What would you trade your soul for?
The answer is simple for Jessa: nothing. Life isn't perfect, but it's pretty good with her best friend Taylor at her side.
But everything changes when the Devil--disguised as an attractive high school girl--comes...
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The boat was more like a canoe than an actual boat. I felt that it might tip over if I leaned the wrong way. As I balanced on the smooth wooden seat, I looked out at the shore, at James. He was still staring down at my body.
"I don't recommend you do that," the boatman said.
I turned to look at him. Up close, he was not what I was expecting. I had expected him to be tall, skeletal, and silent, like Charon from the ancient Greek myths. This guy had a scruffy goatee and was much stockier. It was hard to tell if the weight he carried was muscle or fat, though, because it was hidden under a grey sweatshirt.
"Do what?" I asked.
He tilted his head towards the shore as he dug an oar into the pond water. "Stare out at land as we move. You might get sick. Interdimensional travel and all of that."
"Ahh," I said. Part of me didn't want to listen to him—I wanted to spend as much time as I could staring at the earth. Who knew if this would be the last time I was on it? But I also didn't feel like throwing up anymore than I already had today, and in the end I reluctantly pulled my eyes away from the shore with its dim silhouette of trees, away from the glow of distant streetlamps and my physical body lying stock still on a picnic bench.
I tried instead to focus on the bottom of the boat, or at the rippling water as we smoothly glided to our destination, but there wasn't much to see. The night was dark, and my eyesight wasn't that great. But the boatman seemed to glow, an unearthly teal that kept drawing my eyes to him.
He caught my stare and asked, "Recently deceased or still kicking?"
The question caught me off guard. "What?"
"Are you dead or alive?" he asked. He had a twang to his voice, a hint of an accent from New York. "You smell fresh."
"Alive," I said.
He didn't seem too surprised by my response, so I asked, "Do a lot of living people come down to the Underworld?"
"Not a lot, but I've seen a few. Sometimes, when the Devil isn't in the human realm to make her deals, people come to her." He looked at me. "You have a deal to propose?"
I shook my head. "No, I already made a deal with her. I'm just coming here to chat."
"Interesting. Haven't heard that one before." He dug an oar into the water and pulled, the muscles of his chest and arms moving beneath the fabric of his hoodie.
"How long have you been doing this?" I asked.
"Two years," he said.
"That's it?"
He nodded. "Yep."
I was suddenly curious, and against my better judgment, I asked him how he had gotten down here.
His face screwed up in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, why are you in Hell and not..." I gestured vaguely upward. "Like, did you do something... bad?"
