Читать книгу Soul Screamers Collection - Rachel Vincent - Страница 53

“I CAN’T BELIEVE you did that!” Nash said, and I glanced away from the dark highway long enough to see him grinning from ear to ear in the passenger seat, his irises swirling in the deep shadows. He looked … excited.

“Did what?” A car passed us going the opposite direction, and when it was gone, I flicked my brights back on.

“He can’t believe you asked a several-thousand-year-old reaper for help getting a human’s soul back,” Tod answered from the backseat. He had both arms crossed over his usual dark T-shirt, but I knew by the tilt of his fuzzy chin and the shine in his eyes in the rearview mirror that he was pleased. Maybe even a little impressed.

I shrugged and stifled a giddy smile as I turned back to the road. It was a bit of a rush. “I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask …”

“But it could have.” Nash aimed the heater vents toward the center of the car and closed the broken one, which wouldn’t twist. “You keep forgetting that most reapers don’t like bean sidhes. And vice versa.”

“Maybe I keep forgetting that because the first bean sidhe and reaper I met are brothers. Neither of whom seems to hate me.”

Still half grinning, Nash twisted to look at Tod. “Maybe we should have introduced her to Levi first.”

“There’s still time,” Tod said, and that time he actually smiled. A little.

Levi was Tod’s boss, the oldest and most experienced reaper in Texas. Except for Libby, who worked all over the southern U.S., whenever and wherever she was needed. But evidently Levi was enough of a threat to keep several hundred other reapers in line.

“So, what’s the plan?” I turned down the heat now that my goose bumps were gone. “I have to be home by ten-thirty, so we can’t look for this disposal station tonight. So … tomorrow after school?”

Nash nodded and flipped another vent closed, but Tod’s frown deepened in the rearview mirror. “Are you seriously saying your curfew is more important than Addison’s soul?”

“You’re in no position to complain.” Nash twisted in his seat to face us both, gripping the back of my seat. “Kaylee and I don’t owe either you or Addy a damn thing, and if you don’t lay off, we’ll both just walk.”

Only they both knew I’d never do that. I’d said I was in, and I meant it. But.

“If I get home late, I get grounded, and I won’t be much help to Addy while I’m stuck in my room.” I eyed Tod in the mirror and flicked off my brights as another car approached in the opposite lane. “She’s not supposed to die until Thursday, so we still have all day tomorrow, at least, right?”

Instead of answering, Tod scowled, and his curls shone brightly in the glare from the passing car’s headlights. “Can’t you sneak out after your dad goes to bed?”

I nodded and flicked my brights back on. “Probably. But if I get caught, we’re right back where we started, only getting caught sneaking out is much worse than being late for curfew in the first place. I could be late because of traffic, car trouble, or the built-in delay of hanging out with Emma. But sneaking out implies that I’m up to something my dad won’t like.” Which was true, but not in the way my father would be thinking. “And then he’ll start checking up on me all the time. He’s new at this, and way overzealous.”

Nash and Tod had it easy. They were both legal—Nash had turned eighteen in late August—and thus mostly free from curfews and other unreasonable parental restrictions. Especially Tod, who was not only of age, but technically dead.

It’s hard to ground someone who doesn’t even officially exist. And can walk through walls.

“Whatever.” He ran one hand through his mop of curls. “Can’t you skip school tomorrow?”

“Love to,” I said, and Tod’s eyes brightened. Until I continued. “But I can’t. I skipped last period today for this little road trip, and if I miss again, the school will call my dad.”

“High school’s a pain in the ass,” Tod snapped, and I almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of such an understatement. “I’ll be glad when you turn eighteen.”

That time I did laugh. “Me, too.”

“That makes three of us.” The heat in Nash’s eyes said his agreement had nothing to do with helping either Tod or Addison, and everything to do with uninterrupted privacy. At least where my father was concerned.

Something told me getting rid of Tod would be a little more difficult.

My phone rang as I took a long, gradual curve in the highway, and Nash helped me hold the wheel while I dug my cell from my pocket. I didn’t recognize the number, which meant my father probably hadn’t figured anything out yet.

I flipped my phone open and held it to my ear with my right hand, while I steered with my left. “Hello?”

“Kaylee?” It was Addison, and she sounded stuffy, like she had a cold. Or like she’d been crying.

“Addy, what’s wrong?” I asked, and Tod’s image in the rearview mirror lurched when he leaned forward. His arm brushed the back of my shoulder as he hovered near my phone to listen in.

“Tod doesn’t have a phone, so he gave me your number,” Addison began, sniffling into my ear. “I hope that’s okay.” She sniffed again, and I wanted to tell her to blow her nose.

“It’s fine. What’s wrong?” I asked again, as Tod’s breath warmed the back of my neck, stirring my ponytail. How weird that he was alive enough to breathe hot air, but not to carry a cell phone. Maybe it was hard to get an account in a dead man’s name….

“It’s Regan.” Addison sobbed haltingly while I twisted the wheel to the left to keep us on the road when it curved. Suddenly it felt like I was trying to do a dozen things at once. And failing.

“What’s wrong with Regan?” Tod asked over my shoulder, and she must have heard him.

“John Dekker offered her the contract, and she said yes!” Her voice rose in disbelief on the last word, and it echoed like a siren going off in my head. For a moment I wondered how certain we were of Addison’s humanity. “He’s on his way here now. He always brings the contract personally—he doesn’t trust anyone else with it.”

My heart beat so hard my chest felt bruised. John Dekker was coming to Texas, and he was bringing a soul-sucking demon with him.

The road swam before me as my horror and confusion crested in a startling wave of disorientation. Nash grabbed the wheel again, though I hadn’t let go of it, and I took a deep breath, forcing my thoughts apart. Each to its own distinct corner of my mind. That was the only way I could concentrate on one at a time.

I tightened my grip on the wheel, eased up on the gas, and focused on the road, nodding absently to tell Nash I was fine. Until a semi blasted past on our right, nearly blowing us off the highway.

Maybe I should pull over….

“Wait, your sister sold her soul?” I said, hitting the speakerphone button as I glanced over my shoulder to make sure there was nothing in the other lane. But the entire highway was blocked by Tod’s face, crinkled with fear—an odd expression to find on a reaper.

“Move!” I mouthed, handing the phone to Nash, and Tod immediately dropped back into the rear passenger seat. I swerved too quickly into the right lane—blessedly empty—then onto the shoulder of the road.

“She hasn’t actually signed the contract yet,” Addison continued, oblivious to my driving woes. “But she will as soon as Dekker gets here. You guys have to help me. Please. She won’t listen to me, but she can’t argue with you. She knows Tod’s dead. You all have to come tell her what you told me. What will happen to her when she dies.”

“Why won’t she listen to you?” I shoved the gearshift into Park, and Nash stabbed a button on the dash to turn on the hazard lights.

“She thinks I’m trying to hold her back.” Addy sobbed again and springs creaked as she sat on something. It sounded like a bed, rather than a chair. “She said she was tired of ‘singing in my shadow.’”

Nash spoke loudly, to make sure she could hear. “Addy, where’s your mom?”

Addison sniffled again, sounding much younger than eighteen. I guess true terror does that. “She went out, and she’s not answering her phone.” She didn’t elaborate, but I recognized the embarrassed, disgusted tone in her voice. Her mom was strung out again, and gone when she was needed most.

“Does she know what your sister’s about to do?” Nash continued.

Addison sobbed miserably. “Yeah, but she doesn’t understand. I tried to tell her Regan was selling her soul, but she thought I was speaking in metaphors.” She sniffled again. “I doubt she’d care, anyway. She’d just see dollar signs.”

I already hated Mrs. Page, though I’d never met her.

Tod leaned forward with his arms folded across the back of Nash’s seat this time. “Where’s Regan now?”

“We’re both at home,” Addy said. “My mom’s house in Hurst. Do you remember how to get here?”

Tod nodded, then realized she couldn’t hear him. “Yeah.” But then he faltered, obviously at a loss for how we could help.

But I had an idea—a stroke of genius, really—that sent adrenaline racing through my veins fast enough to leave me light-headed. “After she signs the contract, Dekker has to take her to the Netherworld like they did with you, right?” My small car rocked violently as another huge truck blasted past us on the highway, without bothering to move into the far lane.

Addison cleared her throat, and more springs groaned. “Yeah, but we can’t let that happen. We have to stop her from signing.”

“I know.” I held up one finger to tell Nash and Tod to wait—that I really was going somewhere with this. “But my point is that in order to take her to the Netherworld, Dekker has to bring along that reaper, right? The lady who took you to the hellion?”

“Yeah, I guess …”

“And, Tod.” I twisted in the driver’s seat to face him, though the steering wheel bruised my side. “Using your soul-wrangling abilities for anything other than reaping from the approved list is illegal for a reaper, right? Including taking humans to the Netherworld to facilitate the removal of their souls?” He nodded, and I continued. “Would you call that a firing offense?”

“Definitely.” His eyes lit up, as my point became clear.

“And would your boss be interested in the chance to fire such a reaper?”

His brows arched. “It would make his decade.”

“That’s what I thought.” I faced forward again to spare my ribs, just as the first drops of rain went splat on the windshield. “And without his pet reaper, Dekker has no way to get Regan to the Netherworld. Right?” My excitement grew as Tod and Nash both nodded eagerly. We had a chance to save Regan from making a huge mistake and bring justice to the rogue reaper involved. Plus, if I could peek into the Netherworld, I could at least get a good look at the hellion we needed to identify. “So, what do you think? Will it work?”

Nash grinned from ear to ear and made a gruff happy noise deep in his throat. “I think it might.”

“So, wait, you have a plan?” Addy squeaked over the line.

“Yeah, I think we do.” I twisted my key in the ignition, and the car rumbled to life, more like an ailing house cat than a purring tiger, but so long as my poor car moved, I wasn’t going to complain.

“What should I do?”

I rebuckled my seat belt and flicked the switch to start my windshield wipers. “Stall them until we get there.” The passenger side wiper stuttered across the glass once, then died without so much as a whimper.

Fortunately, I didn’t need to see through that side. “Say whatever you have to say. But don’t let her sign that contract, and do not let the reaper take Regan to the Netherworld.”

“Okay, I’ll try.” But she sounded less than confident.

“Try hard, Addy.” I punched the button to make the hazard lights stop blinking and glanced over my left shoulder before pulling into traffic again. “You only have one sister, right? And she only has one soul.”

“Yeah, okay.” She sniffled again, but this time determination echoed in her voice like a vow sworn in a cavern. “I’ll keep her here if I have to chain her to the kitchen cabinets.”

“I hope you’re kidding, but in case you’re not, that won’t work. Neither your cabinets nor your chain exist in the Netherworld, because they’re in a private residence.” Huh. Look at that. I’d actually learned something in how-to-be-a-bean-sidhe lessons.

“Yes, but the concept has some real potential,” Tod muttered from behind me, and I glanced in the mirror to see him grinning lasciviously.

“I’ll come up with something,” Addison said. She obviously hadn’t heard the reaper’s last comment.

“Good. We’ll be there as soon as we can.” I nodded at Nash, and he closed my phone, but held on to it, so I wouldn’t have to dig for it if it rang again. Then I stomped on the gas, and nearly had a heart attack when my poor little car hydroplaned a good ten feet before finding traction again.

“I’d rather be late-but-whole than punctual-but-dead,” Nash suggested, teasing me much more calmly than I could have managed if he’d nearly killed me.

“I’m gonna find Levi and meet you guys there,” Tod said, and I frowned when I realized the fear shining in his eyes probably had as much to do with my driving and the possibility of his own second death than with being late to Regan’s soul harvest.

Was that some kind of residual human fear, or could a car crash actually hurt a reaper, if he didn’t blink out in time? And for the first time, I wondered exactly how dead Tod was….

“Wait!” I shouted, and Nash reached for the wheel again when I stretched my neck to catch his brother’s gaze in the rearview mirror. Tod arched one brow at me. I’d caught him right before he would have disappeared. “Reapers don’t have death dates, because they’re already dead, right?” I asked, and Tod nodded. “So. do you guys still have souls?”

He scowled. “Do my eyes look empty to you?”

I breathed a little easier, knowing the dead boy in my backseat wasn’t soulless—even if his conscience wasn’t exactly bright and shiny. “So, what happens to a reaper’s soul once it’s confiscated?” I asked, watching his face for any unspoken reaction. Because a fired reaper was a dead reaper. Permanently dead.

“It’s recycled, just like a human’s,” Tod said, and I could see the gears grinding behind his eyes, as he tried to follow my thought process. His brother’s expression was eerily similar, only without that edge of suspicion. Nash might not have known exactly what I was up to, but he trusted me completely.

I wasn’t sure whether that made him sweet or naive.

“So … who collects it?” I asked, not surprised to see my brow crinkle in the mirror. “Can just any reaper kill a fellow reaper and take her soul?”

Tod shrugged, and suddenly looked completely invested in the conversation—a relative rarity for him. “In theory, yes. But that would be a really good way to piss off your coworkers. So we usually leave that to managers and Dark reapers, like Libby.”

The rain had started to slow, so I dared a little more pressure on the gas pedal. “Does it work the same way it does with humans?”

“As far as I know. Though, reaper souls are much rarer than human souls, so I’ve never actually seen it done.”

“What are you getting at, Kaylee?” Nash asked, as I put my blinker on to pass an old pickup in the right lane.

“I was just curious,” I said, not yet willing to mention the kernel of an idea sprouting slowly in my head. “Do you know how to get to Addison’s mom’s house?” I asked Nash, and when he nodded, I eyed Tod in the mirror. “Go find Levi. We’ll meet you there as soon as we can.”

He nodded, then disappeared.

I drove as fast as I could without risking an accident or police intervention, and when we got to Hurst, Nash gave me directions to her neighborhood. Which is where we got lost. The roads in Addison’s subdivision wound around in interconnected circles and cul-de-sacs, several of which seemed to share variations of the same name. And all the houses looked the same, especially in the dark.

My ten-thirty curfew came and went while we wandered the neighborhood, trying to call Addy the whole time, but she never answered her phone. Finally, Nash suggested I let him drive while I took a peek into the Netherworld to see if I could give him a general direction from there. Reluctantly—very reluctantly—I agreed.

In the passenger seat of my own car, as a late-night mist still sprayed my windshield, I called up the memory of Emma’s death, forcing myself to relive it one more time. I told myself I was doing a good thing. Trying to save the soul of a thirteen-year-old girl who had no idea what she was getting herself into, rather than simply exploring my own abilities.

It didn’t help.

Summoning my own wail was still one of the most difficult things I’d ever had to do, probably because I didn’t really want to remember how Emma had looked when she’d died. How her face had gone blank, her eyes staring up at the gym ceiling as if she could see straight through it and into the heavens. Though, she actually saw nothing at all. …

That did it. The wail began deep in my chest, fighting to break free from my throat, but I held it back. Swallowed most of it, as Harmony had taught me. What came out was a soft, high-pitched keening, which buzzed in my ears and seemed to resonate in my fillings. And finally a thin gray haze formed over everything, in spite of the fact that there was very little light to filter through it. To reflect off of it.

Since I was just peeking into the Netherworld, rather than going there, my vision seemed to split as one reality layered itself over the other. It was a bit like watching a 3-D movie without the proper cardboard glasses. The images didn’t quite line up.

And the Netherworld—rather than being lit by what paltry moonlight shone in the human plane—was illuminated by a ubiquitous white glow from above, similar to the way the lights of a city in the distance reflect off low-lying clouds in the dark. This light was indistinct and somehow cold, and seemed to blur the world before me, rather than to truly lighten it.

However that was par for the course, at least as far as I could tell. I’d never been able to see very far in the Netherworld, which gave me the impression that if I took one step too many, I’d fall into some huge, gaping pit, or step off the edge of the world. That thought, and the cool, hazy light, made me want to step very carefully. Or to close my eyes and shake my head until the Netherworld disappeared altogether.

But I resisted the urge to deny the Netherworld, though every survival instinct I had groaned within me. I’d never find Regan and Addy in time if I didn’t look in both worlds.

“What do you see?” Nash asked. Because he could hear my keening, he would have been able to see into the Netherworld with me, if he’d wanted. But someone had to drive.

I couldn’t answer him—not while I was holding back my wail. So I shrugged, and squinted into the distance, turning slowly in my seat. At first there was nothing but the usual gray fog, paler toward the sky, and the eerie impression of movement just outside my field of vision.

As Harmony had explained, human private residences didn’t exist in the Netherworld, so when I peeked into it, Addy’s neighborhood was suddenly overlaid with a second, similar series of gravel streets and walkways, which ended in nothing. And some darkly intuitive part of my mind insisted that the gravel was really crushed bone. Though, from what sort of creature I couldn’t begin to imagine….

I wondered what I’d see if I were actually in the Netherworld. What would the homes look like? Could I go in one? Would I want to?

“Well?” The urgency in Nash’s voice reminded me of the ticking clock. I squinted into the fog again and this time made out a series of darker-than-normal shapes in the ever-present gray spliced into our world. Shapes that weren’t moving. Or at least, weren’t moving away.

I pointed to my right, and was surprised when my hand smashed into the glass of my own window. Though I still sat bodily in the human world, my senses were so intensely focused on that other world that I’d become oblivious to my physical surroundings. The car didn’t exist in the Netherworld, where I seemed to float over the road alone, in an invisible chair.

Weird.

Nash turned the wheel in the direction I’d pointed, and vertigo washed over me as I moved along with a vehicle I could only see and feel on one plane. In one reality.

Double weird. Evidently I get carsick in the Nether-reality.

As we drew closer, the shapes became a little more distinct. Two tall forms, and one small. Small, like a little girl. A young teenager, maybe.

Crap. Regan had already crossed over.

A little more of my wail slipped out, and I was surprised all over again when the echo of my voice bounced around in the car, rather than rolling out to points unknown. Nash followed my finger, and I had to slap a hand over my mouth to keep from vomiting when the car tilted up suddenly, and he slammed my gearshift into Park. We were in a sharply sloping driveway, only feet from those three dark figures now.

The driver’s side door opened, and cold air swirled around me. A moment later, my door opened, and Nash helped me out of the car by one arm. Icy mist settled on me, rendering me instantly damp and cold, and distantly I wished I’d worn a jacket.

Nash’s lips brushed my ear. “Let it go.” His words slid over me like warm satin gliding over my skin. I felt myself relax, even as the largest of those gray figures turned to walk away. “We’re here now, so just let it go.”

I let the wail fade, and the grayness melted from my vision, leaving me with a scratchy throat and haunting images lingering behind my eyes. And a crystal-clear view of a large brick house with a stone facade around a bright red front door, illuminated by a series of floodlights.

Parked on the street in front of the house was a plain black limousine—if a limo can ever be considered plain—with the engine still running, the driver half asleep behind the wheel. That would have been a remarkable sight on my street, but in Addy’s neighborhood, it was probably commonplace.

Nash dashed toward the house, and I sprinted after him, without taking time to truly reorient myself in the human world. I tripped over the front step, but he caught me with one hand, already twisting the knob with the other.

It opened easily. Dekker and the reaper obviously weren’t expecting company. Fortunately, Addison was.

We rushed through the tiled foyer into a large, plush living room, where John Dekker held Addison Page by her upper arm, his other hand gripping an expanding file folder closed with a built-in rubber band.

Was that Regan’s contract? Excitement surged through me like an electrical charge. Could the hellion’s name really be so close?

An instant later, two female figures appeared in the center of the floor, holding hands.

The taller form I assumed to be the rogue reaper. The other was Regan Page. I recognized her from the ads for her new tween drama. Except that on TV, she had crystalline blue eyes only a couple of shades darker than her sister’s.

Now her eyes were solid white orbs, shot through with tiny red veins, as if the whites had absorbed her pupils and irises.

Despair crashed through me, heavy and almost too thick to breathe through. My hand tightened around Nash’s. We were too late. She’d sold her soul, and the brief, dark-’n’-blurry glimpse I’d gotten of the hellion who took it wasn’t enough to let me identify him, much less find him.

I’d failed—again—and another girl had lost her soul.