Chapter Twenty-Seven
Phin
Ihad no idea where I was.
At first, I thought Donn had sent us to Tech Duinn.
It was dark, and I couldn’t hear anything but my own breathing.
As we stood, clutching each other and shaking, I slowly let go of enough fear to process what my senses were telling me.
The darkness wasn’t complete, not like it had been in Tech Duinn.
I could still see the bakery beloved and Hale, though everything seemed washed in gray shadows.
I couldn’t hear anything except the sounds we made together.
Someone’s stomach growled, and Hale shifted from one foot to the other.
What I couldn’t hear were the sounds of the forest. No wind rustled the leaves—no pebbles under our feet.
In fact, we stood on a hard, flat surface, though a thick fog obscured everything from our shins down.
It didn’t smell like anything, not even dampness.
“Where are we?” the bakery guy whispered.
“I think this is the Between, but I’ve never been here before, so I can’t be sure. This is where they take souls so they can enter the afterlife.”
“So this is like purgatory?” the man asked.
“Not like purgatory. Not like limbo. Or maybe a little like limbo? But nobody stays here. We’re only here temporarily. It’s like a way station. Think of it as a bus terminal.”
“So we’re safe?”
I shrugged. I had no idea. Probably not. Donn was the god of death, so he would definitely know where we were, which meant we were as safe as Donn would allow.
“I’m Phineas, by the way. Everyone calls me Phin. This is Hale.”
“Cameron. You’re an angel of death?” Cameron asked, though it sounded more like a statement than a question.
“Not exactly. I’m their assistant, and a beloved to the reaper.”
Hale smiled. “I’m the receptionist at the Soul Management Bureau. Former receptionist, I think. I probably lost my job. Also, a beloved.”
“What’s a beloved?” Cameron asked.
“Like life partners to a reaper. My reaper is Ossy.”
“I’m pretty sure my reaper is Tan. He’s being prickly about it.” Hale shrugged as if brushing off Tan’s attitude, but I could tell it hurt.
Cameron touched his chest. “Who is my reaper?”
“We don’t know. When we get back to the farm, you’ll find out.”
“You guys live on a farm?”
“We sort of took it over. It’s just outside Hollowbrook, and Elliott Coyne owns it.”
“The guy who gets high behind the pizza place?” Of course, Cameron knew him. Hollowbrook was a small town.
“Probably.” Given Joel and Elliot’s propensity for getting high in the backyard, it wasn’t much of a stretch to think they got high elsewhere, too.
Hale chuckled. The sound was melodious and echoed throughout the Between.
“Elliott was a grade ahead of me in high school. I didn’t know him well. His mom sometimes came into the bakery. She was a sweet lady. It was sad when she died.”
I’d never lived in a small town. The Soul Management Bureau was in the middle of the city.
Although it was a small city, you could be among thousands of people and still feel lonely.
At the very least, you could keep your anonymity.
But in a small town, everyone knew everyone else, and information spread like wildfire.
Something moved a few feet away from us.
I stiffened, tightening my arms around Hale and Cameron, keeping them close. “Demons.”
In the Between, there was nowhere to hide. All we could do was move away from them. So I started walking, pulling the other two as far as possible from the demon shadows.
“Demons?” Cameron whispered in horror.
Hale shrugged. “They’re from HR.”
“HR?” Cameron asked.
“Human Resources,” Hale explained. It didn’t sound so problematic when he said it that way.
“I can’t get us out without Ossy, so we need to hide.” I didn’t even know how I’d gotten us to the Between, and I was only guessing that was where we were.
Cameron stopped walking. He chanted something under his breath. “They can’t see us anymore. I used an invisibility spell. They can hear us, though. So we’ve got to talk softly.”
It really paid to have a witch around.
“Can you show me how to do that?” Hale whispered.
“I’d love to teach you. My grandmas will help, too.” His grandmas must be the bakery ladies.
“So tell me about the beloved thing. Besides the fact that we all apparently have a hot reaper, they are hot, right?”
“Every single one of them,” Hale chimed in.
Cameron’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “So far, I don’t see a downside.”
“There is one. Beloveds can walk between realms, which means they may collapse the veil between the living and the dead. That’s why the god of death, the guy you sold a coffee to, wants us gone.”
“He was trying to hurt me? He seemed so nice.” Cameron scowled.
I stiffened at the sight of a nearby shadow and put a finger to my lips. We stood in silence, holding our breath.
I needed Ossy in a big way. This was even bigger than when I was stuck at the office.