Authors: Rachel Vincent
“If she’s not, I’m holding
you
responsible.” Nash stomped into the kitchen and out into the backyard. The door
slammed shut behind him, and Sabine stared at it like she wanted to go after him
but knew better.
Tod crossed his arms over his chest. “One hour.” His voice was
calm and quiet, and betrayed no hint of indecision. “If she’s not back in one
hour, I’ll go after her myself.”
No one argued with Tod.
“Okay. Until then, we need to decide on a plan to get Aiden
back. How did you find out Avari took him?”
I dug my dad’s phone from my pocket, woke up the screen, then
handed it to my uncle.
His face paled instantly. “Well, that does seem...certain. Is
that crimson creeper near his foot?”
“Yup.”
“And you know where he’s being held?”
“The basement of the Netherworld version of Lakeside.”
“Buried beneath the mental hospital.
That’s
not creepy,” Emma mumbled.
Sophie flinched. “Did you really kiss a hellion to get that
information?”
I met her gaze as boldly as I could, considering that I was
still
incredibly
creeped out by what I’d done.
“Everything has a price, Sophie. Someone has to pay.”
“Okay. Back on topic.” My uncle headed into the kitchen, aiming
right for the cabinet over the microwave. “We’re going to need two teams. A
small one, to cause a distraction, and another one, a little larger, to get
Aiden out.”
“I’m going to turn myself in.” I said it softly, but every head
in the room swiveled to stare at me. When my uncle turned, he held the bottle of
whiskey my father had confiscated from Nash the month before.
“No, you’re not,” Tod said. “Even if any of us was willing to
let that happen, it won’t help your dad. We want to get him out, not leave you
behind.”
“I know. This is a trap. I’m going to pretend to fall for it,
while the rest of you get my father the hell out of there. You and Sabine can
cross my uncle over.” I glanced into the kitchen to find Uncle Brendon pouring
whiskey into a short glass of ice. “The two of you should be able to carry him
if he can’t walk, and Sabine can get you out if anything goes wrong or Tod can’t
cross with you both. Two who can’t cross, two who can.” That was the safest
ratio.
“No,” Tod said, and I glanced at him in surprise. He’d never
refused to help. “I’m staying with you. Nash can go with them. He can help lift
your dad if necessary.”
“But I can cross. My dad, uncle, and Nash can’t. They need you
more.”
“He’s right, Kay-bear,” Uncle Brendon said. “No one goes in
alone.”
I stood, my irritation mounting. “That doesn’t make any sense.
Sabine can’t get you, my dad, and Nash out all at once, especially if my dad’s
still unconscious. You need someone else who can cross over!”
“And we have someone.” Luca pulled back the living room curtain
to reveal Harmony’s car pulling up to the curb in front of my house. As I
watched, relieved, she got out and locked her car, then started up the
driveway.
The back door opened, and Nash came in, ignoring Styx when she
came to growl at him, again. “I heard a car.”
Harmony knocked three times, then opened the front door, and, I
swear, Nash nearly melted with relief. She stopped in the doorway, sliding her
phone into her purse, and glanced around at everyone, surprised to be the center
of attention before she was even in the house. “Any news about Aiden? And why
are you all staring at me?”
“We thought Avari got to you, too.” Nash hugged his mom, then
shoved his hands into his pockets, looking both sheepish and relieved at the
same time.
Tod ran one hand through his hair, then gave his mother a hug.
“Please don’t disappear at the same time someone else goes missing. That’s very
misleading.”
She patted his back, then let him go. “I’m fine. I know my way
around the Netherworld, sweetie.”
Uncle Brendon shook his head, but he was all smiles. “I tried
to tell them....” He opened his arms, and she walked into his embrace. Then they
kissed, and Nash groaned while the rest of us averted our eyes.
“Dad, gross!” Sophie made a show of covering her eyes, and Luca
laughed.
“Okay, so do we have a plan?” Harmony took the glass of whiskey
from Brendon, made a face, then dumped it straight down the sink. “And by the
way, this is not the time for...
this.
” She held up
the glass for everyone to see—including Brendon, who frowned but didn’t
argue.
“The plan—” I said, and people gathered around while I filled
Harmony in “—if you’re up for a return trip to the Netherworld this soon, is for
you and Sabine to take Uncle Brendon and Nash to get my dad while I distract
Avari. By pretending to turn myself in.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “That doesn’t sound even
remotely
safe.”
I shrugged. “It’s the Netherworld. ‘Safe’ doesn’t really
apply.”
“And how are you planning to keep Avari from keeping you? What
good would it do us to rescue your father but lose you in the process?”
“We’re not going to lose her,” Tod said. “I’m going with
her.”
“Yes, and neither of you will have any of your undead abilities
once you’re there, other than the ability to cross over on your own.”
“That’s all we need,” I insisted. “As soon as we’re sure you
guys have my dad, we’ll just come home.”
Harmony’s blond brows rose in skepticism, and her resemblance
to her elder son was almost uncanny. “And you really think it’ll be that
easy?”
“No. Nothing’s ever easy anymore. Besides, my plan has facets.
Components, even.”
“Well then, let’s hear them,” Uncle Brendon said.
“We know better than to expect my dad to be alone, so to buy
you time to...kill things, or distract things, or whatever it takes, I’ll keep
Avari busy by negotiating my surrender.”
“Negotiating requires give-and-take,” Sabine pointed out. “You
really think he’ll be willing to give anything? Isn’t
taking
everything kind of his thing?”
“He doesn’t have to actually give up anything. I just have to
keep him talking, even if all he says is no, over and over. I’m not really
surrendering, remember, so it doesn’t matter whether he gives in to my
demands.”
“I don’t get it.” Sophie frowned at me in confusion. “Why would
he negotiate with you at all? Why not just...take you?”
“He would if he could,” Tod explained. “But Kaylee’s even
harder to catch now than when she was alive. To take her soul against her will,
he’d have to physically remove it from her resurrected body, which will be hard
to do, because she’s not just going to stand there and let him have it. She’s
undead
and
she’s a
bean
sidhe.
She can cross back into the human world whenever she
wants.”
“But he kept Thane’s soul, right?” Em said. “And Thane could
cross over, too.”
“Yes,” I said. “But Thane was unconscious when he was delivered
to Avari.” By Tod, who’d broken reaper law by turning on one of his own to keep
Thane from making my last days miserable. “By the time he woke up, he was
already missing his soul. If Avari physically catches me, I have no doubt that
the first thing he’ll do is knock me out so he could take my soul and replace it
with his own breath. Like he did with Thane.” Demon’s Breath could sustain my
body, in absence of my soul, allowing Avari to torture both parts of me
separately. And possibly simultaneously.
“But he knows that’s not going to happen,” Nash said, and
Sabine nodded in agreement. “Which is why he’s trying to make you hand over your
soul voluntarily?”
“Yup.” I glanced around at each of them. “And he’ll take any
and all of your souls, too, if he gets the chance. Which is why I’m going to
stall him while you guys look for my dad. I don’t want any of you anywhere near
Avari.”
Uncle Brendon looked unconvinced. “And if he sees through your
delay tactic?”
“Then I’ll play on his greed and on the envy that will
inevitably accompany it when he finds out I kissed Ira.”
Harmony glanced at Tod in question, then back at me. “Ira?”
“Hellion of wrath,” I explained. “He wanted a taste of my anger
in exchange for telling me where my dad’s being held.”
Sabine smirked. “Kaylee makes friends everywhere she goes.”
“Whatever. It was a completely disgusting, totally platonic
mistake and I don’t want to talk about it. Ever. Are we ready?”
“What about us?” Sophie motioned to Luca and herself. “I can
cross over.”
“No,” her dad said. “You’re staying here.”
For a second, I thought Sophie might argue. But then she closed
her mouth and I realized she was relieved. She would have come with us, if we’d
let her, and that actually meant something to me. But she was just as happy to
stay in the human world, out of danger.
Relatively speaking.
“Obviously, Emma and Luca will have to stay, too,” Harmony
added. She got no arguments.
“Okay, let me change into something more appropriate for a
descent into hell.” Uncle Brendon glanced down at the suit he wore, then up at
Tod. “This would go faster if you give me a lift.”
Tod nodded, and Brendon leaned over to kiss Harmony one more
time. Sophie was still fake gagging when he and Tod disappeared from the
kitchen.
Harmony rounded the counter and poured herself a mug of coffee.
When she looked up again, she caught me smiling. “What?”
“I just... Don’t listen to Sophie and Nash. I think you two are
cute together.”
“Me and Brendon?” Her sudden flush had nothing to do with the
hot coffee.
“Yeah. You obviously make each other happy, and it’s good to
see someone happy right now, when everything else seems so...dire.”
I wondered if Tod and I looked as cute together as she and my
uncle looked. My opinion was no doubt biased, but I was pretty sure we were damn
near lethally adorable.
“Well...thanks, Kaylee.”
“Also, thanks for going out with Sophie’s dad instead of mine.
It would have been
beyond
weird for my dad to be
dating my boyfriend’s mother.”
Harmony choked on her coffee, and I took the mug while she
coughed. Then she gave me a small frown. “Kaylee, your father and I were never
serious. Not even before he met your mom.” She leaned against the counter, her
gaze unfocused with the memory. “Actually, Brendon and I weren’t very serious
back then, either. We went separate ways
years
before I met my husband and Brendon met Valerie.”
“Well, however it happened, I wish it could happen to my dad.”
He’d had as rough a time the past few months as I had, and he had no one to talk
to about everything that had gone wrong. No one but his brother and daughter,
anyway, and that wasn’t the same at all.
Harmony motioned for me to follow her to the table, where we
both sat, and I began to wish I had poured myself a cup of coffee. “Kaylee, I
don’t think your father’s going to be ready for something like that for a very
long time.”
“Long time by human standards or
bean
sidhe
standards?”
She set her mug down. “Has no one explained to you about why
your father took your mother’s death so hard?” She blinked, then rephrased.
“Well, of course, he took his wife’s death hard, and it’s no wonder, considering
how she died. But has anyone explained to you why he’s still taking it hard,
more than thirteen years later?”
“I don’t...” I hesitated, thinking back about everything my
aunt and uncle had ever told me about my parents and about my mother’s death.
There wasn’t much. “You know, people don’t exactly line up to explain things to
me. So...what have I missed?”
“Kaylee, your parents were soul mates.”
I smiled at the thought and wished I could remember more about
my mother. “I know he thought so, too.”
“No.” Harmony smiled, like I’d said something that amused her.
“I don’t mean that they liked each other a lot, or even that they were destined
to be together. Destiny is more of a faerie tale than most people think
bean sidhes
are.”
“So then, what does that mean, soul mates? You’re saying that’s
some kind of real thing?”
“Very real.” Her smile was back. “Your father and mother were
so very much in love that some small part of their souls melded.”
“Melded?” That sounded more like metalwork than love.
“Yes. He carried a bit of hers, and she carried a bit of
his.”
“Seriously?” I said, and she nodded. “What does that have to do
with her death?”
Harmony’s smile faded, and her eyes went so
uncharacteristically still that I hadn’t realized I was seeing emotion in them
until she hid her thoughts from me entirely. “Your mother’s soul wasn’t so much
reaped as stolen, and because it wasn’t turned in to the proper authorities,
your father never got that bit of his own soul back. Likewise, he still carries
a part of your mother’s with him. He is quite literally lovesick, and he won’t
be able to truly let her go until her soul finds rest and his is made whole
again.”
The sudden deep ache in my chest caught me by surprise. My
father missed my mother so much that he was actually sick from the loss. His
soul was incomplete. He might never get over her, and she...
My mother...
That ache deepened until I almost couldn’t stand it. “So, we
know that for sure, then, that she’s not resting in peace?”
Harmony nodded slowly. Sadly. “I’m sorry, Kaylee. I didn’t
realize you didn’t understand that.”
I’d had no idea. “So, they’re both still suffering.
Together.”
“Yes. Your father’s soul isn’t his own, and he won’t be able to
move on from her death until it’s intact again. And, obviously, the same goes
for your mother.”
I sat there staring at nothing. Stunned. My parents were soul
mates. Literally. They carried a part of each other, and neither of them would
have peace until their souls were whole again and my mother was finally at
rest.