FORTY-SEVEN

The Porter’s Fee

“We’re going to have to jump off again, before it gets to the end of the line. The fewer hounds we see, the better. I don’t know how long they’ll listen to me if I’m leaving,” Kingsley told them, as the train began to slow down. The land outside was the same dusty desert as from the beginning of their journey, Oliver noted. He wasn’t looking forward to perform-ing another superhuman trick, which came so easily to the two vampires; but he supposed he didn’t have a choice.

“Ladies first,” Oliver said, letting Mimi have the window.

She pulled herself to the edge and then flew off, rolling into a ball as she fell onto the sand.

She looked up at them. “It’s not bad! Come on!”

Oliver tried to do the same, but instead of rolling, he fell hard on his ankle, which twisted on the landing.

Kingsley leapt next, and fell on his feet, standing, of course. He helped Oliver up. “Is it broken?” he asked, meaning the ankle.

“No. Just sprained, I think,” Oliver said, limping a little.

They walked away from the tracks and soon came upon a familiar-looking checkpoint—the gas station and sawhorse guarded by the two trolls that Mimi and Oliver had first en-countered on their journey into the underworld.

“What about them?” Oliver asked.

“Those guys work for Helda. They don’t answer to Leviathan,” Kingsley said. “Hey,” he said mildly to the trolls.

The trolls let them pass without comment. They looked a bit bored.

Mimi let Kingsley walk on ahead, staying with Oliver, in the guise of helping him with his sprain. “Lean on me,” she said.

“Thanks,” Oliver said. “I’m glad you got what you wanted.”

“Not quite yet,” Mimi said. She felt her hands go a little numb at what she was about to do. She hadn’t really given it much thought until now, since it was so distasteful, even for her. Oliver had been a good friend throughout their entire adventure. But she had no choice. It was time to pay the porter.

A soul for a soul. Mimi prepared to do her worst. “Listen, before we can go, there’s something I need you to do for me,” she said, without looking at him directly. “I hope you understand it’s not personal.”

Oliver sighed. He’d had a feeling something like this was going to happen. He liked Mimi, but he trusted her as far as he could throw her, and during his time in the underworld he had carefully weighed his options. He knew he didn’t have very many, but he had been hoping that somehow Mimi would change her mind, that she would find another way to get them out of Helda’s kingdom. But it was apparent from the determined set of Mimi’s jaw that this would not be the case.

“You’re going to leave me here,” he said.

Mimi did not flinch. “Yes.”

“Does Kingsley know?” Oliver asked, watching the erstwhile Duke of Hell banter with a few trolls hanging at the gas station. It was all so much fun for everyone else, wasn’t it, Oliver thought, trying not to feel angry. He knew what he had gotten himself into. Mimi had given him a choice in the beginning and he had chosen to descend into the Kingdom of the Dead with her.

“No. He doesn’t know that part of it. I didn’t tell him,”

Mimi said. “I don’t think he’d let me do it if he knew.”

“Probably not,” Oliver agreed. Kingsley was a chivalrous kind of guy, and Oliver bet that his pride would never allow him to accept his release at the life of another, and a human at that.

“So… is this going to be a problem?” Mimi asked.

Oliver tried not to laugh. Mimi was such a piece of work.

What a selfish little bitch. She didn’t care what she did or whom she hurt, as long as she got what she wanted. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”

“I told you not to come with me,” she said, sounding like a child who’d been told they weren’t going to celebrate her birthday after all. “It’s your fault for trusting me.”

He brushed her arm away from his shoulder. His ankle still hurt. If he had to stay down here, what was all that jumping for, then? All that sneaking out of Hell? Oliver looked around. The underworld, when you thought about it, wasn’t so bad, really. maybe he could get used to living in slight discomfort; hook up with one of the sirens; get used to living with the smell of the trolls.

“Maybe I should let you. It’s not as if I have anything to live for up there anyway,” he mused. Wasn’t that why he had come down with Mimi in the first place? Because he had no more purpose? Because he wanted to do his part to save the Blue Bloods? The Covens were crumbling, the vampires were retreating, Schuyler was gone. What did he have left?

He was resigned but felt his temper begin to rise. He’d thought he and Mimi were friends. He’d believed she would not throw his life away like a crumpled piece of paper. Didn’t he mean more to her than that? “How can you do this to me?”

he asked, point-blank.

“I really wish I didn’t have to,” Mimi said.

“There’s no other way, is there?” he asked.

“No.” Mimi looked down at her feet. Now that they had finally come to the end, she wished with all her heart that there was another way; that she had made it happen differently; that she had tried harder to dissuade him. She had let him come to his doom since he had come willingly enough, and it meant she’d didn’t have to go through the challenge of having to kidnap a Red Blood for this purpose. “Does it help if I say I’m sorry?” she asked.

“A little,” he said, cracking a ghost of a smile.

“I really am sorry. If I had a choice, I would bring both of you back, but I can’t.”

Oliver shook his head. “All right, then, lead the way. I might as well get used to my new home. Just make sure they don’t put one of those collars on me, all right? They look itchy.”