It all started one late February evening when Death showed up at Bobby's doorstep with bacon dogs. And I mean the Death—face like a vulture, hair slicked back, reeking of god-awful funeral home potpourri goodness. Imagine your grandpa, constipated, dressed like a mortician, lecturing you on the finer points of existential philosophy while riding through the neighborhood picking off poor bastards with a sickle. That's who I was dealing with.

"Dean," he beckoned, "join me."

I sidled up to the dining room table where he was already munching crap food in the twilight. The term "scared shitless" just doesn't seem to do that moment justice. It was as if every dump I'd ever taken spurted out all at once.

"Brought you one," Vulture-face offered a greasy wad of nasty, "from a little stand in Los Angeles known for their bacon dogs."

Take it...or?

"Sit," Death demanded.

"Wow, what's with you and cheap food?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Vulture-face mused. "Thought I'd have a treat before I put the ring back on."

I pulled the damned thing from my pocket and stared, knowing I'd failed. Failed my brother, Sammy. Failed myself. Death gave me the ring about a year and a half earlier to crack open the deepest recesses of Hell, trap Lucifer and Michael, and stop Armageddon. But the showdown cost my brother his salvation. And when Sam belched up from the fiery pit without a soul, I tried everything I could to restore him, including making and breaking my current wager with Death: wear his ring for 24 hours.

"Heavier than it looks, isn't it?" Vulture-face lectured. "Sometimes you just want the thing off. But you know that."

Of course. Refuse to reap a cancer stricken twelve-year-old girl, and her nurse heads home early and dies in a car accident. Peachy. I'd sure gained bookoodles of newfound respect for the whole "grand design" of the universe bullshit. Being "Death for a day"—the whole thing was a dry Wurstfest from the get-go.

"Look," I chinked the ring on the table, "I think you know that I flunked. So there."

Vulture-face took a long swig of cola and gazed past me.

"Oh, and by the way, I uh...I sucked being you. I screwed up the whole natural order thing but I'm sure you know about that too."

"So, if you could go back, would you simply kill the little girl? No fuss, no stomping your feet?"

I'd learned my lesson. Maybe not the one Death intended, but close enough. God's not so much a mean kid with a magnifying glass who enjoys flaming fire ants. No, he prefers setting up elaborate Rube-Goldberg-style domino rallies and leaving them to fall however they will. Try to stop 'em and they just get worse.

"Knowing what I know now," I sighed, "yeah."

"I'm surprised to hear that. Surprised and glad."

"Yeah, well don't get excited. I woulda saved the nurse, okay? That's it."

"I think it's a little more than that."

Really Chuckles? I thought. At least now I know you can't read minds.

"Today you got a hard look behind the curtain," he chided. "Wrecking the natural order is not quite such fun when you have to mop up the mess, is it? This is hard for you Dean. You throw away your life because you've come to assume it'll bounce right back into your lap."

Vulture-face leaned in for the kill. Or so I thought. Then, he surprised me.

"The human soul is not a rubber ball," Death wagged a finger. "It's vulnerable, impermanent, but stronger than you know. And more valuable than you can imagine."

I swallowed. Confusion. Silence.

"So," he began again, "I think you've learned something today."

Vulture-face chugged more cola. What a bloated gasbag of a jackass. I couldn't restrain myself. Death was going to kill me someday anyway, so I figured, why not backtalk? Tell him to go to Hell, more or less.

"You wanna know what I think? I think you knew that I wouldn't last a day."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I lost. Fine. But at least have the balls to admit that it was rigged from the jump!"

Death glared. "Most people speak to me with more respect," he hissed.

"I didn't mean—"

"We're done here."

Pretty much. My ass was about to be on a midnight train going anywhere. Sassing Vulture-face hadn't been nearly as satisfying a fate as I'd hoped.

"It's been lovely," he stood. "Now, I'm going to go to Hell to get your brother's soul."

Okay? Not the reason I wanted him to go there but—wait, what did he say? I lost the bet. Never getting Sam's soul back was the price. Death was still gonna go get it? Absolutely impossible. Strings were attached to this Pinocchio.

My eyes popped. "Why would you do that for me?"

"I wouldn't do it for you," he spat. "You and your brother keep coming back. You're an affront to the balance of the universe and you cause disruption on a global scale."

The shakes seized my spine. "I, I, apologize for that."

"But you have use. Right now you're digging at something, intrepid detective. I want you to keep digging, Dean."

Digging? I'd always hunted monsters. And after the big archangelic prize fight got rained out, that's what I returned to. Everything from sirens to shape-shifters to vampires and yes, even zombies. But what else was new? I could name nearly three dozen folks who worked the same gig in the continental United States alone. Sure our job was secretive and your regular Joe the Plumber had no idea how many freak restaurants he was on the menu for. But why should Death care if a few teabags got dripped? Wasn't untimely and horrific demise his job?

I sputtered, "So, are you just going to be cryptic or—"

"It's about the souls. You'll understand when you need to."

Okay then. He was going to be cryptic.

Death snatched his ring and slid it on.

"Wait," I pleaded. "With Sam. Is this wall thing really gonna work?"

"I call it 75%."

As part of our original deal, Vulture-face had agreed to put a barrier in Sammy's mind once his soul was back inside to block out all the ugly Hell memories and keep him from going paralyzed, mewling demonic pudding on us. Or maybe Freddy Krueger. But soulless Robo-Sam was already two shakes past A Nightmare on Elm Street and well into The Shining. So letting him be wasn't an option. Problem was, nobody—maybe not even God—knew how our little stunt would play out. I mean, It's not every day you zing someone's soul from Hell and cram it down their gullet.

And as it turns out, there's a damn good reason why.