My Soul to Save (7 page)

Nash and I excused ourselves immediately after dinner, nodding at my father’s reminder to be home by ten-thirty, and I drove, because Nash’s mom had their car. I’d rarely driven in downtown Dallas and had never been to Addison’s hotel, so I counted us lucky to get there in one piece.

The lobby of the Adolphus was full of dark, ornate furniture and fancy chandeliers, and I felt underdressed clomping through the lobby in jeans and sneakers. Fortunately, before I could work up the nerve to ask the snooty clerk behind an oversize desk which room “Lisa Hawthorne” was in, Tod appeared from around a corner, wearing respectably clean and intact jeans and an unwrinkled button-up shirt open over his usual dark tee. He jerked his head toward a cluster of elevators on one end of the lobby, and we followed him gratefully into the first one to open.

“She’s pretty nervous, so go easy on her,” Tod said, eyeing Nash as soon as the mirrored doors closed and the elevator slid into motion.

“She’s not the only one.” I ran one shaky hand over my ponytail, wondering if I should have worn my hair down. Or wiped my feet before walking through the lobby. But the overpriced hotel wasn’t really the cause of my nerves.

I’d peeked into the Netherworld that afternoon, and wasn’t anxious to do it again anytime soon. But as badly as the prospect of actually walking into that shadow-world scared me, my horror was much greater at the thought of condemning Addison Page to an eternity there. Even if she had signed away her own soul.

Tod was right. She didn’t know what she was getting into. She couldn’t have.

The elevator binged in warning and slowed to a smooth stop, then the doors slid open almost silently. Tod got off first, and Nash and I followed him down a thickly carpeted hallway past at least a dozen doors before he stopped in front of the very last one, nearest the emergency staircase.

“Hang on a minute,” he said, then popped out of sight before we could protest, leaving me and Nash standing in the hall like idiots, hoping no one came out to ask if we’d lost our key. Or to call Security.

Who me? Paranoid?

Absolutely.

Several seconds later, the door opened from the inside, and for the second time in as many days, we walked into the private rooms of Addison Page, rock star. I had a fleeting moment of panicked certainty that once again, she wasn’t expecting us. That Tod had made the whole meeting up. But Addison stood in the middle of the sitting room, watching us through red-rimmed eyes, and she didn’t look surprised to see us. Thank goodness.

“Thanks for coming,” she said as we made our way to a collection of couches gathered around yet another flat-screen television. “I know you guys probably think I don’t deserve your help, and the truth is that I’m not sure I do.”

Neither was I, but the fact that she had her own doubts made me want to help her for her own sake, beyond my need to make up for not being able to save the girls my aunt had damned to eternal torture.

“Yes you do.” Tod guided her to a boldly patterned armchair with one hand on her lower back. She didn’t pull away from him, and I was impressed all over again by her composure. I wouldn’t have been so calm if I had an undead ex-boyfriend.

Or the staggering lack of a soul.

Nash sank onto the cream-colored couch and pulled me down with him, his lips firmly sealed against the dissenting opinion I read clearly on his face. He wasn’t convinced that we had any business there. Or that Addison had any right to ask for our help.

Tod sat in the other chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. His gaze hadn’t left Addy since we’d walked into the room, and I had a feeling it wouldn’t anytime soon.

Addison wrung her hands together, twisting her fingers until I was sure one of them would break. “So…what’s next? How can I help?”

“We need to know who—” Tod began, but Nash cut him off boldly.

“Addy, before we get started, you need to understand how dangerous this is. Not just for you, but for us.” His voice was as hard and unrelenting as I’d ever heard it, and he squeezed my hand as he spoke. “We’re putting our own lives in danger for you, and honestly, the only reason I’m here is for Kaylee. Because I don’t want her to get hurt.”

My heart jumped into my throat, and a smile formed on my face in spite of the solemn circumstances.

“I understand….” Addison said, but Nash interrupted again.

“I don’t think you do. I don’t think you
can.
We’re
bean sidhes.
” We both watched her face very carefully for a reaction, but got none. “Do you know anything about
bean sidhes?
”

“A little,” she admitted, glancing briefly at the reaper. “Tod told me…some stuff.” Her cheeks flushed, and I wondered what else Tod had told her.

“Good.” Nash looked relieved to finally hear something he approved of. “Did he tell you that the Netherworld is a very dangerous place for
bean sidhes?
That we have no defenses against the things that live there? That we can’t even pop out like he can, if something goes wrong?”

She nodded again, shyly. Guiltily. And I could see that Addison Page wasn’t accustomed to asking for help. She looked…humiliated. As if the admission of her own powerlessness might break her.

And that alone told me she was stronger than she thought she was. Stronger than Tod thought she was.

Good.
She’d have to be.

“Okay, then, the first thing we want to know…” He glanced at me for confirmation, and I nodded in spite of the suspicious glint shining in Tod’s eyes. Nash and I had already discussed this. “Is how you got yourself into this mess. Why the hell would you sell your soul? I know I’m looking at your life from the outside, but I gotta say that from where we stand, it looks like you’ve got everything you could ever want.”

Addison smiled wistfully, regretfully, as Tod glared at us. “I do now.” she said, her famous, melodic voice so soft I could barely hear it. “But when they came to me with this deal, I had nothing but dreams and desperation. I know that sounds
melodramatic, but it’s the truth. They said they could make or break me, and they were right.”

“Who?” I asked, speaking for the first time since we’d entered her room.

“Dekker Media.”

A chill swept the length of my body, leaving me cold from the inside out.

Dekker Media was an entertainment
titan.
They had theme parks, production studios, television channels, and more large-scale marketing clout than any other company in the world. Dekker Media had its sticky fingers in every pie imaginable. Kids grew up watching their movies, listening to their CDs, playing with their toys, wearing their officially licensed shoes and clothes, and sleeping between sheets plastered with the faces of their squeaky-clean, family-friendly stars.

The company was pervasive. Ubiquitous. Obnoxious.

They signed most of their stars straight out of junior high, churning out one teenage cash cow after another.

“Wait, I don’t understand,” Nash said, having obviously regained his head before I had. “You sold your soul to Dekker Media?” He frowned at me briefly, then let his gaze slide toward his brother. “I thought she sold it to a hellion.”

“She did.” Tod’s jaw bulged in barely repressed anger. “But the deal went through John Dekker himself.”

Wow.
I was stunned into silence for the second time in as many minutes.

John Dekker was the CEO and public face of Dekker Media, grandson of the legendary company founder, and more recognized by tweens around the world than the U.S. president.

“Okay, can you start from the beginning?” I leaned back on the couch, my head swimming from information overload.

Addison nodded, and once she got started, the words flowed quickly, and I had to listen carefully to keep up.

“It was two years ago, just after I turned sixteen.
The Private Life of Megan Ford
had just finished its first season and was up for renewal. John Dekker found me on the set on the first day of filming the second season and took me to his office. Alone. He said that the ratings were only okay so far, and that whether or not the show continued was up to me. It was my choice. But that if I wanted it badly enough, Megan Ford could be a huge hit. Make me famous. Make me
rich.
”

“You sold your soul for fame and fortune?” Nash asked, contempt so thick in his voice I almost looked down to see if some had dripped on the carpet.

Addison flinched, but Tod spoke up, his own anger rivaling Nash’s. “It wasn’t like that. Don’t you remember her family? Her dad was long gone and her mom was unemployed. Always strung out on one pill or another. They were living on Addy’s income, and Dekker told her that if she didn’t sign on the dotted line, that would all dry up. That he’d make sure she never worked again. He said her mother would go to jail for prescription drug fraud and neglect, and Addy and her little sister, Regan, would be split up in foster care.”

Addison’s hands shook in her lap, but she added nothing to Tod’s speech. Nor did she deny any of it.

“He scared the shit out of her, Nash.”

“Did you tell anyone?” I asked gently, trying not to upset her any more than she already was. “Your mom?” But I knew as soon as I said it that her mother would have been no help. “A friend?”

Addison nodded miserably. “I told Eden.” She sniffled, obviously holding back sobs. “She’d done a guest spot on the show, and we’d become friends. She said I was lucky. That they only offered that deal to the best of us. The ones with real star potential. She said she’d signed two years ago and hadn’t regretted it for a minute. And her first CD had just gone platinum.
Platinum!
” she repeated, glancing at Tod in desperation, begging him with her eyes to believe her. To understand her decision. “I could sign on to be a star, or I could put the entire crew out of work and let my family starve. I did it for them….”

I saw the struggle on Nash’s face. He understood her choice. But he didn’t want to.

However, I’d already moved on to the bigger picture.

They only offered that deal to the best of us.
Addison’s words haunted me, and their implication sent fresh chills down my spine to pool in my limbs as my teeth began to chatter.

They’d done it before. A lot. Dekker Media was making deals with demons—and letting its teenage stars pay the price.

“W
AIT
, D
EKKER
M
EDIA
is blackmailing kids into selling their souls?” Nash looked as horrified as I felt.

“Honestly, I doubt we all had to be blackmailed.” Addison leaned back in the hotel chair and ran her palms nervously over designer jeans–clad thighs.

Nash glanced across the coffee table from her to Tod. “But how does that benefit the company?”

“Greed, plain and simple. Right?” I looked to Addy for confirmation.

She shrugged and swallowed thickly, like her dinner was trying to come back up. “That’s my guess. I mean, if we’re rich and famous, so are the suits and pencil pushers, right?”

Nash frowned. “So what if their stars leave the corporation? Go mainstream, like Eden did?”

Addison crossed her arms over her chest, probably to keep her hands from fidgeting. “Eden went mainstream on-screen two years ago, but only after six years and three contracts with Dekker, during which she brought in cash faster than any other child star in history. But she’s still on their record label, and so am I.”

The singer inhaled deeply, as if her next words would be difficult to say. “When you sign with Dekker, even if you’re not selling your soul, you’re selling out. They get most of us before we hit puberty, and you become whatever they want you to be. They design your look, cast you in their shows, and put you in at least one made-for-TV movie a year. The movies themselves don’t make much, but the merchandising brings in some serious cash.” She sighed and began ticking points off on her fingers. “They pick the songs you’ll record, schedule your appearances, and book your tours. They’ll even choose your haircut unless your agent is a real shark. But most of the agents are in John Dekker’s pocket, too, because they want clients who have guaranteed careers.”

So. Creepy.
Dekker Media was starting to sound scarier than the Netherworld.

“Okay, maybe I’m misunderstanding, but we’re talking about
the
Dekker Media, right? The child-friendly, shiny-happy sitcoms? With the cartoon squirrel and the squeaky-clean animated fairy tales?
That
Dekker Media is actually reaping the souls of its stars in exchange for commercial success?”

Addison’s lip curled into a bitter smile. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

I didn’t know how to answer. Until they grew up and went mainstream, Dekker’s stars didn’t even bare their midriffs. Yet they were all soulless shells of humanity. Irony didn’t even begin to cover it.

And I’d thought the whole
bean sidhe
wail thing was weird….

Tod shot a smile of support at Addison, and Nash rubbed his face with both hands. Acid churned in my stomach, threatening to devour me from the inside out, and the very
air tasted bitter, heavy with the aftertaste of such sour words. But I had to ask…

“Addison, how long has this been going on? This soul trafficking?”

She shrugged and pulled a strand of white-blond hair over her shoulder, twisting the end of it as she spoke. “I don’t know, but rumor has it a couple of their stars from the fifties sold out, back when they were still broadcasting in black and white. Who was the girl who did all those bonfire slasher movies after she left Dekker?”

“
Campfire Stalker
movies,” Tod corrected.

“Yeah, those. That girl sold her soul. And she’s getting old now….” Addison’s voice trailed off, but the horror on her face was easy to read.

“Guys, this is much bigger than we thought.” I crossed my arms over my chest, glancing from one somber, shocked face to the next. “Too big.” The thought of tracking down one hellion with a secondhand soul was scary enough. But I had no idea how to go up against the Netherworld
and
Dekker Media over an arrangement they’d evidently had going for more than half a century.

All we could really do was take Addison to the Netherworld so she could enforce the out-clause.

“So, what’s the deal with this out-clause? What happens if you ask for your soul back?”

“They take everything.” Tod stood and waved one arm to indicate the hotel suite, and Addison’s entire career, then crossed the room toward a small refrigerator against one wall. “Everything she’s worked for will just be…gone.”

“If she wasn’t prepared for that, she shouldn’t have sold her
soul,” Nash snapped, his irises a churning sea of brown and green. But I knew he wasn’t so much mad at Addy as he was worried about us. In his opinion, risking two mostly innocent lives and one afterlife for a single compromised soul made little sense.

I was starting to agree with him. I wanted to help Addy, but not if she wasn’t willing to help herself. What were fame and fortune compared to an eternity of torture? “That’s kind of how the whole contract thing works, Addison. You fulfill it, or you have to pay back everything they’ve given you. But isn’t your eternal soul worth it?”

She blinked at me, and her tears finally overflowed. “It’s not about the money, or even the fame. There are days I’d like to trade my face in for one no one’s ever seen.” Addison swiped tears from her cheeks with both hands, smearing expertly applied eyeliner in the process, and I pushed a box of tissues across the table toward her.

“So, what is it about?”

She took a deep breath. “If I demand my soul back, they’ll take back everything I ever got as a result of signing that contract—and everything anyone else ever got from it through me. They’ll ruin me, but the fallout will hit my agent, my lawyer, my publicist, and everyone who ever worked for me. It’ll devastate my whole family.” She sniffled, but now there was a sharp edge of anger in her voice. “My mom. Regan. My dad, and whatever twenty-year-old he’s shacked up with this week. And I’m not just talking about money. We’ve been poor, and we can be poor again. I’m talking debt, disgrace, and public humiliation, a thousand times worse than any of them would have suffered if I’d turned down the original offer.”

Nash’s eyes narrowed as Tod kicked the fridge shut and returned with four cans of diet Coke, evidently all Addy kept on hand. “They can’t do that. Can they?”

Addison laughed bitterly, and accepted the can Tod handed her. “You remember Whitney Lance? Lindy Cohen? Between the two of them, they have three divorces, seven arrests, five stints in rehab, and two children taken away by the courts. And it gets much worse. Others have had nude photo scandals, public breakdowns, and weeks spent in the psychiatric ward. Carolina Burke served two years for tax evasion, and Denison Clark was arrested for drunk driving two months before his twenty-first birthday. Then again for statutory rape six months later.”

“Yeah, but they all actually did those things, right?” Nash popped open his can, looking less sympathetic by the moment. “Please tell me you don’t have an arrest record or a love child hidden away somewhere.”

“Of course not.” Addy’s eyes flashed in anger, and I was glad to see it. If she couldn’t stand up to us, how could she possibly have enough nerve to demand her soul back from a hellion?

“Well, if you haven’t given them any rope, how are they supposed to hang you?”

“I’m not perfect, Nash!” Addison used the arms of her chair to shove herself to her feet and stood staring down at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve never had a drink. Or that you’re a virgin.”

Nash’s face hardened, but he remained silent.

“My contract keeps me bubble wrapped, but if I get my soul back, not only will they strip the padding, they’ll start throwing knives at me. They’ll twist every decision I make and hurl it back at me. Every drink I take will be a public binge. Every relationship I get into will be a disaster played
out in full color on newsstands all over the world. Exes will sell stories and pictures to magazines.” She was pacing now, words falling from her lips almost faster than I could understand them. “The paparazzi will get shots of my mom all strung out. Hell, she’ll probably go to prison for buying narcotics online, or something like that. My dad’s DUIs will catch up with him, and without me to bail him out when he gets in over his head, his creditors will eat him alive. And I don’t even want to know what’ll happen to Regan. She just scored a role in a new tween drama. Her career will be over before it begins.”

Addison fell into the chair again and practically melted into the upholstery. “They’ll drive me crazy, and that will only fuel the media frenzy.”

I leaned back, trying to absorb it all. Trying to imagine my own life under the microscope, my every indiscretion on display. “Okay, yes, it sounds bad. But your parents dug their own holes, and you can’t hold yourself responsible when they fall in.” I popped open my own can and took a sip, still thinking. “Are poverty and embarrassment really worse than eternal torture?”

Addy shook her head halfheartedly. “No, and I know I probably deserve whatever I get. But Regan doesn’t, and neither does anyone else I wind up hurting.” She met my gaze, her pale blue eyes swimming in tears again. “Remember last year, when Thad Evans flipped his car? He killed two people and messed up his own face for good when he went through the windshield. Then he lost nearly everything he owned in lawsuits from the dead kids’ parents, and the rest of it to crooked accountants and lawyers. And what about—”

“Whoa, wait a minute.” I rubbed my temples with both hands, fighting off a headache from information overload as everything she’d told us finally began to sink in. “Are you saying that all the Dekker stars with wholesome images and squeaky-clean backgrounds are actually soulless human husks, and Hollywood’s bad boys and girls are really the good guys, because they got their souls back?”

She stared down into her can. “I wouldn’t exactly call them good guys for taking the out-clause.”

“What does that mean?” Nash pulled a throw pillow from behind his back, then dropped it on the floor beside the couch.

Addison glanced at Tod instead of answering. The reaper sighed and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and his focus shifted from Nash to me, then back to Nash. “There’s a little complication with the out-clause.”

My stomach churned. Something told me his definition of a “little complication” and mine wouldn’t have much in common.

“Addy doesn’t actually have a copy of her contract….”

“I was barely sixteen,” Addison interrupted, her cheeks flaming in embarrassment. “It never occurred to me to ask for a copy to keep.”

Nash scowled at her, hazel eyes swirling rapidly with mounting anger. “Or to actually read the damned thing before you signed it, I’m guessing.”

“Wait, isn’t sixteen too young to sign a contract without your mom’s permission?” I asked, hoping I’d just discovered a brilliant legal loophole.

Tod’s blue-eyed gaze seemed to darken. “The Netherworld considers humans adult once they hit puberty.”

I frowned. “That’s messed up.”

He shrugged. “It’s the Netherworld. And she had no idea she was entitled to a copy of her contract, and hellions aren’t known for explaining your rights up front.” He deliberately shifted his focus to me. “Anyway, I asked around a little bit today…”

The sick look on his face told me I didn’t want to know who he’d spoken to, or what he’d had to do for the information.

“…and if Addy’s contract reads like all the rest of them do—and I’m sure it does—her out-clause requires an exchange.”

“What?” I blinked, hoping I’d heard him wrong, or was misunderstanding something. “An exchange like my mom made? A life for a life?” The horror crawling through me had no equal. I rubbed my arms, trying to keep goose bumps at bay, but they rose, anyway.

“A soul for a soul,” Tod corrected, staring at the floor for a second before meeting my gaze again. “But basically, yes. Addy can only get her soul back by trading it for another one.”

“Wait…” Nash rubbed his forehead, like that might help the new information sink in. “Souls can’t be stolen. They can only be taken when someone dies, or given up freely by their owner.”

I searched Addison’s face, struggling with my own mounting nausea. “So, all those people you mentioned? They all had to kill someone to get their souls back?”

“Or recruit someone,” Tod said, twisting the tab on his can, as if unbothered by the new development.

“And you call that a
little
complication?”

Tod shrugged and glanced at Nash as if he wanted a second opinion. “I know we’re short on time, and I’d suggest steering clear of murder just to keep things simple, but I’m sure Addy knows someone looking for a quick career boost—”

“No!” she and I shouted in unison, shooting twin looks of horror at the reaper. “I can’t take the out-clause, Tod,” Addison continued. “Even if I were willing to throw my family to the wolves, I can’t put someone else in my position.”

“Would you rather die without your soul?” He looked irritated with her for the first time that I’d seen. Was he really ready to damn someone else to the Netherworld to save Addison?

Yes. I could see that in his eyes, in how they lit up every time she spoke. In the way his gaze never left her for long. He’d literally do anything for her, and that knowledge scared me almost as badly as the thought of traveling to the Netherworld.

“No,” she answered finally, spinning her can slowly on the coffee table. “That’s why I need your help. I need to get my soul back without using the out-clause.”

“Damn it!” Nash slammed his empty can down on the coffee table, his irises flashing with a confusion of angry colors.

“She’s right,” I said softly. Then I pinned Tod with my gaze. “I won’t help you lead another lamb to the slaughter. If we do this, we do it without the exchange.”

Tod scowled, and again his willingness to take the easy route chilled me. But then he glanced at the raw desperation on Addison’s face and nodded.

“Nash?” I took his hand and folded my fingers around his. “I understand if you want to back out.”

He exhaled heavily. “Like I can let you do this alone. I’m in.”

My relief was a bitter mercy. I didn’t want to do this any more than he did. But I wanted to do it without him even less.

“So…how do we start?” Addison glanced from me to Nash, then to Tod. “What can I do?”