My Soul to Keep (24 page)

“How?” Addison asked, stepping from the sidewalk onto the umber-colored grass on one side of the school’s front lawn.

I gestured toward the steps, where Lana now sat with her hands clasped over her knees. “I think I met both of them last night. They came to Doug Fuller’s party with Everett. Nash ran them off, but they must have come back after Em and I left. After Doug died.”

“What?” Tod’s eyes flashed in anger, and I knew exactly how he felt.

“These lampades? I’d bet my life they were the arm candy hovering over Everett last night at the party. Only they didn’t glow then.”

Alec rubbed one hand over his forehead, like he was fending off a headache. “They only glow here. In your world, they’d look like normal people.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, except they’re identical, and flawlessly gorgeous.” More than enough to give a regular girl an inferiority complex, without adding evil to the mix. “I’m going to cross over and make sure I’m right.”

“Want me to come with you?” Tod asked, but I shook my head.

“Stay here with them.” I knew he didn’t want to leave Addy, and I needed him to keep an eye on Alec, whom I had no intention of bringing with me until we found Nash and my father. “I’ll be right back.”

I rounded the corner of the building quickly to cross over without being seen in either world, and my silent scream came fairly easily that time, which scared me almost as much as the necessity of using it. I faded into my own world near the back corner of the parking lot, then hugged the wall of the building all the way to the front of the school, to keep from being seen. Sophie’s satin gown whispered against the rough bricks, and twice I had to tug the material free when it snagged. My cousin was going to
kill
me.

Assuming I survived long enough to be murdered.

At the edge of the building, I peeked around the corner to see Lana—definitely one of the girls I’d seen with Everett—sitting on the front step, exactly where she’d been in the Netherworld. Only now she held an ornately decorated metal flashlight. It was unlit—for the moment.

I crossed back over and rejoined the group without bothering to lift the hem of Sophie’s skirt when I walked. “It’s her,” I said, shivering from the cold. “The lampades are the girls from the party.”

“What are they doing here?” Addison asked as the front
door of the school opened and Luci joined her sister on the top step, holding an identical unlit flashlight. “Waiting to be celebrated?”

“They’re obviously waiting for something,” I said, and no sooner had the last word fallen from my lips than the girls twisted in unison to glance at the sky to the east of the school, where the sun was just starting to sink below the horizon, a mirror image to the sunset in the human world, but for the bruised green-and-purple of the Netherworld sky.

“Uh-oh…” A heavy new dread anchored my sneakered feet to the sidewalk.

“What?” Tod asked, but my gaze found Alec—the man with the answers.

“What effect would other liminalities have on this doorway a lampade can create? Big liminalities. Like, once-a-year events.” Such as the winter solstice.

Alec’s eyes closed in alarm as the reaper tensed visibly. “They would amplify the power of the liminal light.”

“And would that make this doorway any bigger? Or hold it open any longer?”

The proxy nodded, because words were no longer necessary. We finally understood the purpose of Avari’s Liminal Celebration. “He’s using the solstice to bridge the gap, when the veil between the two worlds is thinnest,” I whispered, terror rendering my voice a hoarse echo of itself.

Even as I spoke, the lampade sisters stood and took up positions on either side of the double front doors, facing each other. And that’s when the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. “Crap!” I whispered fiercely, grabbing Addison’s scarred hand without thinking. “They’re about to start.”

“Start what?” she asked, pulling her blistered hand firmly out of my grip.

“Don’t you get it? Avari’s planned the whole thing out!
The school, a carnival full of high schoolers, the solstice…Dusk is a liminal time, the lampades are liminal creatures, the front door is a liminal place, and teenagers are at a liminal age in life. Lana and Luci will shine their light across the threshold at dusk. And when the carnival opens, instead of heading into the front hall, a couple of hundred teenagers will cross directly into the Netherworld, like lambs to the slaughter.”

M
Y HEAD THROBBED
in time with the stitched gash on my right arm, and my heart ached like never before. Of all the trouble I’d walked into since finding out I was a
bean sidhe,
nothing compared to this. To the abduction of a couple hundred teenagers right through the front door of our own school. Disappearances the human authorities would never be able to understand, much less solve.

And we were the only ones who could stop it.

“If he’s planning some kind of forced migration, why bother bringing Nash and your dad over?” Addison asked as Tod guided us subtly toward the right edge of the crowd. Suddenly, standing directly in front of the lampades didn’t seem like such a good idea.

“For more power.” Alec rubbed his arms, fighting chills from the bitterly cold breeze. “I thought he was just being greedy, which makes sense, and is probably half-true. But he needs every bit of power he can get—as well as what he’d hoped to get from Kaylee. He’ll have to pour energy into Lana
and Luci to keep them alive while they hold the doorway open.”

“Would Nash and my dad survive that?” I asked, rubbing my own chill bump–covered arms.

“No. And neither will they.” Alec nodded toward the lampades. “Though I doubt they know that.”

“So, how do we stop it?” I asked. “Take away their flashlights?”

Alec shook his head. “The flashlights are just focal points—decoys to fool the humans. The lampades shed their own light, and you can’t extinguish it without killing them.”

Which I wasn’t ready to do yet, no matter how much of a threat to humanity they represented. Because despite everything they’d done, Lana and Luci were being used by Avari just like Nash and my father were, and death seemed like an unfair penalty for that. Especially considering they’d probably die, anyway, if Avari got what he wanted.

“What if we take the girls?” I asked, still looking for an alternative to murder.

“Take them where?” Tod ground his teeth in frustration, his fingers linked through those on Addy’s good hand. “It’s not like you can just cross over with them. They’re in both places at once.”

“Can’t we just…chase them away from the doorway? And maybe separate them?” I propped both hands on the waist of Sophie’s gown, wishing I weren’t dressed like a china doll during what might turn out to be the last moments of my life. “If they’re not together—and at the threshold—they won’t be able to open this door, right?”

“Well, not the big door Avari’s counting on,” Alec agreed.

“So that might work, at least long enough to get Nash and your dad out of here. Which will rob Avari of the power he needs to make this work.”

“If we’re gonna do it, we better do it now,” Tod whispered
as the buzz of the crowd around us faded into an eerie quiet. Almost as one, the audience turned toward the school doors, clearly readying themselves for the main attraction—a building full of food, ready to be harvested. “Because we’re about to lose our chance.”

We turned, too, to avoid standing out, as badly as it nauseated me to be standing among the wolves, waiting for the sheep to be slaughtered. Or eaten. Or slurped up. Or whatever.

“We should do this from our world,” I said, so softly I could barely hear myself. “To keep Avari from interfering.”

“I’m on it.” Tod squeezed Addy’s good hand again, then met my gaze, speaking softly through one corner of his mouth. “I’m gonna grab one of the walking Lite-Brites, then I’ll be back to help with Nash and your dad. Will you be okay here?”

I nodded, careful not to let my uncertainty show. “Yeah. I’m good. But work fast.”

An instant later, Tod was gone.

A moment after that, one of the lampades let out a piercing scream, and Lana was suddenly pulled off her feet by…nothing we could see. The effect was bizarre, and reminded me of a scene in an old slasher movie, where a teenager stuck in a nightmare is hauled up her bedroom wall by an invisible evil force.

Lana fell backward, smashing the front door open, then disappeared from sight.

The crowd around us roared in surprise and outrage, shouts varying from high-pitched squeals to rumbles low enough to reverberate deep within my bones. There were even several protests I seemed to hear in my head, rather than through my ears.

A minute later, as several dozen representatives from the mob raced toward the stunned and abandoned Luci, Tod reap
peared at my side, wearing the biggest Cheshire cat grin I’d ever seen outside of
Alice in Wonderland.

And what a bizarre wonderland we’d fallen into…

“Where is she?” I stood on my toes to yell into his ear as the shouts around us reached a brain-numbing crescendo.

“In the utility closet by the art room. I had to knock her out, but that should hold her for a while. Let’s find Nash and your dad, then get the hell out of here before Avari puts Humpty Dumpty back together again.” Then his gaze met Addison’s and regret took over his face. He took her hand as if to apologize for leaving her, but she only smiled and shook her head.

“Go find your brother. We knew this would end sooner or later, and I’m grateful for the time we had. The time you gave me.”

Tod nodded, then squeezed her hand and turned to follow me and Alec as we raced toward the other side of the school, hidden in plain sight among the outraged crowd. Alec was fast, and as the proxy’s head disappeared into the crowd ahead of me, my foot came down on something thick and lumpy. I lost my balance when whatever I’d stepped on was jerked out from under me, and a horrific, bleating roar trumpeted over my head. My right foot snagged in the hem of Sophie’s dress and one hand went automatically to my ear to protect my hearing, while the other flew out in front of me to keep my face from hitting the asphalt.

But before my palm could hit the ground, someone hauled me to my feet, tearing the dress with a dull thread-popping sound. Tod pulled me back, pressing me into his own chest as the creature on our right drew himself up to a terrifying height. Gray, leathery wings beat at his back, stirring the heavy skirt of Sophie’s dress as his tail—which I’d obviously stepped on—whipped around his legs to lash my ankles.

“I’m so sorry!” I cried as Tod backed us swiftly away from
the beast whose grayish cheekbones were literally sharp enough to slice the flesh from his face. The creature roared again and knelt like a bull about to charge. But then his massive right wing clipped the shoulder of the hairy fellow at his back, and both Netherworlders exploded into sudden violence like two giant cats with claws bared.

Tod and I raced away, thrilled to realize we didn’t represent a big enough threat to keep the beast’s attention.

Ahead, Alec’s brown curls bobbed through the crowd, and we followed him, Tod occasionally pulling me out of the path of another stampeding monster. We didn’t stop to catch our breath until we rounded the corner of the building. The empty span of gray grass—representing the quad in my version of the school—was still unoccupied and relatively peaceful, at least until the Netherworld residents discovered that the building had more than one entrance.

I led Tod and Alec to the cafeteria door, and we frantically searched every classroom, peering in through the windows of the locked doors and ducking around corners whenever footsteps headed our way, be they heavy, lumbering thuds or sharp, quick scuttles.

The first floor was deserted, except for the closet where Tod had stashed the unconscious lampade, so we ran up the wide staircase and repeated the search again, racing from room to room. And finally, through the rectangular window in the last door on the right, I spotted my father, slumped over a warped and dented metal teacher’s desk, still in the flannel shirt he’d worn to work.

My heart leaped into my throat and I struggled to breathe around it as I twisted the knob desperately. But it wouldn’t turn, nor would the door budge. “Dad!” I shouted, begging him frantically to wake up and let us in. To help us help him. But he didn’t move, and only once I’d forced myself to go still and concentrate could I see that he was still breathing.

“Here, let me try.” Tod pushed me aside with one outstretched arm, and I remembered that he couldn’t walk through walls in the Netherworld. Alec and I stepped back, and the reaper exploded into motion. His foot flew, connecting with the door just beneath the knob with an echoing crack of wood. But the door didn’t open, so Tod backed up and tried again, this time letting loose a heartfelt grunt as his leg shot out.

That time more wood splintered and the door swung open with the metallic groan of little-used hinges. I rushed past Tod and dropped onto my knees on the floor next to my father. “Dad?” I ran one hand down his ruddy, stubbly cheek. His eyes didn’t open, but he moaned, and his head fell to one side. “I think he’s okay.” I glanced up at Tod and laid one hand on my father’s shoulder. “I’m going to cross over with him, but I’ll be right back.”

“Take me, too.” Alec’s voice trembled, and for the first time I saw true fear shining in his greenish eyes. “Please. You don’t need me anymore.”

“You’re not going anywhere until we find Nash,” I insisted, folding my hand around my father’s. I almost felt guilty, knowing that if we left Alec, he’d probably be punished like Addy had, or worse, for his part in my father’s escape. But as callous as it sounded, even after everything he’d done, Nash meant more to me than any stranger. Even a stranger who’d helped me find my father. “I’ll be right back.”

Before either the proxy or the reaper could protest, I closed my eyes and called forth my wail with practiced speed, trying not to think about the fact that the more often I crossed over, the harder it would be to stop myself from doing that very thing by accident. As my recent dream-shrieking had shown me.

The odd cacophony from outside faded into a more familiar, benign, excited buzz. I opened my eyes to find myself
standing in one of the Spanish classrooms, surrounded by empty desks and travel posters from Spain, Mexico, and South America. My father sat beside me, and as soon as I was sure he was still breathing, I stood and dug my cell phone from my pocket, only mildly relieved to be in the relative safety of my native reality.

I dialed by memory, and the familiar electronic tone rang in my ear. “Kaylee?” Uncle Brendon said, his voice thick with tension. “Are you okay? Did you get them back?”

“I got my dad, and I need you to come get him out of here. He’s in the last classroom on the right, on the second floor. The door’s open.”

“You’re at the school?”

I rushed across the room and twisted the lock to open the door. “Yeah, and I have to go back for Nash and Alec, or Avari’s going to use the lampades to open a big doorway into the Netherworld, and everyone here’s going to walk right through it.”

“No, that’s impossible. Kaylee, Sophie’s there.”

“I know. I’m wearing her dress.”

“What?” Over the line, I heard a door slam, then an engine purred to life. My uncle was already on his way. “Kaylee, you have to get her out of there.”

“I can’t, Uncle Brendon. I have to go back for Nash and Alec. Call Sophie and tell her to go home. And tell her I’m sorry about her dress.”

“Wait, Kaylee, who’s Alec—?”

But I hung up without answering, then kissed my unconscious father on the cheek and summoned my wail to cross over one more time.

In the Netherworld classroom, Alec had his hands curled around clumps of dark curls on either side of his skull, as if he were about to rip them out. Tod stood in the doorway, staring down the hall in case anyone else showed up. “Okay,
let’s go find Nash,” I said, and both heads whipped in my direction.

“You came back…” Alec said, relief and disbelief warring for control of his wavering voice.

“Of course I came back. You think I’d leave Nash here?” The proxy frowned, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Or you? Let’s go!”

But we’d only made it halfway down the hall when a sudden unanimous roar of triumph from outside made my blood run cold in my veins. I grabbed two thick handfuls of white satin skirt and ran into the nearest classroom and over to the row of windows set into the outside wall, which—thanks to the H-shaped footprint of the school—looked out over the broad front lawn.

I yanked on the dusty pull-cord dangling in front of my face and the aluminum blinds ratcheted up, shining the dying, anemic light from outside into the dark classroom. The crowd gathered in front of the school had nearly doubled since we’d come inside. And every single bizarre, misshapen face was turned toward the broad front porch, where three familiar figures now stood.

In the center was a tall, darkly elegant male form who could only have been Avari, the host of the night’s twisted jamboree. And on either side of him stood a glowing, white-clad female figure.

Avari had found the missing lampade, and the night’s festivities were back on schedule.

As if to punctuate that fact, Alec suddenly doubled over, arms wrapped around his middle like his guts were being twisted from within. “He’s drawing power from me. It’s too much, too fast, without a supplement from your dad.” The proxy gasped, and struggled to stand in spite of obvious pain. “He’s feeding them, and it’s going to kill me. And your boyfriend.”

“Tod, do something!” I insisted, panicked, unable to tear my gaze from the spectacle outside. “Whatever it takes to stop them from opening that doorway.”

The reaper glanced from my desperate, earnest expression to the spectacle outside, to the now-pallid proxy, then back to me. “I’m not leaving you here, Kaylee.”

“I’ll be fine. I have Alec, right?” I insisted, and the proxy nodded halfheartedly, his face now waxy with pain. “We’ll cross over as soon as I find Nash. Now go, or none of us will get that chance!”

After another moment’s hesitation, Tod nodded, then disappeared from the Netherworld just as a sudden swell of bright light from the ground drew an eerie “Ahhh…” from the crowd below, and a low groan from Alec. And while all eyes were focused on the light shining from the front of the school, a sudden, darker movement in the opposite direction caught my gaze.

Something was moving in the crowd. Something headed steadily away from the lampades, while everyone else was easing gradually toward them.