Blue lights flashed off wet tarmac as I stood in the centre of the road, a short distance from the stolen car I'd wrapped around a lamppost and contemplated the dead body lying at my feet.
My dead body.
Bugger.
Someone was screaming, traumatised at seeing me catapulted through the windscreen. Paramedics worked to shock some life into my body, while looky-loos came out of the houses to gawp.
I shouted at them. Waved my arms. Nothing.
The rain passed through me, cold but unfelt.
No light. No tunnel. No scythe-wielding skeleton.
Just me. Standing there like a twat.
I rubbed at my arms, a sudden chill unrelated to the weather touching my skin.
A shadow moved in the corner of my vision, and I spun, expecting something ready to take me on the next step of whatever afterlife was awaiting me.
Nothing.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled as though I were being watched and I twisted my head this way and that, looking for the source of that scrutiny but came up short.
"Show Yourself!" I called out, not expecting an answer, yet still surprised when none came.
Shaking my head, I turned back in time to see my body being loaded into the back of the ambulance. The woman was still screaming, though some of the onlookers were trying to get her to calm down.
I just scowled.
Not sure what she had to cry about. I was the one that was dead.
The reality of that hit me hard and I rocked back on my heels.
I was dead.
Shit.
I looked around. Now what?
The ambulance sped away as I was trying to decide what to do and I was left watching the police trying to clear away the onlookers. An officer crouched beside the woman who had finally stopped screaming, a steaming mug of tea held in her hands, provided by one of the residents of the quiet suburban street I'd disturbed with my death.
Many of those people were heading back inside to the warmth since the show seemed to be over with nothing else to do but wait for the truck to come for the wrecked car.
Another flash of movement had me twisting around, cursing.
"Who are you?" I snapped, but had no response, though the feeling of being watched grew stronger.
I rubbed at my arms and took a pace away from the crowd, casting about for signs of someone – or something – that could see me. With little real luck.
"This is it, huh?" I said to the night air. "Doomed to wander the bloody world unseen and unheard. Great. Sounds bloody wonderful."
No one responded.
I shook my head. Something had to happen. There was no way that when you died you just… hung around. If that was the case the street would have been full of ghosts but for all my looking, I was the only one there.
With a shrug of my shoulders, I set off walking. No point standing around in the street waiting. No. I had people I needed to check on. People who cared about me. People who relied on me.
People, I'd let down by dying like a dickhead doing something stupid.
In the distance a dog barked, then howled, and my blood ran cold, every part of my being screaming in primal terror at the sound.
I'd never heard anything like it.
Which wasn't a good sign.
I started to run. Away from that howl. As fast I could. Which, as it turned out, wasn't nearly fast enough.
It was the size of a damned pony, fur black enough to swallow light, eyes burning like coals. Its teeth were as long as my fingers, its breath hot with sulphur. And it wanted me.
I gave a less than manly scream and picked up the pace, running like my life – or after-life – depended on it.
Which it probably did.
Speeding round the corner into a narrow side street, I leapt a fence and trampled someone's flowers as I ran through to the back garden.
The beast chasing me crashed through the gate as though it were made of tissue paper, long claws digging up grass and flowers alike, while leaving deep gouges in the paving, splintered chips of stone flying free with every bound.
It caught me as I tried to leap the fence.
Claws sinking deep into my back. Dragging me down to land in the dirt. Jaw clamping tight on my shoulder, fangs sinking deep, before it shook me like a rag doll as I screamed and screamed, the pain as real as if I'd still been alive.
I landed in the centre of the well-cut lawn, shaking with pain and fear, as the great beast took a step towards me, lowering its head and growling deep in its throat. A sound so fearsome that if I'd been in my body I would have likely pissed myself.
The creature's breath was hot on my face, hair singeing and shrivelling as my skin blistered. Flames roared in its eye sockets, and a sulphurous stink filled the air with every foul breath it expelled.
Hellfire was licking at my heels, and I didn't like it.
I'd done nothing to deserve that fate.
"Oh, God!" I whimpered. "Please, no!"
The beast's jaws opened wide, and I cringed back.
And then… silence. Sudden and still.
A slow clap echoed out of the dark.
"Well," a voice drawled, smooth as smoke. "That was entertaining."
I looked up.
A man, or at least someone wearing the shape of one, lounged in a garden chair on the patio. Sharp suit, white as bone, eyes like burning coals. Wings of shadow curled behind him, half-seen, like smoke trying to hold a forgotten form.
"W-who the hell are you?" I rasped.
He smiled, revealing pointed teeth in a mouth that stretched too wide. "A more appropriate question, Danny-boy, might be, what are you." His chuckle was low and filled with malice. "Or better yet, what can I do for you?"
"Huh?"
His smile turned pitying and the slightest of lines marred that smooth white forehead as the beginnings of a frown began to form.
"I am a… collector," he said, ignoring my slack-jawed look of incomprehension.
In my defence, I wasn't having the best night. "Of what?"
"Many things." He gestured lazily and I eyed him sceptically. "For the moment, I collect favours, and I am willing to collect one from you."
"What kind of favour?" I licked my lips nervously.
"Oh, there are all manner of things I can do, though you seem a little distraught." He patted the chair next to his. "Come, sit with me. Let us talk."
I didn't have a choice, that was clear. He'd made the big bloody dog disappear and I was pretty sure he could bring it back just as quickly.
The teeth and claw marks it had made on my body had already begun to fade, though the memory of them lingered. The gate and paving stones too, had returned to how they had been, all signs of our passing erased.
His eyes followed me as I pulled the chair around and sat facing him. His smile lingering as he tapped a staccato beat idly on the tables glass surface.
"Tell me, Daniel," he said, leaning in. "What is it you desire?"
A face flashed in my mind's eye. Young, chestnut hair and a smile filled with laughter. Eleven years old and already hanging with the wrong crowd, taking the first steps on a path leading to the same stupid mistakes I'd made.
My sister.
She needed me to protect her. To keep her safe, because our parents surely wouldn't.
"To live," I said, without hesitation. "I need to go back."
A long, elegant finger tapped purple lips as the man considered that. "A common enough request." A slight shrug of his shoulders. "Easy enough to do as it happens."
"Then do it," I said eagerly, my fear forgotten in that moment.
"Ah." He held the word on his tongue, savouring the taste as he eyed me. "There would be a cost."
No surprises there then. I settled back in the chair.
The beast might well have been his pet for all I knew, or it could have been a taste of what awaited me if I remained dead. It wasn't like I had many other options and there was no one else offering me a better deal.
"What kind of cost?"
His smile widened, and the flash of flames lit his eyes for an instant. "Something small. A favour."
"A favour," I said flatly. "Thought you'd be asking for my soul."
He waved a hand. "Pish, boy. Your soul is already Hellbound; I'd gain nothing by claiming it again."
"Why?" It came out as a wail, and he fixed shrewd eyes on me.
"You know why."
Yeah, I really didn't.
"As it happens, a bargain was made in good faith. However, due to some… interference, I can't complete my end of the deal."
"What does that have to do with me?"
He cocked his head to the side and laughed. "You will help me fulfil that bargain."
"How?"
A shake of his head was the only reply to that. He held up one long finger as I made to speak.
"I am unable to enter your world, so you will serve me there."
"Doing what?"
The sly smile became a smirk. "Whatever I want, dear boy." He placed one hand against his chest, fingers spread. "Now, I, Orryn, offer you this bargain. Do you accept?"
Did I have a choice?
Hell bound. Which explained the big ass dog, I figured.
I needed to find out why I was headed that way, and fast. Not only that, I had to make sure my sister was safe. That she didn't follow me, since the end of that path led to where I sat contemplating the deal being offered with too little information and way too much that could go wrong.
And knowing I had no choice but to accept.
"Agreed," I said with a soft sigh of defeat.
"Bargain made," Orryn whispered, and the world went black.
There was a moment's panic as a weight pressed down on me.
A sudden rush of feeling running through my body.
The weight of a blanket pulled tight over me. A breeze, cool, against my skin. The distant beep and whoosh of equipment working.
I blinked, light hurting my eyes as tears filled them. The air smelled of disinfectant.
Pain.
Something in my throat, choking me.
No! I realised, not choking me, helping me breathe.
I lifted my arms, feeling the weight of them and marvelling at it.
Grabbing the tube I pulled, gagging and choking as it was dragged out of my mouth, then a gasp as I drew in a deep lungful of air.
"F-fuck," I managed, wincing at the sound of my voice.
It had been a dream.
Must have been.
I'd not died after all. I'd been in a nightmare as I recovered after the car accident.
Pushing myself upright, arms trembling, I turned towards the window, squinting as I caught my reflection there.
"What. The. Fuck!"
I raised a hand, small and slim, to touch my cheek, eyes widening as I took in the long, black, hair falling past my shoulders. The long lashes and elegantly plucked brows. Plump lips, and hairless face.
The polish on the nails of the hand that touched my cheek.
The breasts, small, but definitely visible beneath the thin cotton gown.
"Oh, fuck me," I said, as Orryn's mocking laughter filled my head.