She froze with that one syllable—her own name, spoken in a child's high, soft voice—and her fingers twitched nervously at her sides. She looked like she wanted to run, but couldn't.
"I wasn't sure who to expect, but I must admit your name never occurred to me." Levi strolled forward like a kid in the park, and I had the absurd thought that he should have been carrying a baseball bat on his shoulder, or a skateboard under one arm. He stopped several feet from Bana and her boss, and gave John Dekker only a fleeting glance, as if he didn't recognize one of the most famous faces in the world.
Which struck me as especially ironic, considering the reaper's apparent age.
"Who is this?" Dekker asked, but before Bana could answer—and I seriously doubt she would have—the boy pulled his freckled right hand from his pocket.
"Levi Van Zant. Senior reaper in this district. I've come to relieve Bana of her duties. And her soul."
Bana's arms went stiff in anticipation, and I realized she was trying to blink out of Addy's house, and out of Levi's reach. My breath caught in my throat. We were going to lose her. But did it even matter? We were too late to stop her from ferrying Regan to the Netherworld.
But despite her obvious effort to disappear, she remained fully corporeal.
And before I could release my breath—before Bana could even suck one in—Levi's small hand shot out and wrapped around her wrist. His fingers barely met on the back of her arm, but any doubt I had about the strength of his grip was put to rest with one look at her face, twisted in agony, as if his very touch burned.
"Bana, look at me."
She tried to refuse. Her free hand clawed uselessly at the wall behind her, scratching the Sheetrock, resistance etched into the terrified, angry lines of her jaw and forehead. But she couldn't resist. Nor could she blink out. Somehow, Levi was blocking her abilities. Guaranteeing her cooperation.
Would Tod ever have that power?
"Look at me, Bana."
Her eyes flew open, and a cry leaked from her mouth. She looked straight into Levi's green eyes, which seemed to…shine. To glow with a bright, cold light.
We watched, every one of us fascinated. Including Dekker, but especially Regan Page, who was getting her first terrifying glimpse of the world she'd just entered. The world she'd sold herself to.
Bana's shoulders slumped and her eyelids fluttered, as if they'd close. Levi's grip on her arm tightened visibly. Dekker stepped back and the reaper went suddenly stiff. Her eyes opened again, but began to dull immediately. To simply…go dark.
And that's when the panic hit. My heart pounded, bruising the inside of my chest. Sweat formed between Nash's hand and mine. The cry rose in my throat, clawing me from the inside out, demanding an exit. An audience. Bana's soul song wanted to be heard.
I clenched my jaw against the wail, my mind whirring with questions.
A soul song for a reaper? It made sense—she did have a soul—yet somehow I'd never expected to actually wail for a reaper. Did that mean that Nash and I could save her if we wanted to? But why would we want to? And if we did, would someone else be taken in her place? Did doomed reaper souls require an exchange?
Surely not. Tod had said reaper souls were much rarer than human souls, so if we were to save Bana, would another reaper have to die? Because one human soul wouldn't be enough, would it?
The kernel of an idea I'd had earlier exploded in my head so violently it felt like my skull would split wide open. Because it wasn't just an idea. It was an idea. The kind of idea that could change lives.
Or save souls.
My hand clutched Nash's, and he tore his gaze from Bana to look at me in surprise, at almost the exact moment the scream leaked from my sealed lips. Just a sliver of sound at first, sharp and painful, but controlled. For the moment.
"Bana?" he whispered, hazel eyes wide, forehead crinkled.
I nodded and let another slice of sound slide from me.
Tod noticed then, and shot a questioning glance at Nash, who could only shrug. "You can make it stop, Kaylee," he said finally, his lips brushing my ear, his peaceful Influence brushing my heart. "I've seen you do it. Bring it back. Hold it in."
But I twisted away from him, shaking my head adamantly. I didn't want to hold it in. I wanted to let it go. Let my shriek pierce every skull in the room and rattle the windows. And let it capture Bana's filthy soul.
The rogue reaper was about to pay for her part in Dekker's soul-trafficking ring, and I was going to personally wring the recompense from her.
Addy and Regan watched me now, rather than Bana and Levi, and their stares made me nervous. Broke my concentration.
I closed my eyes briefly, then opened them along with my mouth. Sharp spikes of sound burst from me, washing over the room like a wave of glass shards. Addy, Regan, and Dekker flinched as one, as their brains were pierced by the evidence of my intent. Their hands flew to their ears. Their eyes squeezed shut. Their noses wrinkled in displeasure bordering on pain.
Levi shuddered, but his concentration never faltered. Bana was in too much pain from the brutal removal of her soul to even notice what I was doing. But Nash and Tod each wore odd smiles, their faces almost slack in pleasure. They heard my wail as a beautiful, eerie song, a melody without equivalent in the human world. A gift from the female bean sidhe, which only the males of our species could experience.
Even the undead males, apparently.
The panic ebbed inside me, riding the sliver of sound out of my core and into the room. With that pressure released, I was able to focus on my part in the plan I was forming. And to somehow communicate Tod's part to him.
An instant later, the last ember of light died in Bana's eyes, and her soul rose from her body. It looked exactly like a human soul—pale and formless. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but that wasn't it. Shouldn't a reaper's soul be different, somehow? And if it wasn't, would my plan even work?
Only one way to find out…
I sang for her soul. Called to it, suspending it in the air like a thick fog as Levi let go of the dead reaper's arm. He stepped back, and she collapsed on Addy's plush living-room carpet, a tangle of bent arms and awkwardly twisted legs.
Dekker jumped away from his dead employee so fast he tripped over his own feet and would have gone down if not for the chair he grabbed for balance. If I hadn't been screaming loud enough to rouse the dead, I'd have laughed. I wouldn't have thought someone who dealt so closely with reapers and hellions would be spooked by a little death.
But despite my fleeting amusement, my plan was not funny. It was born of desperation and inspiration, and it would never work if Tod didn't get on board. Fast.
Unable to take my eyes from Bana's soul, I felt around on my left, reaching blindly for Tod's arm. I found it, and pulled him forward just as Nash bent to whisper into my ear. That was the only way I could hear him over my own wail, and I probably wouldn't have heard a human voice. "What are you doing? She's dead. Let her go. I'm not bringing her back."
I shook my head vehemently, frustrated by my inability to communicate. When Tod's head came into my field of vision, I shoved him toward Bana, pointing at her hovering soul with my free hand then at Tod. Specifically, at his mouth. I needed him to suck up her soul, like Libby had sucked up the Demon's Breath.
To hold it, just for a little while.
And finally, he seemed to get it. "You want me to take her soul?" he asked, and I nodded, relief washing through me so quickly the edges of my vision went black.
I grabbed Nash for balance and concentrated on maintaining my song.
"Why?" Tod asked, shrugging when Levi shot him a questioning glance.
But I couldn't explain until he took the soul so I could stop screeching. I made more frantic gestures with my arms, and he finally nodded in concession. Then he opened his mouth and sucked in Bana's soul. In seconds, it was gone.
I closed my mouth and the room went silent, but for the awful ringing in my ears, which I knew from experience wouldn't fa
de completely for a couple of hours.
Tod wiped nonexistent soul crumbs from his mouth, and I shuddered.
"That was…surreal," I said, my voice as scratchy as an old record player. I stumbled, weak from exertion, and Nash caught me. He half carried me to the couch along the far wall, which was when I realized John Dekker was gone. He'd slipped from the room while everyone else watched me scream, and the front door still stood open.
Outside, tires squealed on the street and headlights faded from the front window. The limo we'd seen out front was gone. As was Regan's soul.
I whirled on the Page sisters, my eyes wide. "Did you catch the hellion's name?"
Addy shook her head slowly, angrily. "They never said it." Her features darkened with tortured disappointment and she glanced at her sister. "Do you know his name?"
Regan shook her head silently, offering no excuses.
"Great. So, what was all that?" Addison asked me, wrapping one arm around her sister's shoulders. Regan only stared, too shocked to form a coherent question.
I knew exactly how she felt.
"Could they see any of that?" I asked, rubbing my throat.
Nash shook his head. "Tod, explain what you can. Kaylee's losing her voice. I'm gonna get her something to drink." With that, he kicked the front door closed and headed into Addy's kitchen, face flushed in barely controlled anger.
Addy didn't seem to notice.
"Bana was a grim reaper," Tod began, guiding both stunned sisters to the empty couch opposite the one I sat on. "Like me and Levi." He nodded toward the boy still standing in the corner, small hands once again hidden in his pockets, evidently content to watch and listen for the moment. "Only she was…bad. So Levi fired her."
"You mean he killed her," Addison said, obviously struggling not to stare at the corpse on her carpet.
"Well, technically she was already dead." Tod shrugged. "So he really just finished the job. And Kaylee was singing her soul song."
"That wasn't singing." Regan's nose wrinkled like she smelled something awful. "That was a vocal slaughter."
If my throat didn't feel like I'd just swallowed barbed wire, I would have laughed. I totally agreed.
"It wasn't a song like you think of music." Nash emerged from the kitchen with a glass of ice water. "It was a call to Bana's soul. Kaylee suspended it long enough for Tod to…take it."
"Speaking of which…" Tod sat on the other couch, as close as he could get to Addison, their legs touching from thigh to knee while Levi watched with an odd expression I couldn't interpret. "Why did I take her soul? Does this have anything to do with all your reaper questions in the car?"
"In fact, it does," I said, after one long sip of the water. My throat still hurt, but my voice had decent volume, considering what I'd just put it through. "We're going to barter with Bana's soul."
Nash's brows arched like he was impressed, and the sudden light in Tod's eyes said he understood at least part of what I was getting at. "You said a reaper's soul is rarer than a human's." I shifted my focus from Tod to his boss. "Am I correct in assuming that makes it more valuable?"
Levi nodded, and now his smile showed a line of small white teeth. They were all there, fortunately. If any had been missing, he would have been too creepy to look at.
"As valuable as, say, two human souls?" I glanced at the Page sisters, then back at Levi, whose brows arched in surprise.
"She's smart, this one," he said. "Of course, I can't officially condone what you're thinking, so I'll take my leave now…."
"But I'm on the right path?" I asked as he knelt next to the dead reaper.
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about." Levi winked at me, still grinning. Then he picked up Bana in both arms as if she weighed nothing, though she had more than a foot on him, and they both disappeared.
"What is going on?" Regan finally demanded, impotent fists clenched at her sides.
I smiled gently, trying to set her at ease, though those eerie, empty eyes creeped me out. "We're going to trade Bana's soul to the hellion. For both of yours."
12
"SHH," I WHISPERED to Nash as I closed the front door softly, wondering what the chances were that my father had fallen asleep early and hadn't noticed I was late. The living room was dark, and in the kitchen, only the over-the-sink light was on, so it was looking pretty good so far….
"Kaylee, get in here. Now."
Or not.
Nash squeezed my hand and followed me into the living room, where my father's silhouette leaned forward in the lumpy armchair, outlined by what little light penetrated the curtains from the street lamp outside. I stood in the middle of the floor, staring at the dark spot where his eyes would be, Nash's chest pressed against my back. "Why are you sitting in the dark?"
A shadow-arm reached up and to the left. The floor lamp clicked and light flooded the room. My dad still wore the flannel shirt he'd worked in, and his eyes were red from exhaustion. "Why are you an hour and a half late?"
Technically, it was only an hour and twenty-four minutes, but he looked even less eager to be corrected than I was to discuss my whereabouts.
"It's not even midnight." I tugged Nash forward and he took that as his signal to intervene, though that wasn't what I'd intended.
"Sorry, Mr. Cavanaugh. We didn't realize it was so la—"
"Go home, Nash." A muscle jumped along the line of my father's jaw. "Your mom's waiting for you, too."
Nash's eyebrows rose, and he frowned. "I'll talk to you tomorrow, Kaylee," he said, already turning toward the front door with my hand still clasped in his, our arms stretched between us.
"That remains to be seen," my dad snapped.
I grinned, hoping to lighten the mood. "You gonna ground me from school?"
He was un-amused. "Good night, Nash."
"I have to drive him." I probably should have taken him home first, but I was hoping my dad would be asleep and we could discuss our next move, in light of that evening's failure. I dug my keys from my pocket and turned to follow Nash, but he shook his head with one look at my dad.
"I'll walk. It's only a few blocks." As the door closed behind him, I suddenly wished we didn't live so close together.
"Where were you?" my dad asked as I sank onto the couch on his left. "And before you start, I know you didn't work tonight, and you clearly weren't with Emma."
Great. "It's not whatever you're thinking." I could virtually guarantee that. But I couldn't tell him where I'd really been, because he'd like that even less than the thought that I was out drinking, smoking, or sleeping with Nash.
"Then where were you?" He crossed both arms over his chest, and I thought I saw his irises swirl just a little, though that might have been the flicker of a passing headlight on his eyes.
"Out driving." Mostly.
When he leaned forward to peer into my eyes, I realized his irises really were swirling. Weird. He usually had better control over his emotions…
"Is Nash going to be a problem?" My dad's voice was deep and rough. Worried.
I fiddled with a frayed spot of denim over my knee. "Why would he be?"
He closed his eyes briefly, and when they opened, his face held a new resolve and the colors in his irises had stopped moving. He'd regained control over…something. Something I didn't understand and he didn't seem ready to explain. "Kaylee, I know you like him, and I know he's…not a bad kid. And we all know he was there for you when I wasn't, and I'm sorrier about that than I could ever explain. But I don't want you to…"
He hesitated and rubbed his forehead, then started over. "It isn't a good idea for you to get too involved with him. You're so young, and…Damn, I wish your mother was here to explain this…."
Sudden understanding flooded me and blood rushed to my cheeks. "Dad, is this about sex?"
That time he blushed, and I almost felt sorry for him. Fulltime parenthood was new for him, and we were still feeling our way around in some areas. Like curfews, and apparently that mortifying af
ter-school-special talk.
"It's not just about sex…."
"Okay, please stop." I held up both hands, palms out, and rolled my eyes. "This is just weird—"
"Kaylee…"
"—and it's really none of your business—" I gestured with one arm.
He stood, frowning down at me. "This most certainly is my business—"
"—and I don't need you stepping in to tell me what I can and can't do!" I stood to put us on equal ground.
"That's my job." His mouth quirked up in an ironic smile, but I refused to see the humor.
"Well, you're not very good at it!"
His smile collapsed, and his eyes swirled slowly. Sadly.
I felt guilty immediately. He was trying so hard. "I didn't mean it like that."
"I know." He exhaled heavily. "But you're still grounded. For coming home late—not for hurting my feelings."
Great. I closed my eyes, trying to think quickly. I knew how to deal with my aunt and uncle, but with my dad, I was in mostly unexplored territory. "Okay, but this is really kind of a disastrous time for me to be grounded." I crossed my arms over my chest. "Can't we work something else out? I'll do the dishes all week. And the laundry." Of course, I already did most of the clothes, anyway, because he kind of sucked at sorting.
"Did Bren and Val really go for that?" Anger edged his voice now. I was nearing some kind of boundary, and I really had no desire to cross it. My dad was actually pretty laid-back for the most part, and I didn't want to trigger whatever auto-lockdown mechanism most parents have hardwired into their brains. Even recently returned itinerant parents.
"No." They'd rarely actually grounded me; Sophie was usually the one in trouble. Though, I couldn't remember them actually grounding her, either, come to think of it…. "But I have something important to do this week."
"What?"
My entire body felt heavy with guilt. "I can't tell you."
"Like you can't tell me where you were tonight?"
"Kind of." I exhaled heavily and met his gaze. "Dad, I need you to trust me. This is really important."