Page 132 of Ballad of Nightmares

And not the song she’d sang days before in the dungeons. This was a melody that made his heart weep. A voice so soothing and evenly pitched—

Sam had to throw the joint into the sink.

She was holding the man’s hand, and he was squeezing her fingers back, eyes open and watching her. Sam stepped over the tile to the man’s other side, and Ana moved behind the man as if she knew Sam’s process. Her song continued as she held on, easing Darion’s breaths with her voice.

And when Sam crouched down and Darion saw him, a small smile lifted his lips.

“Hey, Darion,” Sam whispered, pulling his knife from his pocket.

“Sam,” Darion breathed, voice sounding almost in relief. “I knew it was you.”

Sam almost smiled. “You were always smarter than your brothers.”

“Were…” Darion repeated. “Will you look… after my family?” he forced out.

Sam’s knife tickled at Darion’s skin, and he brushed his thumb against the man’s cheek. “Every day,” he promised. “Are you ready?”

Darion squeezed Ana’s hand. “I am,” came his breath.

Sam met Ana’s gaze. “You may want to move,” he told her.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she swore.

The declaration made his chest swell, but he turned his attention away from his knotting heart down to the man before him.

“May the darkness meet you at your new beginning,” Sam whispered.

The knife slid over Darion’s throat, and Death took his victim.

Sam stood as Ana laid the man down and closed his eyes.

“Is it always like this?” she asked, straightening herself.

“No,” he answered. “Sometimes it is a struggle… Others… other times it is no more than a blink.”

“And you let them choose?”

Sam nodded.

As his shadows settled around the floor, he watched Ana. “I wanted you to see what a good death looks like,” he admitted softly.

“What about those that you offer immortality to?” she asked. “You didn’t offer it to him.”

Sam shifted, closing his arms over his chest. “Becoming one of my demons is more than simply immortality,” he said. “It’s pledging yourself to a cause they may not see as worth it. It’s surrendering yourself to a job for all those days, a job that you are paid for with immortal breath and abilities that most people won’t see aswholesome.”

He remembered the woman he’d mistakenly offered a demon life to. The words she spat at him, the hiss of her tongue as she called him unholy and monstrous, called his friends worse. It was one Millie had helped him with, and Millie had been devastated by the hurtful words.

He held up his hand, his talons extending from his nails. “My demons help me in other realms. They hear the call of death and take souls just as I do. Without them… without them, those existences can end up like the ones in the prison. Wandering aimlessly, becoming more vile with every day in limbo.”

“You left them like that,” she said, her head tilting.

Sam avoided her gaze. “I left them like that thinking that they would fester their anger and madness into something more dangerous than what they already were. And I was right.”

“And the ghosts that guard this place?”

His lips lifted slightly at that. “Soldiers that Millie and Rolfe decided didn’t deserve any sort of reprieve or revenge,” he said. “My demons cannot offer immortality, but they can leave souls without a bridge if they wish.”

“Why not do that to more than you do?”