Descent (Kissed by Death) - Tara Fuller Page 0,41

me skeptically. “I’ve never known a reaper to extend their stay around here voluntarily.”

“I had some vacation time,” I said drily. “Heard Hell was lovely this time of year. Do you have a room or not?”

His lip curled, exposing rotting, jagged teeth. “It’s going to cost you, reaper.”

“I figured as much. Don’t suppose you’re taking cash these days? Visa? American Express?”

He chuckled. The sound sent chills down my spine. “You know what I want.”

Of course I did. He was a pain demon. Making souls scream was the only kind of currency that mattered to him. Making a reaper scream? Now, that was as good as gold to someone like Rok.

I gritted my teeth. “I’ll give you an hour. And no blades this time.”

Sixty minutes of whatever torture Gigantor could come up with was worth never having to see Gwen in flames.

He nodded, wiping the blood from his knife with his thumb and tasting it. “Which one of you? I’ll need payment up front.”

A sick feeling bubbled up my throat, but I swallowed it back down. “Me. She gets the room. And protection while we…settle this.”

“Deal.” He grabbed the machete from the bar and before I could stop him, he brought it down and sliced through flesh and bone. The soul below him let out a low gurgle that didn’t sound human and went silent. Gwen’s nails dug into my back, and she groaned.

“I’ve got a room upstairs. Nobody will bother you there. Two nights. Anything more and I’m going to want payment from her.”

He pointed his blade at Gwen. A muscle in my jaw twitched as I ran my thumb over the sharp edge of my scythe. Gwen stopped breathing, her lips stilled against the slope of my shoulder.

“That won’t be a problem,” I said through gritted teeth.

Gwen flinched as he tore a leg from the soul below him and tossed the limb on the bar. Immediately a group of creatures crawled out of the shadows to tear into the discarded flesh. Across the bar, glasses began to rattle, and the earth rumbled beneath our feet.

“You might want to get her to the room.” His mouth split into a horrific grin. “Sounds like the furnace isn’t far off. Wouldn’t want to char her pretty skin. What a waste that would be. They never do come back the same…”

“I want to walk her up,” I said. “I’ll come back down for payment.”

“Fourth room on the right.” He tossed a key over the bar. “You don’t come back down, then I come up. And then I’ll take you both.”

The metal key singed my skin as I caught it, branding me. I grabbed Gwen and headed toward the stairs he indicated. The hall was dark except for a fluorescent-like light flickering overhead. I hesitated at the bottom of the staircase, listening for the telltale sound of screaming. When I didn’t hear any, I started up the steps. I’d been in places like this before, hollowed-out imitations of high-rises and cheap motels. And what they created was the world flipped inside out. Dark and grimy and wrong.

At the top of the stairs, singed red carpet stretched down a dark hall. Muted light peeked through the cracks in the steel walls where the studs had popped loose under the heat. The building had been constructed to keep the flames out, but there was no escaping the heat when the furnace turned Hell into a broiler.

The floor was silent, and as far as I could tell, unoccupied. I looked back at Gwen and held a finger to my lips. You couldn’t trust anything here, let alone silence. She swallowed thickly and nodded.

I passed three doors and stopped at a fourth, shoving the key into the rusty lock and pushing the door open. In the middle of the room sat a big bed, worn from the heat. A small window was cracked, allowing nightmarish sounds of the city below to fill the space. The fresh ash coating the floor was undisturbed. I took a chance and pulled Gwen in behind me, then eased the door shut. I scanned the room for something, anything I could use to barricade the door. The last thing I needed was some demon looking for a fix to bust in and find her here alone while I was being beaten to a pulp downstairs. I walked over to a rusted dresser and shoved it toward the door, kicking ash into the air that stung my nose and lungs. I coughed into my