Page 26 of Hellbound

Tori nodded, a curtain of curls brushing her forehead. “I saw your post about needing a new spotter. I heard you’re looking for help with a hunt. I’m volunteering. See, I kinda do what you do, except I don’t die. And I’m fine being in the dark about who you’re working for so long as that goes both ways.”

The rumor mill worked fast.

Marian shot Tori a wary look.

“You’re a traveler?”

Tori nodded with a sheepish smile.

Travelers, like divers, could enter Hell. But unlike divers, they didn’t need to die to get there. Marian was no expert, but she’d gathered from a few message boards that they used a method like astral projection to pass through the veil—and they had to want to go to Hell. Some, including Marian, held the belief that intention had nothing to do with it; diver or traveler, it didn’t matter—if you could enter Hell, you were damned. Daniel and Deborah Eaves had been right all along.

But something about the traveler method prevented them from assuming a corporeal form once they crossed over, which meant they couldn’t manipulate anything, nor could they bring back pieces of Hell like divers.

It also meant that travelers weren’t her competition.

“Tourists,” Greg’s voice echoed in her head. “Fuckin’ tourists.”

“I don’t need a traveler. I need a diver. Someone who can actually do something down there.”

“But no one wants to work with you, do they?” Tori replied without an ounce of animosity, and yet it infuriated Marian all the same. “Your rep kind of sucks right now.”

Marian’s face screwed up in an ugly marriage of anger and confusion. “You wanna tell me how the fuck you know all this? You can’t just walk up to me in my bar—”

Tori’s brows shot up. “You own this bar?”

“In a bar,” Marian said loudly, “Insult me, then propose we team up. ‘Hi, I hear you suck. Let’s go to Hell together.’ Hard no.”

The traveler’s smile fell. Her friendly demeanor transformed into something harder. Something with teeth.

“Please stop putting words in my mouth. You have no idea what’s going on out there, do you? People are talking about you, and none of the rumors are good. Everybody knows that one of the most experienced spotters died after bringing you back, but nobody will say what killed him. You’re like an urban legend now, but the bad kind. People think you’re insane or cursed or both.”

Marian’s jaw tightened at what felt like a lead weight hitting the bottom of her stomach. How did Tori know this but Marian didn’t?

Maybe because you cut yourself off from the world for a month.

“And you don’t?”

Tori leaned forward.

“I hate gossip; it’s all noise to me. You can’t know what’s true unless you go to the source.” The traveler blew out a slow breath, and some of her edge went with it. Lines of worry creased her forehead.

“I know this is awful to hear, especially from a stranger, and I don’t mean to sound flippant, but I think you and I are in a similar boat. I need a diver, but no one wants to work with me either—I can’t pay what anyone’s asking. You’re the last one on my list, and if you don’t help me, I’m going to die.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Marian decided long ago not to get mixed up in other people’s problems. The best way to make sure she stuck to that rule was to avoid people altogether. But here she was, sucked in by the traveler’s bombshell plea.

“Uh, what the fuck?”

Tori pursed her lips. “If I don’t deliver a sketch of Hell by Wednesday, my client will kill me.”

“Sketch?”

“I sell architectural drawings of Hell to demons,” the traveler explained. “It doesn’t pay nearly as well as diving, but I’m not keen to try dying anytime soon.”

“So why do you need a diver?”

“There’s a door in my way that wasn’t there before. I need a diver to open it for me.”