My Soul to Keep (22 page)

“Besides,” Tod continued, suddenly appearing in the middle of my living room floor, still holding Sophie’s home phone. “I think the key to keeping Avari out of your friends and family is right in front of us.”

“It is?” I dropped my phone back into its cradle as Tod nodded solemnly, ignoring the static bleeding from the receiver in his grip.

“Alec.”

“The proxy?” Finally wide-awake, I made my way toward the open kitchen window.

“Yeah.” The reaper’s gaze followed me, but in true Tod fashion, he made no move to help as I used most of my weight to force the first heavy pane of glass closed. “Possession takes
an enormous amount of energy, and most hellions can only do it every now and then, and only for short periods of time. A few minutes, at the most. But Avari’s been possessing you regularly for a month now, right?”

I latched the kitchen window, then moved on to the two in the living room. “As near as I can tell.” I felt sick just thinking about it. How could Nash let Avari possess me? Had he even
tried
to evict the body snatcher? Even once I forgave Nash for lying about the Demon’s Breath—after all, he’d been exposed while helping me—I wasn’t sure I could forgive him for letting Avari inside me. And even if I could forgive, I could never forget….

“And he’s been able to do it twice in two days, since he got his hands on Nash and your dad,” Tod continued, dragging my thoughts back on topic. “Which suggests that he’s using them as additional energy supplements—logical for a hellion of greed, don’t you think?” The reaper raised one brow for emphasis.

“Yeah.” And that also supported my theory that Avari had no intention of returning them, no matter what I did. Especially now that I’d blown the “one now” deal.

“But without proxies to boost his energy level, Avari won’t have the power to possess his own wardrobe, much less the entire cast of the Kaylee Cavanaugh show.”

“Okay, that makes sense…” I nodded slowly as I reached into the fridge for another Coke. “But won’t he just get more proxies?”

The sides of Tod’s mouth lifted in the first true smile I’d seen from him in a very long time. “He’ll try. But we’re banking on the fact that proxies like he has now are few and far between.”

“Wait, Dad and Nash are
bean sidhes
—I get that. But Avari was possessing me way before he had either of them, back
when Alec was his only walking snack. And Alec is human, right? He called himself a human proxy.”

The reaper shook his head slowly. “I don’t know exactly what this Alec is, but I’d bet my afterlife that he isn’t only human. If he were, there’s no way he could have possessed Emma for so long. Or twice in one night.”

So Tod was right. The key to disabling Avari’s human-telephone mode was to get Alec away from him. Not to mention my father and Nash. But since he’d just been physically expelled from my cousin’s body by an unknown third party, the hellion would probably guess that not only would I be coming for my men, but I’d have backup.

Something told me that getting us all out of the Netherworld would
not
be as easy as Alec seemed to think….

T
OD HAD TO REPORT
to work at noon, but before he popped out of my living room at three minutes ’til, he swore he’d be back by five o’clock. That he would find someone to cover his shift, even though he’d already burned most of those bridges with his previous absences. Then he disappeared from my reality, leaving me alone with thoughts of my missing father and boyfriend.

Well, with those, and with Sophie’s phone.

Great.

With a frustrated sigh, I grabbed her phone and my keys, then shrugged into my coat on the way out the door. All the way to Sophie’s house, I tried out different explanations for how I’d gotten her phone, and why she’d woken up on her living-room floor with a big bump on the back of her head. But my efforts turned out to be unnecessary—she was still unconscious when I got there.

My old house key still worked, and when I pushed the front
door open, I found Sophie lying facedown on the living-room floor, her cheek against the carpet, her eyes closed.

She looked so fragile without her figurative fangs bared at me, or her eyes flashing in bitter triumph over the advantages her life had over mine. Unconscious, she looked frail and tragically human, and it was easier than usual to remind myself that she hadn’t chosen her own path in life any more than I had chosen mine. And she certainly hadn’t chosen to have her body hijacked by a nefarious Netherworld entity she didn’t even know existed.

Even if she had deserved the whack on the head.
Speaking of which…

I knelt on the spotless white carpet next to the huge remote control and gently prodded the lump on the back of my cousin’s skull. Sophie didn’t even flinch. How hard had Tod hit her?

Resigned, I sat on the coffee table and slid my cell from my front pocket, dialing my uncle’s cell number from my contacts list. He answered on the second ring.

“Kaylee? What’s wrong?”

Jeez, what isn’t wrong?
I honestly had no idea where to start, without completely freaking him out. “Okay, Uncle Brendon, I have to tell you something, but first I need you to promise you won’t tell Harmony. I swore to Tod that we’d keep his mother out of this, no matter what.”

Something clicked, and background music died, leaving only highway noise and the sound of his engine. He was in the car. Hopefully on the way home. “Did something happen to Nash?”

I sighed. “Just promise, or I can’t tell you until it’s over.”

“Kaylee, you’re scaring me…”

“Then promise.”

He exhaled heavily. “I promise.”

“Thank you.” I sucked in a deep breath, then spit the whole
story out, as coherently as I could, considering my current state of exhaustion, stress, and fear. “Avari the hellion of greed is holding Nash and my dad in the Netherworld, and after he took them, he possessed Sophie so he could call me and try to talk me into trading myself for them. But I know he’s not really going to send them back. So Tod hit Sophie on the back of the head with your universal remote to kick Avari out of her body. It worked, but now Sophie’s unconscious on the living-room floor with a big bump on her head. Could you come home and take a look at her? And maybe let me nap on your couch for a couple of hours?”

For a moment, there was only silence on the other end of the line. Then my uncle released the breath he’d been holding. “I’ll be right there.” The phone went dead in my hand, and I smiled, more relieved than I could express that he and my father were two completely different people.

Twenty-five minutes later, my uncle walked through his own front door, and he seemed almost as relieved to find me still there as he was upset to find Sophie still unconscious. “I think part of it is exhaustion from being possessed,” I said as he knelt beside me. “Emma slept for a long time afterward, too.”

“Emma Marshall?” he asked, gently turning his daughter over. “This hellion possessed her, too?”

I nodded solemnly. “Tod said that so long as they’re sleeping, he can get anyone with a connection to the Netherworld. Which Em and Sophie both have, since they’ve both been technically dead.”

“Yes, but that takes an enormous amount of energy from a hellion. He shouldn’t be able to do it very frequently or for very long.” He brushed Sophie’s hair back from her face and pulled back her eyelids to check her dilation. “Otherwise, you’d hear about people committing crimes in their ‘sleep’ all the time.”

I shrugged and perched on the end of the coffee table. “Well, he has a proxy, and Tod thinks he’s feeding off my dad and Nash, now that he has them.”

Uncle Brendon’s expression went as hard as I’ve ever seen it. “I’ll kill him.” Presumably Avari, not Tod. Tod was already dead. But was Avari actually living?

“That’d be great, except we don’t think you can kill a hellion, and you can’t cross over on your own.”

“Take me.” He stood in one fluid motion, lifting his daughter like a sleeping toddler.

“No way.” I shook my head. “You have to stay here and watch Sophie, to make sure Avari doesn’t take her over again.”
And because you can neither defend yourself in nor escape from the Netherworld…
“Don’t leave her vulnerable just because you want revenge, Uncle Brendon.”

“I don’t just want revenge.” My uncle stomped down the hall and into Sophie’s room so quickly I had to jog to keep up.

“I want my brother back. And Harmony’s lost enough already. We can’t let her lose Nash.”

“I want them back, too.” I crossed my arms over my chest and sat on the edge of my cousin’s desk. “And we’re going to get them tonight. But you have to stay here, and you already promised not to tell Harmony. If you do, she’ll run out after Nash and get herself killed. Or worse. And it’ll be your fault.”

Uncle Brendon frowned at me like I’d lost my mind. Again. “The same could happen to you, Kaylee. What am I supposed to tell your father then?”

I raised both brows at him as he lowered his daughter gently onto her bed. “If I don’t make it back, there won’t be any father to tell.”

My uncle sighed so deeply I thought his entire body would deflate. “One hour.” He stood straight and scowled at me, and I knew that was the best we’d get, and only because we’d given him no other choice. “You and Tod have one hour in the
Netherworld, then Harmony and I are coming after you. Do you understand?”

I nodded. “But we can’t cross over till five. Can I sleep here until then?”

He pulled the desk chair closer to the bed and sank into it, folding his daughter’s limp hand into his own. “You know you’re always welcome here, Kaylee.”

Yeah. So long as Sophie was unconscious.
“Great. It’ll be like old times.” Except that now there was a Netherworld demon out for my soul and my cousin’s body.

S
OMETHING HARD POKED
my elbow, and I struggled to rise from the mire of sleep that had swallowed me like a sinkhole. A warm, soft, peaceful sinkhole…

The poke came again, hard enough to jar my injured arm that time. “Why are you passed out on our couch? This is not a park bench.”

Sophie.

I opened my eyes to find her glaring at me in full beauty-pageant makeup, both hands propped on her bony hips. But my relief at seeing her alive and well was dampened a bit by the contempt shining in her eyes.

“Did your dad finally kick you out?” Sophie sneered, then her expression tightened into a mask of dread and irritation.

“You’re not moving back in, are you?”

I pushed myself upright with my good arm, rolling my head on my neck to alleviate the stiffness that had set in. I wasn’t dumb enough to expect a thank-you for helping save her from demon possession, or for calling her dad when she was hurt, but a little courtesy would have been nice. Or even just a little quiet while I slept.

Of course, I wasn’t sure what Uncle Brendon had told her, but I doubted it referenced much of the truth, or my part in it. As usual.

“I was just taking a nap,” I said, leaning forward to fish my shoes from under the end table.

“Well, nap somewhere else. I have to get ready for the carnival, and I don’t need you hanging around, sucking all the normal out of the room.”

The Winter Carnival.
Crap.

Sophie started toward her room and the pageant dress hanging over her door, pausing halfway to glance back at me over one shoulder. “Laura thinks we should cancel the whole thing, because of what happened to Doug, but I don’t think Doug would want his tragic death to take food out of the mouths of impoverished children, right? And anyway, we’re gonna open with a moment of silence, and there’s that whole memorial service next week.”

I shot her a blank stare. Untimely and tragic as his death may be considered in certain social circles, I seriously doubted Doug Fuller had ever given much thought to mouths that didn’t belong to hot, willing teenage girls. But if Sophie wanted to rationalize a way to preserve her party—despite the death of a friend and the mental breakdown of her own boyfriend—nothing I said would change her mind. And without the Winter Carnival, there would be no reason for Netherworlders to gather, and no way for us to get a fair shot at stealing back Nash and my dad.

I hopped into the kitchen on one foot while wedging my shoe onto the other. The clock over the stove read four fifty-five. I was running late.

“Where’s Uncle Brendon?” I shoved one arm into my coat sleeve on my way to the front door.

“Testing Christmas lights in the garage.” Sophie smoothed a wrinkle from the skirt of her hanging gown without even glancing my way. “I have a massive headache, and the blinking was making it worse.”

I raised one brow and tried not to smirk as I dug my keys
from my jacket pocket, then hesitated with my hand on the doorknob, twisting to eye my cousin critically. “How do you feel?”

The sudden flush in her cheeks was hard to miss. “Dad told you I fell?” Her mouth stretched into a long, hard line. “I swear, Kaylee, if you tell anyone I was sleepwalking, I’ll make sure—”

“Sleepwalking?” I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Of all the ridiculous explanations Uncle Brendon had fed her to cover past
bean sidhe
activity, he was really pushing the credibility envelope with that one. “You sleepwalk?”

Sophie’s gaze hardened. “I never have before. But it figures that you’d show up the first time it happens.” Her frown deepened. “Somehow, you’re always there whenever anything really weird goes down. You’re like a walking bad luck charm.”

“Have fun at your carnival, Sophie,” I said, pulling open the front door. “I’m sure you’re a shoo-in for the Ice Bitch crown.” I slammed the door before she could reply.

I was halfway down the driveway when Tod materialized in front of me, wearing his usual loose jeans and dark tee. “You okay?”

“I overslept. Sophie’s fine, too, by the way.”

The reaper shrugged. “Like I’m going to pass up an opportunity to smack your cousin.”

I grinned, half hoping that next time she was possessed, I’d be there to do the honors. “You ready?”

“As ready as I’m gonna be.” He strode past me toward the car, sneakers squeaking on the concrete.

“You think Alec will make it?”

“Addy said she’d do her best. They won’t let her near Nash or your dad, but she thinks she can get to Alec. She’ll pay for it later, though.” Tod’s jaw bulged and he stuffed tightly clenched fists into his pockets. “We shouldn’t have involved her.”

“That’s her call, Tod. If she wants to help, she has every right. And we’re kind of screwed if she can’t get to Alec.”

“I know.” Conflict was clear on his face as he stepped through the passenger’s-side door and settled onto the seat with that weird, selective corporeality reapers typically flaunted. It must have been hell having to choose between the girl he loved and his own brother. Maybe as hard as it was for me to choose between Nash and my dad. Only Tod hadn’t gotten out of making his decision.

The school parking lot was already half-full when we got there, the pink-and-purple sunset reflecting broad streaks of color on row after row of windshields. Once the carnival actually began, cars would line the street in both directions. Fortunately, the park across the street was still mostly empty, and thanks to the frigid temperature, no one sat in front of the fountain. In our reality, anyway.

I parked as close as I could, then hunched into the fading warmth my coat held as Tod and I made our way toward the fountain. It was a simple scalloped circle of brick with a smooth concrete ledge, surrounding a single broad jet of water, still spraying in spite of the near-freezing temperature. We were hoping that since we were half an hour early, the crowd in the Netherworld would be as sparse as the one in our world.

“You want me to check first?” Tod asked, after one look at the terror which must have been churning in my eyes.

“That’d be great.” What I really wanted was for him to find out where Nash and my dad were being held, so we could cross over right next to them, then escape before anyone noticed we’d arrived. Unfortunately, they were probably being held in the Netherworld version of some building I didn’t have access to in our world.

Which was why we needed Alec.

“I’ll be right back,” Tod said. “And if for some reason I’m not, do
not
cross over alone. Okay?”

I nodded, but we both knew I was lying. If he didn’t come back, there would be no one left to go with me, and I wasn’t going to leave Nash and my father to die in the Netherworld. Or worse.

Tod shot me his lopsided, cherubic grin, then blinked out of existence.

I sat on the edge of the fountain, just out of reach of the frigid spray, prepared to wait as long as it took. Which turned out to be about fifteen seconds.

“This isn’t gonna work,” Tod said, and I heard the first word almost before he materialized in front of me. “They’re everywhere. It’s like that big Halloween party they have downtown, only the costumes are real. And everybody looks hungry.”

Great.
My pulse swooshed rapidly in my ears, and my heart began to ache from beating so hard. “Did anyone see you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I don’t think it matters. Reapers aren’t very appetizing. You’re the one we have to worry about.”