Chapter 1

The Underworld had gone full performance-review culture, and now even a soul-reaping intern was required to hold a bachelor's degree.

So to earn my diploma and hit the numbers I needed for full employment, I spent four years undercover as a college student in the world of the living.

By day I was invisible. By night I ran a paranormal group chat as bait.

It hadn't been easy, but I'd finally lured every last one of them, over thirty fugitives with blood on their hands, out to the abandoned meatpacking plant on the west outskirts. All I had to do was net them tonight, on Ghost Night.

Then the class beauty queen, hunting for views, went and proposed the whole class scrap the graduation trip and go explore that same plant on Ghost Night for a livestream.

As a classmate, I tried everything to stop them.

"You absolutely cannot go there tonight. If you run into a killer, someone is going to die!"

Cheryl slapped the phone right out of my hand.

"Broke losers are always so gutless. Ruin the mood for everyone and you can forget about ever coming to a class reunion again!"

The class president was even more direct. Afraid I'd call the police and cut into their livestream money.

He got a few others to twist the dorm door shut from the outside with wire, and locked me in.

Listening to their rented bus roar off into the distance, I stopped talking.

I quietly pulled up the Underworld performance-review dashboard.

Fine. You can't reason a soul off the path to its own grave.

I'd actually been worried tonight's haul of fugitives wouldn't be enough to bump me straight up to the Reapers of Life and Death. Thanks, classmates, for padding my numbers.

...

My name is Christina Harding, an intern with the Underworld's East District Soul-Reaping Bureau.

Our evaluations get more twisted every year. It used to be you just grabbed your iron chains and dragged the soul off.

Now it's a bachelor's degree minimum, plus a comprehensive exam on the laws of the living and the dead.

To scrape together this useless diploma, I sealed off most of my death-energy.

For four years I played a poor, forgettable student at Riverton University, the kind nobody could place.

Every day it was dinner rolls and worn-out clothes, terrified of stirring up even the smallest thread of cause-and-effect that might wreck my graduation.

Midnight tonight was the deadline for completing my term, and I was still one big score short of a straight promotion to the Reapers of Life and Death.

I hadn't been idle these past six months.

Under an alias, I set up a dark-web group chat and played the mystic, spreading word all over that a priceless dark treasure was buried beneath the abandoned meatpacking plant on the west outskirts.

The group was a mixed bag of the worst kind.

Serial killers with a dozen lives on their hands, rogue occultists hungry for the blood and essence of the living. Every one of them a fugitive bound for the Eighteen Hells after death.

It took me a full three months to sweet-talk all thirty-plus of these monsters out to that plant.

I just had to wait for tonight, Ghost Night, when the death-energy ran thickest, then walk in with my soul-binding cord and net the lot of them for a beautiful, tidy promotion.

Everything was set. I was lying on my dorm bed, mapping out my capture route.

Then the class group chat exploded with a hundred messages, and Cheryl Pruitt dropped a poll link.

"Guys, a graduation trip to Miami is so played out! I've got a mind-blowing proposal!"

"Ruins-exploring livestreams are huge right now. Let's all go check out that supposedly haunted abandoned meatpacking plant on the west outskirts tonight!"

"I borrowed pro livestream gear. If the views blow up, we all split the profit. Way better than blowing cash in Miami, right?"

The chat went quiet for a few seconds, then the messages started flooding in. The class president, Mervyn Finch, was the first to jump in and hype it up.

"Cher, that idea is genius! People online eat up this kind of thrill. We could make serious money!"

A few of the girls sounded uneasy:

"But tonight's Ghost Night. Isn't a place like that dangerous?"

Mervyn shot right back:

"Scared of what? There are thirty-something of us. You think a busted-up plant can stand up to that much living energy?"

"Besides, if something actually happens, that's the perfect livestream money shot!"

Looking at those words on the screen, the abandoned meatpacking plant on the west outskirts, my eye twitched.

That place was a slaughter pit tonight.

Thirty-plus fugitives lying in wait inside, ready to fight over the treasure.

What business did a pack of college kids have wandering in? To serve themselves up as the main course?

I couldn't afford to keep playing invisible. I typed straight into the chat.

"You can't go!"

"The plant is a maze inside, and lately there's been talk online about a lot of fugitives hiding out in abandoned buildings like that."

"Go out there in the middle of the night, run into a real killer, and someone will end up dead."

The second that message landed, all the excitement in the chat cut off.

A few seconds later, Cheryl sent a voice message, her voice shrill:

"Christina, is something wrong with you?"

"Everyone's having a good time and you have to crawl out and kill the mood?"

"You just couldn't afford the Miami trip, so now you can't stand watching everyone make money on a livestream, is that it?"

Mervyn twisted the knife right after:

"Christina, if you're too chicken, stay in the dorm and mind the door. Quit fearmongering."

"A killer? You've watched too many movies. Even the cops don't know this stuff better than you."

The chat instantly filled with rows of people piling on.

"Right, always dressed in the same drab gray, never a nice word out of her mouth."

"What bad luck, cursing us before we've even left."

Staring at the wall of mockery, I sighed.

Rule one of the Underworld: you can't reason a soul off the path to its own grave.

Still, I'd been in this class four years. Watching them walk straight into a beating didn't sit right, and I was afraid the Judge of the Dead would dock my virtue points come evaluation time.