My Soul to Take

by Rachel Vincent

  “You’ve had enough.” My uncle was on his feet before I could blink, and an instant later he held his wife’s mug. She slouched in her chair, eyes wide in sluggish surprise, hand still curved, as if around the cup handle. “I’ll get you some fresh coffee.” He stopped in the threshold between the living room and dining room, Aunt Val’s mug gripped so tightly his knuckles were white. “I’m sorry,” he said to Nash. “My wife isn’t taking any of this well. She’s worried about the girls, and she’s a friend of Meredith Cole’s mother.”

  Yeah, but she and Mrs. Cole were gym buddies, not conjoined twins. And I’d hardly ever seen my aunt drink more than a single glass of wine at a time—she said alcohol had too many calories.

  Nash nodded. “My mother would be upset too.”

  Yeah, but I bet she wouldn’t be drowning in brandy….

  “How is your mother?”

  “She still misses him.” Nash glanced at our entwined hands, obviously uncomfortable talking about his own family.

  Uncle Brendon’s expression softened in sympathy. “Of course she does.” Then he turned into the kitchen and let the subject rest.

  For a moment, we stared at the carpet in silence, not quite sure what to say next. We’d hit a lull in the single most awkward conversation of my life, and I wasn’t exactly eager to pick it back up.

  But Aunt Val obviously was. “She wouldn’t have liked this.” Her gaze was focused on the floor several feet in front of her chair, her arms draped over the sides, hands dangling. I’d never seen her look so…aimless. Limp.

  “My mom?” Nash asked, confused, but I knew what she meant. She was talking about my mother.

  “Wouldn’t have liked what?” I asked, curious in spite of my lingering anger. No one ever seemed willing to talk about my mom in front of me.

  “If it had gone the other way, she would have told you the truth. But Aiden couldn’t face it. He was never as strong as she was.” Aunt Val’s gaze found me, and I was startled by the sudden clarity in her eyes. The unexpected intensity shining through a glaze of intoxication. “I never met anyone stronger than Darby. I wanted to be just like her until—”

  “Valerie!” Uncle Brendon stood frozen in the doorway, a fresh—presumably un-spiked—mug of coffee in one hand.

  “Until what?” I glanced from one to the other.

  “Nothing. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.” He set the mug on the nearest end table—without a coaster—and crossed the room in a blur of denim, practically exhaling frustration and anxiety. Uncle Brendon lifted his wife from her chair with an arm around her shoulders, and she tottered unsteadily, lending credence to his claim.

  Yet despite her wobbly legs, her eyes were steady when they met his, and his silent censure did not escape her notice. But neither did it make her retract her statement. Whatever had just passed between them, it was crystal clear that Aunt Val did in fact know what she was saying.

  Uncle Brendon half carried his wife toward the hallway. “I’m going to get her settled in for the night. It was good to meet you, Nash, and please give my best to your mother.” He glanced pointedly at me, then at the door.

  Evidently visiting hours were over.

  “Uncle Brendon?” I had one question that couldn’t wait for my father, and I wanted to be holding Nash’s hand when I heard the answer, just in case.

  My uncle hesitated in the doorway, and Aunt Val laid her head on his shoulder, her eyes already closed. “Yeah?”

  I took a deep breath. “What did Aunt Val mean when she said I’m living on borrowed time?”

  Comprehension washed over him like waves smoothing out sand on the beach. “You heard us this afternoon?”

  I nodded, and my hand tightened around Nash’s.

  A pained look chased his smile away, and he pulled Aunt Val straighter against him. “That’s part of your father’s story. Have a little patience and let him tell it. And try to trust me—Val really doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  I exhaled in disappointment. “Fine.” That was the best I was going to get; I could already tell. Fortunately, my father would be there in the morning, and this time I wouldn’t let him leave without answering every one of my questions.

  “Get some sleep, Kaylee. You too, Nash. With the memorial, tomorrow probably won’t be any easier than today was.”

  We both nodded, and Uncle Brendon lifted Aunt Val into his arms—she was snoring lightly now—and carried her down the hall.

  “Wow.” Nash whistled as I fell back against the arm of the couch facing him. “How much has she had?”

  “No telling. She doesn’t drink much, though, so it probably doesn’t take much to lay her out cold, and she started this afternoon.”

  “My mom just bakes when she gets upset. Some weeks I live on brownies and chocolate milk.”

  I grinned. “Trade ya.” Aunt Val would rather shoot herself than touch a stick of real butter, much less a bag of chocolate chips. Her theory was that not knowing how to bake saved her thousands of calories a month.

  My theory was that for all the brandy she’d had in the past eight hours, she could have had a whole pan of brownies.

  “I like brownies. You’re stuck with your aunt.”

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  Nash stood, and I followed him to the door, my arm threaded through his. “I gotta get Scott’s car back before he calls the cops,” he said. I walked him out, and when we stopped by the driver’s side door, I wrapped my arms around his waist as his went around my back. He felt sooo good, and the thought that I could touch him anytime I wanted sent a whole flock of butterflies fluttering around in my stomach.

  I leaned back against the car, and Nash leaned into me. His mouth met mine, and my lips opened, welcoming him. Feeding from him. When his kisses trailed down my chin to my neck, I let my head fall back, grateful for the night air cooling the heat he brought off me in waves. His lips were hot, and the trail of his kisses burned down my throat and over my collarbone.

  Each breath came faster than the last. Every kiss, every flick of his tongue against my skin, scalded me in the most delicious way. His fingers trailed up from my waist as his lips dipped lower, pushing aside the neckline of my shirt.

  Whoa… “Nash.” I put my hands on his shoulders.

  “Mmm?”

  “Hey…” I pushed against him, and he rose to meet my own heated gaze, his irises churning furiously in the light from the porch. Was this because we were two of a kind? This irresistible urge to touch each other?

  My racing pulse slowed as my heart began to ache. Was it really me he wanted, or did our mutual species throw our hormones into overdrive? Would he want me if I were human?

  Did that even matter? I wasn’t human. Neither was he.

  “You want me to pick you up for the memorial?”

  His eyes narrowed in confusion over my abrupt subject change. Then he inhaled deeply, slowed the churning in his eyes, and settled against the car next to me. “What about your dad?”

  “He can drive himself.”

  Nash rolled his eyes. “I didn’t think you’d want to go, with your dad in town.”

  “I’m going. And I’m going to drag my dad and uncle along too.”

  He arched his brows, sliding one arm around my waist. “Why?”

  “Because if some vigilante reaper is after teenage girls, I figure he’ll find an auditorium full of us pretty hard to resist. And the more bean sidhes that are present, the greater the chance one of us will get a look at him, right?”

  “In theory.” Nash frowned down at me, and I could feel a “but” coming. “But, Kaylee—” I grinned, mildly amused at having predicted something other than death “—it’not going to happen again. Not this soon. Not in the same place.”

  “It’s happened for the past three days in a row, Nash, and it’s always happened where there are large groups of teenagers. The memorial will have the highest concentration of us in one room since graduation last year. There’s just as much chance
he’ll pick someone there as anywhere else.”

  “So what if he does? What are you going to do?” Nash demanded in a harsh whisper. He glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one had appeared on the porch, then met my eyes again, and I realized that behind his sudden anger lay true fear.

  I knew I should have been scared too, and in truth, I was. The very concept of reapers running around harvesting their metaphysical crop from empty human husks made my stomach pitch and my chest tighten. And the idea of actually looking for one of those reapers…Well, that was crazy.

  But not as crazy as letting another innocent girl die. Not if we could stop it.

  I watched Nash, letting my intent show on my face. Letting determination churn slowly in my eyes.

  “No!” He looked toward the house again, then back at me, his irises roiling. “You heard what Tod said,” he whispered fiercely. “Any reaper willing to steal unauthorized souls won’t hesitate to take one of ours instead.”

  “We can’t just let him kill someone else,” I hissed, just as urgently. I resisted the urge to step back, half-afraid that any physical space I put between us during an argument would translate into an emotional distance.

  “We don’t have any choice,” he said. I started to argue, but he cut me off, running one hand through his chunky brown hair. “Okay, look, I didn’t want to have to go into this right now—I figured finding out you’re not human was enough to deal with in one day. But there’s a lot you still don’t understand, and your uncle’s probably going to explain all this soon, anyway.” He sighed and leaned back against the car, his eyes closed as if he were gathering his thoughts. And when he met my gaze again, I saw that his determination now matched my own.

  “What we can do together?” He gestured back and forth between us with one hand. “Restoring a soul? It’s more complicated than it sounds, and there are risks beyond the exchange rate.”

  “What risks?” Wasn’t the exchange rate bad enough? A new thread of unease wound its way up my spine, and I leaned against the car beside him, watching light from the porch illuminate one half of his face while rendering the other side a shadowy compilation of vague, strong features. I was pretty sure that if whatever he was about to say was as weird as finding out I was a bean sidhe, I’d need Carter’s car at my back to hold me up.

  Nash’s gaze captured mine, his eyes churning in what could only be fear. “Bean sidhes and reapers aren’t the only ones out there, Kaylee. There are other things. Things I don’t have names for. Things that you don’t ever want to see, much less be seen by.”

  My skin crawled at his phrasing. Well, that’s more than a little scary. Yet incredibly vague. “Okay, so where are these phantom creepies?”

  “Most of them are in the Netherworld.”

  “And where is that?” I crossed my arms over my chest, and my elbow bumped Carter’s side-view mirror. “Because it sounds like a Peter Pan ride.” Yet my sarcasm was a thin veil for the icy fingers of unease now crawling inside my flesh. It might have been easy to dismiss claims of this other world as horror movie fodder—if I hadn’t just discovered I wasn’t human.

  “This isn’t funny, Kaylee. The Netherworld is here with us, but not really here. It’s anchored to our world, but deeper than humans can see. If that makes sense.”

  “Not much,” I said, but with the skepticism gone, my voice sounded thin and felt empty. “How do we know this Netherworld and its…Nether-people are there, if we can’t see them?”

  Nash frowned. “We can see them—we’re not human.” Like I needed another reminder of that. “But only when you’re singing for someone’s soul. And that’s the only time they can see you.”

  And suddenly I remembered. The dark thing scuttling in the alley when I was keening for Heidi Anderson. The movement on the edge of my vision when Meredith’s soul song threatened to leak out. I had seen something, even without actually giving in to the wail.

  That’s why Uncle Brendon had told me to hold it in. He was afraid I would see too much.

  And maybe that too much would see me.

  13

  NASH MUST HAVE SEEN understanding on my face—and near panic—because he wrapped one arm around my waist and pulled me closer across the waxed surface of Carter’s car. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. An experienced bean sidhe knows how to stay safe. But we’re not experienced, Kaylee.” It was nice of him to include himself in that statement, but we both knew I was the newbie. “Besides, we don’t even know for sure that those girls weren’t on the list. This is all still theory. A very unlikely, dangerous theory.”

  “We’ll know once Tod calls,” I insisted, the new information spinning around in my head, complicating what I’d thought I was prepared to do, should intervention prove necessary.

  “That might not be tonight.”

  “It will be.” He’d find out for us. Soon. Whether we’d actually gotten through to him, or he just really wanted my last name, I’d known in the instant before he’d disappeared that he would get us the information. “Call me as soon as you hear from him. Please.”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “But you have to promise you won’t do anything dangerous, no matter what he says. No soul singing by yourself.”

  Like I’d admit it if I were planning something risky. Besides…“I have no desire to see this Netherworld on my own. And my little talent’s no good without yours anyway, right?”

  “Good point.” He relaxed a little then, and kissed me goodnight. I held him tight when he started to pull away, clinging to the taste and the feel of all things good and safe. Nash had become a shining tower of sanity in this new world of unprecedented chaos and unseen peril. And I didn’t want to let him go.

  Unfortunately, in the world of curfews and alarm clocks, he couldn’t stay.

  I closed and locked the door behind him, and watched through the front window until he backed out of the driveway and drove out of sight. I was pulling the curtains closed when something creaked behind me. “Kaylee?” I jumped and whirled to find my uncle standing in the hallway threshold, watching me.

  “Jeez, Uncle Brendon, you scared the crap out of me!”

  His smile was more of a grimace. “You’re not the only one around here with big ears.”

  “Yeah, well it’s not the big ears that worry me so much as the big mouths,” I said, grateful that I could hear Sophie snoring again, now that the rest of the house was quiet. I padded across the carpet toward my uncle, then stepped around him and into the hall, desperately hoping he was bluffing. That he hadn’t actually heard my little argument with Nash.

  He followed me to my room, and when I tried to swing the door shut behind me, his palm smacked into the hollow wood panel, holding it firmly open. “What’s going on, Kaylee?”

  “Nothing.” Going for nonchalance, I kicked first one sneaker then the other onto the floor of my closet.

  “I heard you two talking.” He leaned against the door frame, thick arms crossed over a broad chest, still well defined after who-knows-how-many years of life. “What are you planning at the memorial, and who’s Tod?”

  Well, crap. I shoved aside a pile of clean, unfolded clothes Aunt Val had dumped on my bed at some point and sank onto the comforter, my mind whirling in search of an answer that was at least as much truth as it was fabrication. But I came up empty. Nothing I made up would ring true to him, especially considering he knew more about bean sidhes than I knew about…anything.

  So maybe I should just tell him the truth…. That way, if the rogue reaper did show up at the memorial and Nash refused to help me out of some misguided attempt to protect me, surely Uncle Brendon would step in. He might act tough, but inside he was a big teddy bear, and he could no more watch an innocent girl die before her time than I could.

  “You sure you want to hear this?” I pulled my legs beneath me on the bed, fiddling with the frayed hem of my jeans.

  Uncle Brendon shook his head. “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to. But go ahead.”

  �
��You might want to sit,” I warned him, reaching to pluck my iPod from my pillow. The earbuds had gotten tangled again; I guess that’s what I get for falling asleep wearing them.

  My uncle shrugged, then settled into my desk chair, waiting with his arms still crossed over his chest.

  “Okay, here’s the deal. And I’m only telling you this because I know you’ll do the right thing. So technically, I think my voluntary disclosure exempts me from any penalty for what I’m about to admit.”

  His lips quirked, as if a smile had been vetoed at the last minute. “Go on…”

  I inhaled and held the next breath for a moment, wondering where best to begin. But there was no good place to start, so I dove in, hoping my good intentions would bail me out during the less altruistic parts of the story. “Meredith Cole wasn’t the first one.”

  “She wasn’t your first premonition?” He didn’t look surprised. Of course, he couldn’t have forgotten the other times—including the incident preceding my trip to the hospital.

  “That too. But, I mean, she wasn’t the first girl to die this week. There was one Saturday night and one yesterday afternoon. It happened the same way with all three girls.”

  “And you predicted them all?” Now he looked surprised, his forehead crinkled, brows furrowed.

  “No, I never even saw the second one.” I glanced at my lap, avoiding his eyes while my fingers worked nervously at the earbuds, trying to produce two separate wires from a knot any sailor would have been proud of. “But I saw the girl who died on Saturday, and knew it was going to happen. Same thing with Meredith this afternoon.” Which I assumed Aunt Val had told him.

  “Wait, Saturday night?” The ladder-backed chair creaked and I looked up as he leaned forward to eye me in growing suspicion. “I thought you stayed home.”

  I shrugged and raised one brow at him. “I thought I was human.”

  My uncle frowned but nodded, as if to say he’d earned that one. Still, I couldn’t believe Aunt Val hadn’t ratted on me. As cool as that was of her, I couldn’t help wondering why. Had all the “coffee” made her forget my indiscretion?