“I know, but it has nothing to do with you,” Tod said. “I’ll get him myself.”
“No you won’t, because I won’t tell you where they got the trace.”
Tod scowled, and in that moment, he was all reaper—dark, in spite of fair coloring. Inhumanly fierce, in spite of features girls tend to describe as “angelic.” For the first time, I truly understood why others feared my brother.
Tod embodied the inevitable, unstoppable, unflappable end. He was the last thing most people would never see. But until recently, I’d seen him nearly every day of my life, like it or not.
“Luca will tell me,” he growled.
I shook my head. “If you’re seen at the reclamation office, someone will call Levi and turn you in.” I cleared my throat and stood my ground. “We do this together, or not at all.”
Tod’s fists clenched at his sides. He seemed to glow with rage from within, and I silently congratulated myself on having drawn a reaction from him. Any reaction. I’d known something was seriously wrong when his absence became more unnerving than his presence.
“This isn’t your fight, Nash. I owe Thane. For Kaylee.”
“So do I.”
“Don’t...” he began, but the anger in his voice couldn’t edge out the pain. “Don’t even think about going there. She was never really yours. Not like she was mine.”
I swallowed my argument. I punched my own pain down deep inside until it stayed there. Maybe everyone else was right. Maybe Kaylee and I were never meant to be together. But we were together. She was mine before she was his, and we were happy together, for a while, and she would never have been dismissive of that fact.
Tod wouldn’t, either, if he weren’t blinded by grief. A grief I understood well.
“I loved her, too, you know.” I said it quietly. I wasn’t trying to piss him off—even if I’d wanted to, nothing I said could hurt him as much as losing Kaylee had. But he wasn’t the only one who’d lost her.
I lost her twice.
“That’s the difference between us, Nash.” His eyes flashed with blue fire. “You’re speaking in past tense.”
“She’s been gone for two years,” I said. “You have to let her go. Let me help. We’ll go after Thane together, then—”
“She’s not gone!” he shouted, and the cherub was no more. “I can still feel her.” My brother clutched his chest as if he might claw his own heart out, and mine broke for him. That was the difference between us.
I missed Kaylee, but I’d moved on. She’d known I could. He’d known I could. Just like I knew he couldn’t.
But if he didn’t come to terms with her death, he’d lose his job. Then we’d all lose him.
“Help me, Tod. Help me do this for her.” I’d thought about my approach long and hard. My brother wouldn’t agree to my plan if he knew it was intended to save his sanity. To save his afterlife. But he’d do it for me. And he’d sure as hell do it for Kaylee. “This isn’t just about Thane. Don’t you get it? He’s a means to an end. To closure for her. We can give this to her, Tod. Both of us. It’s the last request she never got.”
He frowned at me for a second, and I could practically see the gears turning behind his eyes. In life, he’d had little use for school, but he’d always been smart.
“Her mom.” He sank into our dad’s armchair, his head in his hands. “You want to use Thane to find her mother’s soul. To give her peace.”
“And to give her dad peace. They’re a package deal.”
The Cavanaughs were soul mates. For real. Kaylee’d told the story once with stars in her eyes, and I’d realized she found comfort in the thought that her parents’ love was a thing of legend. They were so in love—so connected—that their souls became intertwined, and when Darcy Cavanaugh died, a piece of Aiden’s soul went with her and a piece of her soul remained within him. Because of that, he couldn’t let his wife go. And poor Darcy could not rest in peace because her soul wasn’t whole.
The problem was that no one knew where Darcy Cavanaugh’s soul was. Thane was a rogue reaper—a boss-level bad guy willing to abuse his position for both pleasure and profit. Instead of turning in Darcy’s soul after reaping it, he sold it on the black market, probably somewhere in the Netherworld, and all anyone knew for sure—what Kaylee had died knowing—was that her mother’s soul was in constant torment.
Tod
“Okay.” I looked up from my sneakers to meet my brother’s hazel gaze.
“Okay?” Nash’s eyes widened, the greens and browns in his irises swirling in surprise and triumph, and I was reminded all over again that though he was physically two years older than I’d ever be, he would always be my baby brother. “You’re in?”
I nodded. “For Kaylee.” That was the least I owed her, and the only thing I could still give her. “So...lead the way.”
“Now?” Nash said, surprised again.
I shrugged and stood. “Yesterday would have been better, but now will have to do. So either tell me where the reclamationists found the black-market soul, or lead the way.”
“First, you have to call Levi. If he fires you, this whole thing is pointless.”
“No, if he fires me, this whole thing is up to you.” I frowned, rethinking the statement. “So yeah, basically pointless. Give me a sec.”
While Nash huffed over my vote of nonconfidence in him, I pulled my cell from my pocket and texted Levi, entering his number from memory. “This should give us a couple of days.”
“How’s he going to be sure that’s from you, if he doesn’t recognize the number?”
I held my phone out so Nash could see the text I’d sent.
Ill b back @ wrk by Sat. Swear. If ur gonna fire me, pls wait til thn. BTW, this is Tod.
His brows rose. “The lack of professionalism gives you away?”
“That, and I signed my name.” What I didn’t say was that there was no guarantee the message would work. Levi liked me, but his patience was not without end. “Now. Where to?”
“Midlothian.”
“Midlothian?” I slid my phone into my pocket. “Seriously?”
Nash nodded, patting his pockets for his keys and wallet, trappings of a mortal existence I’d long since ceased to miss. “I know it sounds like it should be in the Netherworld, but it’s just south of the metroplex.”
“I know where it is. I just don’t know why Thane would peddle his macabre wares there. Does Midlothian have some kind of soul black market I’m not aware of?”
Nash shrugged, dangling his key chain in front of my face. “Let’s find out. I’ll drive.”
I swatted the keys away. “Too slow, my spectrally-challenged brother. Give me your hand.” Before he could refuse, I threaded my bare arm through his and closed my eyes.
“Damn it, T—” Nash shouted, but the rest of my name got lost in transit, and a second later, we stood in downtown Midlothian, in the middle of the local farmer’s market.
“—od!”
The end of Nash’s shout went unheard by the locals, since physical contact with me would keep him incorporeal for as long as I wanted. “Don’t let go,” I said, before he could pull free from my grip. “Or else you’ll make the local news.”
“Don’t. Do. That,” he growled, as if I were intimidated by the single inch he had over me.
“Sabine wouldn’t have been such a baby about it.”
Nash scowled. “If I were holding her arm instead of yours, I might not be, either.”
“Stop whining and find some place private. Over there.” I pointed toward a Dumpster at the edge of the lot with my free hand. We passed several fruit stands and a guy selling fried pies out of the back of his truck on the way to the Dumpster, and once we were behind it, I let go of my brother.
If anyone else had been within sight, they would have seen us both appear out of nowhere.
“That was less than pleasant,” Nash said as we stepped into sight, officially part of the human reality once again.
“But much faste
r than driving. You’re welcome.”
Halfway across the farmer’s market, a fruit stand caught my eye. I was browsing the selection of fresh fruit and homemade jellies when Nash grabbed my arm and pulled me after him. “It’s probably not a good idea for a reaper to mingle with the locals. Especially one who hasn’t spent much time in corporeal form recently.”
He had a valid point, but I wasn’t about to admit it. “But she had apricot jam....”
Nash made a disgusted face. “Nobody likes apricot jam.”
“Kaylee liked it,” I mumbled, but he didn’t seem to hear. “Whatever. Where are we going?”
“Flower shop on the corner. Luca said it’s called Bloomin’ Right, or something lame like that. The owner had a small collection of human souls stored in these little balloon weights made of hellion-forged steel. The reclamation department identified one of them as a soul Thane got away with when he double-crossed us the night Emma died.”
The reminder made my blood boil. Emma Marshall wasn’t the only one who’d died that night, and though Kaylee and I were able to put her soul into another body, she’d had to give up her family, her identity, and her entire life, thanks to her murder in the Netherworld. None of that would have happened, if Thane hadn’t sold us out to Avari and his hellion cohorts.
Just another reason Thane had to pay.
“The owner’s still there?” I ducked beneath a blue-flag-studded rope marking the end of the farmer’s market. “They didn’t...arrest her or something?” The sun was warm overhead, but that mild heat was nothing compared to how sweltering central Texas would be in another month. Fortunately, in my incorporeal state, I wouldn’t feel a bit of it.
Nash shrugged and led the way toward the sidewalk in front of a strip of quaint downtown storefronts. “They’re not cops. Luca said they confiscated the souls, and since the owner didn’t resist, they had no reason to get hostile.”
“Is it wrong that I hope we find reason to get hostile?”
He aimed a faux-pompous look my way. “Wrong is a gray concept in a black-and-white world, my life-challenged brother.”
I snorted. “That’s...deep.” About as deep as a puddle.
He grinned. “I lost a bet with Sabine and had to take Intro to Philosophy this semester. My horizons have been widened.”
My brows rose. “Let me guess—you can now cite sources for the pseudo-philosophical bullshit that spews from your lips?”
Nash shook his head. “It’s no longer pseudo. I now spew genuine philosophical bullshit.”
I glanced up from my sneakers to see that he was still grinning. “Color me impressed, college boy.”
“Quit calling me that.”
“Really?” I laughed. “That’s the least offensive thing I’ve called you in recent history.”
“I am not unaware,” he grumbled, and that time, laughing at him felt like stretching a muscle I hadn’t used in years.
The flower shop on the corner had bluebonnets painted on the front windows, and the middle-aged woman behind the counter wore a cream-colored apron embroidered with them. Her name tag read Angie.
When the bell over the door announced our arrival, Angie looked up from the bouquet she’d been arranging, and smiled.
“You the owner?” Nash shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and I tried not to resent the fact that he’d surpassed my height by nearly an inch in the past couple of years. He might be taller now, but in a couple of centuries, he’d shrink and wrinkle with old age.
No matter what my future brought, or how the whole thing ended, wrinkles would not be among my worries.
“Sure am.” Angie’s smile widened. “How can I help y’all this mornin’? We got a sale on summer bouquets. Roses, daisy poms, and delphinium.”
I had no idea what delphinium was, but the name sounded evil, like it might grow in a hellion’s garden.
“We’re more interested in your accessories,” Nash said.
“Sure thing.” She laid the lilies she’d been arranging on the glass counter in front of her, then wiped her hands on her apron and stepped out into the front part of the store. “Vases? Teddy bears? Jewelry? We got this real nice message-in-a-bottle thing, and some pretty candles.”
“Balloon weights,” I said, and her attention landed on me for the first time. “The kind made from hellion-forged steel.”
Her gaze narrowed in inimical suspicion, and when she spoke, her Southern accent suddenly seemed both deliberate and labored. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. Our balloon weights come in several shapes and sizes, but they’re all made of plastic, and most are covered with shiny, colored foil.” She aimed a stiff-armed gesture at a display case, where an array of ordinary—if tacky—balloon weights stood on display.
“We’d like to talk about your other collection. The exotic balloon weights.” That sentence sounded so ridiculous that it was hard to believe I’d actually said it.
She studied us both for a moment, then crossed her arms over the front of her apron. “Most customers place their orders over the phone.”
“We’re not customers.” Nash’s voice was suddenly deeper and more threatening than I’d ever heard it. I was almost impressed.
Angie’s expression and bearing changed in an instant. “Now just a minute. The reclamation guys have already been here, and they said I could keep the vessels, as long as I didn’t try to fill them again. I don’t know who you are, but—”
“I’m just a bean sidhe,” Nash said. “But he’s a reaper. I wouldn’t piss him off, if I were you. He hasn’t met his soul quota for the month, and it’s made him kind of cranky.”
I would have laughed out loud at the very idea of a soul quota, if that wouldn’t have ruined the threatening picture he’d just painted of me.
Angie glanced at me, then looked away quickly when I returned her gaze with a bold one of my own. Sometimes silence is more powerful than a threat. Eventually, Nash would figure that out for himself.
“Well, he’s not going to make his quota here,” the owner said. “They took everything I had, I swear. See for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“I believe you, but he never believes anyone,” Nash said with a pointed glance at me. “Better show us what you have.”
Angie stepped behind her counter again and pulled back a heavy curtain to admit us into the back room of her shop. She led us past tables covered in normal floral-shop clutter—gardening shears, clipped stems, wilted blooms, and unopened boxes of inventory. About halfway through the room, the roses, lilies, and other brightly colored blossoms I couldn’t name gave way to twisted, thorny, and sometimes wriggling plants that could only have come from the Netherworld, a warped alternate-version of the human world, from which most pain and evil sprung.
I recognized many of the plants from my own trips to and from the Nether. Some were poisonous, some beneficial, some a dangerous combination of both. Certain vines would choke whatever they got coiled around, and others looked like giant, grotesque versions of a Venus flytrap, which would take a bite out of anything—or anyone—that strayed within reach.
We were passing a bank of tall, glass-walled cases lit with greenhouse bulbs when a particularly large carnivorous plant lunged at me. It hit the glass and left a goopy wet smear, then continued to snap at us with serrated-leaf teeth until we’d passed a small bathroom and moved out of sight.
Nash shuddered. “Those are beyond creepy.”
“People fear what they do not understand,” Angie said with sage authority.
“I understand that those things will take your hand off in a single bite,” he said, waving her forward.
She laughed and opened the door to a small office. “Yeah. And they’re quieter than a dog.” Angie cleared her throat, then tossed a gesture at a shelf mounted on the wall behind her cluttered desk. “These are my vessels. Take a look if you want, but you break it, you bought it. And I know reapers aren’t paid in human currency,” she added, with a bold gl
ance at me probably intended to disguise the unease dancing behind her eyes.
“Whoa.” Nash circled her desk, and with one glance at the figurines lined up on the glass shelf, I understood his fascination.
There were twelve small forms, each cast from hellion-forged steel, smooth, shiny, and flawless, with a wicked bluish gleam. Every human figure was unique—each twisted in a different display of agony. Some were hunched, their metal jaws clenched in silent pain. Others were stretching, or writhing, or reaching toward relief that would never come, mouths thrown open in frozen screams.
Each had a loop at the top of its head, ready for the ribbon that would be threaded through it, to anchor a helium bouquet.
“You actually sent balloons out with these?” Nash breathed, equal parts surprised and horrified. But I knew what was coming before she could explain.
“Not Mylar balloons. Party balloons,” she said, and I groaned. “You know,” Angie continued, mistaking Nash’s horror for incomprehension. “The red and black ones.”
The ones full of Demon’s Breath.
The packaging solution Kaylee had come up with to help a friend of mine had really caught on in Netherworld black-market circles, but most of the blame for that fell on me. A few months before we’d lost Kaylee, I’d become the mule unwittingly ferrying Demon’s Breath—street name: frost—into the human world.
Clearly, the industry had gone on to thrive in my absence.
“Business was good, but you boys are late to the party. The reclamation department seized all my inventory a couple of days ago.”
“So, how does it work?” Nash asked, as if he hadn’t noticed the past-tense nature of Angie’s verbs. “People call up and order a bunch of balloons full of Demon’s Breath, with a human soul chaser?”
“Not often, no,” she admitted. “The balloons are affordable enough, because the real price comes after you’ve huffed them.”
I shivered at the thought. Whichever hellion had contributed his breath to the balloons would have a hardwired mental connection to the user, once he or she had inhaled. That connection would be used to extract payment from—i.e. torture—the user for the rest of his or her life. Which would be short and painful, if that user was human.
Soul Screamers Volume Two Page 43
