LITMIR.BIZ

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and would have gone down if not for the chair he grabbed for balance. If I hadn’t been screaming loud enough to rouse the dead, I’d have laughed. I wouldn’t have thought someone who dealt so closely with reapers and hellions would be spooked by a little death.

      But despite my fleeting amusement, my plan was not funny. It was born of desperation and inspiration, and it would never work if Tod didn’t get on board. Fast.

      Unable to take my eyes from Bana’s soul, I felt around on my left, reaching blindly for Tod’s arm. I found it, and pulled him forward just as Nash bent to whisper into my ear. That was the only way I could hear him over my own wail, and I probably wouldn’t have heard a human voice. “What are you doing? She’s dead. Let her go. I’m not bringing her back.”

      I shook my head vehemently, frustrated by my inability to communicate. When Tod’s head came into my field of vision, I shoved him toward Bana, pointing at her hovering soul with my free hand then at Tod. Specifically, at his mouth. I needed him to suck up her soul, like Libby had sucked up the Demon’s Breath.

      To hold it, just for a little while.

      And finally, he seemed to get it. “You want me to take her soul?” he asked, and I nodded, relief washing through me so quickly the edges of my vision went black.

      I grabbed Nash for balance and concentrated on maintaining my song.

      “Why?” Tod asked, shrugging when Levi shot him a questioning glance.

      But I couldn’t explain until he took the soul so I could stop screeching. I made more frantic gestures with my arms, and he finally nodded in concession. Then he opened his mouth and sucked in Bana’s soul. In seconds, it was gone.

      I closed my mouth and the room went silent, but for the awful ringing in my ears, which I knew from experience wouldn’t fade completely for a couple of hours.

      Tod wiped nonexistent soul crumbs from his mouth, and I shuddered.

      “That was … surreal,” I said, my voice as scratchy as an old record player. I stumbled, weak from exertion, and Nash caught me. He half carried me to the couch along the far wall, which was when I realized John Dekker was gone. He’d slipped from the room while everyone else watched me scream, and the front door still stood open.

      Outside, tires squealed on the street and headlights faded from the front window. The limo we’d seen out front was gone. As was Regan’s soul.

      I whirled on the Page sisters, my eyes wide. “Did you catch the hellion’s name?”

      Addy shook her head slowly, angrily. “They never said it.” Her features darkened with tortured disappointment and she glanced at her sister. “Do you know his name?”

      Regan shook her head silently, offering no excuses.

      “Great. So, what was all that?” Addison asked me, wrapping one arm around her sister’s shoulders. Regan only stared, too shocked to form a coherent question.

      I knew exactly how she felt.

      “Could they see any of that?” I asked, rubbing my throat.

      Nash shook his head. “Tod, explain what you can. Kaylee’s losing her voice. I’m gonna get her something to drink.” With that, he kicked the front door closed and headed into Addy’s kitchen, face flushed in barely controlled anger.

      Addy didn’t seem to notice.

      “Bana was a grim reaper,” Tod began, guiding both stunned sisters to the empty couch opposite the one I sat on. “Like me and Levi.” He nodded toward the boy still standing in the corner, small hands once again hidden in his pockets, evidently content to watch and listen for the moment. “Only she was … bad. So Levi fired her.”

      “You mean he killed her,” Addison said, obviously struggling not to stare at the corpse on her carpet.

      “Well, technically she was already dead.” Tod shrugged. “So he really just finished the job. And Kaylee was singing her soul song.”

      “That wasn’t singing.” Regan’s nose wrinkled like she smelled something awful. “That was a vocal slaughter.”

      If my throat didn’t feel like I’d just swallowed barbed wire, I would have laughed. I totally agreed.

      “It wasn’t a song like you think of music.” Nash emerged from the kitchen with a glass of ice water. “It was a call to Bana’s soul. Kaylee suspended it long enough for Tod to … take it.”

      “Speaking of which …” Tod sat on the other couch, as close as he could get to Addison, their legs touching from thigh to knee while Levi watched with an odd expression I couldn’t interpret. “Why did I take her soul? Does this have anything to do with all your reaper questions in the car?”

      “In fact, it does,” I said, after one long sip of the water. My throat still hurt, but my voice had decent volume, considering what I’d just put it through. “We’re going to barter with Bana’s soul.”

      Nash’s brows arched like he was impressed, and the sudden light in Tod’s eyes said he understood at least part of what I was getting at. “You said a reaper’s soul is rarer than a human’s.” I shifted my focus from Tod to his boss. “Am I correct in assuming that makes it more valuable?”

      Levi nodded, and now his smile showed a line of small white teeth. They were all there, fortunately. If any had been missing, he would have been too creepy to look at.

      “As valuable as, say, two human souls?” I glanced at the Page sisters, then back at Levi, whose brows arched in surprise.

      “She’s smart, this one,” he said. “Of course, I can’t officially condone what you’re thinking, so I’ll take my leave now….”

      “But I’m on the right path?” I asked as he knelt next to the dead reaper.

      “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Levi winked at me, still grinning. Then he picked up Bana in both arms as if she weighed nothing, though she had more than a foot on him, and they both disappeared.

      “What is going on?” Regan finally demanded, impotent fists clenched at her sides.

      I smiled gently, trying to set her at ease, though those eerie, empty eyes creeped me out. “We’re going to trade Bana’s soul to the hellion. For both of yours.”

       12

      “SHH,” I WHISPERED to Nash as I closed the front door softly, wondering what the chances were that my father had fallen asleep early and hadn’t noticed I was late. The living room was dark, and in the kitchen, only the over-the-sink light was on, so it was looking pretty good so far….

      “Kaylee, get in here. Now.”

      Or not.

      Nash squeezed my hand and followed me into the living room, where my father’s silhouette leaned forward in the lumpy armchair, outlined by what little light penetrated the curtains from the street lamp outside. I stood in the middle of the floor, staring at the dark spot where his eyes would be, Nash’s chest pressed against my back. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

      A shadow-arm reached up and to the left. The floor lamp clicked and light flooded the room. My dad still wore the flannel shirt he’d worked in, and his eyes were red from exhaustion. “Why are you an hour and a half late?”

      Technically, it was only an hour and twenty-four minutes, but he looked even less eager to be corrected than I was to discuss my whereabouts.

      “It’s not even midnight.” I tugged Nash forward and he took that as his signal to intervene, though that wasn’t what I’d intended.

      “Sorry, Mr. Cavanaugh. We didn’t realize it was so la—”

      “Go home, Nash.” A

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