Chapter Twenty-Nine
Phin
Demons surrounded us, shadowy beings passing by within inches of where we stood. There was no sound except for my heart beating into overdrive.
“Feet hurt,” Hale whispered as he sank to the ground. Cameron and I joined him. We sat in a circle, holding hands as if we were playing a children’s game, though none of us made a sound. Then Hale’s stomach growled at him, demanding food. Except there was nothing to eat in the Between.
Two shadowy figures passed us. I could almost feel them touching me.
They were so close that their legs brushed my back.
I held my breath until they were far enough away.
Even after I started breathing again, it was uneven.
Fear still gripped me, but hope also settled into my bones. Maybe the demons wouldn’t find us.
Cameron leaned into me. “Do you think they’ve left?”
“I don’t know. But Ossy will come. He’ll find us. He’ll take us back to the farm.” He would. There was no way he’d leave me. Not for any reason.
“What if he doesn’t?” Cameron was a down-to-earth person. He wasn’t necessarily the glass-half-empty type. It was more about trust, as if someone had let him down in the past.
“He will.” Not that Ossy had a good track record. He’d come for me at the Soul Management Bureau. He’d saved me then and would save me again. I had to believe it, because anything less would make me doubt everything we had.
“Explain the Soul Management Bureau to me,” Cameron whispered.
“Donn’s former receptionist approached me.” Hale put a finger to his lips and looked up as if someone had written the answers on the ceiling. “I think it was about forty-three years ago. I accepted the job, which made me immortal. Everybody in the Soul Management Bureau is immortal, not just me.”
Cameron’s eyes widened. “Whoa.”
“I’m the reaper’s assistant. The Bureau operates like any other corporation. Donn’s like the CEO, but like if a CEO had crazy, magical powers. He’s responsible for the dead and has several realms. He can pretty much make up whatever he wants.
“One of his realms is the afterlife. Then there’s Tech Duinn, which is sort of a punishment realm.
Like any other corporation, everyone has a job to do.
My job is to assist Morgana, who runs the reaper division.
A reaper’s job, like that of a reaper such as Ossy, is to escort souls into the afterlife.
The HR department keeps all of us in line. ”
Hale shuddered. “Apparently, they’re also responsible for hunting down beloveds.”
“Right,” I whispered. “That, too, I guess.”
I put my finger to my lips when I caught sight of another demon shadow moving nearby. But they were far enough away that it wasn’t even close to finding us. When it was safe again, I whispered, “I think we need to move. If we keep moving, the demons can’t find us.”
The problem was that if we kept moving, Ossy couldn’t find us either.
When we all stood, we still huddled together, trying to stay perfectly still like statues as another demon approached. This time, the shadow came right up to us as if it knew we were there. Then another followed. And another. Before I knew it, demons surrounded us.