Page 105 of Sins of the Heart

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The Daughters of Aset believed that the soul was

made up of five parts:Ren, Ba, Ka, Sheut,andIb.The

body was theha—the sum of bodily parts. The dead

reaper had been butchered and skinned, his parts scattered.

If that reaper were Dagan, then the thing following

her could be any of the parts of his soul.

Did soul reapers have souls? How the fuck was she

supposed to know?

“You warning me off?” she asked. “Or telling me

I’m heading in the right direction?”

He didn’t answer. She hadn’t expected him to.

With a shake of her head, she headed for Tesso’s Bar

and Grill and didn’t stop to look in any more windows

along the way. If he were still there, she didn’t want to

know it. At least, that’s what she told herself.

At Tesso’s there was no line, but there was a burly

guy guarding the door. She wasn’t a regular, but her

face was familiar enough that he let her through after

he palmed the bill she offered.

Calliope was going to hate her expense report this

EVE SILVER

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month, because it took another five bills to get her into

the back room, a setting so cliché it ought to have been

in a B movie.

Sitting around a table, playing poker and drinking

cheap Scotch were a handful of Topworld grunts who

ran prostitutes for Asmodeus, the Underworld demon

of lust. One of them glanced her way as she came

through the door. He grunted. “No women.”

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