Hell to Pay

Chapter One

One

Today, the entrance to the Afterlife is a subway station.

That’s not a metaphor. I’m literally standing in a communal psychic re-creation of a Boston T stop.

It’s musty and cool with a hint of burnt rubber and decay wafting down the tunnel.

Fluorescent lights flicker above me, strobing the ad posters on the other side of the tracks.

They’re vague and generic, placeholders rendered from collective subconscious memories of the station.

Coming soon!

Satisfy your craving with the Food Place?.

Is erectile dysfunction keeping you down?

The platform is covered in dried gum and discarded cigarettes. Green concrete pillars line the tracks, and the sign above says Boylston.

Ugh. Of course it would be.

I set up a cardboard box as a busker table and sit cross-legged behind it, just far enough into the shadows that I can’t be seen clearly.

I drape a black cloth across the box and then lay out three gold coins, all facing up.

Two skulls and an eight-pointed star. There’s a loud screech, and a whale floats past.

It’s fine, don’t worry about it. Whales happen here.

It makes that sad moan you hear on sleep apps, flicking its tail as it disappears down the tunnel. Across the tracks, the posters switch to ads for Star Trek IV and Alaskan cruises.

There’s another shriek, and this time, an actual train careens around the corner. It whistles to a stop, stray trash skittering across the platform. A disembodied voice mumbles something unintelligible as the doors slide open and people flood out of the cars.

If this were the real Green Line, the Beforedeath Green Line, people would be shoving past one another confidently, aggressively heading up the stairs to pour into Boston Common above. But just like me, this place is not what it seems.

All these people are Dead. Newly Dead. That can be pretty overwhelming, so the human consciousness tries to relate the transition to some familiar liminal space.

For most people in Boston, it’s the T. But it could be an airport or a bus station.

I’ve seen movie theater hallways and amusement park queues and, one time, a Glamour Shots in an abandoned mall.

Today, there’s only a small crowd on the platform, and while some people start to move toward the exit, most hover as though they’re waiting for the next train.

They don’t realize what’s happened to them.

Not yet. If they don’t figure it out soon, someone (or something) will be coming along to—well, not help, but at least get them out of the station.

And I need to be wrapping this up when that happens.

But these things can’t be rushed. I wait until I catch someone hovering.

“Wanna play?” I ask in my best Boston accent, making my voice a little rough. Not quite Kardashian vocal fry, more like Dunks-employee-at-the-end-of-their-eight-hour-drive-through-shift…fry. “First round’s free.”

It’s a middle-aged woman with an angled bob, and I see the disgust when she takes me in: a big girl in torn fishnets, black cutoffs, a worn leather jacket.

An absurd amount of eye makeup, long brown hair held down by a holey knit hat.

Street urchin chic. When the woman scoffs and scurries away, I’m not surprised.

It’s fine—she’s not my mark.

“I’ll play,” a reedy voice says. A guy in an ill-fitting plaid suit saunters up. Early twenties, dark hair with enough gel to put a 2000s boy band to shame, and a smirk that says he thinks he can win. These guys make the best marks.

“Know the rules?” I ask. A crowd starts to gather.

“I think I can figure it out.” His voice is thick with condescension.

Ugh. I can’t believe I have to let this guy win.

Because he’s not my mark either.

I’ve been tracking my actual mark since he got off the train. He’s leaning against a pillar, and even though he’s pretending like he isn’t, he’s watching my every move. Because one of these coins isn’t a coin at all, and it’s the thing he wants most in the Afterlife.

I made sure of it.

I smile at Suit Guy and hold up the coin with the star on it. “Know what this is?”

“It’s a coin.” Scoffing, he shakes his head and looks around, making sure the others on the platform are watching.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Do you know what it’s for?”

He shrugs. “Buying shit, I suppose.”

That is definitely wrong, but I nod anyway.

“You would suppose right, if this were any other coin. But this coin”—I flick the coin into the air and catch it—“doesn’t buy just anything.

This coin…” I show both sides to the crowd, because now I have a proper audience.

Most of the platform has moved at least within earshot. “This coin is your ticket to heaven.”

Now I have the entire platform’s attention. Especially my mark’s, who’s dying (ha ha) to get his hands on one of these. It won’t be long until he approaches, and by the time I run out of Miracle Max, I’ll have the information I’m looking for.

You see, you can’t just smash and grab information. You have to lure it out: Entice it, make it feel safe and welcome. You have to be given information.

This is the first difference between me and my brother.

He would call this a heist. While I, rightly, refer to it as a con.

Any genius with an acrobat friend can pull off a heist. Conning takes finesse.

Subtlety. A certain je ne sais quoi. With heists, you’re just a fancy burglar—you take things when people aren’t looking.

With cons, the mark willingly gives you what you want. In front of god and everybody.

So to speak.

“It’s called an obol,” I say, placing the coin back on the table. “It gets you into a specific…neighborhood, if you will. And if you can keep track of where it lands, it’s yours.”

Okay, so you’ve probably heard of this game before. It has lots of different names. The shell game. Three-card monte. Thimblerig. It’s the most basic of short cons. If there were a con artist university, this would be day-one shit. But today, this isn’t the entire con. It’s just the Rope.

No matter how simple or complex a con, it always follows the same general steps. First there’s:

The Groundwork

This is where you do your research, make your plans, move the pieces into place.

This is all before you even meet the mark.

For instance, I’ve never met Infamous Pete, but because I’ve done my research, I know that he’s the short balding man in the tan suit leaning against a pillar.

I know Pete has a gambling habit and, more importantly, a losing habit and, most importantly, an embezzling habit.

I know he works for the Ferrymen and that he stole a whole bunch of his boss’s money.

And I know his boss, Charon, found out and Infamous Pete is now Posthumous Pete.

Yes, Charon, Ferrymen, obols. There’s a theme here—we’ll get to that.

I learned a lot about Pete’s habits during the Groundwork phase of this con and watched him skim so much off the top of every job that there was no way he wasn’t getting caught. But he just kept…not getting caught. Until Charon received an anonymous email with proof of Pete’s embezzlement.

Look, I didn’t kill the guy. And I didn’t make him join a Titan syndicate and do morally questionable jobs for a boss with godlike powers and then steal from said boss. Point is, it was his choices that led him here.

It’s just, sometimes the research isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to give things a little nudge in the right direction.

Anyway.

After Groundwork comes:

The Encounter

which is where we are now. Worth pointing out—I haven’t approached Pete.

But he’s noticed me. You have to make the mark come to you or you’ve already lost. And the best way I can convince Posthumous Pete to come to me is to show him that the prize is worth the effort.

Hence flashing these coins that I made damn sure his pockets aren’t currently lined with.

This brings us to:

The Buildup

Giving the mark confidence. In themself. In you. Convincing them you’re trustworthy, or at least that interacting with you is their own idea.

I shuffle the coins—slow enough that Suit Guy can keep track but not so slow that it looks like I’m letting him win. When I come to a stop, I look up, expectant.

“Which obol has the star?” I ask.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Pete shift to the left, the direction of the correct coin.

Suit Guy points to the one on the right.

Son of a bitch. I could not have made it more obvious.

I flip the coin over, revealing a skull. “Sorry, man,” I say. “Better luck next time.”

Suit Guy shrugs and walks off, but before Pete can step forward, a line forms. They all know where the star was and want to prove it, and I have to play three more rounds before it’s Pete’s turn.

He saunters up, sweat dotting his brow—that is, the metaphysical representation of sweat, if you want to get technical.

“Do you know the game?” I ask.

Pete nods. “Got any coins with a bull on them?”

I choke back a smirk because he’s played right into my hands. This is:

The Rope

Pull the mark in but let them tie themself up.

My eyebrows raise, and I make sure my glance over to my bag is brief but noticeable.

“I don’t see any here.” I nod to the coins in front of me.

Pete grunts and hikes up his pants. “First round free?”

I smile and start shuffling the coins. Pete’s eyes are intent on my hands.

“Most people don’t ask about the bull,” I say.

Having a bull obol would get Pete into Ferrymen territory, which, frankly, would be a stupid move on his part, given that they just killed him and made sure he wasn’t buried with any on him. They can’t kill him twice, but there are things in the Afterlife that will make him wish they could.