His grin faded. “Trust me, Kaylee, there’s no one else here you’d trust in your friend’s body.”
“No one here, either…” Tod quipped, and it was all I could do not to acknowledge his joke—or his presence.
“So, how ’bout that drink?” Alec swung Emma’s bare feet onto the floor. “Do you have anything stronger than Coke?”
Yeah. Drano. But even if I knew for a fact that he was drawing me into a trap, I couldn’t poison Emma. “She’s had quite enough to drink tonight, thank you.”
“Well, that explains why she was so easy to push toward sleep.” When I showed no sign of relenting, he sighed and shrugged Emma’s shoulders. “A Coke would be great, thanks. I haven’t had one in years.”
Tod followed me to the kitchen, as I’d hoped he would, and I whirled on him the minute we were out of sight from the hallway. “Just shut up and listen in there, or I swear I’ll tell your boss you’re moonlighting as a Netherworld mule,” I hissed. Then I grabbed another can from the fridge and marched back down the hall before he could reply.
In Emma’s room, Alec stood with Em’s arms crossed beneath her chest, eyeing the collection of pictures on her dresser. “Here. Drink fast and talk faster. This little powwow’s over if anyone wakes up or comes home. Got it?”
Alec nodded, then broke one of Emma’s nails popping open the tab on his can. She was definitely going to notice that. “Mmm,” he said, swallowing his first mouthful of soda. “I’d forgotten how it fizzes on your tongue. It almost hurts. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I had a soda? I can’t believe I can feel it through her. Maybe I should just stay here…”
“No, you shouldn’t. Don’t you want to feel things in your own body?”
Emma shrugged. “Well, one without breasts would be nice. These things get in the way every time I move my arms.”
I rolled my eyes and sank into the desk chair. “I wouldn’t know. But she should get her period in a couple of days. Unless you want to stick around for that—” and I could tell from the comically horrified look on her face, and from Tod’s less-than-subtle snort, that my dart had hit the bull’s-eye “—I suggest you start talking. What’s the plan?”
“Okay, here goes…” Alec took his can and settled Emma onto the edge of the bed, leaning forward with one elbow on her knee, her legs spread wide. Like a guy would sit. “Tomorrow is the winter solstice, in both worlds, and for the first time in something like sixty years, Avari has the resources to hold a true Liminal Celebration. I’ve truly never seen anything like the effort they’re putting into this.”
“What’s a Liminal Celebration?” I asked, sipping from my own can, wishing that the caffeine would kick in almost as badly as I wished Alec would get to the part that included the actual plan.
“It’s a festival in honor of the liminal times and places. Do you understand liminality?” I shook my head and, to my irritation, he made Emma nod, as if she’d expected as much.
“Liminalities are the spaces and moments between.”
“Between what?” I asked, exhaustion having used up all my patience.
“Between anything. Dusk and dawn, for example, are the liminal times between daylight and dark. Doorways are the liminal spaces between in and out. Make sense?” he asked, and I nodded slowly, though I was far from sure I actually understood.
“So, noon would be a liminal time between morning and afternoon, right?” I said, sinking into the desk chair.
Emma’s head nodded, and her borrowed eyes lit with satisfaction. “Liminalities are very important, because they thin the boundaries between the two worlds and make human energy easier for those in the Netherworld to access. And the summer and winter solstices are the biggest, most important liminalities of all. They represent the points of balance in the year between the shortening of days and the lengthening of days. The winter solstice is like their New Year.”
I drained my can and reached back to set it on the desk behind me. “So, you guys are basically throwing a big New Year’s Eve party, and you want me to crash it?”
“Sort of.” Emma’s eyes narrowed in thought. “I think I can take advantage of the distraction to get your boyfriend alone. Then you should be able to cross over and take us both back with you.”
Sounded reasonable enough to me—assuming he was telling the truth.
“Where is this big festival?”
Alec sighed through Emma’s mouth. “As near as I can figure, not having been on your side of the gray fog in quite a while, it’s across the street from the city park. That’s where they’re setting everything up. And whatever they’ve built where the old county courthouse stood must be heavily populated, because the building bleeds through almost entirely. Long hallways and room after empty room.”
My heart dropped into my stomach. He was talking about the high school. My high school. It had been built five years earlier, after the courthouse burned down and the county seat was moved.
“What time does this party start?” I whispered as chill bumps popped up beneath my sleeves.
“Dusk. The last minutes between sunset and full darkness, when you can still make out things around you, but you can also see stars and planets in the sky. It’s the perfect liminal moment.”
Crap. Of course it started at dusk. Our Winter Carnival opened at 5:30—which was about when the sun went down in mid-winter—the exact time and place as their Liminal Celebration.
There’s no way on earth that was a coincidence. Something bad was going on. Something even worse than the frost invasion and Nash being stuck in the Netherworld, though that hardly seemed possible. And according to the clock on Emma’s DVD player, I only had about fourteen hours before dusk brought my one chance to bring Nash back to our world.
“So, I’ll meet you at five-thirty by the front steps of the—” high school “—new building, and we’ll go from—”
But Alec interrupted before I could finish that thought.
“Shhhh, he’s coming,” he hissed. Then, “Yes. Five-thirty, by the steps, no matter what else happens. I have to—” And just like that, Alec was gone.
Only instead of slumping back into sleep, as she’d done the last time Alec vacated her body, Emma stood suddenly stiff and straight as a bedpost. Her head swiveled slowly on her shoulders, steadily taking in the room and its furnishings before her eyes met mine. Then her mouth curled into a slow, taunting smile.
“Well, isn’t this interesting….”
Though I hadn’t seen him in a month, I’d know that voice anywhere.
Avari.
21
“MS. CAVANAUGH, how delightful to find you here.” The hellion paused, glancing around the room again through Emma’s eyes. “Wherever here is.”
I shuddered beneath a bolt of near-paralyzing terror, then exhaled silently in relief. If he didn’t know where he was, he probably didn’t know who he was in. Which surely meant it would be hard for him to ever take Emma over again.
But then Em’s eyes narrowed as Avari stared through them at a framed photo on the dresser: a shot of me and Emma standing in front of my new-to-me car, on the day I’d gotten it. “Well, isn’t my proxy clever?” Avari crossed the room in Emma’s bare feet, hips swinging in the exaggerated motion of a man who isn’t used to wielding them. His gaze flicked to the mirror behind the picture and his eyes widened in lecherous appreciation. “And doesn’t he have the most exquisite taste?”
Seeing Avari in her was a thousand times worse than watching Alec interact through Emma’s body. I couldn’t stand it. How was I ever going to look her in the face again?
“Get out!” I whispered through clenched teeth, my hands curling into powerless fists at my sides. Avari ignored me and reached for the picture with one of Emma’s delicate, graceful hands. “Don’t touch that!”
His gaze flicked my way in surprise and I choked on my next breath, shocked and disturbed by how unlike Emma her own eyes could look. “What would you rather I touch?” Avari asked, his smooth, sinister words
violating her throat just as brutally as his presence desecrated her existence. “This?” The thin hand changed directions and Emma’s fingers splayed across her flat stomach, thumb brushing her sternum, pinkie tucking beneath the elastic waistband of her pj pants.
“Or this?” Avari’s voice deepened suggestively, and the hand slid up Emma’s torso to lift her left breast through the thin cotton of her nightshirt.
My pulse pounded so fast and hard my vision started to go dark. “Get out of her, now!” When Avari turned back to the mirror, unbothered by my powerless protest, I glanced at Tod for help, but he could only shrug and press one finger against his lips in a “shhhh” gesture, reminding me not to give away his presence. He couldn’t control Avari any more than I could, but if the hellion found out the reaper was helping me, he would take his anger out on Nash, and on Addison’s soul.
“Oh, nooo…” Avari ran Emma’s hand down her side and over the generous curve of her hip, cocking it to one side for a better view in the mirror. “I like this one. Truly lovely. She is definitely worth the effort of exploration.”
My jaws ached from being clenched, but I forced my feet to remain still. There was nothing I could do to hurt Avari without hurting Emma, and I wasn’t sure what abilities, if any, Avari brought with him to the body he possessed. Knowing my luck, if I tried to throw a punch—not that I even knew how—he’d freeze me where I stood, or do something worse than groping with Emma’s borrowed hands.
“How could I not have noticed her before? She feels familiar….” Both of Emma’s hands slid around her hips to cup her backside as Avari’s gaze traveled down in the mirror. “But not obviously so. How did Alec ever find her…?” Avari blinked, then turned from the mirror to meet my furious gaze through narrowed eyes. “I do love a resourceful proxy.” But the hard, angry line of Emma’s jaw said that wasn’t entirely true. Alec had been up to something without Avari’s knowledge, and the hellion was pissed. “And Alec has always been exactly that.”
“How long have you…had him?” I asked, stalling for time as my brain whirred almost audibly, grinding in search of some way to get rid of the hellion.
Avari tilted Emma’s head to one side, as if surprised by my interest. And suspicious of it. “Oh, two or three decades,” he finally said. “And he has proven most useful.” Yet that little twitch of irritation was back. “Even when he doesn’t intend to.” Emma’s body stepped closer to me, one hip cocked, one side of her mouth curved up in a lewd grin. “For instance, you are a hard child to get in touch with. Though I must say you aren’t particularly difficult to get inside of…”
Rage and horror battled within me as Emma’s borrowed gaze swept the length of my form before finally returning to my eyes. I had the sudden urge to cover what little flesh my clothes didn’t hide, and couldn’t help wondering what the hellion had done with my body when he’d occupied it. And how often that had been.
If I actually got Nash back alive, he was going to tell me every single thing that happened while I was literally out of my own mind—or I’d kill him myself. And based on Tod’s angry, narrowed eyes, he was thinking something very similar.
Emma stepped forward again, and I answered with another step back, my pulse racing, my jaws clenched so hard I was half-afraid my teeth would crack. “How many times?” I whispered, trying to showcase my anger while hiding my terror.
He took another slinky step toward me, wearing my best friend’s body like a slut wears spandex. And this time when I backed away, my thighs hit the edge of the desk. I had nowhere left to go, unless I was willing to let him follow me through the rest of Emma’s house. Which I was not.
“How many times have I been in you?” Avari asked, leering at me with Emma’s wide, brown eyes, and I flinched over his phrasing. My skin crawled just thinking about him being on the inside of my flesh, breaching the most sacred of my boundaries: that which defined my soul.
“Several,” the hellion answered at last, and his next step put him—put them—less than a foot away. “And I must say it’s a genuine pleasure.” Emma’s body leaned forward and her cheek skimmed mine, my pulse roaring in my ears.
“Each…” Her lips brushed my jaw, and I swallowed thickly.
“…and every…” Her hot, damp breath puffed against my earlobe, and I closed my eyes, trying not to breathe.
“…time.” Avari’s last word stirred the sensitive hairs on my neck, just below my ear, and I swallowed the whimper caught in my throat.
I opened my eyes, and over Emma’s shoulder I saw Tod standing with his fists clenched, his face flushed in fury, jaw bulging as he silently ground his teeth.
Then the hellion stepped back, smiling through Emma’s pouty mouth, and her eyes took on a lecherous glint so disturbing and disorienting that my whole body shuddered. “But as much fun as I’ve had playing teenage bean sidhe—once when your boyfriend didn’t even realize you’d stepped out of your body…”
Rage raced through my veins so fast and hot I thought I would combust. What the hell had he done! What had he made me do? And did Nash really think it was me doing…whatever Avari had done with my body?
“…I have yet to find a good way to communicate with you. Though we came so close with your classmate the other day.” Confusion must have shown through my mounting fury, because as Avari turned, running one of Emma’s slim fingers over the desktop, he lifted one of her artfully arched brows and continued. “How is your arm, by the way?” Her loaded gaze traveled to the bandaged bulge beneath my right sleeve.
Understanding slammed into me like a hammer to my skull. It all came back to Avari. All of it.
Nash was right. Avari was Scott’s shadow man. He was the hallucination Doug had seen in his passenger’s seat. He was the hellion selling its breath to Nash. Avari had possession of Addison’s soul. He’d bribed Tod and Everett into delivering and disseminating his toxic byproduct. He was holding Nash captive in the Netherworld. And Avari was organizing the Liminal Celebration, which would conveniently coincide with our Winter Carnival.
How could I not have seen it earlier? All roads led back to Avari. And for some reason, he’d been trying to get in touch with me.
“What do you want?” I demanded, suddenly sure I’d finally asked the right question.
Avari wrapped one of Emma’s arms around the shoulder-high post at the foot of her bed and swung her around to face me, exposing a smooth strip of skin at her waist. “You.” The hellion’s voice went deep and dark, and sounded surreal coming from Emma’s still-pink mouth. “I want you. And if you cross over right now, you have my word that I will send your boyfriend back to your world.”
From my left, near Emma’s closet, Tod shook his head frantically, and it was all I could do not to look directly at him and clue Avari in to his presence. But I didn’t need to see Tod to know what he was thinking. Avari might send Nash back, but there was no telling when, where, or in what condition he would arrive.
Or in how many pieces.
“Why me?” I asked, ice-cold dread surging through my veins in place of blood. “Don’t you have enough proxies, or servants, or snacks running around?”
“There are never enough proxies.” Of course. I almost forgot I was talking to a hellion of avarice. “But that is not my interest in you.” Emma grinned, easily the most genuine expression Avari had twisted her features into yet. “If you want to know more, you’ll have to cross over so we can have this conversation in person.”
I shook my head firmly and crossed my arms over my chest. “Not going to happen.”
“Even to save your boyfriend?”
I swallowed thickly. Crossing over into Avari’s hands was not my only chance to get Nash back, but that didn’t make it any easier to say what came next. In fact, the words stuck so firmly in my throat that I had to clear it just to speak. “I don’t want a boyfriend who cares more about his next fix than about me.” The tears in my eyes were authentic, but with any luck, he’d attribute them to the emotional loss of my boyf
riend, rather than to the crippling pain born from my knowledge that I was betraying Nash, and maybe damning his soul.
“And I certainly don’t want one who lets you step into my body without even telling me I’m being worn like a used condom.”
Surprise and amusement glittered in Emma’s eyes, and Avari almost looked…satisfied. As if he were pleased to discover something he actually respected in me.
Which sent an even stronger chill through me.
“Is that a no?”
I nodded slowly, as if the decision were difficult for me. As if I weren’t planning to come later, on my own terms. With backup. “A very firm no.”
I had an instant to hope I hadn’t just made a very big mistake, then Avari smiled cruelly with Emma’s lips. “In that case, I hope you said a very firm goodbye to your boyfriend.”
Emma’s eyes closed and her legs folded beneath her. She collapsed to the carpet with a single soft, feminine exhale, and I dropped to my knees beside her as her eyes fluttered open once. Then twice. Then they flew open again and stayed open, focusing on me sluggishly.
“Kaylee?” she asked in her own voice, and relief flavored my next breath, as if the very air tasted better now that Avari had left the building. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged and glanced at Tod, who now knelt on her other side, though she clearly could neither see nor hear him. “I went to the bathroom, and when I got back you were on the floor. Did you roll off the bed?”
And now I’m lying to my best friend…
Emma frowned and propped herself up on both palms. “I don’t think so.” Then her gaze narrowed on my blouse before trailing to my jeans, and I knew I’d messed up. Em was smart and she knew I had secrets. “You were sleeping in your clothes?”
I sighed and shot her a crooked smile, scrambling to think on my feet. “I was hoping Nash would call and we’d make up.”
“You were going to go over there in the middle of the night?” Her own smile snuck up on me, and I was surprised to realize that our fight had bothered her, too.