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“Okay, so I want to talk about last night,” I said as soon as he backed out of the drive.
I caught the sudden clenching of his hands on the steering wheel and wondered once more why he’d kissed me last night and had gone all cold with me this morning. Was he just trying to teach me a lesson and put me in my place in a macho sort of way? Or did he truly desire me?
He didn’t say a word as he headed into traffic, shoulders stiff. I waited a minute, letting him stew before I continued.
“That demon, Garzel, why did he tell you his name but not his master’s?”
Jude visibly relaxed, apparently relieved my questioning was about demons and not the super-hot make-out session on my bed. I might let that slide for now, but not forever.
“One of two reasons. Either his devotion to his master was such that he didn’t care about his own well-being, or his master had put him under a spell, a compulsion, where he couldn’t reveal the name. It was most probably the latter.”
“But if it were the latter, he had no choice but to refuse your demand.”
“True.” A glance from simmering, dark eyes.
“But then, you gave him to that Collector thing when he couldn’t help from refusing you?”
“True. Is this line of questioning going somewhere?”
“Well, I’m trying to figure out how you could hand over a helpless creature to that, that thing, when it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t give you what you demanded.”
“Helpless creature? You do realize he nearly killed you.”
“Yes. Of course.” Okay, not helpless; that sounded stupid.
“You do realize he has killed many, many others.” Jude’s icy words made me feel small. If he was trying to push me away, he was doing a damn fine job. “Garzel is a demon. He deserved no mercy.”
Yes. He was right, but there was something unjust about condemning a creature, even an evil demon, to an eternity of some terrible fate when the creature had no choice but to obey his master.
This ruthless side of Jude put me on my guard a little more. Perhaps last night was a mistake, no matter that the electric heat between us still filled up the small confines of Kat’s car.
“So what is the Collector? That angel-of-death-looking thing.”
“Acheron is a soul collector. What we callendless death.”
I remembered that he’d given Garzel an option—truth or endless death. So he had summoned that thing last night to be his underworld assassin.
“When he takes you,” Jude continued, “there’s nothing but an eternity of sorrow and emptiness, a lifeless agony where the soul has no respite.”
“Acheron? As in the river in the underworld from Greek mythology? That’s quite a coincidence.”
Jude drove down Decatur; the streets were rather empty this time of day.
“Not a coincidence. Mythology always has a grain of truth, does it not? Acheron is a river of souls, of sorrow and lament, feeding on unending woe. Some call them soul eaters, not Collectors.”
“Nice.”
Jude ignored my sarcasm and went on. “I imagine the Greek philosopher who first put the rivers into writing was a Flamma of some kind, knowing the truth of our world and wanting to put fear into the living.”
“Wait, there are five rivers in the Greek underworld. There are five of those Collector things out there!”
Jude nodded. “Though they don’t all look like Acheron.”
“Thank God,” I sighed, remembering the sight of the ghastly wraith and the touch of hollow, eternal sadness when it opened its mouth.
“Some of them are far worse. Acheron is rather…docile, compared to his brothers and sisters.”
“Docile! Are you fucking kidding me?”
