The Soul Collector

Ch. Three

"What I do, I just do. It's out of necessity."

-Frank Castle

                                                                           ***

When they got to their room, she dropped her bag and fell face down on the teal-and-brown striped bed with a groan.

It had taken three days to get to Chicago, which was much too long to be trapped in a car with a surly Hellhound. Galloway could have danced with joy when she found a motel that would take cash, then wanted to kill something when it only had a shared room available.

Apparently, even the universe wanted to keep her stuck with Sirius.

But Galloway was exhausted and running short on time, so she took this with as much grace as she could muster. 

"You wouldn't be so tired if you'd let me drive," Sirius said somewhere off to her left. Rolling over, she saw him looking around with disdain. "Two thousand bucks and you decide to stay in some no-name motel?"

Galloway stretched her arms over her head, working the kinks out. "First off, there is no way in hell I'd let you drive my car." She paused and glared when Sirius scoffed at her. "Second," she continued, voice hostile, "we're going to be here a week."

"So?" Sirius asked, eyeing the bare strip of stomach revealed by her stretching.

"So," Galloway drew out the word, "hotels are expensive."

"Again." Sirius crossed his arms. "My question is so?"

She sighed. "So sue me! I grew up in the Depression. Old habits die hard. Even mortal ones."

"Oh," Sirius said. Then: "Okay."

Galloway raised her head to stare at him. "Okay?"

"Uh-huh," Sirius said absently. "Oh, and we won't be here a week." He dug the folder Theron had given them out of one of the bags and flipped through it. "We'll be here three days tops."

She sat straight up, eyes going wide. "Are you insane?" she hissed. "Three days for twenty people?" Then she shook her head as something else came to mind. "We have to collect on the right day." 

Galloway snatched the folder from his hands, making him yelp when the folder gave him a paper cut.

She flipped through the assignments, taking quick looks at the dates, trying to ignore the specifics. "The last collection date is this Saturday. So we'll be here all week. Besides, it takes a little while to find the Debtors in a city this big anyway."

Galloway looked up to find him watching her with an unreadable gaze. She frowned at him. Did he honestly think she was that stupid? There was no way he was going to get her on such a dumb infraction. 

The rule was that you collected a Soul on the right day.

Failing that rule was punishable by up to a year in Hell. Galloway's frown deepened. She knew Theron was mad at her, but had he really asked Sirius to try and trip her up too? Did Theron want her to be stripped of her Collector title? Did he want her to be turned into a regular demon, losing her Soul permanently?

She scoffed at herself. Of course he did.

Sirius sighed heavily. "I always saw that rule as more of a guideline. I want to hurry up and get this done. It won't matter if we collect a little early. And it might take you a week by yourself, but now you have me." He grinned at her, the expression cocky. "I can already smell them."