What happened in The Collector by Victoria Scott - Recaptains

The basics

Title: The Collector

Author: Victoria Scott

Series: Dante Walker #1

- The Collector (April 2013)
- The Liberator (August 2013)

Add it: Goodreads

Goodreads Summary:

Dante Walker is flippin’ awesome, and he knows it. His good looks, killer charm, and stellar confidence have made him one of hell’s best—a soul collector. His job is simple: weed through humanity and label those round rears with a big red good or bad stamp. Old Saint Nick gets the good guys, and he gets the fun ones. Bag-and-tag. Sealing souls is nothing personal. Dante’s an equal-opportunity collector and doesn't want it any other way. But he’ll have to adjust, because Boss Man has given him a new assignment:

Collect Charlie Cooper’s soul within ten days.

Dante doesn't know why Boss Man wants Charlie, nor does he care. This assignment means only one thing to him, and that’s a permanent ticket out of hell. But after Dante meets the quirky Nerd Alert chick he’s come to collect, he realizes this assignment will test his abilities as a collector…and uncover emotions deeply buried.

Read a full summary of The Collector by Victoria Scott below. If you can’t remember what happened in The Collector and you need a refresher, then you’re in the right place.

in short

Dante Walker is a soul collector, meaning he essentially blackens people’s souls for the devil so that when they die, they go to Hell. He’s assigned to get Charlie Cooper’s soul, but he soon starts to care for her. Charlie signs a soul contract that makes her pretty in return for pieces of her soul. Dante needs to find a way to stop this mess before it’s too late. Charlie gets taken by a guy called Rector, who arrives to finish Dante’s assignment. At the end, Dante becomes an angel.

what went down

• Dante Walker is sent to blacken Charlie Cooper’s soul so that when she dies she’ll go to Hell. If he completes this assignment, the devil will promote him to Soul Director, which means he can walk around on Earth whenever he likes.
• Charlie Cooper lives with her grandmother, who is sick and also an alcoholic.
• Charlie only has twelve black seals on her soul, meaning she’s only done twelve “bad” things in her entire life. Or since the devil has been watching her.
• Charlie meets Dante. He joins her school, and then he takes her to do some shoplifting during school time. He puts a seal on her soul, and then starts to think of more ways to blacken her soul before his time is up.
• Dante gets Charlie into he reporter club at school, since it’s something that she really wants to do.
• A fellow collector starts to follow Dante around. Dante has no clue who it is because the other collector stays invisible.
• Charlie started a volunteer group a couple of years ago, and she volunteers at the weekends. She gets Dante to do some volunteering.
• Charlie’s parents died when she was twelve. Her “grandmother” adopted her.
• Dante discovers that someone has been sealing soul with sparkly pink seals.
• Max gives Dante a soul contract to use on Charlie because she’s obviously not doing anything bad.
• Charlie and Dante go to Taylor’s party. Charlie gets wasted. They play some drinking games, and then hide and seek. The girls go to hide in the woods while the boys look for them. If the boys find a girl, they’re to take her back to the house. Boys see Charlie when she’s hiding, but they walk straight past her. Charlie gets upset and Dante takes her home.
• Dante tells Charlie that he’s a collector and has been sent to get her to fulfil a contract. He doesn’t say that he works for thee devil, and Charlie believes that he works for God. Dante mentions the soul contract, and Charlie tells him to gtfo.
• Taylor lets Charlie go on camera for the reporting club. Taylor gives Charlie horrible cue cards, and it’s broadcast in front of the whole school. In return, Dante puts a seal on Taylor’s soul.
• Charlie signs the contract. She asks for beautiful hair and perfect eyes.
• Dante takes Charlie, Annabelle, and Blue to Las Vegas in an attempt to get Charlie to sin. While there, Charlie asks for better skin.
• At a Vegas club called Holy Hell, Dante meets Valery, the person behind the glittery pink seals. She’s a liberator, and works for God. She knows things about Charlie that Dante doesn’t.
• Charlie tells Dante that she knows he’s good.
• Valery tells Dante that God orchestrated Charlie’s birth. It was all part of a big plan. Charlie’s good work will make everyone nicer and more generous. It’ll last a century, and put the devil out of business.
• Dante goes to Chicago to see his mum while the others fly home. He doesn’t communicate with her, but he sees that she has a new boyfriend and is trying to move on.
• Dante decides to find a way for Charlie to get out of the contract.
• It’s revealed that Dante was driving the car the night he and his dad died in the crash. He blames himself.
• Dante finds Max knocked out outside his hotel room. When Max wakes up, Dante tells him what’s been happening.
• The gold bands come from dargon. The devil stole a sheet of dargon from God before he fell, and made six gold bands out of it so his collectors could walk the Earth. If Charlie lives, she’ll be the reasons the angels walk the Earth without dargon. If she dies, then hell may gain the advantage.
• Charlie asks for more beauty and her smile is “fixed”. She kisses Blue.
• Valery tells Dante to tell Charlie the truth about who he’s working for so that Charlie can choose who she wants to side with. Dante asks Valery to work with him on this, and Valery calls him crazy.
• Charlie and Dante go to the school dance. Charlie has asked for more beauty. Dante tells Charlie he works for the devil and shortly afterwards Charlie goes missing.
• It turns out that Max and Valery were engaged before they both died. They haven’t seen each other in years, and didn’t know that they were working for the devil and for God.
• Dante, Max, and Valery go looking for Charlie. Dante cuts off his gold band.

how did it end?

It turns out that a collector called Kincaid took Charlie. Dante beats him up. Apparently Kincaid was just the bait. Dante’s mother’s boyfriend, Rector, arrives. He’s a collector, and Dante can’t figure out how that works because there are only six gold bands, and Dante knows all the current collectors. It turns out that the devil gave Rector his gold band so that he could finish Dante’s assignment.

Blue fights with Rector and gets shot. Rector runs away because he’s not allowed to harm a human. Blue dies. Dante also “dies” because he doesn’t have his band on.

Dante wakes up surrounded by Charlie, Valery, and Max. His dad shows up – he’s been sent from Heaven – and tells Dante that the car crash wasn’t Dante’s fault.

Dante is now an angel – a liberator – and he, Valery, and Max decide they’re gonna figure out how to use their powers properly, like their wings, for example.

anything else

Collector – Works for the devil to place black seals on humans’ souls so they get sent to Hell.
Liberator – Works for God to place pink seals on humans’ souls so they get sent to Heaven.

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