Soul Screamers Volume Four: With All My Soul\Fearless\Niederwald\Last Request: 4 (55 page)

“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 faster 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.