“Yeah, but she’s in the Netherworld, gathering ingredients for—” I glanced at Em, then decided to keep the details quiet, because I wasn’t sure how much everyone else knew about Traci’s predicament “—something. Should we go look for her?”
Both Nash and Tod started to nod, but my uncle shook his head. “No. She’s careful, and she knows how best to get in and out without being seen. If we go after her, we’re just increasing the chance of her—or us—getting caught.” Which would be worse for Nash, my uncle, Luca, and Em, who couldn’t come back on their own.
Not that I had plans to take Em or Luca into the Netherworld anytime soon. Or even Sophie, though she’d demonstrated the ability to come and go on her own. Once. But once wasn’t enough to prove she could stay calm under pressure or cross over without unleashing her full scream—the only trait she seemed to have inherited from her father’s side of the family.
She could wail well enough to cross over, with the required intent, but she was not a bean sidhe. Her screams would not sing for souls. She could not restore life.
She’d be a sitting duck in the Netherworld. Or an enticing piece of bait...
I shook my head, shaking the thought loose before it could take root. I was not going to use my own cousin for demon bait. Even if she sometimes deserved it.
“Harmony will be back on her own, and the best thing we can do is wait for her.”
“But what if Avari has her?” Nash demanded. “He has Kaylee’s dad. How do we know he hasn’t taken my mom?”
My uncle stood. “If he had your mom, he’d tell us. It does him no good to take her hostage and not tell us how to bargain for her freedom.”
“What if she’s not a hostage?” Sophie asked, and Emma sank slowly onto the arm of the couch next to Nash in obvious horror. “We weren’t hostages when he took us. What if he has Harmony but doesn’t intend to give her back?”
Nash stood. “I’m going after her.”
Uncle Brendon rolled his eyes. “You can’t get there on your own, son.”
Nash turned to Sabine. “Take me. Please.”
“Nash...” She took his hand, and I realized I’d never seen her look at anyone else the way she looked at him. Like it broke her heart not to be able to give him whatever he wanted. “I can’t. It’s not safe.”
“I know!” He pulled his hand from her grip. “That’s why I have to go find her.”
“Nash, I want to protect her just as much as you and Tod do,” my uncle said. Tod looked skeptical, but Nash looked furious. “But if anyone knows how to get in and out of the Netherworld without getting hurt, it’s your mother. She’s been gathering stuff for her homemade remedies since she was younger than you are. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“If she’s not, I’m holding you responsible.” Nash stomped into the kitchen and out into the backyard. The door slammed shut behind him, and Sabine stared at it like she wanted to go after him but knew better.
Tod crossed his arms over his chest. “One hour.” His voice was calm and quiet, and betrayed no hint of indecision. “If she’s not back in one hour, I’ll go after her myself.”
No one argued with Tod.
“Okay. Until then, we need to decide on a plan to get Aiden back. How did you find out Avari took him?”
I dug my dad’s phone from my pocket, woke up the screen, then handed it to my uncle.
His face paled instantly. “Well, that does seem...certain. Is that crimson creeper near his foot?”
“Yup.”
“And you know where he’s being held?”
“The basement of the Netherworld version of Lakeside.”
“Buried beneath the mental hospital. That’s not creepy,” Emma mumbled.
Sophie flinched. “Did you really kiss a hellion to get that information?”
I met her gaze as boldly as I could, considering that I was still incredibly creeped out by what I’d done. “Everything has a price, Sophie. Someone has to pay.”
“Okay. Back on topic.” My uncle headed into the kitchen, aiming right for the cabinet over the microwave. “We’re going to need two teams. A small one, to cause a distraction, and another one, a little larger, to get Aiden out.”
“I’m going to turn myself in.” I said it softly, but every head in the room swiveled to stare at me. When my uncle turned, he held the bottle of whiskey my father had confiscated from Nash the month before.
“No, you’re not,” Tod said. “Even if any of us was willing to let that happen, it won’t help your dad. We want to get him out, not leave you behind.”
“I know. This is a trap. I’m going to pretend to fall for it, while the rest of you get my father the hell out of there. You and Sabine can cross my uncle over.” I glanced into the kitchen to find Uncle Brendon pouring whiskey into a short glass of ice. “The two of you should be able to carry him if he can’t walk, and Sabine can get you out if anything goes wrong or Tod can’t cross with you both. Two who can’t cross, two who can.” That was the safest ratio.
“No,” Tod said, and I glanced at him in surprise. He’d never refused to help. “I’m staying with you. Nash can go with them. He can help lift your dad if necessary.”
“But I can cross. My dad, uncle, and Nash can’t. They need you more.”
“He’s right, Kay-bear,” Uncle Brendon said. “No one goes in alone.”
I stood, my irritation mounting. “That doesn’t make any sense. Sabine can’t get you, my dad, and Nash out all at once, especially if my dad’s still unconscious. You need someone else who can cross over!”
“And we have someone.” Luca pulled back the living room curtain to reveal Harmony’s car pulling up to the curb in front of my house. As I watched, relieved, she got out and locked her car, then started up the driveway.
The back door opened, and Nash came in, ignoring Styx when she came to growl at him, again. “I heard a car.”
Harmony knocked three times, then opened the front door, and, I swear, Nash nearly melted with relief. She stopped in the doorway, sliding her phone into her purse, and glanced around at everyone, surprised to be the center of attention before she was even in the house. “Any news about Aiden? And why are you all staring at me?”
“We thought Avari got to you, too.” Nash hugged his mom, then shoved his hands into his pockets, looking both sheepish and relieved at the same time.
Tod ran one hand through his hair, then gave his mother a hug. “Please don’t disappear at the same time someone else goes missing. That’s very misleading.”
She patted his back, then let him go. “I’m fine. I know my way around the Netherworld, sweetie.”
Uncle Brendon shook his head, but he was all smiles. “I tried to tell them....” He opened his arms, and she walked into his embrace. Then they kissed, and Nash groaned while the rest of us averted our eyes.
“Dad, gross!” Sophie made a show of covering her eyes, and Luca laughed.
“Okay, so do we have a plan?” Harmony took the glass of whiskey from Brendon, made a face, then dumped it straight down the sink. “And by the way, this is not the time for...this.” She held up the glass for everyone to see—including Brendon, who frowned but didn’t argue.
“The plan—” I said, and people gathered around while I filled Harmony in “—if you’re up for a return trip to the Netherworld this soon, is for you and Sabine to take Uncle Brendon and Nash to get my dad while I distract Avari. By pretending to turn myself in.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “That doesn’t sound even remotely safe.”
I shrugged. “It’s the Netherworld. ‘Safe’ doesn’t really apply.”
“And how are you planning to keep Avari from keeping you? What good would it do us to rescue your father but lose you in the process?”
“We’re not going to lose her,” Tod said. “I’m going with her.”
“Yes, and neither of you will have any of your undead abilities once you’re there, other than the ability to cross over on your own.”
“That
’s all we need,” I insisted. “As soon as we’re sure you guys have my dad, we’ll just come home.”
Harmony’s blond brows rose in skepticism, and her resemblance to her elder son was almost uncanny. “And you really think it’ll be that easy?”
“No. Nothing’s ever easy anymore. Besides, my plan has facets. Components, even.”
“Well then, let’s hear them,” Uncle Brendon said.
“We know better than to expect my dad to be alone, so to buy you time to...kill things, or distract things, or whatever it takes, I’ll keep Avari busy by negotiating my surrender.”
“Negotiating requires give-and-take,” Sabine pointed out. “You really think he’ll be willing to give anything? Isn’t taking everything kind of his thing?”
“He doesn’t have to actually give up anything. I just have to keep him talking, even if all he says is no, over and over. I’m not really surrendering, remember, so it doesn’t matter whether he gives in to my demands.”
“I don’t get it.” Sophie frowned at me in confusion. “Why would he negotiate with you at all? Why not just...take you?”
“He would if he could,” Tod explained. “But Kaylee’s even harder to catch now than when she was alive. To take her soul against her will, he’d have to physically remove it from her resurrected body, which will be hard to do, because she’s not just going to stand there and let him have it. She’s undead and she’s a bean sidhe. She can cross back into the human world whenever she wants.”
“But he kept Thane’s soul, right?” Em said. “And Thane could cross over, too.”
“Yes,” I said. “But Thane was unconscious when he was delivered to Avari.” By Tod, who’d broken reaper law by turning on one of his own to keep Thane from making my last days miserable. “By the time he woke up, he was already missing his soul. If Avari physically catches me, I have no doubt that the first thing he’ll do is knock me out so he could take my soul and replace it with his own breath. Like he did with Thane.” Demon’s Breath could sustain my body, in absence of my soul, allowing Avari to torture both parts of me separately. And possibly simultaneously.
“But he knows that’s not going to happen,” Nash said, and Sabine nodded in agreement. “Which is why he’s trying to make you hand over your soul voluntarily?”
“Yup.” I glanced around at each of them. “And he’ll take any and all of your souls, too, if he gets the chance. Which is why I’m going to stall him while you guys look for my dad. I don’t want any of you anywhere near Avari.”
Uncle Brendon looked unconvinced. “And if he sees through your delay tactic?”
“Then I’ll play on his greed and on the envy that will inevitably accompany it when he finds out I kissed Ira.”
Harmony glanced at Tod in question, then back at me. “Ira?”
“Hellion of wrath,” I explained. “He wanted a taste of my anger in exchange for telling me where my dad’s being held.”
Sabine smirked. “Kaylee makes friends everywhere she goes.”
“Whatever. It was a completely disgusting, totally platonic mistake and I don’t want to talk about it. Ever. Are we ready?”
“What about us?” Sophie motioned to Luca and herself. “I can cross over.”
“No,” her dad said. “You’re staying here.”
For a second, I thought Sophie might argue. But then she closed her mouth and I realized she was relieved. She would have come with us, if we’d let her, and that actually meant something to me. But she was just as happy to stay in the human world, out of danger.
Relatively speaking.
“Obviously, Emma and Luca will have to stay, too,” Harmony added. She got no arguments.
“Okay, let me change into something more appropriate for a descent into hell.” Uncle Brendon glanced down at the suit he wore, then up at Tod. “This would go faster if you give me a lift.”
Tod nodded, and Brendon leaned over to kiss Harmony one more time. Sophie was still fake gagging when he and Tod disappeared from the kitchen.
Harmony rounded the counter and poured herself a mug of coffee. When she looked up again, she caught me smiling. “What?”
“I just... Don’t listen to Sophie and Nash. I think you two are cute together.”
“Me and Brendon?” Her sudden flush had nothing to do with the hot coffee.
“Yeah. You obviously make each other happy, and it’s good to see someone happy right now, when everything else seems so...dire.”
I wondered if Tod and I looked as cute together as she and my uncle looked. My opinion was no doubt biased, but I was pretty sure we were damn near lethally adorable.
“Well...thanks, Kaylee.”
“Also, thanks for going out with Sophie’s dad instead of mine. It would have been beyond weird for my dad to be dating my boyfriend’s mother.”
Harmony choked on her coffee, and I took the mug while she coughed. Then she gave me a small frown. “Kaylee, your father and I were never serious. Not even before he met your mom.” She leaned against the counter, her gaze unfocused with the memory. “Actually, Brendon and I weren’t very serious back then, either. We went separate ways years before I met my husband and Brendon met Valerie.”
“Well, however it happened, I wish it could happen to my dad.” He’d had as rough a time the past few months as I had, and he had no one to talk to about everything that had gone wrong. No one but his brother and daughter, anyway, and that wasn’t the same at all.
Harmony motioned for me to follow her to the table, where we both sat, and I began to wish I had poured myself a cup of coffee. “Kaylee, I don’t think your father’s going to be ready for something like that for a very long time.”
“Long time by human standards or bean sidhe standards?”
She set her mug down. “Has no one explained to you about why your father took your mother’s death so hard?” She blinked, then rephrased. “Well, of course, he took his wife’s death hard, and it’s no wonder, considering how she died. But has anyone explained to you why he’s still taking it hard, more than thirteen years later?”
“I don’t...” I hesitated, thinking back about everything my aunt and uncle had ever told me about my parents and about my mother’s death. There wasn’t much. “You know, people don’t exactly line up to explain things to me. So...what have I missed?”
“Kaylee, your parents were soul mates.”
I smiled at the thought and wished I could remember more about my mother. “I know he thought so, too.”
“No.” Harmony smiled, like I’d said something that amused her. “I don’t mean that they liked each other a lot, or even that they were destined to be together. Destiny is more of a faerie tale than most people think bean sidhes are.”
“So then, what does that mean, soul mates? You’re saying that’s some kind of real thing?”
“Very real.” Her smile was back. “Your father and mother were so very much in love that some small part of their souls melded.”
“Melded?” That sounded more like metalwork than love.
“Yes. He carried a bit of hers, and she carried a bit of his.”
“Seriously?” I said, and she nodded. “What does that have to do with her death?”
Harmony’s smile faded, and her eyes went so uncharacteristically still that I hadn’t realized I was seeing emotion in them until she hid her thoughts from me entirely. “Your mother’s soul wasn’t so much reaped as stolen, and because it wasn’t turned in to the proper authorities, your father never got that bit of his own soul back. Likewise, he still carries a part of your mother’s with him. He is quite literally lovesick, and he won’t be able to truly let her go until her soul finds rest and his is made whole again.”
The sudden deep ache in my chest caught me by surprise. My father missed my mother so much that he was actually sick from the loss. His soul was incomplete. He might never get over her, and she...
My mother...
That ache deepened until I almost couldn’t stand it. “
So, we know that for sure, then, that she’s not resting in peace?”
Harmony nodded slowly. Sadly. “I’m sorry, Kaylee. I didn’t realize you didn’t understand that.”
I’d had no idea. “So, they’re both still suffering. Together.”
“Yes. Your father’s soul isn’t his own, and he won’t be able to move on from her death until it’s intact again. And, obviously, the same goes for your mother.”
I sat there staring at nothing. Stunned. My parents were soul mates. Literally. They carried a part of each other, and neither of them would have peace until their souls were whole again and my mother was finally at rest.
My parents had to be the most romantic couple in history, which would have been mind-blowingly cool...if their love story didn’t have the most tragic ending ever.
Chapter Thirteen
We stood in pairs, holding hands in front of Lakeside, the mental health ward attached to the hospital where Tod and Harmony both worked, one to treat people, the other to kill them. Holding hands was the only way Harmony and Sabine could keep my uncle and Nash invisible.
Tod and I just...didn’t want to let go.
“I hate this place,” I said, and Tod squeezed my hand. “Something tells me it’ll only be worse on the other side of the world barrier.”
Again, no one argued.
“So, what?” Nash said, staring up at the three-story building. “We cross over first, then head into the basement? Or we blink into the basement, then cross over?”
In truth, there were risks either way. “I vote for blinking in, then crossing over, because once we cross over, there can be no blinking.”
“Good point,” my uncle said.
I let go of Tod and held my hands out to Nash and Uncle Brendon, while Tod took his mother’s hand and Sabine’s. A second later, we all six stood in the basement of the mental health building, and I wished I’d thought to bring a flashlight. If the basement had ever been in common use, I couldn’t tell from the dripping water, dank smell, and almost total absence of light.
Sabine pulled her cell phone from her pocket and turned on a flashlight app, but I realized quickly that I didn’t want to see any of what she was showing me, even in the human world. With some additional light from our cell phones, we found the largest room of the basement—there were only a few of them—and decided that would be the best place to cross over. Even if my dad wasn’t actually in that room, if Avari had an audience, or even just a few current victims to play with, he’d probably like room to spread out.