My Soul to Save

  And suddenly I realized. I remembered. "You knew!" He'd almost said something in the car. He'd started to tell me my ankle couldn't wait. But then he didn't.

  On the edge of my vision, Nash's hands curled into fists at his sides, and his eyes churned furiously in fear and rage.

  "I'm sorry, Kay," Tod began as Addy and Regan stared at me in horror. "I'm so sorry…."

  I turned my back on him, ignoring his silent plea for forgiveness. "If I die, it will be with my soul in my possession," I said to the hellion, summoning every ounce of that fortitude he'd mentioned. "It will never be yours." I paused, as cold, treacherous anger flowed swiftly over the demon's face. "Got that, Tod?"

  "I got it," he whispered from behind me. He would take my soul if I died, to keep it from the demon. It was the least he owed me. That, and a few tears spilled over my grave…

  "So be it, bean sidhe." Avari's voice was as still and deadly as an Arctic winter. He turned that toxic hunger on Addison. "What do you offer?"

  Addy nodded at Tod, who'd recovered most of his composure. "Your colleague Bana is no longer with us," the reaper said. "Not in body, anyway."

  The hellion's expression did not change, but I suffered in silence for several tense moments before he spoke again. "You have Bana's soul?"

  "Yes." Tod let a slow smile stretch across his face. "She was more than one hundred years old. Her soul has more accumulated energy than both Addison's and Regan's combined, and I can personally attest to the quality of that energy." He patted his stomach, like he'd just eaten a particularly satisfying burger.

  Again, Avari betrayed no thought or emotion, and frustration spiked with my pulse. I couldn't tell if he was even interested in our bait, much less how close we were to a deal.

  The entire right side of my body throbbed during Avari's silence, pain cresting and falling with each beat of my heart. Small, sharp tongues of anguish licked at the base of my spine, replacing the numbing cold with a searing heat. I could almost feel the creeper venom flowing through me, taking over my body one cell at a time, one limb after another.

  "No." Finally the hellion spoke, and I concentrated on his words to distract me from the pain that hunched my back and singed my nerve endings. "Human souls are pure, and particularly innocent are the souls of children." His gaze seemed to focus on Regan then, though I couldn't be sure with his eyes hidden. "If you want your souls back, you will offer a fair exchange. That is the agreement you signed."

  Regan moaned, and Addy squeezed her sister's hand. "Please," the pop star begged, stepping in front of Regan to block her from the demon's sight, and vice versa. But the moment the word left her mouth, both Nash and Tod went stiff, and it didn't take me long to catch on. Addison had just shown the hellion another weak link in our chain, and exactly how to exploit it.

  The demon smiled, and the temperature in the room plummeted. My goose bumps grew fatter, and my nose started to run, like I'd caught a cold. I began to shiver, and each small movement sent fresh waves of pain throughout my body, one after the other, cresting in my injured ankle.

  "You want to save your sister?" Avari's voice pierced me like a massive icicle through the chest, and I couldn't hold back a gasp. I wasn't the only one; Regan looked like her blood had just frozen in her veins.

  Addison hesitated, and Nash tried unsuccessfully to catch her eye without speaking. "Yes," Addy said finally, her pretty face twisted with fear and desperation.

  The hellion's smile widened almost imperceptibly, and some small motion caught my eye from his desk. I glanced down to see a thin, blue-tinted film of frost forming on the glass desktop, crawling across the surface in tiny, flat ice-vines. The frost branched steadily in all directions, a network of captured snowflakes. It was beautiful.

  It was also one of the scariest things I'd ever seen.

  "I will trade one unspoiled human soul for this reaper's accumulated energy." Avari's soft words rolled over me like thunder as ice continued to spread toward the edge of the desk. "Show me Bana's soul."

  "You first," I gasped, clutching my abdomen as the toxin spreading within me set my stomach on fire. Soon the poison's flames would meet the ice Avari's words had driven through my chest, and I knew better than to hope the two would simply cancel each other out. "Give us the soul first," I repeated, ignoring the shocked faces staring at me. "Or there's no deal."

  A growl rumbled from the demon's throat to shake the entire room, and a sudden gush of frigid power sent more frost surging over the edge of the desk and onto the floor. Avari ripped the sunglasses from his face and they froze in his hand, tiny icicles hanging from the earpieces and the left lens. His fist closed, and the frozen plastic shattered, clinking to the floor like glass.

  His eyes, now exposed, were spheres of solid black, just like Addison had said. But what her words had failed to convey was the utter darkness encompassed in those obsidian orbs. Looking into Avari's eyes was like looking into the depths of oblivion. Into the distillation of nothingness.

  He was the very absence of all things light and good, and staring into his eyes called forth my own worst fear: that if I were to look into my own heart and soul, I would find nothing more. That I would be just as empty. That my own void would mirror his.

  But I wouldn't let it. If I had to die, at least I could die helping a friend.

  "You dare make demands of me?" the hellion roared, shattering a heavy stalactite of ice that had grown from the ceiling. It crashed to the floor, and both Page sisters jumped.

  I only smiled. I was a little light-headed, and more than a little out of my mind with pain and with the very thought of my rapidly approaching demise. "I totally dare. You don't scare me." I barely noticed the sick look on Nash's face, growing worse with every word I spoke. He aimed eyebrow acrobatics my way, trying to shut me up, but I ignored him. What did I have to lose? "I'm going to die, anyway," I continued. "And if you don't release one soul now, Tod will take off with Bana's, as well as mine, and you'll have gained nothing from this little gathering."

  How well did that concept sit with the demon of greed?

  Avari growled again, and more spears of ice dropped from the ceiling to shatter at our feet. But then his growl died, and the floor went still beneath me, a temporary mercy for my tortured right leg. And when the sound faded, the hellion's lips turned up in the single most terrifying smile I'd ever seen.

  "Fine. Have your soul, for what good it will do you…." He exhaled deeply, without sucking in a preparatory breath, and what I at first mistook for warm air puffing into the cold room soon revealed itself as a soul. A human soul.

  We'd done it!

  I glanced at Nash and Tod in relief and in pure joy, ignoring the pain that now wound its way over my ribs toward my right shoulder.

  "Kaylee!" Nash whispered fiercely, desperately, and I followed his gaze to the soul now floating steadily toward the icicle-studded ceiling.

  Oops. I'd forgotten the most important part. Since Regan wasn't actually dying, I'd had no urge to wail for her, and her soul was getting away. So I used what I'd learned from Harmony to call my wail up on demand, suspending the soul with the thin sliver of sound that leaked from my tightly sealed lips.

  The soul bobbed just below the ceiling, surrounding one of the stalactites of ice. Sweat broke out on Nash's forehead, in spite of the freezing temperature, as he concentrated on guiding the soul into Regan's body while everyone else watched. Tod stared at his brother in relief, while Addy and Regan looked on in amazement—evidently in the Netherworld humans can see souls.

  But Avari looked…amused?

  Was I missing something?

  I focused on my wail, on holding most of it back, to distract myself from the pain that now pierced my right shoulder and was inching its way down my arm. Nash brought the soul steadily closer to Regan, and in a sudden moment of comprehension, Addison pushed her sister toward the bobbing soul, to make Nash's work easier.

  My heart beat harder in anticipation. The rush of adrenaline throu
gh my veins tried to overwhelm the pain in my bones. Any second, Regan and her soul would be reunited. We could claim success on the part of at least one Page sister.

  We couldn't help Addy—she'd made her own choice—but we'd done what we could.

  Nash's sudden wide-eyed, horrified expression was the first sign that something had gone wrong. "It doesn't fit!" he breathed, and I wasn't sure whether I'd actually heard him or read his lips. "It's not hers!"

  Suddenly the hellion's unprecedented agreeableness and his amused expression made sense, and we all seemed to draw the same conclusion at once: Avari had tricked us.

  He'd released Addison's soul instead of Regan's.

  20

  "NO!" ADDISON SHOUTED, her voice strong and shrill, powered by a singer's trained lungs. Which I could have used in that moment, as my muffled keening thinned. But her protest meant nothing to Avari.

  "This is my offer," he said, softer than before, yet still his words sent cold, ethereal fingers over my flesh, making my goose-pimpled skin crawl. "The choice is yours."

  "Nooo." Addison moaned that time. "No. Take me. You said you'd take my soul."

  Avari shook his head slowly, a cruel teacher scolding a naive student. "You misinterpreted my words. That happens more than you might think."

  As my wail wavered, my mind raced while I tried to remember everything the hellion had said. Had he actually said he'd trade Regan's soul for Bana's? Or just a soul? I couldn't remember….

  "Choose." Avari clucked his tongue at Addison. "Your friends cannot hold your soul forever. Not with this one near death." The demon's gaze met mine, and suddenly his cruel truth sank in. I was dying. The poison had spread to my right hand, and now flowed over my left side on its way to my heart. I couldn't hold Addy's soul for long.

  My gaze pleaded with her as I struggled to keep the sound steady in my throat.

  Addison's eyes watered and she glanced from me to Regan, who stood frozen in terror, clenching her sister's hand so hard it had turned purple. Then her gaze swung my way, and she focused on something over my shoulder. And I thought I saw some glimmer of hope in her grotesquely blank eyes.

  Was that possible? Had she thought of something?

  Addy turned to Tod and mouthed something I couldn't interpret.

  I was next, and what she said silently to me was "One more minute. Please." I closed my eyes briefly, then opened them and nodded. I would hold on, for just a little longer.

  Addison smiled her thanks, then she nodded decisively, again looking over my shoulder.

  An instant later, Addy collapsed. Her legs simply folded under her and her head smacked the frosted marble floor. Not that it mattered. She was dead before she hit the ground.

  "No!" Regan shouted, tears pouring down her cheeks. She lurched toward her sister, but Tod held her back, wrapping his arms around her shoulders to keep her still.

  Surprise dried up the trickle of sound flowing from my throat, and Addy's soul bobbed, until I keened again a second later. Then things got even weirder.

  A figure stepped forward from behind me and to my right, her mouth open, already sucking in a long, thick stream of Demon's Breath from Addy's still form.

  Libby. My heart ached as I realized Addison had seen her over my shoulder. She'd nodded to Libby, not to me.

  Then Tod spoke, Regan now sobbing on his shoulder, and I began to put the pieces together. "The deal has changed, Avari. If you want Bana's soul, you take Addison's with it and return her sister's. Or else, we'll leave with both of the souls in our possession, and you'll keep only the one you have now."

  Damn. Shock wound through me, blending with the pain now arcing across every nerve ending in my body. Somehow, Addison had known who Libby was and why she'd come. Had Tod told her, or did understanding simply come in the last moments of her life?

  Either way, with a single nod of her head, Addison had asked Libby to end her life, to force the hellion into trading her soul for Regan's. Because Addison's was ready to reap now, and Regan's wouldn't truly be his until she died, likely decades later.

  Avari's face paled with rage, and the void in his eyes seemed to churn, though I could detect no motion when I looked directly into those dark spheres.

  "Five seconds, or you're out of luck," Tod said as Nash continued to sweat, and my voice warbled. "We're in a bit of a rush." He gestured to me, and I realized he planned to get me home before I died. He was trying to save me, since he couldn't save Addison.

  All I could do was sing. And watch Libby claim the Demon's Breath. And wait.

  "Five…Four…" Tod taunted as Regan heaved with silent sobs and Avari bellowed in rage. The floor grew slick with ice beneath my feet, and my breath puffed visibly into the frigid air.

  Then, just when I thought it was over—thought Addison's death had been for nothing—the hellion spat one short, powerful exhalation into the room, and Regan's soul bobbed near the ceiling.

  At Nash's signal, I let go of Addison's soul and sang for her sister's. Libby swallowed the last of the Demon's Breath and popped out of existence without so much as a glance at the rest of us. Avari slurped up Addy's soul in a fraction of the time it took Nash to guide Regan's home. And only then did Tod release Bana's soul into the room.

  While Avari devoured it, Nash rushed toward me across the slick floor, tugging a shocked Regan by one hand. I had a moment to notice that her eyes were again beautiful, and blue, and normal. Then they converged on me, sliding so quickly they almost bowled me over.

  "Now!" Nash whispered desperately, tugging me into an agonizing squat so that I touched both him, Regan, and Addison's limp arm. "Take us back now!"

  That time, intent to cross was no problem, and I was already keening. Avari's roar of fury faded swiftly from my ears. An instant later I collapsed to the floor of a generic office full of cubicles and cheap industrial carpet. Addy lay at my side, and Nash and Regan stared down at me, a mixture of grief and relief coursing over their features.

  A moment later, Tod popped into existence next to his brother.

  "Are you okay?" Nash knelt at my side, but by then I could only shake my head. I'd lost my voice completely, and was in so much pain it hurt to draw a breath. "Call Mom," Nash ordered, sliding one hand behind my back, the other beneath my knees. He carried me out of the office and into the hall while Regan followed, crying and scrolling through the entries in Nash's phone for a name she wouldn't even recognize, because Tod carried her sister's body.

  Each second we waited for the elevator was pure agony. I hurt all over, and worse wherever he touched me. But I was grateful for that touch.

  "You'll be fine," Nash whispered. "Your expiration date is in full effect here, so you won't die. But you're going to hurt like hell until we get this fixed."

  I'd guessed as much.

  I'd just decided that Prime Life shut down their elevators after hours when the mirrored doors slid open with a soft ding. Downstairs, we crossed the eerily empty lobby and Nash set me on a burgundy couch while he kicked open the locked glass doors leading to the parking garage. It took him three tries, but I was still impressed.

  Harmony answered her phone as Nash buckled me into the front seat, and Regan gave the phone to Tod as he closed the trunk, where he'd gently laid Addison. He explained the basics, demanding his mother meet us at my house with the necessary supplies. She said she'd be there in ten minutes.

  It took us twenty, and once he'd dropped me and Nash off, Tod took the Page sisters home, where Regan would "find" her sister's body on the floor of her own room. Then he returned Emma's car.

  My front door flew open before Nash and I even got to the porch, and my father took me from him without a word. His anger had momentarily been eclipsed by fear I hadn't seen since that long-ago day I barely remembered.

  The day my mother had died to save me.

  "Not again," he muttered, laying me on the couch. I moaned, and tears overflowed his eyes.

  "She'll be fine." Harmony pushed him aside gently. I hadn
't even known she was there, but suddenly she was at my side, her fingers cold on my arm, a filled syringe ready in her other hand. "Tod said it's crimson creeper."

  "Where the hell did she find crim—" His eyes widened in horror, and some of that anger returned. "Kaylee, what did you do?"

  "She can explain it later, Aiden," Harmony said firmly. The needle slid into my arm, and though it was blissfully cold, the medicine that invaded my body scalded like one of the original pinpricks from the creeper. "For now, let her sleep. She'll need another dose of this in four hours." She held a second syringe up for my father to see, and he nodded. "If the red webbing isn't gone four hours after that, call me."

  But she'd be back to check on me before then. Nash would see to that.

  "Come on, Nash," Harmony said, and the hard edge in her voice said he wouldn't get off easy, either.

  "No…" I moaned, surprised when my voice actually produced the cracked, tortured sound. I grabbed his wrist with the last of my strength.

  Harmony frowned at me, then at my father. "Can he stay, Aiden? She wants him to stay."

  My father hedged, and I begged him with my eyes. I needed them both. I'd never hurt so badly in my life, but Nash's voice could help. I knew it could. "Fine," he said finally. "But you have to go to sleep, young lady."

  We'd argue about the "young lady" part later. But I agreed with the rest of his statement.

  The last thing I saw before sleep—blissful, pain-free sleep—claimed me were their faces, side by side, watching me with identical expressions of concern.

  21

  "THANKS FOR COMING." Regan smoothed her black dress over her flat stomach. Her perfect blue eyes were red from crying, but her expression was pure strength and poise. Her mother stood beside the coffin, staring past all the headstones in a chemically induced oblivion. She was coping with Addy's death the only way she knew how—with pills, and alcohol, and seclusion. She hadn't left her house in nearly a week, and had only come out this time for the funeral. Because Regan made her.