“Don’t you want to know about the phone call?” He only whispered, but somehow his voice carried as if he’d spoken from an inch away.
I stopped, pulling Nash to a sudden halt. He glanced at me in confusion, then in mounting irritation, and I realized with a jolt of shock that once again he hadn’t heard Tod—and that I shouldn’t have either. The reaper was at least twenty feet away, still in front of the closet.
“The call from your boss?” I whispered experimentally, to see if Tod could hear me.
The reaper nodded, smiling smugly.
“What did he say?” Nash growled softly, angrily.
“Come on.” After a quick look to make sure none of the nurses were watching, I nearly dragged him down the hall and back into the closet behind Tod. “Why should we care about your communication issues with your boss?” I asked aloud, to catch Nash up on the discussion.
“Because he has a theory about the off-list reaping.” Tod’s grin grew as he leaned against the left-hand shelf, and a small dimple appeared in his right cheek, highlighted by the stark light from overhead. How could I not have noticed that before?
“What theory?” Nash asked. Apparently he could hear Tod again.
“Everything costs something. You should know that by now.”
“Fine.” I huffed in frustration and ignored Nash when his hand tightened around mine. “Tell us what you know, and we’ll tell you what we know.”
Tod laughed and pulled a plastic bedpan from the shelf, peering into it as if he expected a magician’s rabbit to hop out. “You’re bluffing. You don’t know anything about this.”
“We saw the reaper when Emma died,” I said, and his smile faded instantly. He dropped the bedpan back onto the shelf and I knew I had his attention. “Start talking.”
“You better be telling the truth.” Tod’s gaze shifted between me and Nash repeatedly.
“I told you, Kaylee doesn’t lie,” Nash said, and I couldn’t help noticing he didn’t include himself in that statement.
Tod hesitated for a moment, as if considering. Then he nodded. “My boss is this really old reaper named Levi. He’s been around for a while. Like, a hundred fifty years.” He crossed his arms over his chest, getting comfortable against the back wall of shelves. “Levi said something like this happened when he first became a reaper. Everything was a lot less organized back then, and by the time they figured out someone was taking people not on the list—they wrote the whole thing by hand back then, can you imagine?—they’d already lost six souls from his region.”
“You’re serious?” Nash wrapped one arm around my waist, and I let him pull me close. “Or are you just making all this up to impress Kaylee?”
Tod shot him a dark scowl, but I thought it was a totally valid question. “Every word of this came straight from Levi. If you don’t believe me, you can ask him yourself.”
Nash stiffened, and muttered something about that not being necessary.
“So why were they dying?” I asked, drawing us back on subject.
The reaper’s eyes settled on me again, and he lowered his voice conspiratorially, blue eyes gleaming. “Their souls were being poached.”
“Poached?” I twisted to glance at Nash with one brow raised, but he only shrugged, his mouth set in a hard line. “Why would anyone steal souls?”
“Good question.” Tod fingered a box of disposable thermometer covers. His grin widened, and I was reminded of the way movie-goers sometimes cheer during murder scenes, secure in the knowledge that they’re seeing fake blood and movie magic. “There’s not much use for detached souls in this world….” The reaper left his last word hanging, and a sick feeling twisted deep in my stomach.
“But there is in the Netherworld?” I finished for him, and Tod nodded, evidently impressed that my newbie roots were no longer showing.
“Souls are a rarity on the deeper plane. Something between a delicacy and a luxury. They’re in very high demand, and every now and then a shipment goes missing in transit.”
“A shipment of souls?” A bolt of dread shot through me at the very thought. “In transit from where? To where?”
Nash answered, looking simultaneously pleased to know the answer and annoyed at having to provide it. “From here to where they’re…recycled.”
“Reincarnated?”
“Yeah.” Tod stood straighter and bumped his head on an upper shelf, then rubbed it as he spoke. “But sometimes a shipment doesn’t make it, so those souls aren’t passed on. They’re replaced with new ones, which is one of the reasons you’ll run into a brand-new soul sometimes.”
I made a mental note to ask later how one might identify a new soul. “So these poached souls are going to the Netherworld?” I asked, trying to simply stay afloat in the current of new information. “You mean Meredith, and Julie, and the others were killed so some monster in another realm could make a midnight snack out of their souls?” I gripped a shoulder-height shelf for balance as my head spun. I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around what I’d just said.
“That’s Levi’s theory.” Tod picked up a roll of sterile gauze and tossed it into the air, then caught it. “He said the last time this happened, they were being collected as payment to a hellion.”
My hand clutched the shelf and a protruding screw cut my finger, but I barely noticed because of the dark dread swirling in me like a dense fog. “A hellion?”
Nash exhaled heavily. “Humans would call them demons, but that’s not exactly right, because they have no association with any religion. They feed on pain and chaos. But they can’t leave the Netherworld.”
“Okay…” My pulse raced, and I flashed back to the gray creatures I’d seen during Emma’s soul song. Were those hellions? “Payment for what?”
The reaper shrugged. “Could be anything. Sometimes deals are struck. Under the table, of course. Levi’ll take care of it, as soon as he finds the reaper responsible.” He caught the gauze one more time and shrugged, having evidently given us everything he knew. Which was much more than I’d expected. “So…what about this reaper you saw?”
“Tell Levi he’s looking for a woman.” I shifted closer to Nash and accidentally bumped a shelf. Several boxes of medical tubing fell over, spilling their contents like clear plastic worms.
“A woman?” Tod’s eyes widened, and I nodded.
“Tall and thin, with wavy brown hair,” Nash said. “Sound like someone you know?”
Tod shook his head. “But Levi knows every reaper in the state. He’ll take care of it.” He hesitated, as if unsure whether or not to say the next part. “But he thinks you’re going to get your own souls poached before he can get everything back under control.”
“Is that what you think?” I wasn’t sure why his opinion mattered to me, but it did.
Tod shrugged, fingering his makeshift ball. “I’d say that’s a very real possibility. Especially if you keep wiggling your fingers in front of the tiger’s mouth.”
“We had no choice.” I bent to restack the boxes I’d spilled. “The tiger was about to eat my best friend.”
“You’re something else, Kaylee Cavanaugh,” Tod whispered, and I knew from Nash’s blank, angry expression that he hadn’t heard that part either, though he’d clearly seen the reaper’s lips move. “It could have been you, instead of that cheerleader. It might be, next time. Or it might be him.” His gaze flicked to Nash and back, and his irreverent expression darkened.
“Let Levi handle it,” he said. “If you won’t do it for me, or even for yourself, do it for Nash. Please.”
Tod looked truly scared, and I didn’t know what to make of fear coming from a grim reaper. So I nodded. “We’re out of it. I already promised my uncle.” I reached back for Nash’s hand as Tod nodded. Then he disappeared, still holding the gauze, and I was alone with Nash in the cramped closet.
18
“WHAT DID HE SAY?” Nash shifted in his seat, staring out the passenger’s side window at the passing streetlights. We were almost to m
y house, and those were the first words he’d spoken since we’d pulled out of the hospital parking garage.
“Is there anything else I should know about reapers?” I couldn’t keep annoyance out of my voice; I was tired of being left in the dark. “Can they read my thoughts or see through my clothes?” Which would actually explain a lot… “Or make me stand on my head and squawk like a chicken?”
Nash sighed and finally turned to face me. “Reapers are like a supernatural jack-of-all-trades. They can appear wherever they want and can choose who sees and hears them. If they want to be seen or heard at all. They have other minor abilities, but nothing else as infuriating as the whole selective-hearing thing.” He wrapped one hand around the armrest, his knuckles white with tension. “So what did he say?”
I hesitated to answer; if Tod had wanted Nash to hear, he’d have broadcast on all frequencies. Then again, he didn’t make me promise…. “He asked me not to get you killed. He’s trying to protect you.”
I glanced away from the road in time to see Nash roll his eyes. “No, he’s trying to protect you, and he knows you’ll be more cautious for my sake than for your own.”
“How do you know that’s what he’s doing?”
“Because that’s what I would have done.”
An adrenaline-soaked warmth spread through my chest, even though I knew Nash was wrong. Tod was looking out for him, at least in part.
Squinting into the late-afternoon sun, I turned into my neighborhood. Two lefts later, my aunt’s car came into sight, parked in the driveway next to the empty spot mine usually occupied. My uncle had taken the day off, expecting my father to arrive around midmorning. And surely Sophie had already made it back from the memorial. The gang’s all here….
Nash followed me into the living room, where my uncle sat in the floral-print armchair, angled so that he could see both the television—tuned to the local news—and the front window. He stood when we came in, stuffing his hands into his pockets, his anxious gaze searching my expression immediately for any sign of trouble.
“Sophie told us what happened. Are you okay?”
“Fine.” I collapsed onto one end of the couch and pulled Nash down with me.
Uncle Brendon’s gaze captured mine and held it. “Val…isn’t feeling well today. I just put her back in bed.”
Now? I glanced out the front window to see the last rays of afternoon light just then sinking below the rooftops across the street. It wasn’t even five-thirty.
“This may not be the best time for company,” he continued, glancing briefly at Nash.
“I want him to meet Dad,” I insisted, and my uncle looked like he wanted to argue. But then he nodded in resignation and sank into his chair. “What did Sophie tell you?” I asked. I was surprised he hadn’t called me, but I’d checked my phone in the car, and there were no messages or missed calls.
But then again, he was probably pretty busy dealing with my aunt.
Uncle Brendon leaned back in his chair and lifted a sweating can of Coke from the end table. “She said Emma fainted, and while everyone was fussing over her, one of the cheerleaders fell over dead. The whole school’s in complete shock. It’s already been on the news.”
I swallowed thickly and glanced at Nash. And naturally, Uncle Brendon caught the look.
“Emma died, didn’t she?” His expression was pained, as if he wasn’t sure he really wanted to hear the truth. “She died, and you two brought her back.”
At his words, horror and a stunned incredulity washed over me in a devastating wave—the culmination of every terrifying thing I’d seen and done over the past few days, and I could only nod, holding back tears through sheer will.
Anger rolled across my uncle’s face like fog before a storm, and he stood, his hand fisted around the can. If it had been full, he’d have been wearing most of his soda. “I told you to stay out of it. I said your father and I would look into it. You could have died, and as it stands now, you got someone else killed.”
I shot to my feet, anger eclipsing my weaker emotions. “That’s not fair. None of this was our fault!”
“There’s nothing fair about this,” Uncle Brendon roared, and I knew from his volume alone that Sophie wasn’t at home. “If you don’t believe me, go ask that poor cheerleader’s parents.”
Nash stood at my side, his stance steady and strong, his gaze unyielding. “Mr. Cavanaugh, we had nothing to do with Julie’s death. In fact, we tried to save her too, but—”
We all seemed to realize simultaneously that he’d said the wrong thing. I squeezed Nash’s hand to silence him, but it was too late.
“You tried to do it again?” Uncle Brendon’s fury was surpassed only by his fear.
“We had to!” I was shouting now, and the entire living room swam with the tears filling my eyes. “I couldn’t let the reaper steal another soul without at least trying to stop it.”
A glimpse of sympathy flashed through his anger, but then it was gone, stamped out by fear born of caution. “You have to. You can’t go sticking your nose into reaper business every time someone you know dies, unless you want to die with them!” He turned to Nash then, anger still spinning in his eyes. “If you’re going to tell her what she can do, you have a responsibility to also tell her what she can’t do.”
“He did,” I said before Nash could answer. “But Emma wasn’t supposed to die.”
My uncle’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “How do you know that?”
Nash spoke before I could, probably to keep me from digging my hole any deeper. “Tod got a look at the list. The reaper is a rogue, and none of those girls were supposed to die.”
“See?” I demanded, when Nash went silent without revealing the rest of Tod’s information. “We had to save her. She wasn’t meant to die yet.” Plus, she’s my best friend. “Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”
“He wouldn’t have.” The new voice came from the entry, carried on a soft September breeze, and we all whirled toward it in unison. My dad stood in the doorway, a suitcase in each hand. “But I would.”
I should have said something. I should have had some kind of greeting for the father I hadn’t seen in a year and a half. But my mouth wouldn’t open, and the longer I stood there in silence, the better I came to understand the problem. It wasn’t that I had nothing to say to him. It was that I had too much to say.
Why did you lie? Where have you been? What makes you think coming back now will make any difference? But I couldn’t decide what to say first.
Nash didn’t have that problem. “I’m guessing this is your dad?” he whispered, leaning closer so that our shoulders touched.
My father nodded, thick brown waves bobbing with the movement. His hair was longer than I remembered it, and nearly brushed his shoulders. I couldn’t help wondering how different I looked to him.
“You must be Harmony’s boy,” my father said, his deep voice rumbling. “Brendon said you’d probably be here.”
“Yes, sir,” Nash said. Then, to me, he said, “He doesn’t sound like he’s from Ireland.”
My father dropped his bags in the entryway. “I’m not. I just live there.” He reached back to pull the front door closed, then scuffed his boots on the mat before stepping into the living room. My dad took a long look at me, from head to toe, and his jaw hardened when his eyes lingered on my right hand, still clasped in Nash’s. Then his gaze landed on my face, and a series of emotions passed over his.
Grief, first of all. I’d expected that one. The older I got, the more I looked like my mother. She was only twenty-three when she died—at least that’s what they’d told me—and sometimes even I was freaked out by the resemblance in old pictures. He also looked sad and a little worried, as if he dreaded our upcoming conversation.
But the last expression—the part that kept me from storming out of the house and taking off in the car he’d paid for—was pride. My father’s eyes gleamed with it, even as old pain etched lines into his otherwise youthful fa
ce.
“Hey, kiddo.” He took a deep breath, and his entire chest fell as he exhaled. “Think I could get a hug?”
I’d had no intention of hugging my father. I was still so mad at him I could hardly think about anything else, even with everything else going on. Yet I disentangled my hand from Nash’s and stepped forward on autopilot. My father crossed the rest of the floor toward me. He wrapped his huge arms around me and my head found his chest, just like it had when I was little.
He might have looked different, but he smelled exactly the same. Like coffee, and the wool in his coat, and whatever cologne he’d been wearing as long as I could remember. Hugging my father brought back the ghosts of memories so old I couldn’t quite bring them into focus.
“I missed you,” he said into my hair, as if I were still a child.
I stepped back and crossed my arms over my chest. Hugs wouldn’t fix everything. “You could have visited.”
“I should have.” It wasn’t quite an apology, but at least we agreed on something.
“Well, you’re here now.” Uncle Brendon turned toward the kitchen. “Sit, Aiden. What can I get you to drink?”
“Coffee, thanks.” My dad shrugged out of his black wool coat and draped it over the back of an armchair. “So…” He sank into the chair, and I sat opposite him, beside Nash on the couch. “I hear you’ve discovered your heritage. And tried it out, evidently. You restored a friend?”
I met his eyes boldly, daring him to criticize my decision when he’d already admitted he’d have done the same. “Emma wasn’t supposed to die. None of them were.”
“None of them?” My father frowned toward the kitchen; obviously Uncle Brendon hadn’t yet given him the details of my discovery. “Who else are we talking about?”
“There were three others. One a day, three days in a row.” Nash’s thumb stroked the back of mine until my father scowled at him, and he dropped my hand and leaned back on the couch. “Then the reaper took someone else today when we saved Emma.”
Irritated—yet amused—I reclaimed his hand and let them both rest on my lap. Absentee fathers had no right to disapprove of boyfriends. “All four of them—five if you count Emma—just fell over dead with no warning. It wasn’t their time to go.”