Page 1 of In Between Death and the Devil

PROLOGUE

Voices and sobs surrounded me, amplified by the high ceiling and shiny wooden furniture of the court room. An onslaught of misery that matched my own. I drew a thin breath trying to steady myself, but it did little to quell the churning of my stomach or the tightness in my chest. The voice of the judge, sonorous and deep, droned on and on, punctuated by the bang of his hammer with every sentence he passed. How much longer until it fell on mine?

Three groups of prisoners were ahead of me. I swallowed, fisting my hands to keep from fidgeting at the wait. It’s what I deserved, but I wasn’t sure I could hold it together without killing someone.

My gaze skittered over the people in the room—the prisoners at the front, and the audience at the back, crying for their loved ones. I skipped over faces, avoiding landing on any one for long, wondering if the way my heart thundered in my chest was my own panic or one of them suffering an impending heart attack.

A mop of copper curls made my breath catch in my throat. Colt. Despite the fact that he was a few years older than me, his face was still boyish. Our eyes met, and I made myself hold his gaze despite the coldness there. Angry pressure formed behind my eyes, but I had no tears left. I thought he loved me. Maybe it was for the best that he didn’t. I brought nothing but death to those that did.

The bang of the gavel sounded and the people ahead of me shuffled forward. Two groups ahead now.

I fidgeted with the manacle on my wrist, jangling the chain that connected me to the woman on my left, her shoulders hunched in her thin yellow dress. There was an air of resentment and defeat about her, but she appeared calm. Resigned. I almost envied her.

“Relax, love,” she said. “We’ll find out if we’re to die soon enough.”

I pressed my lips together to keep from telling her that her life wouldn’t end with the hangman’s noose.

“We all end up in the same place, regardless of how we get there,” she said.

“But not with the same debt.” My voice was low, but her head whipped towards me.

“What did you do?” she asked.

How could I explain that I didn’t know how it happened? I just knew it was my fault. I decided to keep it simple. “I killed my family.” The words scraped past my lips and a sharp wave of grief hit me in the chest. My family. Mother. Father. Brother. Gone.

Gone because of me.

A loud bang punctuated by a wail made us jump. In front of the judge, a young man collapsed. He sobbed as two bailiffs hauled him up and away, saying he didn’t want to die. Even from the back of him, I could see he wasn’t more than fourteen.

“Bastards,” Yellow Dress said. “That poor boy stole a loaf of bread to feed his siblings. The baker fell chasing him and died. So they called it murder.”

The injustice threatened to choke me. He didn’t deserve to hang for what he’d done. Certainly not without a real trial. But there was no such thing anymore, not for those without money or influence. Just a sentencing.

“May Death grant him an easier next life,” Yellow Dress murmured, like a prayer.

My eyes flew to the trio of statues set into alcoves in the wall above the judge’s seat—Death on the left with a scale in one hand and her pomegranate-like orb in the other, the Devil on the right with his rod and a whip made of shadows, and the Guardian of Fate, blindfolded with outstretched arms, above the other two. A reminder that this life was not the end. There was always another.

When we died, our souls went to the realm of the dead, the In Between, to be weighed by Death and her Judges before they sentenced us to our next life and sent us back to this realm. Death was the ultimate judge. If we were truly guilty, she’d punish us by sending us to the Devil, a path I would no doubt take when my life ended. That’s the excuse that was given when things were streamlined to deal with a sharp rise in crime five years ago. The number of hangings increased tenfold, and the prisons filled to bursting.

The Guardian of Fate determined the ultimate plan for our souls, how all our lives fit together, but that offered little comfort if this was the world we returned to. One without real justice. Only cruelty and pain.

The gavel fell.

“Next group, step forward.” A bailiff prodded us, and my heartbeat broke into a gallop as we shuffled forward to stand in front of the judge.

Hook-nosed, with cold-lidded eyes, he shuffled a stack of papers with a scowl, like they’d personally offended him.

I couldn’t help but look at him, the man who held my fate in his hands, even though I knew what would happen. Cold tingles rushed up my arms, and a vision covered my sight. I saw him choking on something, his face red and then purple as he struggled to breathe, before collapsing on a beautiful carpet, his eyes vacant and dead. It was gone within a heartbeat and the courtroom blinked back into view. I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth.

My mother had called it a gift. It wasn’t. It was a curse. The first time I looked at someone, I saw how they would die. It’s how I knew Yellow Dress wouldn’t hang. Colt was the only person I’d ever met whose death I couldn’t see. I thought it was love, that we were meant to be.

Turns out I was a fool.

I straightened as the judge addressed me.

“In the case of Maeve Merwood—” He stopped as a younger man whispered in his ear.

My heart beat in my throat and I clutched at the laces at the front of my bodice to keep them from coming undone as the men argued in hushed tones for what seemed like an eternity. I still wore the dress I had been arrested in, the boning in the bodice squeezing my generous curves. The laces had stretched, threatening to expose me, and the material was tattered and ripped, revealing my leg and shoulder.