The Soul Collector

Ch. One

"I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves."

- August Strindberg

                                                                           ***

Galloway sighed as she finally got back to her apartment. The stupid demon who had picked her up had "accidentally" dropped her off three miles outside of the town she lived in. She hadn't even been able to hitchhike.

Her clothes were too bloody.

Galloway kicked the door shut behind her. Her gaze flicked back and forth across her apartment, and she frowned. Her room led to a shower. But the kitchen led to a drink. She rolled her eyes. It wasn't even really a choice.

Just as she poured herself a glass—the sweet, sharp scent of the whiskey teasing her nose—a demon in a rather cheap suit flashed into her living room. She sighed and tipped her head back, tossing off her drink. 

"There can't possibly be another job already," she said before refilling her glass.

"Theron wants to see you." The demon smirked at her, eyeing her bloody clothes.

"Great," Galloway muttered. 

Downing the second glass she'd poured, she blew out a small breath and walked over to the demon to take his elbow. Her vision went black then red, and she swayed, nausea welling up when she found herself in Hell. She swallowed hard, breathing slowly until her stomach stopped rolling. 

Jumping through space and dimension never agreed with her.

In a way, Galloway found rather ironic, the room she was in looked like a lawyer's office with a big oak desk in the middle and bookshelves lining the walls. The dark paneling sucked away what little light was provided by lamps placed around the room, casting bright little pools in the otherwise dim room.

The demon left, and she shivered as screams wafted through the door before it was snapped all the way shut.

Theron wasn't there yet, so she fell into one of the slick leather chairs in front of the desk to wait. She reclined with her back against one arm and her legs dangling over the other.

"Typical," she muttered. "Theron calls me, and I'm the one who has to wait for him."

"You got someplace else to be?" a voice asked. 

Startled, Galloway tilted her head back to find herself looking at a guy in a white button-down shirt and a loosely knotted black tie. He lounged on the sofa in front of Theron's bookshelves at the far side of the room. He was probably handsome, but it was hard to tell while she was looking at him upside down.

"Yeah," she finally answered. "I had a shower with my name on it." Galloway held up her hands to show the rusty red streaks of drying blood on her arms.

The guy arched an eyebrow, fingers drumming against the top of the sofa. "Aren't you a Collector?"

Galloway shrugged. "Yeah. So?"

"Well. That's an entertaining notion," was his only answer before Theron came in.

Galloway lifted her head, turning her attention away from the mystery guy to the hulking figure of Theron, her handler. The one who doled out her assignments and made sure she followed the rules.

She waited while he lowered his sizable weight into the equally large chair behind his desk. Steepling his thick fingers, Theron looked at her with steely hazel eyes. "You were supposed to report in."