“She’ll live.” Fischer walked into the room.
The air rushed out of my lungs, and I slumped down. Fischer dropped his hand on my shoulder. “You did the right thing, Bastian. Keeping the knife there was absolutely the right thing to do. It nicked an artery, and by leaving the blade against it, she didn’t bleed out. They are going to be in there for a few more hours. There’s some other repairs to be done—”
“The baby?” Wren bit the words out.
“Monitoring, but everything seems good right now.”
She burst into tears and I wrapped my arms around her. Fischer nodded at me. “You did good. Both of you did. Nice job on Alain’s face, too, Bas.”
“Sarcastic?”
He snorted. “Utterly sincere.”
“Good, because I’d do it again.”
Fischer nodded in approval. “Lincoln went off to take care of all this crap about us having to stay away?”
I simply nodded.
Paige
“Weren’t you just here?”
The voice sounded like Wren, but I was dead, so how was—
Oh. Right. The After.
I cracked an eye open, and wondered if I could talk her brother into redecorating a bit. Hell looked a lot like the inside of a hospital.
Kind of appropriate at that.
“I gotta talk to housekeeping about these chairs.” I’d know Fischer’s voice anywhere.
Cracking my other eye open, I slowly rolled my head. My shoulder pulled and I hissed.
“Told you she was awake,” Wren said.
“Dead?” I managed to croak the word.
Fischer laughed. “No. Don’t you think Hell would have better décor?”
“Yes,” I managed. “What…”
“Alain found you,” Wren said, walking up into my field of view. “Just as we were getting you all healed up, this asshole comes by and shanks you…”
“Explains the stitches in my side.”
“Forty-eight stitches,” Fischer said. “Inside and out.”
“The…” I choked
“Your baby is still hanging in there, Paige. Stubborn little thing.” Wren put her hand on my arm. “Like their mama.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s in lock up,” Fischer said. “Lincoln has his lawyer handling all of this for you. All you have to do is heal.”
“My husband stabbed me.” I couldn’t believe he was this cruel, but a second later, I gasped, “He had another wife…”
“He what?” Fischer asked, staring at me.
“He was married before me. I don’t know anything about it. Can you check? Can you see if she was also a victim of his?”
“Yes, of course.” Fischer nodded. “I’ll get that information to Lincoln right now and we’ll figure it out.” He glanced at Wren. “You’ll be okay here?”
“I will.” She grinned and pointed to her back. “Anjir. I’ll use it if I have to. Nothing is going to touch our Vanagloria again.”
“God, you’re hot when you get all fierce.” He wrapped a hand behind her neck and gave her a hard kiss. “I’ll be back later.”
“Go, go.” She laughed.
It was a moment before Wren turned back to me. “Paige…”
“I lived,” I mumbled. “I survived. We need to keep going. Did Bastian show you?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ve beat the first hurdle.”
Wren dropped the rail and sat down with me. “We don’t even know what course we’re running.”
“That’s not going to stop us from jumping the hurdles. I lived. I’ve still got my baby, and I’ve got friends who give a crap about me.” I turned my head again to stare at her. “And I won’t let Alain do this. I won’t.”
There was a sharp rap on the doorway, and a deputy sheriff was standing there. He coughed and walked in.
“Mrs. Domingues?”
“Technically,” I whispered.
“Deputy Sheriff Hansen.” He sighed and held out a blue sheaf of paper. “You have been served.”
Wren took the bundle of sheets and nodded. “I figured that was going to happen.”
“Doctor Temperance Warner?” The deputy sighed and held out another sheaf. “You have been served.”
Wren tried not to smirk. “I’m going to guess you have one of those for a Doctor Sebastian Mederos as well.”
“My colleague is serving those.”
“Figured.”
She unfolded the blue-backed bundle and opened it. “Mm. Assault, and several other wonderful things. Thank you, Deputy.”
He nodded, tipping his hat and heading out of the room.
“Assault?” I croaked.
“Yeah, I figured he’d lawyer up and be a dick about it.” Her eyes scanned the paper, and suddenly stopped with a gasp. “No.”
“What?” I asked, watching her go pale.
“He hired Alistair Hathorne.”
Lily
Vance and I watched as the souls walked by the throne Wren was sitting in. She had been so nervous, she puked before we even made it out the door this morning.
Now, though, she seemed to almost be in a trance, watching carefully as each soul passed her.
“She okay?” Vance asked.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “This is what to expect. The throne connects her to the information she needs, and she makes the call on each.”
“She hasn’t—”
I knew he was about to say that she hadn’t actually made a call, but her hand shot out to point at someone passing her at that moment. “This one. She belongs in the Pits.”
Stepping forward, I nodded. “What is her transgression?”
“Murder. Murder, murder, murder, murder…” Wren repeated it six more times.
Each time for each murder. Vance and I walked to the wane figure of the woman, and she started wailing. I touched her forehead with my index finger and the names and places of all the murders were there. I repeated them as they came to me, to be recorded for her punishment.
“They made me, they made me!” she screamed.
“Liar, liar,” Wren said.
Vance took the woman’s arm and pulled her out of the line, letting Wren visibly relax. The line began moving again as Vance took the corporeal soul to a door at the other end of the room. I had seen this so many times—when he opened the door, Raguel, Rachel or Aelion would be there to snatch them to the other side and take them to one of the others, who would decide where they really belonged in the Pit.
The day continued like that. Most did not deserve the Pits, a few were sent to the dark fields for a period of penance, and Wren even sent one to the River Leith. Even Luce hadn’t used the Leith in a long time, but it was exactly the right punishment for a malignant narcissist. He would never remember who he was, and that loss of self was the absolute worst punishment.
“She’s doing well,” Lucifer said, appearing next to me.
“Very well, Luce. I don’t remember her doing this well before.”