I wiped off all the cream I could with more of Emma's tissues, wishing she had something wet so I could get all of it. The little bit that remained in the holes in my flesh bubbled softly, leaking tiny drops of white-tinged liquid now. By the time we pulled into the stadium parking lot, thin, red, weblike lines had begun to snake out from the double ring of punctures in all directions. The webbing extended less than an inch so far, but I had no doubt it would keep spreading.
Nash glanced at my ankle twice, his frown deepening each time, and I seriously considered his offer to take me to the hospital. To end the pain creeping up my leg and get our confession over with. But that would effectively end our night, leaving Addy to die without her soul. Damning her to an eternity of torture. And I couldn't do that. Not knowing what had happened to the souls my aunt had bargained with. How could I let Addy suffer the same fate?
Besides, there would be time to treat my injury after we'd reclaimed the Page souls, right? Because according to Tod, no matter how bad my ankle got, I wouldn't die until my name showed up on some reaper's list, and if that happened, no amount of Netherworldly cream or pills could save me. I refused to think about the fact that Tod's list couldn't predict the loss of my leg or foot. So I pressed on, in spite of the pain.
We negotiated the parking lot on the human plane—brightly colored balloons tucked under both of my arms and one of Nash's—to avoid stepping on any more crimson creeper, and we didn't stop to cross over until I judged that we were approximately where we'd stood when we'd bargained with the fiend. Then we moved several feet to the left, to avoid that stupid vine. I was pretty sure my estimate of the distance was good enough, because as far as I could tell, we hadn't lost any time crossing over earlier. The anchor at the stadium was very strong.
Tod crossed over first, to make sure all was clear, and that the fiend was waiting for us, because I wasn't going to make the effort if the little monster had ditched us, or if it wasn't safe to be in the Netherworld at that particular place and time. Only once he'd returned with the all clear did I summon my wail—with less effort than ever now—and haul Nash into the Netherworld with me.
The fiend stood very close to where we'd left him, running the tip of his tail through one small, loosely clenched fist over and over. His gaze jumped from place to place. His twitches had grown stronger, and he clearly could not stand still. And suddenly it occurred to me with an indescribable jolt of horror that I'd become a Netherworld drug dealer.
After several deep breaths, I decided I could live with that, so long as the ends justified the means. I hadn't gotten the little monster hooked on Demon's Breath in the first place, and I was only enabling him for one hit. Right?
The fiend's eyes widened at one glimpse of the balloons we carried, and I noticed for the first time that his bright yellow eyes were drastically dilated and shiny.
"Give!" he panted, reaching up with both short, stubby hands for the red balloon, the first to capture his attention. I wondered briefly if he were color-blind, and I was relieved to notice that he had no fingernails. At least I wouldn't have to worry about him clawing me in a rush for his fix.
"Information first," I insisted, holding both balloons over my head by the knots sealing them.
"No!" His arms began to tremble, even as his tail twitched furiously. He was hurting badly, and if he didn't get what he needed soon, someone was going to get hurt. Unfortunately, I didn't have needlelike metallic teeth with which to defend myself.
But my spine was starting to feel quite a bit like steel.
"Tell us where to find the hellion of avarice, or we'll pop the balloons one at a time. Too high up for you to inhale." I nodded at Nash, and he produced his folding knife from one pocket, flipping it open with the press of one button.
"No!" the fiend screeched, jumping for the balloon in vain.
Nash jerked back in surprise, and the point of his knife pierced the balloon he held. The latex exploded, showering him with bits of purple rubber. He coughed and waved a hand in front of his face, casually clearing away the very substance our little informant craved. Needed…
The fiend dropped to his knees, picking up one scrap of latex at a time, sniffing them desperately. But after several seconds, he looked up at us in bitter, pained defeat.
I held up the red balloon. "Tell us, or we'll pop this one, too," I threatened softly, hoping not to attract the attention of the fiends still madly trying to scale the stadium walls. Many of them now lay unconscious on the sidewalk, either from denial of their chemical fix, or from being stomped on by their stronger brethren.
The fiend squealed in fury, and his hands squeezed into tiny fists, his tail whipping behind him angrily, stirring dust from the surface of the parking lot. "Fine. Human monsters. No mercy…" he mumbled, and I almost laughed. His entire species seemed ready to bring about its own end for one more hit of a substance they had no business snorting. Or sniffing. Or whatever. Yet we had no mercy?
"Talk." I held the red balloon closer to Nash's knife, as he posed with it threateningly.
The small creature drew himself up straight and squared his shoulders, drawing what little dignity he still possessed around himself like a cape. "Hellions loiter where they feed. You want Avari, a hellion of avarice. He will be where greed best festers."
"Which is where?" I inched the red balloon closer to Nash's knife point.
The fiend shrugged, but the motion was not smooth enough to disguise the tremor now shaking his entire body. "Downtown. The greatest bastion of greed I know." The fiend gasped, as if he couldn't suck in a deep-enough breath. At least, not one that wasn't polluted with his poison of choice. "Humans call it Prime Life."
"The insurance company?" Nash cleared his throat gingerly, as if it hurt. Prime Life was the largest insurance firm in the country, and it was headquartered in Dallas.
Hmm, I thought, a moment before the fiend nodded silently. That kind of makes sense.
"Bastion of greed…" the fiend repeated. "Probably there now…" He extended both small arms, like a child begging to be picked up. Only this child wanted a party balloon filled with addictive Nether-toxins.
I handed it over, though my stomach churned in response to a less-honorable action than any I'd ever taken. After a second thought, I gave him the yellow balloon, too. We had no use for it, and he clearly needed it. The thought of which made my stomach pitch even harder.
But we'd gotten what we'd come for, and I crossed back into the human world satisfied, if not exactly pleased with myself.
The ends would eventually justify the means, right? So how come I felt like I'd just sold my soul…?
18
"YOU OKAY?" Nash asked, when he noticed me limping back to the car.
"Fine." Though, I wasn't at all sure of that. My ankle burned fiercely, and was so swollen it seemed to jiggle with each step. But I was afraid to look at it, so I glanced at my watch instead.
It was 2:15 a.m. on the day Abby was fated to die. Unfortunately, we hadn't thought to ask Libby for a specific time, and Levi had been closely guarding the reapers' list ever since Tod stole a peek at it six weeks ago, so I already felt like we were working in the dark. Regardless, there wouldn't be time to seek medical attention until Addy and Regan had their souls back and evil had met its match. Until then, I would pretend my ankle was made of steel, like some kind of bionic joint, and that I could feel no pain. I was superhuman. I could do anything.
But I'd take some Tylenol, just in case. Lots of Tylenol.
Nash slid behind the wheel of Emma's car again, because I didn't feel like driving. I felt like sleeping, but sleep, like everything else appealing, wasn't an option at the moment.
Nash twisted the key in the ignition and glanced in the rearview mirror at his brother. "We'll pick up Addy and Regan." He turned the wheel to the left as far as it would go, to cut a tight circle in the deserted parking lot. "You go on to Prime Life and see if you can find Avari. Here, take this." Nash arced one arm backward over his shoulder
to Tod, his cell phone clenched loosely in his fist.
"That won't work in the Netherworld," I said. And even if it did, I bet he'd rack up one hell of a roaming charge.
Tod scrolled through his brother's contact list. Or maybe his playlist. "Yeah, but once I find Avari, I can cross back over and call you."
Oh, yeah.
Tod pocketed the phone and leaned forward to stick his head between the seats. "Thanks, guys. I really owe you for this."
I'm sure my grin looked more like a grimace. "And for this…" I propped my foot on the dash again and pulled up my jeans cuff to reveal my ankle. At which point my grimace contorted into an expression of disgust and fear, and my words trailed into shocked silence.
My ankle was twice its normal size. The flesh beneath the double ring of punctures was inflamed and covered in those weird, red webbed veins, which now crept beneath my sock and halfway to my knee. Fluid sloshed beneath the skin over my ankle, hanging lower at the back, just above my shoe, where gravity tugged hardest.
Nash's sudden intake of breath hissed throughout the car, and I looked up to see him watching me, rather than the road. "Kaylee, we have to get that looked at."
"Ya think?" I tried to smile, but my sense of humor had deserted me. "Eyes on the road!"
He jumped, then turned the wheel back on course, but kept sneaking glances at my ankle while I tried to decide whether or not to poke it. "That antibiotic cream made it worse," I said. "Will a human doctor even know what to do for this?"
"I doubt it." Nash divided his attention between my ankle and the lightly populated highway. "But Mom will."
I glanced at Tod, eager for a second opinion. "What do you think? Can this wait?"
The reaper swallowed thickly and studied my ankle for a moment. Then he met my gaze, his blue eyes shadowed in the backseat. "I think so."
"You sure?" I asked. Because he didn't sound very sure.
"Yeah." Tod nodded firmly. "You'll be fine. We're not looking to drag this out, anyway."
"Okay. Good." I sank back into my seat, feeling a little better now that we'd decided on a course of action. "As soon as we're done at Prime Life, we'll call your mom and have her meet us at your house," I said to Nash, then twisted to look at Tod. "I'll call Addy and tell her we're on the way. You go find this hellion. Avari. But try not to let him see you. And if he does, don't tell him we're bringing Addy and Regan. Somehow I doubt he'll be eager to give their souls back, even if he thinks he'll be getting two more in exchange."
For once, Tod nodded without arguing. Then he gave me an unexpected kiss on the cheek and disappeared with Nash's phone before I could recover from the surprise.
"I take it that's a thank-you," I mumbled, rubbing the spot on my cheek where the reaper's lips had touched me. They were warmer than I'd expected from a dead man.
Nash huffed, but he didn't really look mad. His brother's kiss spoke more of gratitude than anything else.
While he watched out for our exit, squinting beneath streetlights at regular intervals, I pulled my phone from my pocket. But before I could scroll through the call history for Addy's number, a small message at the bottom of the display popped up to tell me I'd missed five calls.
Crap. My dad had discovered my empty bed.
Please tell me he didn't call the police!
Three messages were from him, as expected. The first two had come in less than an hour after I'd left the house, while we were in the Netherworld bargaining with the fiend the first time. They were virtually identical—my father's angry voice demanding to know where I was, and what the hell I was doing. My dad didn't cuss much. Only when he was really, really mad. Or scared.
The third call was from Emma, warning me that my father had called her house at one o'clock in the morning. Which woke her mother up and led to all kinds of questions Emma'd had to dance around.
Oops. I made a mental note to bake a pan of brownies for Emma, too, to try to make up for the trouble I was getting her into.
Fortunately, her mother hadn't noticed the missing car, and it hadn't occurred to my father—yet, anyway—to ask if I'd borrowed it.
The fourth call was from Harmony, who was worried, and even sounded a little angry. She said my dad was "beside himself" and about two seconds from driving the streets in search of me. Then she wanted to know if I'd seen Nash, who wasn't answering his phone, either. Which meant he would have messages, too.
That was her way of warning us that she knew we were in this together—whatever this was—and that we'd better have a good explanation when we finally turned ourselves in.
I liked Harmony, and I was afraid that once she found out what we were doing, she'd shorten the long leash Nash had enjoyed since way before I'd met him. And that would be my fault, too.
The fifth call was from my dad again, saying he was going to drive around town looking for me, and if he hadn't heard from me by three, he'd go to the police.
Wonderful.
A quick glance at the clock on my phone display said it was two fifty-four in the morning. "I gotta call my dad," I said, glancing at Nash in dread. He nodded grimly, having obviously heard at least part of the messages.
As my dad's phone rang in my ear, I tugged my pants leg down and set my foot on the floor, gasping when even that slight movement made the accumulated fluid slosh.
"Kaylee?" my dad barked into my ear. "Is that you?"
"Yeah, it's me. I'm fine," I added before he could ask. And that was true, relatively speaking. I hadn't been mugged, or kidnapped, or turned out on the streets. "Look, I don't have much time to talk, but the bottom line is that I'm sorry I snuck out, but I had to. I have to finish something important, then I'll be home. A couple of hours, at most."
"Is Nash with you?"
I sighed, and let my head fall back against the headrest, watching as the highway lights passed over us in a steady, hypnotic rhythm. "This isn't his fault," I insisted. "I asked him to help. I'll explain everything when I get home."
"Kaylee—"
"I gotta go, Dad. I just wanted to tell you I'm okay. And please don't go to the police. They won't understand." With that, I slid my phone closed and pressed the button to ignore the incoming call when it began to ring an instant later. Instead of answering, I called Addison. She answered on the first ring and assured me that Regan was up, if not exactly perky.
I told her to funnel another Jolt down her sister's throat and get her dressed. We'd be there in ten minutes.
Again, Addy met us at the door, but this time Regan sat on the couch in designer jeans and a couple of snug, layered, long-sleeved tees. She stared across the room with those weird, solid-white eyes until our arrival caught her attention and she smiled blankly at me, her lips barely curling up enough to qualify as an actual expression.
"She's gonna have to put her contacts in," I said, forcing myself to look somewhere other than Regan's eyes. Anywhere else. "She can't go out like that."
Addison crossed the room toward her sister, a brown leather jacket folded over one arm. "I don't think I can get them in her eyes, and she's not up to it yet. Can't she just wear sunglasses?"
"It's the middle of the night." I picked up one of Regan's listless arms and slid it through the jacket sleeve her sister held.
"We're not trying to make a fashion statement, Kaylee." Addy stuffed her sister's remaining hand through its sleeve. "We're just trying to avoid notice."
"Will we have to worry about paparazzi at three in the morning?" I asked as Addison knelt to slide a pair of glittery canvas shoes on her sister's bare feet. Not exactly winter attire, but it would work in a pinch. As would the sunglasses.
"Not in your car," the pop princess said, and I didn't bother to tell her it wasn't my car. She would have been much more embarrassed to appear in mine than in Emma's. "Not unless someone tipped them off. And if that's the case, we have bigger things to worry about." She rose and pulled her sister up by both hands.
Regan just stood there.
"How much d
id you give her?" Nash stepped closer to the youngest Page with his arms out, as if to catch her. Because she looked pretty wobbly.
"You mean Jolt or pills?"
"Pills."
"Two. But I think part of this is shock."
Nash exhaled deeply, frowning. "Grab another Jolt for the road." He wrapped one arm around Regan's shoulders and led her toward the door. Addy ducked into the kitchen while I snatched a pair of oversize, super-dark sunglasses from the bar between the living room and kitchen, sliding them in place over Regan's ears right before Nash pushed her gently over the threshold and onto the porch.
Addy sat by her sister in the back, and I slid into the passenger seat, buckling my seat belt as Nash started the engine. I resisted the urge to take another look at my ankle because I didn't want Addy or Regan to see it.
I didn't really want to see it, either.
"Regan, can you hear me?" Nash asked, as we took the on-ramp back onto the highway.
"Yeah…" Regan said, frowning slightly.
"Here, drink this." Addison popped the top on the drink can and held it to her sister's lips.
"No…" Regan pushed sluggishly at the can, and Addy pulled it back to keep from spilling.
"We need you coherent, Regan," I said, wishing I had Nash's Influence rather than my own much harsher abilities. "Don't you want to get your soul back?"
Regan shrugged, and I couldn't even tell if she was looking at me from behind those huge sunglasses.
"Keep making her drink." I settled into my seat, concentrating on the pain in my leg to keep from falling asleep.
My eyes were just starting to close when my phone buzzed in my pocket. My dad had called me twice more on the way to Addy's house, but I checked the display just in case. It was Tod, calling on Nash's phone.
"Hello?" I jabbed Nash's arm as I answered, then mouthed his brother's name.
"Kaylee? I found him. If you guys get here before he leaves, this might just work." Tod sucked in a tense, worried breath. "But, Kay, this place isn't like the stadium. It's…busy. You'll have to cross over in the parking lot, then bring everyone in through the side door, because the building's still closed in the human world. And be careful. Don't touch anything—"