My Soul to Steal

26

TOD STARED AT ME over Alec’s unmoving form on the grass, still holding the toaster, the flat left side of which was now massively dented. “Kaylee? You okay?”

“Not even kind of.” I shoved hair back from my face and glanced from Tod to Nash, then back. “But having known you both for several months now, I’m starting to see ‘okay’ as a relative term.”

Nash gave me a grim, confident smile, and Tod actually chuckled without letting go of the toaster.

“Okay. I need you to check Sabine’s house, and if you find her, call us,” I said, and Tod nodded. I didn’t think she’d left campus, since her car was still in the lot, but with Sabine, I’d learned to expect the unexpected. And the impulsive. And the vindictive. And the just plain crazy.

“If she’s not at her house, try mine,” Nash added, just before his brother blinked out of sight. “I’ve already checked everywhere she hangs out when she skips class,” he said, as we headed toward the cafeteria entrance.

I shrugged. “So we’ll check again. And if we don’t find her here, we’re gonna have to cross over.”

Nash nodded reluctantly, obviously much more willing to put us both in danger to save Sabine than he’d been for Addison.

He pulled open the door and held it for me, and I stepped past him into the lunchroom—where I could only stare. The cafeteria was trashed.

“What happened?” My gaze wandered the food-smeared walls, then snagged on a huge plastic jug of nacho cheese that lay busted open on the floor, oozing smooth orange processed cheese product a couple of feet from my shoes.

“Giant food fight. I’m not sure who started it, but a couple dozen people trashed the place before Goody could get it under control. She suspended thirty-eight kids. The cafeteria staff got pissed when she told them to clean it up, so they walked out, and now all those suspended kids have to spend tomorrow scrubbing the walls. Which is why they sold pizza for lunch in the hall. You didn’t see any of that?”

I shook my head, still stunned. “I was busy falsely accusing Sabine during lunch.” Then I’d sat in my car to cool off until the bell rang for fourth period. Somehow I’d missed the entire spectacular disaster.

Normally, I would have assumed that food fights were a little juvenile for high school, but based on the number of dented pots and busted food containers, I’d say this one was really more of a riot than anything. “This isn’t going to smell any better tomorrow…” I said, stepping over the busted cheese container, on my way to the main entrance. “Let’s go.”

But I’d only taken a few steps when Nash’s hand landed on my arm. “Wait. Did you hear that?”

I’d only heard the sticky squeak of my shoes on the filthy floor, so I stopped and listened. And I heard it, too. A voice, soft and smooth, and feminine, in spite of the low pitch.

My chest seemed to constrict around my heart. I knew that voice, though I’d only heard it once. “Invidia,” I whispered. “She’s already here.” And Sabine would be with her.

Suddenly I wished I hadn’t divided our resources by sending Tod to look for her.

Nash held one finger to his lips and I nodded as I followed him toward the kitchen, carefully sidestepping most of the mess. We followed the empty serving lane past the glass-topped ice cream freezer and into the heart of the Eastlake cafeteria, a maze of commercial-size stoves, dishwashers, and deep stainless-steel sinks. And there at the back, between one of the sinks and a tall metal shelf filled with commercial-size cans, stood Sabine.

And Emma.

“Em?” I asked

She smiled at me slowly with a foreign tilt of her head, and that’s when I understood. Emma had fallen asleep in history during the video, and Invidia had made her move. My best friend was the second host.

Emma’s body stood half-behind Sabine, pressed against the mara’s right side, her mouth inches from Sabine’s ear. She watched me closely, a predatory gleam in her normally bright brown eyes, lips half-parted, like I’d interrupted her in midsentence.

“Is this the sweet little bean sidhe?” Invidia’s voice asked, while Emma’s hand stroked Sabine’s bare arm. “See how she taunts you? How she flaunts the boy in front of you? She knows how you feel. She knows how he feels, and she doesn’t need him, yet she clings to him, just to keep him from you.”

“Sabine, that’s not true…” I moved closer slowly, scanning my peripheral vision for anything I could use against Invidia without permanently injuring Emma.

“Hellions can’t lie,” Sabine said, and her gaze blazed with hatred. With envy so bitter I could practically taste it on the air between us. How could she suddenly hate me, when she’d called me a friend a few hours ago? Was this because of my false accusation—which I’d actually believed at the time? Or was some of it because of Invidia, and the storm of envy she’d unleashed in our school?

Surely the lure of it was even thicker, so close to the hellion who controlled it.

“Hellions can’t intentionally lie,” Nash corrected, stepping up on my right. “But they’re free to guess and make assumptions, just like anyone else.”

“Look how they work together to subvert you…” Emma’s long blond hair fell over Sabine’s shoulder, standing out against the dark strands as the hellion’s voice slid over me, sweet and smooth as honey on my tongue. If I could hardly resist her pull, how was Sabine supposed to, considering how badly she actually wanted what I had?

“She’s changed him. Lessened him,” Invidia continued, and I could see that Sabine was listening. That the hellions words were hitting their target—not Sabine’s ears, but her heart. “But with her gone, you could fix him. You could have him back, and it would be like it was before. Without the meddlesome little female bean sidhe to get in your way…”

“Sabine, don’t do this,” I begged, taking a single step toward them. “Make her leave Emma alone. Em has nothing to do with this.”

“This Emma-body?” Invidia looked surprised, then she exhaled a languid, seductive laugh from my best friend’s throat. “Emma Marshall has everything to do with this,” the hellion insisted, leaning closer to whisper directly into Sabine’s ear, though we could all hear her. “She is part of the problem. Part of the effortless existence simply handed to this little bean sidhe, while life has given you only battles to be fought.”

“Bina, please…” Nash begged, and Sabine’s conflicted gaze flicked his way. But that made things worse, because she couldn’t see him without seeing me, and seeing us together only reinforced the poison the hellion dripped straight into her ear.

“He’s part of it, too. Part of her gilded privilege.” Emma’s hand reached Sabine’s fingers, then trailed slowly upward again, and the mara’s arm twitched. “The loving boyfriend, the loyal friends, the protective father. She has everything, and you have only hunger. Insatiable, unbearable hunger, clawing, devouring you from the inside, night and day.”

I edged forward again, and Nash came with me. “Sabine, you can have all that, too!” I insisted. Well, maybe not the father, but that wasn’t my fault. “And you don’t need to bargain with a hellion to make it happen!”

“She lies,” Invidia purred, and Sabine shuddered when Emma’s lips brushed her ear. “People are drawn to the sweet little bean sidhe, to bathe in her bright innocence. When you enter a room, they tremble and shrink back. You must work to hide the horrors they see in your eyes, and she has only to smile. You cannot have what she has—not any of it—on your own. But I can give it to you. I can give you love, and acceptance, and a smile brighter than the sun. I can give you people, and attention, and a steady stream of sleeping mortals, just waiting to scream in their slumber for you.”

“She can’t do it, Sabine,” I insisted, stepping past a stainless-steel counter, now less than ten feet from them. “Even if she thinks she can, it won’t really be what you want. She can’t change your species, and she can’t give you real friends. No matter what she promises.”

“What does she know of your pain? Of your isolation?” Invidia hissed, and a deep chill traveled through me at the sibilance in her voice. “She knows nothing of your darkness, yet she would extinguish the one flame glowing on your horizon.” Em’s gaze flicked to Nash at my side, and Sabine’s followed.

“You need only cross into the Nether…” The hellion slid Emma’s arm around Sabine’s waist in a possessive gesture. “Deliver me this young, ripe Emma-body and sign away your soul. Such a small price, for a lifetime of peace and pleasure.”

“Sabine, no!” Nash cried, and when I glanced at him, I saw his irises churning with fear and rage. “If you cross over, you’ll never make it back. She won’t let you.”

“Smart bean sidhe boy…” Invidia purred. “He still wants to protect you. If not for her, he would be yours. Cross over now, and I give you my word you will return, the moment you sign. You will live out your full lifeline here, with everything she has, but you truly deserve.”

My thoughts raced so fast the room was starting to spin. Invidia might be able to give things to Sabine, but she couldn’t take them from me. Could she?

I saw the decision in Sabine’s eyes a moment before she disappeared. She loved Nash too much—and evidently envied me too much—to resist the offer. “No!” I lunged for Emma, desperate to pull her away from Sabine before the mara crossed over. But I was too late. My fingers barely brushed the fine hairs on Emma’s arm, then they were both gone.

“No!” Nash took me by both arms and made me look at him, forcing me to see through my own encroaching shock.

Emma was in the Netherworld. And I had let it happen. Humans couldn’t survive in the Netherworld, and even if Em proved to be the exception, she’d never be the same. How could she be, if she saw even a fraction of the grotesque, horrifying creatures who lived there, every last one of them waiting to devour her in one way or another?

“Kaylee, we have to get them back. You have to cross us over. Now!”

And that’s when I understood the depth of Invidia’s plan. She couldn’t take what I had from me and give it to Sabine. Surely that was beyond her power. But if I went to the Netherworld, she—or Avari—could enslave me for the rest of my life. Or they could just kill me and take my soul, which was what they probably had in mind for Emma. Eventually, anyway.

We’d been set up. Invidia had meant for us to hear her talking to Sabine, and she meant for us to see them cross over. And she wanted us to follow.

But even knowing that, knowing both hellions would be there waiting for us, we had to cross. I couldn’t leave Emma—or even the terminally conflicted mara—to the hellions’ mercy. Not and live with myself afterward.

“I know,” I whispered, my voice having succumbed to terror and shock. Get it together, Kaylee. “Okay, let’s think about this.”

“No, let’s go get them back. I can’t cross over without you, Kaylee. Come on…”

“Wait a second.” I pulled Nash to the opposite side of the room, careful not to get too close to the walls in case the Crimson Creeper invasion had spread to the kitchen. “We’d be stupid to cross over in the same spot they last saw us. They’ll be right there waiting to grab us.”

A current of surprise and relief twisted through the fear churning in his irises. “Good thinking.”

“Thanks.”

Nash was usually the calm, cool one, but he wasn’t thinking clearly at all this time. It’s Sabine. He wanted her back as badly as I wanted Emma back, and I couldn’t help wondering if Tod was right. Were Nash and Sabine meant to be together? Was I the only thing standing in their way.

No time for that now… “Give me your hand.”

His fingers tightened around mine and a lump formed in my throat. I’d held his hand so many times before, but it had never felt this…bittersweet. Sabine needed him, and he needed to go save her. And he needed me to get him there. But what did I need from him?

“Kay?” Nash’s forehead furrowed in fear and concern. “You ready?”

I exhaled heavily. “Nope. Let’s go.”

Calling forth my wail was much too simple that time, because of how easy it was to picture Emma dying—again. I’d promised her I wouldn’t let that happen, no matter what. And I was not going to break my promise.

When the wail faded from my ears and the pain in my throat subsided, my eyes flew open and I scanned the Netherworld-version kitchen around us. Thin tendrils of creeper vine had snaked in from the cafeteria but, though they reached for us, slowly slithering along the walls and floor, they hadn’t grown enough to completely overwhelm the room yet.

The sink faucets dripped typically rank, gloppy substances, but few of the other appliances had bled through the barrier.

Emma and Sabine stood in the middle of the kitchen, exactly where they’d crossed over, only now my best friend was back in her own body—and obviously in shock. Sabine held Em’s forearm, and I couldn’t tell whether the mara was trying to protect her or control her.

Avari and Invidia faced them from separate sides of the room, so that Sabine couldn’t keep an eye on both hellions at once.

“Kaylee…?” Emma’s brown eyes were wide, but not truly focused when her gaze slid to me from Invidia, whose long, sizzling hair flowed rapidly now with excitement. Drops of it rolled down her clothes without damaging the material, then fell to bubble and burn little holes in the linoleum tile. Emma winced at the sizzle. “Where are we? This is hell, right? I’m in hell?”

“It’s the Netherworld, Em.” My version of hell. “It’s gonna be fine. I’m going to get you out of here.”

“Am I dead, Kay?” Her words were slurred with shock, and my heart broke. She’d fallen asleep in history class and woken up in hell, and she thought I’d let it happen. That I’d let her die when I could have saved her.

“Soon, my dear…” Invidia crooned. “Very, very soon.”

“Don’t listen to her, Emma. Don’t even look at her,” I insisted, and for the first time, I wondered why neither hellion had simply charged them both. Or us.

“Sabine, cross back,” Nash said. “Take Emma back to the human world, and we can all work this out there. You don’t have to sell your soul to get your life back together.”

“He’s wrong,” Invidia insisted, her green-tinted eyes flashing, while Avari stood silently by, apparently content to wait and see how things played out, at least for now. “You’ve tried it on your own, and how well did that go?”

“It went fine!” Nash shouted, irises churning furiously as he stepped forward. I followed him, reluctant to let him out of arm’s reach in case I had to cross over quickly. He turned back to Sabine. “You can do this on your own, and I’ll help. I’ve been helping.”

“You threw me out.” Her hand tightened around Emma’s arm, and Em flinched, but didn’t try to pull away. “You kicked me out of your house and told me not to come back.”

Nash hesitated, and I read confliction on his face. He couldn’t deny what we all knew had happened, but passing the blame on to Sabine, where it rightfully belonged, would only push her further toward making a proverbial—and almost literal—deal with the devil. “I take it back,” he finally said. “I was frustrated and angry, and I acted on impulse, when there was probably a better way to handle the situation,” he said, and I wondered if that was a direct quote from his mother.

“He’ll do it again.” Invidia swept a rivulet of hair over her shoulder, and drops of it splattered the floor behind her. “As long as she’s in the way, he’ll abandon you again and again. Sign over your soul, and I’ll make all that go away. I’ll make her go away.”

And suddenly I was out of patience.

“Okay, look,” I started, and when all heads turned my way, I had to swallow the lump in my throat before continuing. “Your soul is your business, Sabine.”

“Kaylee…” Nash started, warning me with his tone.

“She’s a big girl, Nash,” I insisted. “She can handle the truth.” I turned back to Sabine, uncomfortably aware that I also had the full attention of two hellions. “What you do with your soul is up to you. I personally think you’d be an idiot to sign it over to someone who plans to torture you for all of eternity, and that is what she’s planning. Ask her, if you don’t believe me. But I won’t let you drag Emma down with you.”

I propped my hands on my hips and shot Sabine a challenging glance. “You let her go right now, and then if you still want to sell your soul I’ll prick your finger myself, so you can sign in blood. How’s that?”

“Kaylee!” Nash snapped, but I could only shrug, hoping my attempt at reverse psychology didn’t backfire. Sabine typically did exactly what I wanted her not to, so maybe if she thought I wanted her to sell her soul—or at least that it wouldn’t bother me—she’d run in the opposite direction.

“Let her speak,” Avari said, hands in the pockets of his suit jacket. “I find her honesty…blissfully chaotic.” He was dressed like any human corporate monkey, which should have made him look harmless and…normal. But his eyes…

I couldn’t stand to look at those solid black orbs; they seemed to suck the light out of the room, rather than reflect it. His eyes were windows not into his soul—he didn’t have one—but into a void so deep and dark it was the very definition of despair.

“Good. Here, let’s get this over with.” I marched toward Sabine, hoping a show of aggression on my part would push her into action.

Sabine took a step back, pulling Emma with her. Nash called my name, but I didn’t stop. And when I was halfway between him and Sabine, a sudden wink of motion drew my attention to my right. My head swiveled, eyes searching for the anomaly.

Avari was gone.

Nash yelped behind me. I spun to find Avari holding him by one arm, and suddenly I understood why neither hellion had made a move until that moment—I’d gotten pretty damn good at crossing over in a hurry, and based on what I’d seen minutes earlier, Sabine could do it nearly instantly. Neither hellion was willing to risk us crossing over and depriving them of four victims.

But once Nash was out of my reach, he was fair game.

I froze, stuck between my maybe-boyfriend and my definitely best friend, unsure what to do.

“One move, and I’ll kill him,” Avari said, and since hellions can’t lie, I was pretty sure he wasn’t bluffing.

“Kaylee, go!” Nash shouted, face already twisted with pain, and I understood that he was feeling exactly what I’d felt in the nightmare Avari had given me. “Take them and go!”

But I’d no more leave him than I’d leave Emma, and the hellion obviously knew that.

Avari glanced past me at Sabine. “Let’s make a deal, Ms. Campbell.”

“No!” Invidia screeched, and Emma gave a startled yip. I followed her gaze to see that the hellion of envy now sported several rows of razor-sharp, needle-thin teeth, the yellowish white of aged bone. “No deals. The mara is mine, and so is the lovely Emma-body. Mine!”

“Kaylee…!” Em moaned, and now she was clinging to Sabine.

“Sabine, get her out of here!” I snapped, splitting my attention between Invidia, Sabine and Em, and Avari and Nash.

“If you go, you’ll never see him again,” Avari said, and Sabine’s eyes widened in panic. She wouldn’t let Nash die, and as grateful as I was for that impulse, I was terrified to even think what she’d do to save him.

“What’s your offer?” Sabine asked, and a horrible screech of fury erupted from Invidia’s inhuman throat.

“No! Mine! I found her. I fed her. I cultivated her envy into a fragrant bouquet of desire and bitterness and rage, and she is perfectly ripe right now, and I will pluck her!”

Avari’s gaze never wavered from Sabine. “A trade. Mine—” he shoved Nash forward, without letting go of him, and Nash moaned “—for yours.” And that’s when I understood that Avari was feeding from him. Draining his energy, like he’d done for more than a day, the last time Nash was in the Netherworld.

“No, Sabine,” Nash gasped, as his face drained of all color. “Kaylee, don’t let her do it.”

I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t choose between Nash and Emma. I couldn’t!

“You’d give up a bean sidhe for a human?” Sabine aimed a suspicious look at Avari. “Why?”

“All you need to know is that if I get the girl, you may take your lover and cross back over.”

But I understood what he wasn’t saying. He wasn’t giving up Nash for Emma. He was giving up Nash for me. Because if he got Emma, he could force me to trade my freedom for hers.

“Kaylee…?” Em was shaking with full-body tremors, her eyes glazing over with shock.

“No!” Invidia was wild with fury now. Her hair flowed so fast a sizzling puddle was forming on the ground at her feet. Her eyes glowed bright green, and her hands had become claws, sharp and hooked on the ends.

Sabine glanced from Invidia, to me, to Avari, then back to me, and I could see the confliction written all over her face. She didn’t want to damn Emma. But she didn’t want to lose Nash, either, and Avari’s deal was obviously much more beneficial than the one Invidia had offered.

Then she looked at Nash and saw pain shifting the colors in his eyes, and I knew what she’d say before she could even form the words.

“Fine. Here.” Sabine pushed Emma to her right. Avari let go of Nash and shoved him in the opposite direction. I raced toward Emma. She stumbled and fell to her knees. Across the room, Nash half collapsed from pain. Sabine ran toward him, arms outstretched.

And before either of us reached our goal, a dark blur flew across the edge of my vision. Invidia screeched. I turned to see her racing toward me—I was closest to her—claws bared, needle teeth snapping together, so long and curved she couldn’t even close her mouth.

I dodged to the left, and she mirrored my movement from ten feet away, hissing in fury, hair sizzling in a trail behind her.

Avari let loose an inhuman roar, enraged to see another hellion so close to his prize. He stopped—just feet from Emma—and planted his right foot firmly on the ground, like a giant determined to shake the earth. Tendrils of frost shot across the tile from his ordinary black dress shoe, racing toward Invidia, growing thicker and stronger with every inch of ground they covered. They reached her as she lunged for me. I scrambled backward in terror, and she froze. For real.

A blue sheen covered her skin. Her hair stopped dripping, instantly frozen into overlapping, green-tinted icicles. Her claws still reached for me, a foot from my face, frozen in time.

“Kaylee!” Tod shouted, and I looked up to see him standing across the room, surprised by what he’d found, but ready for action.

“Get Em!” I yelled. He nodded, then disappeared. Avari reached for Emma again, and she stumbled away from him. Tod reappeared at her side and she clutched at him. Another instant later, they were both gone.

Avari roared again, and his gaze narrowed on me from my left. On my right, something crackled sharply—Invidia was fighting the ice. Avari stalked toward me. I closed my eyes to summon my wail. But before I could produce any sound, Nash shouted from across the room.

“Come get us!”

I opened my eyes to see him holding Sabine at arm’s length, refusing to let her cross them over until he knew I was safe.

Avari stood and straightened his jacket. He glanced at me on his right, then at Nash and Sabine, on his left, and I recognized the look on his face.

Greed. Pure, concentrated avarice. He wanted us all. But even a hellion couldn’t be two places at once. He’d have to choose.

But then more ice crackled on my other side, and I knew he wouldn’t get the chance.

Invidia’s left claw shot toward me. The ice glaze over her arm cracked and shattered on the floor. I kicked out on instinct. My foot slammed into her stomach, and she fell to her knees, still half-frozen. I kicked her again, and she fell onto her side. When her face hit the ground, three long, sharp teeth broke off of her lower jaw and clattered on the ground, as long as my little finger. Several frozen hair-cicles snapped off of her head and skittered across the floor toward Nash and Sabine.

“Sabine, cross!” I shouted. She glanced at Avari, then knelt and plucked one of the poison-cicles from the ground, holding it between her thumb and forefinger. Then she nodded at me and grabbed Nash’s arm.

“No!” Nash shouted, as she crossed over with him in her grip.

I tried to summon my wail. Avari ran for me. Invidia’s thawed claw wrapped around my ankle, ripping through my jeans. I jerked my foot, but she wouldn’t let go. So I grabbed one of her broken teeth, my pulse racing in my ears. Avari roared in fury, feet away. Invidia’s grip on my ankle tightened.

I shoved the tooth through her left eye.

Invidia screamed and let go of my foot, slapping both claws over her injury. I scrambled backward, trying desperately to call up my wail. But it wouldn’t come. I was too scared to think of any death but my own.

Then strong, warm arms wrapped around me from behind. “I’ve got you,” Tod whispered in my ear, as Avari charged us.

An instant later, we stood in the Eastlake kitchen, Tod still holding me from behind. My right foot stood in white glop from a busted bottle of mayonnaise. Emma stared at me from three feet away, eyes wide with shock.

Across the room, Nash was hunched over in pain and exhaustion, wrapped in Sabine’s arms. On the floor at her feet stood a clear plastic cup with the melting poison hair-cicle inside. I didn’t even want to know why she’d taken it.

Tod squeezed me, then let me go, and I whirled around to face him. “Thanks. I totally owe you.”

“No. You don’t,” he said, and the blues in his eyes shifted slowly.

Then Emma was there, wrapping me in a hug.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, pulling my foot from the mayo.

“I think so.” She let go of me and pushed strands of blond hair from her face. Her eyes were still wide and her skin was pale, but being back in familiar surroundings went a long way toward calming her down. “That was the Netherworld?”

“In all its many-splendored horror.” I grabbed an apron hanging from a hook on the wall and wiped as much of the gunk off my shoe as I could.

“What the hell happened? I was in history one minute, and the next thing I know, I’m staring at some man in a suit and some…thing with rancid water for hair, who looked like she wanted to eat me whole.”

“It’s a long story, Em. I promise I’ll tell you the whole thing. But I need just a second to…breathe.”

Emma nodded, and I sat down on a stool, blessedly free of splattered condiments. And for a moment, the five of us just stared at one another.

Shocked. Relieved. And very much alive.