Descent - Tara Fuller Page 0,2

was one thing I couldn’t stomach. The begging. It was too familiar, dredged up too many of the ghosts that lurked in the dark, forgotten parts of my mind.

I inhaled a sharp, scorching breath and turned away from his futile attempt at redemption, pulling at the clothes sticking to my skin. The card game with Cyril had kept me down there too long. It was time to get out and rid myself of this godforsaken body and feeling of being…alive. I didn’t want it.

I’d never understood the dead’s longing for what they once were. The flesh. The blood. The feeling of life rushing and burning through their veins. The numbness was something I was thankful for. But then again, other reapers had probably fought tooth and nail against the reaper that had come to claim them. I’d welcomed mine.

“You should probably save the begging for when you get inside,” I said. “They like it when you beg.”

The soul grappled with Cyril and the scythe at my hip burned through my duster, searing the flesh underneath, signaling another death, another soul waiting to be reaped. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, forcing myself to accept the pain. The screams of the damned wailed in my ears. I’d never admit it to the disgusting little rot, but I was grateful for his help. There was no telling how backed up I’d be if he didn’t help with a transfer from time to time. The winding corridors and sprawling cities of Hell were never-ending. Nearly five hundred years, and it still held horrors I’d yet to see—horrors I’d do anything not to see, including sending an unreliable imp like Cyril in my place.

“You come back, right? Play more gamesss?” Cyril hobbled from foot to foot, casting a nervous glance at the smoke fingers reaching through the gates, clawing at his shoulder. He was one of them, but in this place, loyalty didn’t exist. Demon or soul, torture was torture, and they’d unleash it on anyone they could get their claws in. In Hell there was no protection, no structure. Only chaos.

“You can count on it.” I tilted my head back and watched the oily, swirling canopy take shape above me, dripping like sludge until I was almost completely enclosed in darkness. Screams rushed around me like a cyclone of terror, and the pull of the dead became too much.

“See you later, Cyril.” I glanced back to the sniveling soul the imp had by the collar. “I’d say good luck, but it won’t do you any good.”

And in the space of one of my renewed, searing heartbeats, I let go. Finally, blessedly, I was numb again.

Chapter 2

Gwen

“Where is she?” I whispered as I dipped my fingers into the glistening waters of the reflective pool, stirring up image after image. It was my window to the earth plane, usually reserved for scouting out new souls to help. But I wasn’t searching for a new soul. I was searching for one I knew all too well.

“Come on, April…”

After a moment of searching and coming up empty, I swiped my fingers through the water and settled on the image of a boy tapping his knuckles on the table next to his untouched coffee. I pulled my hand from the pool and looked back over my shoulder to make sure the cloak of cloud and fireflies I’d erected still kept me concealed.

This kind of interest in a human after a job was done was forbidden. We weren’t meant to form a bond with them. As angels of joy, our sole purpose was to bless humans with happiness, to eliminate the dark and give birth to light. I’d done those things for Tyler for two years, and found it impossible to stop caring.

The first time I’d visited Tyler had been in the hospital. The clean, deliberate cuts on his wrist had bled through their bandages. He’d slept a lot then, but without rest or relief. For three days, I curled against his body, all hollow valleys and sharp bones, absorbing his pain and giving him peace in return. Sky had said he was a lost cause, that all of my efforts were being wasted on a boy whose only wish was to die. But she hadn’t seen inside him the way I did. He was a boy full of broken, bloody pieces that desperately wanted to be mended and made new.

After two years of healing, there was just one piece missing. One tiny but vital piece that