I tried to cheat Death,
played it like a game,
but I feel it in the moonlit air.
Moonlit - Rivals

I DIDN'T MEAN to lie to Blaize, or Cade, or Ian, or whatever the hell his name really was.

But it isn't every day that your favorite singer's ghost seeks your help and reveals he made a deal with a demon. When an opportunity like that drops into your lap, you do whatever it takes to keep it there.

The confidence rushed to my head like blood down a wendigo's throat. It wasn't smart to mess with one of their promised souls, but it was even worse to break their deal. Souls were more than currency to them—they were proof of worth. The more souls they collected, the less likely it became that Death would cast them into the Pit as food for his highest-priority captives.

One lost soul could mean life or death, and Rinzor had a habit of butting heads with his master. His value was likely the only thing keeping Death from gutting him like year-old rotten fish.

And Rinzor's greatest bargaining chip sat on the bedside table, swinging his legs back and forth through whorls of spiritual mist.

Cade Hawkins. It felt so... normal. Sure, it was a more believable name than Blaize Steele, which was clearly formulated for his image. But in all my years of fawning and collecting magazines, his real name never rang a bell—and I knew I wasn't that out of touch. Google would have given him up in a heartbeat.

I'd have to go on a deep-dive when he wasn't watching.

"Clarify something for me," I said, rifling through my duffel on the bed. Organization had never been my strong suit, and now with clothes and trinkets strewn across the dingy comforter, I was in my messy element. "If you're running from a demon, why would I be helping you? Seems counter-intuitive for Death's servant to run off with a wanted soul, don't you think?"

Cade gulped loudly. "Out of the kindness of your... wait, do you have hearts?"

I fired a glare so sharp that he recoiled and nearly tumbled through the table. Of course we had hearts—souls, too. Twisted ones, hardened by years under Fiends' thumbs, but they were still there.

When I turned back to my bag, more for a distraction than to continue the search for my laptop, a chill burned along my left side. Cade stood next to me, looming farther above me than I expected. A decade in his fandom didn't prepare me for how tall he truly was in person. Sitting, my eyes were barely level with his moist navel.

"I know mysterious, magical angst is probably in your necromancer code," said Cade, "but if Death is cryptic, you're an enigma-wrapped Rubik's cube."

Damn, he was good. If I weren't so internally shaken and struggling to hold onto my "magical angst," I would've cracked a smile. Maybe even laughed.

Cade flopped down next to me, arms folded behind his head as he got comfortable against the pillows. "Why am I actually here with you?"

If only he'd asked me what really went on at Area 51, or if Walt Disney's frozen corpse was kept in Mickey's basement. I could've answered him without missing a beat.

Before my frazzled brain could formulate an excuse, sharp claws scratched at the door. My heart froze. No wonder the room had seemed too quiet.

A smattering of green and white gift cards spewed from under the door.

"Sam! We hit the motherload!" Venti's raspy voice slithered in behind them, holding all the gravelly, gruff cheer of a chain-smoking grandma at bingo. "You wouldn't believe what these people hide in their luggage!"

My familiar's brown and white speckled body crawled along the floor until his wings snagged on the underside of the door. He tugged and tugged before he came free with a flourish, flopping across the carpet like an al dente reptilian noodle.

A frigid chill swept the room. Cade scrambled against the headboard, pulling his knees to his chest.

"Is that..." He blinked progressively harder, as if it would somehow make my pest disappear. It wouldn't. I'd tried. "Is that a dragon? And why does it have Starbucks cards?"

Smoke curled from Venti's nostrils. With the sneer twitching his silver whiskers, it wouldn't be long before he tried to set something aflame—and I did not want another motel blaze on my hands.

Before my familiar could huff, puff, and blow a stack of gift cards down, I turned back to Cade. "You can see him?"

Cade's eyes never left the dragon. "If you can't, I'm going to the afterlife's psych ward."

"The dead can see familiars," I muttered. "Good to know."

"Familiars?" He scooched forward half an inch, twisting the blankets between translucent fingers. "Like... a witch's pet?"

Sulfur stunk up the room before Venti's pathetically small flame turned a patch of carpet to embers. Thank the gods we paid in cash. Hopefully, the elderly creep up front wouldn't notice until long after we hit the road.

Venti shredded a gift card between his needle-like fangs. "I am no pet! I am an ancient guardian!"

An ancient guardian of coffee plants, I wanted to say, but thought better of it. Cade was already trembling. If Venti started launching gift cards like shuriken, the poor man would've run for the rainbow bridge.

"Venti," I said, lowering my palm for him to fly into. He scurried up my arm to take his perch in my shoulder-length hair. I tried not to cringe at the thought of coffee grounds smearing the freshly cleaned blonde. "This is Cade. Blaize. Fredrico. Whatever you want to call him."

My cheeks flushed with heat, and I hoped Cade was too distracted by the pocket flamethrower to notice. It felt wrong poking fun at his predicament. But Venti would enjoy the teasing prod, hopefully enough to keep him a chill iced latte instead of steaming matcha.

Venti's eyes flashed a moonbeam silver. "Blaize, you say? So, this is the guy you—"

"Came to help?" I interjected, digging my nails into my palms as if wringing the dragon's neck. "Of course. Cade is exactly who we were sent for."

Thankfully, familiars could easily read the eyes of their master. Thoughts were private—which I thanked every realm's gods for daily—but emotions, tells, and needs came through wordless transference. It was often to my misfortune, with Venti prying into my eternal pain after a single glance, but it had its benefits... no matter how far and few between they were.

"Aha!" His chortle hit my eardrums like a truck over broken glass. "I knew he didn't come to sing my baby girl to sleep. It isn't every day that a handsome rock star wants your secret sauce!"

"What's it saying?" Cade nudged his butt further from the headboard. Intrigue and concern burned behind his widened eyes.

Spirits could see familiars, but they couldn't understand them. Even better.

I reached behind my neck to give the scaly fiend some soft scratches. "Venti is glad we've found you, and he apologizes for frightening you with unnecessary magic." A flame licked the back of my neck, and I forced myself not to wince. "Clearly, selling your soul and coming back to life is frightening enough. You don't want Rinzor thinking you've bartered with another supernatural being to cheat him out of your deal."

A small, sandpaper tongue replaced the searing flame. Venti licked the air hungrily.

"You don't say," my familiar murmured. "A prize like that could be worth something big." Sulfur tickled my nostrils as he slithered next to my cheek, golden scales glimmering in the warm lamplight. "Like your job. Death might give you a pass if you offer up one of Rinzor's rejects."

Hesitance should've taken the wheel. Entertaining the thought of running behind a demon's back was foolish. At best, Rinzor would've had my head barbecued for his monthly potluck. Even I didn't know the extent of what his worst would look like.

But the chance of having my job back was too good to pass up. Death might have been an asshole, but he had great employee benefits.

Cade watched us with curiosity. I tried to ignore the pang in my chest at his innocence. Here I was about to sacrifice the fate of someone I'd admired for a decade, all for the favor of a Fiend who didn't care about my own. Terrible deeds, accidental and intentional, had followed me for a lifetime.

After a while, you learned to swallow the guilt and accept your nature. It wasn't like Death could bring any pain worse than what I faced before lunch every day. Severing the connective tissues that failed to keep my body in tact would be a blessing.

"So, what'd you sell yourself for?" I asked. "Fame? Fortune?"

Smoke circles crept around Venti's twitching whiskers. "Hot groupies?"

I flicked him between the eyes and earned an arched brow from the rock star on my bed. The gesture seemed to loosen the tension in Cade's shoulders. Maybe he just needed to know that pocket dragons were no more than simmering pests.

"Freedom," said Cade finally, "and fame. Kind of went hand in hand."

Maybe we had different definitions, but paparazzi, stalker fans, and a guarded mansion wasn't the life I expected from someone with that kind of deal. Demons could twist their words more than a genie with neck problems, but surely the chains of fame would have broken a clause in Rinzor's blood-bound contract.

"That doesn't sound like freedom to me."

Cade's gaze lowered as he took a sudden interest in the comforter bunched in his fingers. "To a twelve year old, it did."

My eyes narrowed at every worry line on his forehead and twitch of his lips. If his heart still beat, it surely would have careened from his chest. Quick, shallow breaths left his lips, parted for words he didn't say. For a star who supposedly bore all to his fans, he had a lot to hide.

"Well, Mr. Hawkins." I cringed at the higher pitched tone that came from my lips. Slipping my Styx's cuff from my arm, I stuck out a hand. "My name is Sam, and I'm the savior to your damned soul. As soon as the sun rises"—and I secured more cash or credit—"we'll blaze a trail to the Underworld."

He gulped, and he looked at my hand as if it had a demon's foot-long talons. "The Underworld? Like... flaming blue hair, three-headed monster puppy, Twig River Underworld?"

"Styx," I corrected, "and those are awful stereotypes, but you've got the gist... and I think we have a deal."

Cartoon depictions of Death did him little justice, and Cerberus was a fully grown tri-headed Goliath Bernard, but until the ferryman stopped messing with my video footage, the real world would have to continue using their imagination.

Cade's imagination must have gotten the better of him. With a long, shuddering breath, he placed his hand against mine. My skin erupted in gooseflesh as his iceberg met my Titanic—only this time, his frozen soul would shatter under my full-steam-ahead vessel.

Even with all odds against a rejected necromancer, I gripped his half-corporeal hand with a soul-binding shake. Rinzor would be no match for a woman scorned, and Death would welcome me back with open arms. Cade was not a simple rock star. He hadn't made a simple deal for fame. Come Underworld or high Styx, I would dig the skeletons from his closet and return to eternal life as normal.

There was nothing buried that couldn't be unearthed. It just took the right shovel.