Yet no creatures appeared. Harmony and I were alone in her house in the human world, and somehow alone in the Netherworld.
With that realization came the calm I craved. My tension eased, and my wail faded, thoughts of Emma's death melting into my memory to be used again when they were needed. Or better yet, forgotten.
The haze cleared slowly, until Harmony came into focus. Her hair looked more golden than ever, her eyes much brighter than I remembered in contrast to the drab shades of gray that had covered her moments earlier. "You okay?" she asked, forehead pinched with worry.
"Yeah. Sorry." I rubbed both hands over my face, tucking my own limp brown strands behind my ears. "I knew it was coming, but it still scared the crap out of me. I don't think I'll ever get used to that."
"Yes you will." She smiled and stood, motioning for me to follow her into the kitchen. "It gets easier with practice."
That's what I was afraid of.
Harmony waved an arm at the round breakfast table, and I pulled out a ladder-back chair with clear finish chipping off the back and one missing rung while she headed for the oven. The timer blinking above the stove was counting back with thirty-eight seconds to go, and it never failed to amaze me how Harmony always knew when it was about to go off. That timer had never once interrupted one of our lessons, and none of her treats had ever come out over-or underdone.
Unlike the cookies I'd baked two nights earlier.
"There's soda in the fridge." She slid her hand into a thick glove-shaped pot holder and pulled the oven door open.
"How 'bout milk?" I like milk with my chocolate.
"Top shelf." She pulled a glass pan of brownies from the oven and slid it onto a wire cooling rack on the counter. I took a short glass from the cabinet over the sink and filled it with milk, then sat at the table again while she poured one for herself.
"So, explain to me why I needed to learn to do that?" I sipped from my glass, suddenly grateful for cold, white milk, and all things normal and this-worldly.
Harmony shot me a sympathetic smile as she slid the carton onto the top shelf of the fridge, then swung the door shut. "It's mostly to help you learn to control your wail. If you can manipulate it on your own terms, you should be able to avoid screaming your head off in front of a room full of humans."
Because humans tend to lock up girls who can't stop screaming. Trust me.
"But other than that, it's helpful to be able to peek into the Netherworld when you need to. Though, I wouldn't suggest trying it unless you have to. The less you're noticed by Netherworlders, the easier your life will be."
She'd get no argument from me on that one. But I was curious on one point….
"So…why were we alone?"
"While you were wailing?" Harmony crossed the linoleum toward me and pulled out the chair next to mine while I nodded. "Well, first of all, we weren't really there. We were just peeking in. Like watching the bears at the zoo through that thick glass wall. You can see them and they can see you, but no one can cross the barrier."
"So the Netherworlders could see us?"
"If anyone had been there, yes." She sipped from her glass again.
"So how come no one was there?"
"Because this is a private residence. Those only exist on one plane or the other. Only large, public buildings with heavy traffic exist in both worlds."
"Like the school?" I was thinking of all the weird creatures I'd seen when I peeked into the Netherworld from the gym, the day Emma died. "Or the mall?" That one brought even worse memories…
"Yeah. Schools, offices, museums, stadiums…Anywhere there are lots of people most of the time."
I frowned and took another sip of my milk as a new worry occurred to me. "How would I actually go there?"
"You wouldn't." Harmony's blue eyes were suddenly dark and hard, as if the sky had clouded over. They didn't swirl, because she had more than eighty years' experience hiding her emotions, but I could tell she was worried. "Kaylee, you have no business in the Netherworld."
Let's hope you're right.
"I know." I smiled to set her at ease. "I just want to make sure I don't wind up there accidentally, practicing what I learned today."
She relaxed at my explanation, and the light flowed back into her eyes. "You won't. The difference between looking through the glass and stepping through it is all a matter of intent. You have to want to go there to be there."
"That's it?" I frowned as she stood and rummaged through a drawer, clanging silverware together in search of something. "Have desire, will travel?" It couldn't be that easy. Or that scary.
"Well, that and the soul song."
Of course. I felt the tension in my body ease, and I took another short sip of my milk, saving the rest to wash down my brownie.
Harmony finally pulled a knife from the drawer, followed by a long, thin metal spatula. She ran the knife across the glass dish, cutting the brownies into large, even squares.
"Harmony?"
"Hmm?" She slid the spatula under the first square and lifted it carefully out of the pan and onto a small paper plate. She liked baking but hated doing dishes.
"How can someone live without a soul?"
"What?" Harmony froze with a brownie crumb halfway to her mouth, the spatula still in her other hand. "Why are you…? What's going on, Kaylee?" Her eyes narrowed, and I felt guilty for making her worry.
I decided to tell her the truth. Part of it, anyway. "Nash and I saw Eden's concert last night in Dallas, remember?"
"Of course." Fear drained from her features again, and she scooped an extra-large brownie onto the second plate, then carried them both to the table, without forks. The Hudsons ate their brownies the proper way—with their fingers. My aunt would have thrown a fit, but I was enjoying being converted.
"I saw that on the news this morning." She set one plate in front of me, then sank into her chair with the other, smaller square. Her eyes brightened as the next piece of the puzzle slid into place. "Are you saying Eden died without her soul?"
I nodded, then chewed, swallowed, and washed the first rich bite down with a sip of milk before answering. "It was weird. She dropped dead right there on the stage, but I thought she'd just passed out, because there was no premonition. No death shroud. No urge to wail. But Tod said she was dead, and sure enough, a few seconds later, this weird, dark stuff floated up from her body. Too dark and heavy-looking to be a soul."
"Demon's Breath, probably." Harmony took another bite, licking a crumb from her lip before she chewed.
"That's what Tod said." I twisted my half-full glass of milk on the table. "That Eden sold her soul to a hellion."
She shrugged and brushed a ringlet back from her forehead. "That's the only explanation I can think of. A soul can't be taken from a living being. It can be stolen after a person's death—" or murder, as with Aunt Val's victims "—or it can be given up willingly by its owner. But then something else has to take its place, to keep the body alive. Usually, that something else is Demon's Breath."
"But I thought a person's soul is what determines his life span. If Eden's was gone, how did the reapers know when she was supposed to die?"
Harmony held up one finger as she swallowed, and I bit another huge, unladylike bite from my brownie. She wiped her lips on a paper towel, already shaking her head. "A person's soul doesn't determine how long he or she lives. The list does."
"So…where does the list come from? Who decides when everyone has to die?"
Harmony raised one brow, like she was impressed. "Now you're asking the good questions. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for that one. But maybe that's a good thing…."
I frowned, twisting my used napkin into a thin paper rope. "What do you mean?"
"No one actually knows who makes out the list. No one I know, anyway." She sipped from her cup before continuing. "Maybe the Fates traded in their thread and scissors for a pen and paper. Maybe the list comes from some automated printer in a secure room none of us will ever
see. Maybe it comes straight from God. But there has to be a reason we don't know the specifics, and frankly, I'm pretty blissful about that particular nugget of ignorance."
"Me, too." I wasn't exactly eager to see whoever plotted my lifeline; I'd kind of drawn the short straw on that one. Though, it was very likely I'd live longer than I would have as a regular human.
"All we really know is that upsetting the balance between life and death is not an option. Somebody has to die for every entry on the list. Fortunately, there's a little wiggle room for special circumstances." Harmony hesitated, then met my eyes before continuing. "Which is how your mom was able to trade her death date for yours."
I cleared my throat and swallowed my last bite, trying to swallow my guilt along with it. I was supposed to die when I was three, but my mother took my place. I hadn't known the truth about her death until I discovered my bean sidhe heritage and my family was finally forced to tell me everything. Despite their insistence that what happened to my mom was not my fault, the fact was that if it weren't for me, she'd still be alive.
Guilt was inevitable. Right?
"Considering the sacrifice your mom made for you, I find it hard to understand how Eden—or anyone else for that matter—could possibly see her own soul as acceptable currency. As payment for something else."
I shrugged and dropped my wadded-up napkin on my empty plate. "I don't think she understood what she was getting into. Humans don't know about any of this."
"They're supposed to know, before they sign the contract. Hellion law requires full disclosure. But who knows if the poor fool actually read her contract before signing. What a waste." Harmony shook her head in disappointment and pushed the rest of her brownie toward me. "So much potential, squandered. For what, do you know?"
I shook my head, staring at her plate. I'd lost my appetite.
My best guess would be that Eden sold her soul for fame and fortune, but I didn't know for sure. All I knew for certain was that she was probably regretting that decision now, and that if we couldn't get Addison's soul back in four days, she would suffer the same fate.
I would not let that happen.
6
"SO, WHAT'S WITH THE FAKE name at the hotel? She's avoiding the press?" I tried to distract myself as I typed "hellion" into the search bar at the top of my laptop screen, then tapped the enter key. Links filled the screen faster than I could read the entries, and my vision started to blur with exhaustion. I hadn't slept very well the night before, thanks to nightmares of dead girls being tortured in the Netherworld, and had poured the last of my energy into my bean sidhe lesson that afternoon.
"I guess." Nash leaned back on my bed and I watched him in the mirror, my heart tripping faster when he put his hands behind his head and cords of muscle stood out beneath his short sleeves. Sometimes it still felt weird to be going out with a jock, but Nash Hudson wasn't your average football player. His bean sidhe bloodline, dead father, not-so-dead reaper brother, and familiarity with a world that would land most humans in a straitjacket meant that on the inside, Nash didn't fit in at school any more than I did.
He just hid it better.
And there were definite advantages to having a boyfriend as…aesthetically gifted as Nash. The downside was that I had trouble concentrating on anything else while he was around.
Focus, Kaylee… I took a deep breath and forced my thoughts back on track. "Isn't the whole fake name thing a little clichéd?"
He shrugged without dropping his arms. "So long as it works."
On-screen, the page had finished loading, and I skimmed the results. The first was about some kind of turbo engine for Mustangs, and the second was a link to a comic book Wiki. The rest of the links ran along those same lines. So much for Internet research.
"Tell me again why we're doing this?" Nash's normally hypnotic voice was pinched thin and sharp with reluctance. And maybe a little annoyance.
"Because Addison needs help and I believe in karma." I glanced in the mirror again to find Nash watching me in amusement now.
"I meant dinner."
"Oh." I pushed my chair away from the desk and almost tipped over when one of the back wheels caught on the ratty carpet. Standing, I tugged my tee into place, then sank cross-legged onto the bed facing Nash. "Because my dad's trying really hard to make this whole single-parent thing work, and Uncle Brendon's the only one he has to talk to."
After my mom died, my father sent me to live with my aunt and uncle, to help hide me from the reaper-with-a-vendetta who'd traded my mother's life for mine. But we both knew my resemblance to her was at least as strong a motivator for my dad's absence from my life. Every time he looked at me, he saw her, and his heart broke a little more.
But after what Aunt Val had done, he'd come back, assuming it would be easier to protect me himself, now that I was in on the big secret of my species. And I was pretty sure he felt guilty for being gone so long. So, my dad had given up a good job in Ireland for crappy factory work in Texas, and together we were trying not to screw up the whole father-daughter thing too badly. So what if that meant a tiny rental house, no extra money, and weekly dinners with my uncle and mean-girl cousin?
Nash's knees touched mine and he took my hands in his, letting them lie in the hollow between our legs. "I know, but Sophie's turning into a real pain."
He was right about that.
Sophie didn't understand what had happened the night her mother died. My cousin had awakened from what we'd told her was a simple loss of consciousness due to shock—but was actually her own temporary demise—to find her mother dead on the floor, and me holding a heavy cast iron skillet like a baseball bat.
Though the coroner had said Aunt Val died of heart failure, Sophie remained convinced that I was somehow responsible for her mother's death. But I couldn't really blame her, considering how confusing and scary her life had recently become. My cousin had no idea that the rest of her family wasn't human, or that the world contained anything more dangerous than the ordinary criminals on the FBI's most-wanted list. But she knew there was something we weren't telling her, and she resented us all for that.
She knew better than to blame me openly, or to even throw a hostile word my way on family dinner nights, but at school it was open season on Kaylee. And Nash wasn't the only one who had noticed.
A metal clang rang out from the kitchen, and I laughed. I couldn't help it. My father wasn't much of a cook, but he was really trying.
"What's for dinner?" Nash's thumb stroked the back of my hand, sending shivers of anticipation through me.
"Lasagna and bagged salad."
"Sounds good." The browns and greens in his eyes swirled lazily, wickedly. "And I already know what I want for dessert…." He leaned forward and his lips met mine, softly at first. Then eagerly.
I tilted my head for a better angle and kissed him back, loving the feel of his lips on mine, his hand at the back of my neck. My fingers found his chest, trailing lightly over his shirt to feel the firmness beneath.
My heart raced, adrenaline pulsing through me in a steady, charged rhythm, leaving my limbs heavy, my body eager. My mouth opened beneath Nash's, and he moaned. The sound of his need skimmed lightly over my skin like a shadow given form, warming me as it slid down my neck, over my collarbones, and between my breasts to burn deep inside me.
He pulled me onto his lap and I crossed my ankles at his back, holding us tightly together while his lips moved over my neck. I could feel what he wanted through both layers of denim separating us, and my head swam with the knowledge that he was excited by me.
Nash Hudson could have had just about any girl he wanted—and he'd already had more than a few—but he was with me.
It's because you're a bean sidhe. some traitorous voice spoke up from deep inside me as I tangled my fingers in a handful of his thick brown hair. You're a novelty. New prey to chase. But once he's truly caught you, the game will be over, and he'll move on to the next hunt.
And I'd have no one to help
me control my wail.
No. Nash wouldn't do that. He wouldn't help me help Addison if he was just trying to get my pants off. I wasn't that much of a catch, and there were easier ways to get laid, especially for him. And he hadn't even really pushed the issue.
Not that much, anyway.
Nash pulled my head down until our mouths met again, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and shoved my doubts aside. His hands found my hip, squeezing as our kiss intensified. Deepened. His fingers traveled up gradually as his lips slid down my chin and over my neck, singeing a path toward my shoulder. My head fell back, my mouth open, each breath slipping in and out silently as I concentrated on the pleasure of his skin on mine.
He pushed aside the neckline of my T-shirt, and his lips closed over the point of my shoulder, sucking gently. Nibbling just a little. My hand tightened around his biceps. Not stopping him. Not urging him. Just…waiting.
I inhaled softly as his other hand slid up my side, under my shirt. He kissed my shoulder again, his lips hot against my flesh, and his thumb brushed the underside of my right breast. My breath hitched, my heart pounding as infant flames of longing licked lower, deeper.
My skin felt flushed, my body pulsing with sudden awareness, impulsive craving….
"Don't stop on my account."
I jumped, and Nash leaned away from me so fast my head spun, my skin suddenly cold in his absence. "Damn it, Tod!" he snapped as I straightened my shirt, my cheeks flaming.
Avoiding the reaper's eyes, I climbed off Nash and pushed my bedroom door the rest of the way closed; my dad probably wouldn't hear Tod, but he could definitely hear the other half of the conversation. I glared at my uninvited guest. "If you don't learn to knock like regular people, I swear I'll…tell your boss you're abusing your reaper skills to pursue a life of voyeurism and debauchery."
Tod shot us a wry grin. "He already knows."
I huffed and sank onto the bed with Nash, relaxing into him as his arm went around my waist. "What's up? And make it fast. My dad's home." And as grateful as he was to Tod for helping save Sophie, my father wasn't very comfortable with the idea of me hanging out with a reaper, or—as he called them—one of death's minions.