She blinked up at me. “Boss, maybe you’ve been too busy enjoying your honeymoon, but the world is ending. Do you have any idea how many souls Charon is bringing over per day? Hell is full. At capacity. Bursting at the seams. I was talking to myselfduring my off time, ‘Welcome to the underworld, name, death date, and papers’ over and over. It’s just too much for a single gal to manage on her own. I had to call in reinforcements.”
“She makes a good point,” Asshole said.
I nodded. She really did.
“Yeah, fair enough.”
Janine squinted at me. “Pretty sure you aren’t making a house call for funsies, so what is it this time?”
“First, I need you to elaborate on all this,” I said, looking toward the kiosks. “Who are they, and why do they look like they’re being tortured?”
“Like I said, hell is full. These guys are all destined for eternal damnation with nowhere to go. What better way to serve their sentences than to have to see all the good and kind people passing on to the Elysian Fields?”
Janine was, dare I say it, diabolical.
“Miss Argentina would never. She was an angel,” Asshole muttered.
Janine rolled her eyes. “Feel free to leave a suggestion in the box. Oh, wait, there isn’t one.”
“Do you see how she treats me? She’s on a power trip, boss man. You gotta do something.”
“Well, someone has to be in charge. You’re off frolicking with Kiki, and the boss is on vacation.”
“I wouldn’t call it vacation.”
Janine talked straight over me. “I’m trying to keep our realm running smoothly. I still see souls to their final destinations on a case-by-case basis. For instance, I just helped an adorably confused Frenchman find his way to his heaven not long ago. He was so lost. But Famine sucking your soul from your body will do that to ya.”
I blinked and held up a hand. “Famine? Which one?”
“How am I supposed to know? It wasn’t exactly part of his paperwork. Does it matter?”
“It might.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to go and ask him, won’t you?”
I sighed, feeling like I was being pulled in a dozen different directions. I’d come here to collect an article of Death’s, but I couldn’t leave without finding out about this soul’s run-in with a horseperson. No matter which one it might be, the information was pertinent to the resistance’s mission.
“Where is he?”
“Right this way.” Janine took off her glasses and let them hang like a necklace as she strode down the endless hallway lined with doors to various celestial realms.
Asshole made to follow, but I turned and squatted down so I was at his level. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Name it, boss. You want I should bite her ankles for getting sassy?” He wagged his little tail so hard he couldn’t sit still.
I chuckled and couldn’t help but give him a few scritches under his fuzzy chin. “No. She’d probably poke one of your eyes out with her pointy shoe. I need you to go to my office. There’s a bundle wrapped in leather tucked in the false floor under my desk.”
“Oh, the one where you try to hide things from me?”
I should’ve known my dog would be able to sniff out any and everything. He did have three noses in his normal form, after all.
“That’s the one.”
He lifted a paw in what I thought was supposed to be a salute but just looked like a sweet as hell wave. Then he trotted off the other way.
“He’s in here. Just be gentle with this one. He’s new, and death really did a number on him. Unexpected doesn’t even begin to describe it.” Janine pointed to a door, her demeanor more tender than was typical.
“Thanks, Janine.”
