The Wrong Goodbye

12.

“Collector!” she said, her voice echoing off the dingy bathroom tiles. “You want to tell me what it is you think you’re doing?”

I shut off the tap and looked in vain for a paper towel, instead settling on shaking the rust-scented water from my hands. We were at a truck stop an hour west of Abilene, in a stretch of countryside so brown and dead that, but for the occasional patch of scrub brush, it might as well have been on Mars. It was pushing three in the morning, and though there were a couple guys in the parking lot catching some shut-eye in their big rigs, the inside of the truck stop was deserted. Gio was outside, gassing up the Fiesta, which meant that in here, it was just me —well, me and Lilith, now.

I watched her in the dingy mirror as she strolled barefoot from the bathroom stall, eyeing her new surroundings with distaste. She was clad in a sheer black evening gown rendered transparent by the fluorescent lights overhead. For a second there, as I stood looking at her, I forgot my own name.

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard, and in dribs and drabs, my composure trickled back. “What I’m doing, Lily, is my job.”

“Is it, now? Because I was under the impression you’ve not been so concerned with doing that of late.”

I sighed. “So I guess you know about Varela, then.”

“As a point of fact, Collector, I know almost nothing about Varela. I know that you have thus far failed to collect him. I know my superiors are less than pleased about that fact. I know that when it came time for me to find you, you were on some kind of fucking field trip when you should have been out handling your business. So tell me —what else is there I ought to know?”

“Nothing —I’m handling it.”

“That’s funny, because last I saw you, you told me it had already been handled.”

“Yeah, well, there were some extenuating circumstances. Nothing you need to worry about. I’ve got it under control.”

“You do.” Lily, incredulous.

“Yes, I do.”

“Tell me, does your definition of under control include the undead soul in the fat-suit waiting outside for your return?”

Shit. Gio. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I was hoping I could keep him off her radar. Oh, well —too late now to do anything but play it cool. “As a matter of fact, it does. And how the hell’d you even know? You can tell just by looking at him that the body he’s wearing isn’t his?”

“Of course I can,” she snapped. “That getup he’s parading around in may be enough to fool a monkey like yourself, but I assure you, any creature not once bound to your precious mortal coil will see him coming from a mile away. Now I think it’s time you stop playing around and tell me exactly what is going on.”

So I did —or sort of did, at least. I told her about tracking Varela through the jungle, and the fact that when I found him, he was dead. I told her that Varela’s soul’d been missing, which meant he’d died by a Collector’s hand. I told her that I’d tracked down that Collector, and taken back what I thought was Varela’s soul —only to find that it was not. And I told her that I aimed to hunt down that Collector once more, and take back what was rightfully mine.

What I didn’t tell her was that I knew the Collector in question, and that I’d landed in this mess because apparently he and I had a score to settle. I couldn’t see the upside in her knowing. As pissed as Lilith was at me right now, for the moment she and I were on the same side. But if she thought I’d brought this on myself, she wouldn’t hesitate to sell me out. So my choice was either keep her in the dark, or spend the next few decades on the shelf. Not much of a choice, if you ask me.

“So,” she asked when I was done, “you’ve no idea why this Collector targeted you?”

“Nothing concrete. But if I had to guess, I’d say a demon put him up to it —I haven’t been too popular among the Fallen since I killed Merihem and Beleth.”

She cocked her head a moment, trying the theory on for size, and then she nodded. “That does make a certain sort of sense —a great many in the Depths were incensed they didn’t get to see you burn for what you’d done.”

“Those two got what was coming to them,” I said, perhaps a bit too defensively.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. But the question as to whether your actions were justified has little bearing on the predicament in which you currently find yourself. I assume I needn’t remind you what your punishment will be if you fail to bring Varela home.”

“No,” I said. “You needn’t.”

“Good. What I will remind you of is the fact that your failure would also reflect poorly on me, as well as attract a great deal of attention to the both of us that I would just as soon avoid. And if that happens, you can be sure that I will take my time in turning you over to them so that I can dole out a little punishment of my own. Pleasure and pain are inextricably linked, Collector, and I assure you, though I prefer the former, I am every bit as proficient in the latter. By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll be begging to be shelved.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“I’d suggest you do a little more than hope.”

“I told you, I’m working on it. Don’t count me out just yet.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” she said. “So, the gentleman outside —his is the soul you stole back from this rogue Collector, thinking it to be Varela?”

“That’s right.”

“And now he’s to serve as your dowsing rod.”

“Something like that.”

Lilith smiled. “I confess, Collector, I’m impressed —that borders on clever.”

“I have my moments.”

“Yes,” she said, “you do. I only hope for your sake you have enough of them.” And then she said something that completely floored me, and put the lie to the cool confidence that oozed from her every pore. “Tell me, Collector, is there anything you need of me?”

That one question was enough to let me know that Lilith was afraid —that she was feeling the pressure as surely as was I. That one question scared the shit out of me. Because Lilith wasn’t exactly the helpingothers kind —not unless her ass was on the line.

“That depends —you got any idea how to locate a missing soul?”

“If he were a living human, perhaps, but unfortunately for the both of us, the only dead person I’ve the ability to locate is you.”

“And I’m guessing talking to the higher-ups isn’t going to help.”

“No, it most certainly would not. I’m afraid that my superiors are among those who would like to see you burn for what happened in New York. They’ve been ordered to stand down on that regard, but I’ve no doubt that they would leap at the chance to get at you another way. What I will do, though, is keep an ear to the ground; perhaps I can learn something of use about your little Collector friend —such as where he’s gone off to, or what he intends to do with the stolen Varela.”

My little Collector friend. Right. Of course, having Lilith dig into the whole Danny thing was less a help than it was something else for me to worry about, but I couldn’t tell her that. So instead, I just said thanks.

Lilith turned to go, and as she did, a fat, black bug crawled out of the sink-drain beside me. It was followed by some sort of improbable, spindly-legged thing the color of dry leaves, and then two iridescent blue-gray beetles, who wedged themselves in the drain trying to both claw out at once. As I watched in growing horror, a blood-red centipede slipped past them, its many legs scrabbling for purchase against the yellowed porcelain basin.

“Lily, wait,” I said, not taking my eyes from the swelling ranks of insects rising in the sink beside me. "There is one other thing.”

“Yes?”

“Any chance you could call off my Deliverants a while? Just until I sort this out.”

She smiled at me, then —a sad, wan smile, surprising from her in that it was more sympathy than pity. “Would that I could, Collector, but I’m afraid Deliverants fall outside of hell’s dominion.”

“Outside of hell’s dominion? What does that even mean? If hell isn’t in charge of them, who is?”

“Pray you never find out,” she said.

Pray. Right. ’Cause that’s been working well for me so far.

“Oh, and Collector?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatever it is you plan on doing —do it soon.”

And just like that, she was gone.