But he didn't. He wouldn't. And in punishment for his unwavering loyalty to those he loved, hell's response was merciless.
Once our demon masters tired of hearing him scream, Quinn was shelved – stuffed into a useless body decades from expiring. He was still fully aware, but trapped, unable to summon the strength to leap away. The only release for a Collector who's been shelved is the death of the vessel in which they're ensnared. By that time, though, it's usually too late – the shelving nearly always drives them mad. And of course, the vessel in question is mystically protected – no amount of violence, either physical or magical, will cause Ms Mariella Hamilton to expire before her time.
So how is it I know all this? Easy – Lilith told me. And from what I heard from Ana and Danny, they got the same spiel from their handlers. What I
don't
know is whether we were told because they suspected we were involved, or whether Quinn was simply made example of to every Collector in existence. Not that it really matters. Quinn's shelving broke something inside me. I withdrew into myself, hitting the bottle pretty hard and focusing on whatever collection was at hand, but I couldn't keep the guilt at bay. Ana didn't understand that what I was doing was trying my best to cope – she saw it as callous and uncaring. And that's when Danny made his move. Somehow, he convinced Ana that it was me who had hung Quinn out to dry. I hadn't the faintest idea what he told her, or whether he himself believed it. I guess it doesn't really matter what he believed, because either way, it spelled curtains for our little club. Ana and Danny rode off into the sunset, leaving me and Quinn behind. I guess sometimes friendship is a bitch.
"I admit," I said, "it wasn't
only
Quinn that brought me here. I wanted to see you, too – make sure you were OK."
Ana eyed me with suspicion. "Why wouldn't I be OK?"
"Ana, I talked to Danny."
"Ah," she said. "So
that's
why you've come – Danny told you he and I were over."
"That's right."
"And you came running all the way to Nowhere, Alabama just to see if I needed a shoulder to cry on? Why Samuel, I'm touched."
"It's not like that. I'm not here to get you back."
"Get me
back
? I wasn't aware you ever
had
me."
"You know what I mean."
"I assure you, I do not. You and I, we had our fun, Sam, but I know full well your heart belongs to someone else."
Elizabeth. She was talking about my wife, Elizabeth. "She was a long time ago," I said. "Lifetimes now, it seems. And you know as well as I do I'm never going to see Elizabeth again."
"True," she said, "but that doesn't make you love her any less. I mean, you damned yourself to an eternity in
hell
to save her, Sam – how could I possibly compete with that? How could anybody? Besides, with you and Danny, it was never about loving me – it was about fixing me,
possessing
me. I swear, I wish the two of you would get it through your heads that I'm not some delicate little flower to be sheltered and protected. It would have saved us all a world of hurt."
"I told you, Ana – none of that is why I'm here."
"Then why, exactly, are you here?"
"I'm here because Danny's in some kind of trouble."
"And you think that you can help him."
"Something like that."
"You do so like to play the savior, don't you, Sam?" Her eyes drifted over to the woman lying still beside us, to the Collector trapped within. "It's a shame you're so goddamn lousy at it."
"I don't have time for this verbal sparring bullshit," I said. "Danny's missing, and I aim to find him. Now are you going to help me or not?"
She stared at me for a long moment, eyes narrowing in thought. "Why, Sam, I misread you! You're not
helping
Danny – you're
hunting
him. What, pray tell, did he do to piss you off so much?"
I considered lying to her, but at that moment, there was a rasping in the corner. A massive, bulbous wasp – too large by half for Alabama, but dead-on for the jungles of the Amazon – was skittering along the joint between ceiling and wall. The dry rat-a-tat of its wings against the plaster was like a death rattle. I wondered how long I had before its friends arrived.
"He stole something from me," I said. "A soul that I was sent to collect. And now I want it back."
"He stole a soul."
"That's right."
Ana shook her head in weary resignation. "Daniel, you idiot," she muttered, more to herself than to me.
"You don't sound too surprised."
"I wish I was. Truth is, I've seen something like this coming for a while, now. It's why he and I are no longer together. Although even I'm surprised he would have brought you into all of this…"
"All of
what
? Ana, what the hell is Danny up to?"
"Sam, Danny's a junkie."
I don't know what I'd been expecting her to say, but that sure as hell wasn't it. "Come again?"
"You heard me fine the first time. He's been skimming for a couple years now."
Jesus – skimming? This shit with Danny was even worse than I thought.
The skim-trade is big business in the demon world. It's sort of a black market for happy memories. Demons like to play all big and scary and superior, but the truth is, when it comes to humankind, the Fallen are jealous as all get-out. See, when they fell, they were removed from the light of God's grace, and doomed to an eternity of darkness and despair. Skimming's their way of reversing that – for a time, anyway. If a demon with the proper set of skills can get his hands on a human soul before it's interred, he can shave off tiny fragments of life experience. This process is, of course, forbidden in the underworld, and it's dangerous as hell – word is, one slip of the hand and the soul could crack, releasing enough raw energy to level a city block. But done properly, those skimmed fragments provide a high no demon could attain on their own: the high of love, of
life;
the warm embrace of a moment in God's grace.
"But I thought skim was just for demons," I said. "I didn't think they'd deign to deal to humans – alive or otherwise."
"That's mostly true, I guess – but they've got to get their product somewhere, right?"
I frowned. "You're saying Danny was funneling them souls? But why? How'd he get involved?"
"About three years back, he was approached by a demon who runs a skim-joint outside of Las Cruces. Somehow – I don't know how – he'd found out about Danny's relationship with me, and he exploited it for all it was worth. He said it would be a shame if our handlers found out about us – especially when such a discovery could be so easily avoided. He offered us protection – that, and access to all the creature comforts we could ever want. In return, all he asked for was a day or so to tinker with whatever soul Danny had collected. Once he extracted what he needed from the soul, he returned it to Danny for interment, and no one was ever the wiser. The system worked well enough for a while – and I confess, distasteful as the demon's protection racket was, the nights Danny and I spent dining and drinking in the finest hotels without fear of discovery were among the happiest I've ever known. But then somewhere along the way, Danny's method of payment changed."
My face twisted in disgust. "Do you have any idea how fucking stupid you two were not to simply break it off with one another? What if you'd been caught? Or what if Danny's demon-friend fucked up and cracked the soul Danny was assigned to inter? What do you suppose his handler would do then, huh? You want him to end up like Quinn? 'Cause make no mistake – if he were caught failing to perform his duties as a Collector, that's
exactly
what'd happen."
"Of
course
it was stupid, Sam. I knew it; Danny knew it. But can you even remember what it's like being happy – even if for just a moment? Danny knew the risks, and as he told me a thousand times, even if he was caught, he wasn't hurting anybody but himself. Of course, when he started using, everything changed. He retreated into himself, and shut me out entirely."
"So when your gravy train runs out, you up and bail, huh?"
Her eyes flashed with sudden anger. "You're a bastard, you know that? You have no
idea
what it was like. You have no idea what that shit
did
to him. When he was skimming, it's like he wasn't even there – and when he came down, it was even worse. He was hollowed out. A ghost. After a year of trying to reason with him, of begging him to give it up, I couldn't take it anymore. So finally, I left. You know a thing or two about leaving, don't you, Sam?"
I let that comment pass. "Still, Danny's actions don't track. I mean, the bigwigs only tolerate the skim-joints because they stay below the radar – they don't disturb the status quo. You said yourself, they
borrowed
Danny's souls, they didn't
steal
them. So where's the upside in having Danny snatching Varela?"
"How the hell should
I
know? Maybe demand is on the rise, and the usual methods for obtaining skim can't keep up. Maybe the recent unrest between heaven and hell has disrupted the skim-joint's regular supply, forcing them to look elsewhere. Or maybe Danny's just desperate. Maybe he needed a fix, and figured you for the sucker he could take it from."
I shook my head. "You know full well only a demon's got the reflexes to pull a successful skim. Danny wouldn't stand a chance – he'd crack the soul, and blow his meat-suit all to shit."
"That's assuming he's still in his right mind."
"Come on, Ana, this is
Danny
we're talking about. Junkie or not, you know he's working some kind of angle."
"Maybe. But I certainly couldn't tell you what it is."
I thought a moment, played the angles in my head. "This demon who's been pulling Danny's strings," I said, "he got a name?"
Ana's gaze, which until now had met my own, dropped. She stared at the floor a moment, and when she spoke, her tone was scarcely more than a whisper.
"Dumas," she said, her voice tinged with shame and regret. "The demon's name is Dumas."
11.
"So," Gio said, "you gonna tell me what the hell happened back there?"
He twisted in the Fiesta's passenger seat to look at me, his worried frown rendered sickly green by the pale dashboard light. Our tires clattered against the blacktop as we barreled west on 20, the speedometer pushing eighty as I chased the sunset that had long since dipped beneath the horizon before us. The lights of Shreveport were fast receding in the rearview, which meant that there were damn near two states between me and my meeting with Ana. In my opinion, that was still a couple states too few. I pressed the pedal to the floor mat and felt the whole car shudder as the needle climbed to ninety.
I guess I couldn't fault Gio for his concern – I looked a wreck after my tussle with Ana. My suit was a rumpled mess. My hair was mussed from when she'd yanked back my head. Dried blood crusted around the pinprick in my neck. Besides, I'd barely said five words since we'd left the rest home – I'd been so rattled by what Ana had told me, I didn't trust myself to speak. And even if I did, I sure as shit wasn't going to spill my guts to Gio. Not when it was that touchy-feely sharing bullshit that left me feeling like this in the first place.
I guess Ana's betrayal shouldn't have taken me by surprise; after all, as far as she was concerned, I'd betrayed her long ago. And God knows Danny's screwed me over more times than I can count. But I'd always thought of Ana as being better than that.
Turns out, I thought wrong.
See, most demons have themselves a nasty sense of humor, which means when you cut yourself a deal with one, you'd best be careful what you wish for. Ana knows that better than anyone. She thought when she cut her deal to avenge her family that she was exacting justice. But there's no justice in the slaughter of innocents – there's only pain and remorse. Ana didn't realize that until it was too late, but you can be damn sure her
demon
knew. Now, that bastard already had her soul by way of payment regardless of what she wished for, but still he couldn't help but twist the knife by turning her into the very thing she most despised – by convincing her to kill. And since twisting the knife is what hell is all about, the powers that be used the same sadistic logic in determining her punishment. Having been unable to live with the fact that her revenge had driven her to become a vicious killer, Ana was condemned to kill for all eternity as a Collector.
My story isn't so far off from her own. In life, I was a decent man – or so I thought. But then my wife fell ill, and I was offered a deal: essentially, my wife's life for my own. What I didn't know was that, before the demon took my life as payment, he would strip me of everything I held dear: my decency, my compassion, my respect for human life. Much like Ana's did to her, my demon turned me into a killer – a heartless bastard – and the kicker is, he did it with such ease that for years after my death, I wondered if maybe that was who I'd always been. It took a long time for me to realize it wasn't – that I'd simply been so desperate, so focused on saving Elizabeth, that I hadn't spared a thought about what that goal might cost me. In the end, her health returned, but she couldn't live with the person I'd become. She left, and took our unborn child with her. Looking back, I couldn't even blame her. By the time that evil son of a bitch was done with me, I was but an echo of the man Elizabeth had married – hollow, empty, cold. And when finally, I lay broken and alone, that fucker delighted in my misery, laughing at the ruined man that I'd become.
That demon – that fucking
monster
– was named Dumas.
Ana knew my story, of course, as I'd known hers. Which means she knew how much she and Danny getting into bed with Dumas would hurt me. Maybe in her mind, I deserved it. Hell, maybe I even did. Either way, it didn't make it hurt any less.