Читать книгу: «With All My Soul»

Praise for RACHEL VINCENT’s SOUL SCREAMERS series

‘Just think Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Twilight.’ — Lovereading

‘A fantastic fun-filled rush of a book’

—Girls Without a Bookshelf

‘You’ve got to love it when a series gets better

with each book.’ —YA Book Reads

‘Twilight fans will love it.’ —Kirkus Reviews

‘Awesome with a side of awesome’ —Mostly Reading YA

‘I’m so excited about this series.’ —The Eclectic Book Lover

‘A book like this is one of the reasons that I add authors to my auto-buy list.’ —TeensReadToo.com

‘I have a plan, Em. A good one.’

‘I know you do. I’m sorry.’ She shoved limp brown hair back from her face and sat again with her glass. ‘I just…I attended my own funeral today. There’s just no way to improve a day that started with throwing clods of dirt on your own coffin.’

‘I know.’ My hand tightened around Tod’s. I hadn’t seen myself buried, but I had been…well…murdered. Sacrificed, in fact. As a virgin.

Cliché? Sure. Painful? Hell yes.

Reversible?

Nope.

Also available from Rachel Vincent

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Soul Screamers MY SOUL TO TAKE MY SOUL TO SAVE MY SOUL TO KEEP MY SOUL TO STEAL IF I DIE BEFORE I WAKE

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With
All
My
Soul

Rachel Vincent

www.miraink.co.uk

Ending any series is hard. Ending this series has been particularly hard for me, both creatively and emotionally. I’ve been working with Kaylee and her friends and family since January of 2008. We’ve been through seven novels and several novellas together. Kaylee and the gang have lived in three different houses with me, in three different states. I’ve spent more time in the Soul Screamers world than in either of my adult series to date.

Saying goodbye has been bittersweet. But Kaylee has grown up and I’ve grown up a little bit with her, I think.

This book is dedicated to Kaylee, who’s suffered through so much for our entertainment. She’s been a good sport—a fighter to the end—and it has been my pleasure to finally give her the happy ending she deserves. (Don’t peek! I promise, you’ll hate yourself for it later…)

And…

This book is dedicated to every reader who’s ever written to ask me for a release date, a spoiler or a snippet of the text. My words may have brought Kaylee to life, but your interest kept her going.

Thank you all.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Natashya Wilson and the rest of Harlequin Teen for launching the Teen line with Soul Screamers and for supporting Kaylee the whole way.

Thanks to my agent, Merrilee Heifetz, for making things happen.

Thanks to my critique partner, Rinda Elliott, for untold hours plotting, and whining, and planning over the phone. I hope we get to do all that in person very soon.

Thanks to No. 1, who sees the crazy, frazzled writer my official author photos hide well. Thanks for knowing when to offer coffee, when to make fajitas, and when to back quietly away from the office door. You’ve made this possible.

Thanks most of all to my editor, Mary-Theresa Hussey, for guidance, support, enthusiasm, and—most importantly—for smiley faces in the margins.

1

I used to hate the fact that my world is built on half-truths, held together with white lies. My life itself is an illusion requiring constant effort to maintain. I lie better than almost anyone I’ve ever met. But if I know the truth about anything, it’s this: when people say the devil is in the details, they have no idea how right they are.…

“It was a nice service, right?” My best friend, Emma, smoothed the front of her simple black dress, both brows furrowed in doubt. She shifted her weight to her right foot and her heel sank half an inch into the soft ground. “I mean, as far as funerals go, it could have been worse. People cried.” She shrugged, staring out at the slowly departing crowd. “This would have been awkward if no one had cried.”

It was awkward anyway. Funerals are always awkward, especially in my social circle, where the definition of “death” is under constant reevaluation.

“It was a lovely service, Em.” I watched as people fled the open grave in slow-motion retreat, eager to be gone but reluctant to let it show. There were teachers, shell-shocked but in control, looking out of place without their desks and whiteboards. Parents, looking helpless and scared. Classmates in dark dresses, black slacks, and uncomfortable shoes, most in the same clothes they’d worn to the past few funerals.

We were all much too familiar with the routine by now. Whispered names and details. A day off for mourning. Excused absences for the viewing. Counselors on call for grieving students during every class period. And finally, the funeral, where we said goodbye to yet another classmate most of us had known for most of our lives.

I was one of those who’d cried, even though I was among the few who knew that the star of the show—the recently deceased herself—was actually still with us. Right next to me, in fact. A guest at her own funeral.

Sabine leaned closer, Nash’s hand clasped in her right one, because her left was still encased in a cast. A curtain of thick, dark hair fell over half her face, shielding her from most of the thinning crowd. “So, seeing yourself in a coffin wasn’t awkward? ’Cause it was awkward for me, and I’m not the one being buried today.”

“Oh, no, the viewing was totally horrible,” Em admitted, her brown eyes wide. Those eyes were all that was left of her, other than her soul. Everything else was Lydia’s. Thin, angular face. Petite bones and slim build, similar to my own. Limp brown hair. Freckles. Feet that didn’t quite fit into Em’s favorite pair of shoes, stolen from her own closet while her mother and sisters shopped for her casket. “But the funeral itself—that was nice, don’t you think?”

It was, as it damn well should have been. Em had left funeral details—in her own handwriting—in an envelope on her vanity table the day we’d picked up her shoes and a few other essentials. Once Ms. Marshall was thinking clearly, she’d probably wonder why her seventeen-year-old daughter had given so much thought to how she wanted to be buried, but grief had eclipsed her skepticism at least long enough to arrange the funeral of her daughter’s—albeit morbid—dreams.

“It was beautiful, Em,” Tod whispered, and I glanced up to find him standing next to me, where there’d been only damp grass a second before. It took more self-control than I’d known I had to keep from throwing my arms around him and trying to melt into him, which had recently replaced hoping for world peace as my new favorite impossible task.

I couldn’t throw myself at him because most people couldn’t see him. Reapers are sneaky that way.

Beyond that, I couldn’t indulge in an embrace from my boyfriend—that word felt so inadequate—because today wasn’t about comforting me. It was about burying Emma. Being there for her.

And planning vengeance. Justice for Em and for everyone else Avari and his fellow hellions had possessed, tortured, or taken from us. Today was about plotting retribution for Emma’s boyfriend. And for Lydia, and for Sabine’s foster mother, and for Brant, Nash’s baseball teammate.

And for Alec.

My hand twitched at the thought of him, as if I still held the dagger. I could almost smell the blood. I could still see him in my mind, one of my few real friends, his eyes filled with pain and confusion, staring up at me in fear. Until they’d stared at nothing.

I swallowed my anger at Avari and what he’d taken from us, determined to avoid ruining Emma’s perfect funeral with the bellow of rage itching to burst free from me.

Today was a new start for Em, and a new start for us all. We could no longer afford to be victims in Avari’s quest to walk the human world. Beginning today, we were soldiers. Warriors, battle-weary and not yet focused, but warriors nonetheless.

Warriors, at least for the moment, in black formal funeral attire. All except for Tod, who could wear whatever he wanted because no one other than the five of us could see him.

I started to take his hand, hoping no one would notice such a small motion, but then Emma made a soft, strangling sound and I looked up to see her staring ahead, frozen like a deer in mortal danger.

Her mother was heading straight for us.

“Kaylee, thank you so much for coming.” Ms. Marshall sniffled and reached for my hand, and her tears triggered more of my own. “Thank you all.” She glanced at everyone but Tod, whom she couldn’t see, and when her gaze lingered for a second on her own daughter, hidden behind a stranger’s face, Emma burst into fresh sobs.

“We wouldn’t have missed it, Ms. Marshall,” Nash said, while I wrapped one arm around Emma.

Sabine stared at us both. The funeral hadn’t upset her at all, that I could see, and she obviously didn’t understand why it had bothered us, beyond the lie we were telling the world, since Emma was still alive and mostly well.

“Thank you.” Ms. Marshall sniffled again, and she didn’t seem to notice that her own heels were sinking into the soft earth. “I know Emma would be happy if she could see you all here now.”

Em sobbed harder.

“I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met.” Ms. Marshall dabbed her eyes with a damp tissue and held one hand out to her own daughter.

Emma cleared her throat and shook her mother’s hand. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

“This is my cousin. Emily,” I said. “She’s just lost her parents, so she’ll be staying with me and my dad.” That was the best story we could come up with. It was heavy on coincidence, but just as heavy on necessity—Em had to live somewhere, now that she’d lost everything she’d ever had. Except for us.

Ms. Marshall’s expression crumbled beneath a new layer of sympathetic grief, and her voice shook. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Emily.”

But if Em heard her, I couldn’t tell.

“She loved you so much!” Emma threw her arms around her mother and buried her tear-streaked face in her mom’s hair. “She wouldn’t want you to forget about her, but she doesn’t want you to worry either. Or to…” Em nearly choked on her own tears, and we all stood there looking as helpless as Ms. Marshall looked confused and…devastated. She was crying again, and so was I. “Or to…you know…stop living. She wants you to live,” Em said into her mother’s ear. “And to hug Traci and Cara a lot. And to make yourself happy. She’s sorry she called your boyfriend an idiot. It shouldn’t matter that he’s kind of stupid, if he makes you happy, so Emma would want you to go for it.”

She finally released her mother and stepped back, wiping tears with her bare hands. “So you should go for it.”

Ms. Marshall’s tissue was soaked and when she blinked, more tears fell. “I didn’t realize you knew Emma. Do you go to Eastlake?”

“She will,” I said, when I realized Em’s flood of words had dried up, leaving her speechless and evidently mortified by her outburst. “But she knew Emma from…before. We were all three really close.” I couldn’t tell whether or not Ms. Marshall believed me—or whether she was even capable of thinking my hasty explanation through at the moment—but she nodded and wiped at her cheeks again.

“Kaylee, when you feel up to it, I hope you’ll come over and take something from Emma’s room. To remember her by. I’m sure she’d want you to have whatever you’d like.”

“We will,” Em said before I could speak.

Ms. Marshall frowned, then nodded again and started backing away from us in heels crusted with mud from the recent rain. “Thank you all for coming.” Then her two remaining daughters each put an arm around her and led her to the long black car waiting with its engine running.

“I think I scared her,” Emma whispered, clutching my hand.

“Yup.” Sabine’s nearly black eyes were dilated and her mouth hung open just a little. As a mara—a living Nightmare—Sabine fed on fear, but she’d been going hungry a lot lately, since grief and anger had finally overwhelmed the nearly constant state of fear we’d all been living in for the past few months.

“I’m pretty sure it’s rude to feed from the dead girl’s family at a funeral,” Nash said, one arm around her waist, his fingers curled around her narrow hip. He used to hold me like that. I used to like it. But Nash and I were over. We’d been over before we even knew we were over, and I still wasn’t sure he’d completely accepted that yet. But it made me feel better to see him touch her in public.

He’d been touching her in private since the very day we broke up.

Sabine lifted both brows at him. “You expect me to believe that if someone threw a pie in your face at a funeral you wouldn’t lick your lips?”

“If someone threw a pie in my face at a funeral, I’d…” Nash frowned. “Well, that’d be really weird.”

“Weirder than seeing yourself buried?” Tod’s hand slid into my grip, his fingers curling around mine, now that there was no one near enough to see me holding hands with empty air. No one except Sophie, my real cousin, and her boyfriend, Luca, who watched us from the other side of the open grave. They knew all about Tod. In fact, my undead reaper boyfriend hardly even registered as “strange” to Sophie anymore, considering that her own boyfriend was a necromancer. And that Luca and Sabine were the only ones among us who’d never died.

Nash’s death was classified information, available on a need-to-know basis, and so far, his mom and brother didn’t think anyone needed to know. Including Nash.

Emma and I had both died twice, and for me, that second one actually stuck. Now I was a “resurrected American,” better known, in colloquial terms, as life-challenged. Or undead. Or the living dead. But I’m not a zombie. I’m just a little less alive than your average high school junior.

“No,” Nash said, in that short-tempered voice he seemed to save just for his brother. “Having a pie thrown in my face at a funeral would not be weirder than seeing myself buried.”

“Then Em wins this round.” He glanced around at the last of the mourners, including my father, who leaned on his crutch, chatting softly with Harmony, Tod and Nash’s mom, and his own brother—my uncle Brendon. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve had enough death for one day.”

That really means something, coming from a reaper.

“You okay?” I tossed Emma a T-shirt from my dresser, and she pulled it over her head. We were nearly the same size, now that she was Lydia. Which meant that the clothes we’d snuck out of her mom’s house no longer fit her.

“Yeah.” She kicked one of Styx’s rubber dog bones out of the way and stepped into a pair of my jeans. “I don’t know what happened at the cemetery. I mean, it’s not like I’m really dead, but as soon as my mom started talking to you, I just lost it.”

That was true. She’d been staring at her mother and sisters for two straight days, at the viewing the day before, the funeral today, then the actual burial, and she hadn’t lost it once. Not until her mother was within arm’s reach.

“Don’t worry about it. You’ve been through hell this year, Em. I’d be worried about you if you weren’t upset.” Though actually, I was worried about her. Very worried.

Emma sat on the edge of her bed to pull on a pair of sneakers, and if I’d reached out from the end of my bed, I could have touched her. We’d given up nearly all the floor space in my room for the extra twin bed, and I’d had to get rid of my beanbag chair, which was a real shame, considering we didn’t actually need a second bed. Emma could have had mine—I hadn’t slept in it once in the nearly two weeks since my birthday/her death-day, in part because I no longer needed sleep, though I’d discovered that I did need rest.

But telling my father that I was spending most of my nights at Tod’s place, whether or not my reaper boyfriend was actually at home, would have been…

Well, that wouldn’t have been a pleasant conversation. Even if my dad had his suspicions about how physical our relationship had become, I was in no hurry to confirm them. I may have been practically grown—and technically dead—but I would always be his little girl. He’d made that more than clear.

And I loved him for it.

More comfortable in our regular clothes, Em and I met everyone else in the front of the house, where Sabine had helped herself to a soda without getting one for anyone else. “All I’m saying is that Emily and Emma are practically the same name. No offense, Em,” she added when we walked past my father’s chair, where the mara was perched on the arm, hopelessly wrinkling the black slacks she only wore to funerals. And, truthfully, she only wore those because Nash had insisted black jeans weren’t good enough.

“None taken.” Em headed into the kitchen and took a seat at the bar, where she rested her forehead on her folded arms.

“At least she wasn’t named after a can of soup,” Tod said, and Sabine shot him a scowl. Her last name—Campbell—had come from a hungry worker at the church where she’d been abandoned as a toddler.

“Emma and Emily are pretty similar.” Nash sank into my dad’s armchair and wrapped one arm around the mara’s waist. “Wouldn’t you rather pick something different? I mean, you could be anyone you want. It could be fun. None of the rest of us got to pick our names.”

Em didn’t even look up.

“We called her Cynthia for three days.” Tod shoved a pillow over so I could sit with him on the couch. “She couldn’t remember to answer. Calling her Emily is just easier.”

“Who cares what you call her? Emma is still Emma, and that’s all that matters, right? That she survived.” Sophie shrugged in her spaghetti strap dress, leaning against the wall by the door like she wanted to stay but needed to be near an exit, just in case.

I could tell she was trying to say the right thing. To be useful and insightful. She’d been doing that a lot since she and Luca got together, which seemed to show her that she had more in common with me and my “freak” friends than she would ever again have in common with her fellow dancers and teen socialites. But when filtered through the lens of narcissism through which my cousin viewed the world “useful and insightful” usually came out sounding more like “pointless and trite.”

Sophie had come a long way, but the journey was far from over.

“Yeah, I survived.” Em sat up and glared at her over the half wall separating the kitchen from the living room. “Unless you count the part where my neck was snapped by a hellion who wanted to wear me like a perpetual Halloween costume. And the fact that my permanent address is now plot number 436 at the Grandview Cemetery. You think Zappos delivers to burial plots? If so, you must be right! Nothing’s changed! So what if I’m now a brunette, and a B-cup, and an Emily? At least I survived, right?”

“I was just trying to help.” Sophie blinked back tears that probably had more to do with her own frustration than with sympathy for Em. “I almost died, too, you know. We all did.”

“Almost only counts in beauty pageants.” Emma slid off her bar stool and pulled a can of soda from the fridge, then took down a tall glass and the bottle of whiskey my dad had confiscated from Nash a couple of weeks earlier. No one said anything when she poured generous helpings of both into the glass.

“We’re going to get him,” I said through clenched teeth, struggling to hide my anger on her behalf while she drained a quarter of the glass. “We’re going to get them all.”

She didn’t deserve this. It was my fault Emma had lost everything she’d ever had, except for a best friend who’d failed to protect her. It was my fault, and it was Avari’s, and he was going to pay for what happened to Em and to everyone else he’d hurt.

“Sure we are.” Emma rolled her eyes and took another drink. “We’re going to sock it to the immortal hellions capable of squashing us like ants on the sidewalk. So what if they can’t be killed, or caught, or even hurt, as far as we know. Maybe we can kill them with kindness. Or maybe they’ll see us wearing our big-boy pants, all ready to take them down, and they’ll die laughing. That’s the only way we’re going to get them. I know nothing about the Netherworld, but I know that.”

“I have a plan, Em. A good one.”

“I know you do. I’m sorry.” She shoved limp brown hair back from her face and sat, still holding her glass. “I just…I attended my own funeral today. There’s just no way to improve a day that started with throwing clods of dirt on your own coffin.”

“I know.” My hand tightened around Tod’s. I hadn’t seen myself buried, but I had been…well…murdered. Sacrificed, in fact. As a virgin.

Cliché? Sure. Painful? Hell, yes.

Reversible?

Nope.

“Well, at least you’re compatible roommates,” Sabine said as Luca headed into the kitchen. “Kaylee’s dead, but pretending to live in her own body, and Emma’s alive in someone else’s body, but faking death. Your living situation was meant to be. Unlike mine.” The mara threw an angry glance at my cousin.

Since her foster mother’s death, Sabine had been staying with Sophie and my uncle Brendon, who’d officially applied to be her new foster parent, to keep her within the fold. Because in spite of obvious attitude…issues, she’d proved useful.

Also because if we tried to get rid of her, she’d only claw her way back into Nash’s life, stepping on everyone in her way. She’d certainly done it before.

Sabine had a unique perspective on boundaries—she refused to recognize them.

Sophie stepped away from the wall she’d been holding up and adjusted her black silk dress. “Hey, Luca, I told my dad we’d put in an appearance at the reception,” she said, but we all saw through that—she looked more comfortable in her three-inch stiletto heels than in my house. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah. Just a sec.” Luca looked up from the kitchen peninsula, where he was talking softly to Emma with his back to the rest of us. He said something, and she actually chuckled. When he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear—Lydia’s ear—the look Sophie gave them should have boiled the blood in their veins.

Em and I were supposed to go to the reception, too, but when I’d told my dad how she’d reacted to her mother at the funeral, he’d agreed that we should probably forgo any more close contact with Ms. Marshall until they’d both had a little time to adjust to Emma’s death.

“Luca?” my cousin repeated.

He stood and gave Emma one more smile before joining Sophie in the living room. “Hey, I was thinking maybe you could give Em a hand with her hair before school tomorrow.” He tried to take his girlfriend’s hand, but she pulled it firmly from his grasp. His smile faltered, but he barreled forward, and I was impressed by his resolution in the face of imminent temper tantrum. “She’s never had to work with thin, fine hair before, so—”

“Are you saying my hair is limp?” Sophie demanded.

“No, your hair is beautiful.” He tucked a long blond strand behind her ear and ended the gesture with his palm cupping her jaw. I could practically see Sophie melt. “I was just thinking that Em’s a little insecure about her new look, and you’re good with stuff like that, and she’s your friend, so…?”

“Yeah. Of course.” Sophie blinked. “No problem.” She almost looked ashamed of herself, and I couldn’t resist a smile. She was nicer when she was with him. She wanted to be better, which made me want to like her.

Luca was the best thing that had ever happened to my cousin, and he’d come at the best possible time—in the middle of the worst year of her life. I think she truly cared about him. I couldn’t help hoping that someday she’d actually deserve him.

After Luca and Sophie left to mourn my best friend in public, Emma brought her half-empty glass into the living room and sank onto the couch on my other side. “Okay, let’s hear this brilliant plan. How are we going to bring the hurt to everyone’s least favorite hellions?”

“We’re not.” I smiled. I was proud of my plan, even if it still had a few kinks to work out. “You were right—we can’t hurt them. But they can hurt one another. A lot, hopefully. Maybe they can even kill each other.” Because goodness knows we couldn’t kill them. We’d never even come close to hurting a hellion, even though a couple of weeks before, I’d been forced to stab Avari over and over every time he took a new form in the human world—stolen from a murder victim—to torture us.

“Okay, that sounds promising.” Nash leaned forward in my dad’s chair, and Sabine put one hand on his back. “How do we get them to do that?”

“We’re going to use their weaknesses against them.” Tod’s hand tightened around mine again. He already knew the plan. We’d gone over and over it during his breaks at work for nights on end—he was both a reaper at the local hospital and a delivery boy for a nearby pizza place, but the reaper gig came with more free time.

Way more people ordered pizzas than met their death on any given night.

“Weaknesses?” Sabine said. “Hellions have weaknesses?”

“Only one apiece, that we’ve seen.” I scooted forward until I sat on the edge of the couch, excited and relieved to finally tell them what we’d come up with. “Think about it. When Sabine tried to sell me and Emma to—”

“Really? We’re on that again?” the mara snapped. “You know I was under the influence of a hellion of envy. As were you. We both did some pretty stupid shit because of Invidia.”

“Yeah, but Kaylee didn’t try to sell anyone to a demon,” Tod pointed out.

“Forgiven and forgotten, remember?” Nash aimed an irritated glance at his brother.

I remembered forgiving Sabine, but I’d never said I could forget.… “Just listen. When we were all with Avari and Invidia in the Netherworld, how did we get away?”

Sabine shrugged. “I crossed over with Nash.” Because male bean sidhes don’t wail, they can’t cross to and from the Netherworld on their own. “Tod took Em, then came back for you.”

Like his brother, Tod was a male bean sidhe, but he could cross freely by virtue of his reaper abilities, most of which didn’t work in the Netherworld, much like my own undead skills. Unfortunately.

“Yes, but how did we get that chance?” I waved one hand in a circular motion, encouraging them to follow that thought through to the conclusion.

Nash’s brows rose with the realization. “Avari attacked Invidia.”

“Why?” Tod said, and his brother—my ex—frowned, trying to remember. He’d been in a lot of pain at the time, and I’m sure the memory was fuzzy.

“Because he wanted what she had,” the mara said.

“Exactly.” Sabine was smart—I had to give her that. “Avari is a hellion of greed. The only weakness I’ve ever seen him display is an obsession with having everything. He wants his toys and Invidia’s. And Belphegore’s. And any others on the playground.”

Em set her nearly empty glass on the coffee table. “So we’re going to play them against one another? How?”

Tod frowned, and his voice deepened. This was the part he didn’t like. “By dangling the same bait in front of all three of them at once.”

“What bait?” Em asked, but I could tell by her tone that she was already catching on.

“Us.” I glanced around the room. “Some of us, anyway. Including Sophie and Luca, if we need them and they’re willing.” And we probably would need them. Avari had already gone after them both. “We’re the bait.”

2

“We’re the bait? And you’re okay with this?” Nash stared across the room at his brother, challenge swirling in the greens and browns of his eyes—a bean sidhe’s emotions could be read in the colors twisting in their irises, at least by fellow bean sidhes.

“Hell no, I’m not okay with it. It’s dangerous, and risky, and perilous, and also profoundly unsafe. But I have yet to come up with a better idea, so…” Tod gestured to me, reluctantly yielding the floor, but Em snatched it before I could speak.

“We’re the bait? So we’re going to be dangled? How are we going to be dangled?”

“Okay, first of all, no one has to do this.” I stood and Tod scooted over so I could sit on the arm of the couch, from where I could see everyone in the room. “You’re all completely free to just…not participate. But obviously, I can’t promise that staying out of this will keep you safe. We weren’t dangling anything in front of anyone the last time Avari and his hellion posse set their sights on us. Not on purpose, anyway. Which is why I’m pretty sure it’ll be easy to get their attention. The hard part will be keeping them from seeing the setup. So, raise your hand if you want to be a part of this, then I’ll—”

“I’m in.” Nash didn’t bother to raise his hand.

“Just like that?” Em frowned at him.

He nodded. “No one wants to see that bastard pay more than I do.”

“I’m fully prepared to debate that statement with you, but there’s really no point.” I glanced around the room again. “I’m in, obviously, as is Tod.” He nodded to confirm, and a single pale curl fell over his forehead. “What about you two?”

“You couldn’t keep me out of this if you tried,” Sabine said. “This place is dull when there’s no evil afoot.”

“When is that, exactly?” Tod gave her a sardonic grin, and Sabine returned it.

“Em?” I wasn’t yet familiar enough with her new face to tell what she was thinking. “You totally don’t have to do this.”

“No.” She drained the last of her whiskey and soda, made a sour face, then set the glass down a little too hard on the coffee table. “I’m in. Just tell me what to do.”

“Yeah. What kind of dangling are we talking about?” Nash said. “Carrot in front of a donkey? Or raw meat over a pit of lions?”

“Probably not the carrot.” Sabine shrugged. “Hellions strike me more as carnivores.”

I’d rarely heard a truer statement. As far as I could tell, hellions lived only to consume humanity—whichever parts of us they could get. Our emotions. Our blood. Our flesh. And, rumor had it, any other bodily fluids on hand.

“Since they can’t cross into the human world, with a few obvious exceptions—” like the recent invasion of hellions wearing the souls and forms of the dead “—we’re only going to be dangling our emotions.”

“Oh, good. Metaphysical carrots.” Emma exhaled in relief and looked like she might want a refill.

“Here’s where it gets tricky,” Tod said, while I headed into the kitchen for a six-pack of sodas from the fridge. “They’re not going to be fooled by anything less than the real thing. Authentic—and very strong—envy and vanity.”

“Envy for Invidia and vanity for Belphegore?” Sabine said, and I nodded.

Nash accepted the soda I handed him, then passed it to Sabine. “What about Avari?”

I handed him another can. “We’re not going to worry about him. He’s harder to get rid of than to trap, and if one of us starts flaunting unusual levels of greed, he’ll know something’s up. But if he thinks Invidia and Belphegore are closing in on the carrot he’s been chasing for months—”

“Or any of us other carrots,” Tod added, accepting a can for himself.

“—he’ll jump into the game on his own. Which is exactly what we want. So all we really have to do is dangle one carrot in front of each of the other two. And since this involves you all, I’m open to suggestions. Anyone want to dangle?”

Sabine raised her hand. “I nominate Sophie as bait for Invidia.”

Tod laughed. He was always able to find humor in even the creepiest situations. I’d thought that was an undead thing, until I became a member of the undead. Then I realized it was a Tod-thing.

“Just because you don’t like someone doesn’t mean you can feed her to a hellion,” Em said. “Haven’t we been over this?”

“I don’t want to get rid of her, I—” Sabine rolled her eyes and started over. “Okay, I do kind of want to get rid of her, but that’s not what this is. Think about it. Out of all seven of us, who’s currently harboring the most envy?”

The three of them turned to look at Nash, who fired back angry glares. “Screw you all. Just because I don’t think my brother should have made out with my girlfriend doesn’t mean I’m jealous of him!”

“Forgiven and forgotten…” I reminded him, but his glare only deepened.

“Not Nash,” Sabine snapped. “He has everything he could possibly want. Everything. More than he can handle,” she added, as if we could possibly have missed her point. “I’m talking about Sophie. Did you all see the look she gave Em when Luca was talking to her in the kitchen?”

I had seen that.

“That was nothing. He was trying to make me feel better about my hair. Seriously. He’s totally into Sophie.”

“I know. I can’t figure it out, but I don’t doubt it,” Sabine said. “But Sophie does. And with a little nudging, I think I can turn your prissy little cousin’s shiny new insecurity into a feast of jealousy any hellion of envy would covet.” She glanced around for our reactions. “How’s that for a carrot?”

“What kind of nudge are you talking about?” I wasn’t Sophie’s biggest fan either, but that didn’t give me the right to put her in any danger she didn’t volunteer for.

Sabine shrugged. “A little strategic feeding of her fears. Namely, self-doubt.” As a mara, she could do that and much more. “And I’ve been dying to try out my vial of Invidia’s hair. That shit is concentrated liquid envy.”

“No.”

“Oh, come on.” The mara rolled her eyes at my hesitance. “I figure a drop in her morning diet shake should be enough to do the job. That can’t be any worse for her than those pills she pops when she gets upset.”

Aunt Val’s sedatives.

I made a mental note to sneak into Sophie’s room in the middle of the night and flush the whole stash.

“We could at least ask her if she wants to.” Em shrugged. “She did look pretty jealous.…”

“She can’t know about it!” Sabine insisted. “If we tell her, she’ll know she has no reason to be jealous, and there goes our carrot.”

“We’re not going to spike her protein shake and throw her to the wolves!” I insisted.

Tod chuckled. “I thought they were lions. Or donkeys. You’re losing control of your metaphors, Kay.”

I turned on him, but before I could yell at him to stop lightening the mood, Nash spoke up. “We could watch her. All of us. We could take shifts. That way, if anything goes wrong, we can stomp on the brakes immediately.”

“No.”

Tod took my hand again. “She’s already in danger, Kaylee. You said it yourself. We all are. At least this way, someone will have her back, 24/7. If you think about it, she may actually be safer this way.”

So I thought about it, and I had to admit they were right. I’d done everything I could think of to keep Emma safe and only wound up getting her killed. Twice. Maybe the best way to keep Sophie safe was to manipulate her environment.

I thought we should at least tell Luca what we were doing, though, so he could watch out for her, too. But he would never go for it. And he was spending almost every waking moment with her anyway, so he’d definitely notice if something went wrong, even if he didn’t know she was in any particular danger.…

“You all swear you’ll help me look out for her?”

Heads nodded all over the living room, but Sabine only shrugged. “I’m in the perfect position for that, unfortunately.”

“Fine. But we’re not giving her a drop of Invidia’s creepy liquid hair until we’ve tested it.”

“Wait.” Emma frowned and raised Lydia’s thin, pale brown eyebrows. “Isn’t that stuff, like, corrosive? It sizzles like acid.”

“Yeah, in its concentrated form. It was a challenge to contain. Over time, it’ll eat through nearly anything but plastic.” Sabine’s grin looked almost vindictive, and I started to question her motives. “But it’s easily diluted in anything water based, like coffee or tea. Or nondairy diet protein shakes.”

Tod set his empty soda can on the coffee table. “You’ve been experimenting with it?”

“Just a little—I don’t want to waste it. But one drop dissolved in eight ounces of water is perfectly safe to touch. I stuck a finger in and felt nothing. Even took a little sip.”

“And?” Nash prompted.

“And I dumped the rest of it out. I just wanted to make sure it was safe, not feel the effects myself.”

I groaned, “Do we even want to know why you were testing it?”

Sabine shrugged. “Probably not. But I’m willing to take a full dose this time, if that’ll convince you that it’s safe. Physically, at least.”

“No!” Em and I said in unison. She continued, “The last time you were all hopped up on jealousy you tried to sell us in the Netherworld.”

“I’ll try it,” I said. “Otherwise, we’re not doing this.”

Sabine shrugged again and sank back against Nash’s shoulder. “Fine. I’ll go get it when we’re done here.”

“It’s not somewhere Sophie could find it, right?” Tod said.

“It’s in the toe of my left boot. The dancing queen won’t go near shoes without a designer label. She thinks she’s allergic to cheap fabric.” She twisted to scowl at Nash. “Sophie and I are not compatible. I still don’t see why your mom won’t let me stay with you guys.”

Emma actually grinned, for the first time in days. “Because Harmony thinks she’s too young to be a grandmother. But she’s, like, what? Eighty?”

“Eighty-two,” Tod said. From puberty on, bean sidhes age much slower than humans. Our average life span is around four hundred years. Not that I’d know from personal experience. Half the bean sidhes I knew were already dead or living on borrowed time. But Nash didn’t know his brother had traded death dates with him—Tod didn’t want him to feel guilty about something that was beyond his control. “Anyway, it’s not the grandmother thing that bothers her. It’s the thought of you two as parents.”

“That thought bothers me, too.” Sabine’s gaze settled on me and Tod. “Not a risk for you, though, right? You two have all the luck.”

“Yeah.” Sarcasm dripped from the word as Tod pushed pale curls back from his face, and I could feel my own cheeks flame. “Not having to worry about teen pregnancy totally makes up for the fact that we’re dead.” His eyes flashed in anger, probably on my behalf. “Every time I think you’ve reached the pinnacle of insensitivity, you exceed your own reach.”

“No way. You don’t get to be mad about the truth.” Sabine turned to Nash, obviously puzzled by social etiquette she didn’t understand. “Are they pissed because I mentioned sex or death?”

“New subject!” Nash stood and stomped into the kitchen with his soda.

“I second the motion,” I mumbled as he drained his can and dropped it into the recycling bin. I would much rather talk about trekking toward certain death in the Netherworld than ever again discuss sex in front of my boyfriend, his brother/my ex, and his new girlfriend. Who was also his old girlfriend/first love, who’d once tried to sell me to a demon to get rid of me.

Some conversations will just never be comfortable.

“Okay. So.” I shook my head, trying to mentally strike the previous two minutes from the official record. “Any ideas for how to lure Belphegore into our hellion cage match?”

“Vanity, right?” Nash reappeared in the living room with an open bag of potato chips. “I nominate my venerable brother. He likes to play hero, and one look at him should establish the vanity angle.”

“Nash!” I really shouldn’t have been surprised by the dig. But I was.

“What?” He raised one brow at me in challenge. “It’s okay to call me jealous, but not to call him vain?”

“Awareness of one’s obvious advantages doesn’t imply vanity,” Tod insisted calmly.

Nash turned on him. “Does it imply narcissism?”

Tod huffed. “This coming from the guy who owns more hair products than his girlfriend.”

“I don’t own any hair products,” Sabine said. And that was true. Her beauty was natural. Dark, fierce, and kinda scary at times, but completely natural.

Nash glared at his brother. “When you were still alive you spent more time looking at yourself than at girls, and I doubt death changed that.”

“Seriously? Are we doing this again?” The overhead light flickered in response to Sabine’s irritation—another creepy aspect of hanging out with a mara. “You’re pretty. He’s pretty.” She turned to scowl at Nash. “Your brother’s arrogant, and you’re confrontational. You’re both fed, clothed, sheltered, and sexually satisfied.”

“Sabine!” I hissed, while Em stared at the floor, evidently lost in her own thoughts. But the mara continued without even glancing at me.

“Now bury the hatchet in this stupid little family feud, or I’m going to bury one in you both!”

For a moment, we all stared at her. I should have been accustomed to her lack of a verbal filter and apparent determination to discuss my private life in front of the entire world, but every now and then she still shocked me.

“Well?” She glanced from one brother to the other, but before either of them decided to make the first move, Emma looked up, her jaw set in a determined line, though she wasn’t looking at anyone in particular—in fact, she seemed to be looking inward.

“I’ll do it. I’ll be Belphegore’s carrot.”

For a second I could only stare at Emma as what she was saying sank in. Then I shook my head, horrified by the thought. When I’d said we would be the bait, I hadn’t meant Emma. More than any of us, she deserved a little peace.

“No, Em, you don’t have to do that. You’ve been through so much already. This is the last thing you need right now.”

She twisted on the couch to face me, tucking one leg beneath her, and again I was thrown off by how odd it was to look into Lydia’s face and see Emma’s eyes. Hear Emma’s voice. “Your plan is good, Kaylee,” she said. “It’s smart, and it’s bold, and it could work. But it won’t work if you’re not willing to accept help. To let the rest of us take the risks you’ve been taking on your own.”

“No, Kaylee’s right. I’ll do it.” Tod shrugged. “I prefer to think of myself as a pretty accurate judge of my own gifts, but in the right slant of light, that could be seen as vanity, and—”

“I’m the natural choice,” Em insisted.

“You’re the least vain person I know—”

“Just listen,” my best friend said, and I did, because that was the least I owed her. “I never thought about it until I died and woke up with a stranger’s face, but who we are is very much influenced by what we look like. By our own self-images. Think about the crazy things people will do to change the way they look. Dangerous diets. Obsessive workouts. Unnecessary surgeries. And what they’re really trying to change is who they are. Or at least how they see themselves. As if changing what they look like can actually do that. It can’t. But for the first time, I understand that mind-set. It’s like my name.”

“Your name?” Nash looked just as confused as I felt.

“Yeah. We went through several baby books and at least a dozen baby-naming websites looking for a new name for me, but no matter what we tried—no matter what names I thought I liked—I couldn’t remember to answer to them. Because they weren’t me. I didn’t associate those names with who I am. Just like I don’t associate this body—this face—with who I am. Every time I look in the mirror, I’m surprised. There’s this moment of disorientation when I have to remind myself that I’m seeing my own reflection. And I know I should be grateful. Sophie was right about that. I’m still alive, and that’s the most important thing, and I should be grateful to Tod and Kaylee for directing my soul, and to Lydia for giving me her body. Not that she had any choice in the matter.”

Em sniffled and a tear fell from each of her eyes to roll slowly down her cheeks. “But I can’t help it. Every time I look in the mirror, I’m disappointed.”

“Because you’re not pretty anymore?” Sabine said, and I’d never wanted worse to smack her.

Okay, except for that time I did smack her.

“What?” the mara said, like she actually didn’t understand her gaffe. “It’s true. Lydia’s not pretty, and Em’s used to being pretty. That can’t be easy. I may not go through a lot of trouble in the morning, but that doesn’t mean I’d be happy to wake up tomorrow with nothing to fill out my bra, you know?” She gestured toward my nearly flat chest, and that time my palm itched to connect with her face.

“She’s right.” Em frowned and glanced at me apologetically. “Not about your boobs. They’re fine.”

“Way better than fine,” Tod leaned over to whisper, and I buried my face in my hands, both embarrassed and relieved to realize that Nash was the only one in the room who’d refrained from commenting on the sad state of my personal assets.

“But Sabine knows what I’m saying,” Em said, mercifully diverting attention from me and my subpar endowment. “I liked who I was. What I looked like. I liked having curves, and I liked my hair, and loved having clear skin without having to mess with it. I liked seeing my eyes in my own face. I’m never going to have that again, and I hate it. So yeah, I’m vain. As it turns out, I’m really vain. If Sabine’s willing to help manipulate that with a little strategic fear amplification, I know I could reel Belphegore in.”

She closed her eyes for a second, then met my gaze. “And, frankly, I plan to enjoy the hell out of it. The bitch broke my neck, Kaylee. It’s her fault I died—not yours. And I’m not going to let any of you tell me I can’t play a big part in bringing her down. I deserve this. She’s going to get what she deserves, too.”

3

“How was the reception?” I set a glass of sweet tea on the end table next to my father, then carefully lifted his leg from the coffee table and slid a pillow beneath it.

“Kaylee, you really don’t have to wait on me. I’m fine.” He scruffed the fur between Styx’s small, pointed ears, and she snuggled closer. The cutest part about their recent bonding was that my dad thought Styx was hungry for attention. I suspected the truth had more to do with her determination to protect him at all costs.

Styx was half-Netherhound. She was fiercely loyal and could snap a human long bone in a single bite.

“You were stabbed in the leg by a psychotic hellion wearing Sabine’s foster mother’s face.” In the kitchen again, I pulled his plate out of the microwave and grabbed a fork from the dish drainer. “What part of that is fine?”

“The part where I lived.” My dad sighed, and for a moment his eyes swirled with survivor’s guilt. “Some weren’t so lucky.”

“I heard that!” Em called from the bedroom, where she was obsessing over which of my hopelessly plain T-shirts to wear on her first day of school as Emily Cavanaugh.

“You’re a survivor, Em!” I called back. More of a survivor than I was, anyway. At least her heart still beat on its own. Even if it wasn’t her original heart.

I shooed Styx off the couch with one hand while I handed my dad’s plate to him with the other.

“How’s she doing?” My dad pulled back the plastic film covering his dinner as I set the remote control next to him.

“It’s going to take a while to adjust, but she’ll get there.” I shrugged. “She still has all of us.” Which was more than most new kids had on the first day. “So? The reception? How’s Ms. Marshall? And Em’s sisters?”

My father sighed. He no longer looked hungry. “They’re hurting, Kay. It kills me that we can’t tell them the truth.”

We’d thought about it. A lot. After all, we could certainly prove our crazy story. But telling them that Emma was still alive in someone else’s body would mean telling them about bean sidhes, and reapers, and death dates, and about the Netherworld, and that there were hellions over there just waiting to devour our souls and torture us for all of eternity.

Most humans didn’t handle that kind of disclosure well.

“It probably doesn’t help that they had to wait nearly two weeks to bury her.”

The police had refused to release Emma’s body until after a full autopsy. They hadn’t bought our claim that she’d broken her neck in a freak fall from the swing set at the lake, where my birthday party had been crashed by hellions.

We didn’t tell them about the hellions.

Of course, part of the reason our story was so hard for them to accept was that her boyfriend, Jayson, had died that same day. As had Sabine’s foster mother. That was too many deaths related to one high school clique to pass as coincidence.

But in the end, they’d had to release all the bodies for burial when they could find no signs of foul play. Because there was no foul play, on our part, anyway.

The hellions were not available for questioning.

“I’m just glad it’s over.” My dad picked up his fork and poked at a clump of rehydrated mashed potatoes.

“Yeah.” Except for the part about us getting rid of the three hellions occupying the Netherworld version of my high school. My dad wasn’t ready to hear about that just yet. At least not until his leg had healed.

“Hey,” Tod said, and I looked up to find him standing in the middle of the living room, holding a plain manila envelope.

“Is that…?” My dad gestured to the envelope, and Tod nodded.

“Em!” I called when he sat on the couch on my other side and handed me the package.

My bedroom door creaked open, and Emma trudged in from the hall as I dumped the contents of the envelope on the coffee table. She looked more nervous than curious when she saw what Tod had brought.

I picked up a small laminated card from the middle of the pile of papers and held it out to her. “Emily Cavanaugh, you are now officially licensed to drive.” Even though Lydia’s body was only fifteen years old. It hadn’t seemed fair to make Em wait another year and take driver’s ed all over again. She’d already lost so much—including her car.

“Where did you get them done?” Em sank into the armchair, staring at her new license.

I wondered what she was thinking. Was she hating her new face again? I couldn’t help wishing she’d known Lydia before becoming her. Lydia was so kind and selfless. She was so beautiful on the inside that her outside hadn’t mattered.

And it’s not like she’d had any obvious flaws. She was just…normal.

Obviously normal was hard to get used to, after a lifetime of gorgeous.

“I got yours the same place I got mine.” Tod had needed paperwork to get hired as a pizza delivery boy, just like Em needed it to start school. “But I’m sworn to secrecy on that front.”

“Like it matters.” Emma slid her new license into her back pocket, then leaned forward to study her new birth certificate. “This is bizarre. I’m not sure I’ve even seen my real one.” She frowned and picked up another small paper card. “New social security number. I guess I should memorize this…”

“Thanks for getting these, Tod,” my dad said, lifting a forkful of meat loaf toward his mouth.

“No problem.”

When my dad turned on the TV and Em sank farther into the chair to study her new social security number, Tod gave his head a subtle nod toward the hall.

“Hey, Dad, we’re gonna go…” I hesitated, trying to come up with a quick, reasonable excuse to be alone with Tod, but my father only rolled his eyes.

“Just leave the door open.”

I gave him a grateful smile and picked up my glass of water on the way into the hall.

In the middle of my bedroom floor, between the beds, I turned and put one hand over Tod’s chest to feel his heartbeat. It was there—faint but very real. The gesture, checking for his heartbeat, had become both habit and a silent communication between us. A reassurance.

A promise too big to be defined by mere words.

He opened his mouth, and I put one finger over my lips in the universal sign for “shhhh.”

Tod rolled his eyes. He didn’t need to be reminded to make sure the living couldn’t hear him—one of the handier perks of our undead state. In fact, he often had to be reminded to let others see and hear him. In the two-plus years since his death, most normal human functions had fallen out of habit, and he’d once told me he wasn’t sure his heart ever beat when I wasn’t there to feel it.

I’d promptly melted into a puddle of Kaylee-goo.

My fingers curled around a handful of his shirt when he kissed me, and I stood on my toes to give him more of me. To taste more of him. “Mmm…” I murmured when his lips trailed from my mouth over my chin, then down my neck. “I missed that.”

“It’s only been a few hours,” he whispered, though no one else could hear us. “Shouldn’t eternity make us more patient?”

“It’s having the opposite effect. Knowing we should have forever makes me want a little bit of forever right now…” I pulled him back up, and my lips met his again. His hands trailed slowly up my sides, and I let the feel of him chase away the anger and sadness I’d been fighting for most of the day. For most of the past two weeks, in fact. Tod felt good. Tod always felt good, even when the rest of my world was falling apart.

“Oh!” He pulled away from me and reached into his pocket, then held up a small plastic vial full of a murky greenish liquid. “I almost forgot. I picked this up to save Sabine a trip.”

“Is that…?”

“Yeah. She said not to touch it until you dilute it. We’re supposed to use this.” He dug in his other pocket and came up with a small plastic medicinal dropper. “But for the record, I don’t approve of you ingesting Netherworld substances. Especially untested Netherworld substances. So I really have no choice but to hang out until the effects have completely worn off. To make sure you’re safe.”

I laughed. “My dad and Em are here.”

He lifted one pale brow. “And, naturally, you’re going to tell your dad what you’re up to…?”

I tugged him closer until I could whisper against his cheek. “I thought we agreed there were some things he doesn’t need to know about.…”

“We did.” His hand slid beneath the hem of my shirt, and the dropper grazed my side. “Those are my very favorite things.”

“You know, when it’s silent in there, I get suspicious!” my dad called from the living room. Em laughed. Tod groaned.

He held me for another second and I breathed in his scent, then let him go and took my water glass from the desk, where I’d set it. I stared down into it, then at the vial. “This is not going to mix well.” I pulled out my rolling chair—it wouldn’t go far, with Em’s bed in the way—and sank into it, then set the glass down again while Tod worked the plug from the vial.

“You sure you want to do this?”

“No. But I can’t give it to Sophie if I’m not willing to try it myself.”

He stuck the tip of the dropper into the vial and drew up a quarter of an inch of murky green gunk. “My mom calls that the baby food test.”

“Baby food?”

“Yeah. When we were little, she wouldn’t give us anything to eat until she’d tasted it herself. Which is why she started baking. Evidently baby food is vile.”

I watched as he dropped into a squat, so that he was eye level with my glass. “So you really did grow up on cookies and cake. I knew it.”

“That’s why I’m so sweet now. I have no idea what went wrong with Nash.” He carefully squeezed the bulb at the top of the dropper, and a single drop of concentrated liquid envy plopped into my glass. For a second, it hung suspended in the water. Then tiny threadlike feelers of dark, dark green stretched out from the drop in all directions, bleeding slowly into the rest of the glass while Tod squirted the rest of what he’d sucked up back into the vial.

In seconds, the drop was gone and my water was an uneven green, paler than the concentrated color. Like an old bruise.

“Yuck.” I held the glass up to the light, and the green grew paler. “Maybe we should have mixed it with soda.”

Tod opened his mouth, and I took the first sip before he could offer to drink it for me. To test it on himself. The last thing I needed was for him to develop an irrational envy. The only person he could possibly be jealous of was Nash, and it had taken me forever to get the two of them back on speaking terms. Backward momentum was not okay.

“Yuck!” I made a face and wished for a cookie to rid my mouth of the foul film. “Envy tastes bitter.”

Tod laughed. “I could have told you that without even trying it. You gulp that, and I’ll get you something sweet to chase it with.”

“Thanks.”

I made myself drink the whole glass while he was gone, then made a mental note to warn Sabine to put it in something dark and sweet. Definitely coffee or soda. Or artificially sweetened diet protein shakes.

As I was swallowing the last mouthful, Tod reappeared in my room with a clear plastic cup of pink lemonade from my favorite burger place, a block from school. “Thanks.” I set the empty glass down and gulped a quarter of the lemonade through the straw without even taking the cup from him. “Much better.”

He set the drink on my nightstand, then sank onto my bed and scooted back until he could lean against the wall. I sat in front of him, my back pressed against his chest, and his arms wrapped around me. “Feel anything yet?”

“Just this.” I threaded my fingers between his in my lap. But I was already starting to regret volunteering for our little experiment. The more I thought about it, the easier it was to remember how I’d felt with Invidia spewing envy into the air at my school, poisoning us, amplifying whatever benign envy we felt on a daily basis until it poured from us in bitter, violent waves.