescues in Hell. You should know that by now. He’s lost. Our time is better spent on other endeavors.”

Punishment.

My scythe burned through my duster, but I ignored the call, knowing there wasn’t a death on this planet that was going to get me out of this. Balthazar looked back and forth between us, gaze cold and calculating.

“You’re on restricted duty,” Balthazar finally said. “You’ll work the nursing home circuit until further notice. Maybe you’ll stay out of trouble there.”

Nursing home circuit? No….hell no. I’d spent half a millennium proving I was the best. In a place like that there would be nothing but time and silence and waiting…and Scout. Jesus, I could not handle being with Scout dusk till dawn for the foreseeable future. I’d rather be in Hell.

“You can’t be serious,” I said. “One mistake in four hundred and seventy years and you’re shelving me away to watch bedpan changings and heart monitors? I’m worth more than that.”

“Not you,” he said. “Just Scout. You have another task.”

“What kind of task?”

A flash of apprehension clouded his gaze for a moment, and then it was gone. Behind him, a girl with flame-red hair descended the steps, so violently bright against the dull gray backdrop that every soul’s vacant eye turned to see.

Gwen.

Beside me, Scout jabbed his elbow into my ribs, and I scowled. What was she doing here? Maybe this was my punishment. An eternity of awkward run-ins with the one creature in existence that had managed to catch me off guard and knock me flat on my ass.

“What is this?” I asked. “What is she doing here?”

“She is your assignment,” Balthazar said, sliding his arm around Gwen’s shoulders protectively.

Wait…protectively? Since when did the king of death have anything to do with angels? My gaze narrowed on Gwen. She looked away. Was it possible Balthazar had his own twisted love affair? The thought bothered me a whole hell of a lot more than it should have. I reached down for my blade, wishing I were in Hell so I could feel the bite of pain I deserved for even giving her a second thought.

“Is she in need of a lift to Hell?” I asked. “Because I’m not interested in anything more than that.”

Balthazar’s anger flared