Soul Screamers Volume Four: With All My Soul\Fearless\Niederwald\Last Request: 4 (57 page)

But I was pretty sure that wasn’t true. I couldn’t cross into the Netherworld on my own, and my brother went routinely. At least, he had until he’d stopped going to work.

In the back room, we stared through Angie’s long, tall glass case at an array of bizarre carnivorous plants, like nothing I’d ever seen. Yes, the human world has carnivorous plants—every kindergartner knows about the Venus flytrap—but the
vast
majority of those are only big enough to catch a housefly, thus the name, and while they do dissolve and devour living forms of protein for sustenance, they’re opportunists, not hunters. They don’t experience malice, or even hunger, in a truly predatory sense.

A Venus flytrap doesn’t “eat” until a fly lands in its “mouth” and gets trapped.

The monstrous versions Angie kept behind glass moved of their own volition, snapping at us as we stared through the case at them. Also, their serrated-leaf teeth looked razor-sharp.

“I’m not putting my hand in there,” I said, after about a minute and a half of serious contemplation. “That thing’s mouth is as big as my palm.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Tod tapped the center of the case, where a steel lock kept the doors from sliding open. “It’s locked.” One of the man-eaters—or hand-eaters, at least—rammed the glass where his finger was still pressed against it, and I laughed when Tod jumped back. I’d rarely ever seen a reaper startled.

“Relax. If they could break through the glass, she’d have them in something stronger. Right?”

Tod nodded, but looked far from sure. “Hey, what do you think she keeps he—” My brother yanked back a floor-to-ceiling red velvet curtain to reveal a single huge glass case, and the rest of his sentence faded in astonishment. “Holy shit.”

For several seconds, I could only stare, my slack jaw mirroring my brother’s. “What the hell
is
that?”

The plant was a single, seven-foot-tall green stalk, as thick as my bicep and as wide as my chest, covered in finger-width red spines. At the tip of every spine was a glistening, wet blob the size of a marble.

“It looks like a giant sundew.” Tod’s voice was soft with awe. “Those globs on the end of its spines are super-sticky. Nature’s version of flypaper.”

“Nature, my ass. There’s nothing natural about that thing. You’ve seen these before?”

“This? No.” He exhaled slowly and stepped closer to the case. “The ones here in the human world only grow a few inches high. A girl in my junior biology glass grew several for a science project. She fed them each a different kind of insect, to see which would grow tallest.”

“We have a winner...” I said, still staring at the gigantic plant in horrified astonishment. The pot holding it was three feet in diameter. “What do you think this thing eats?”

“The real question is ‘
Who
does it eat?’ I think Angie-the-florist has been up to no good.”

“‘Feed me, Seymour,’” I said, and Tod laughed uneasily, then pulled the curtain back into place.

“That thing’s creepy.”

“No argument here.” I turned back to the smaller case full of smaller plants. “Let’s go taunt the little man-eaters until it’s time to kick more ass.” Since Tod couldn’t keep us invisible or inaudible to a fellow reaper anyway, we had no reason to hide or be quiet.

He grinned. “Sounds like a plan.”

Minutes later, we were competing to see who could provoke the most plants into slamming themselves into the glass when metal creaked behind us. “Well, if it isn’t Cain and Abel.”

My pulse jumped and I spun to find Thane sitting on one of the florist’s prep tables, in the same black slacks and untucked white button-down he’d worn every time I’d seen him. He looked like a sloppy waiter. One who served only death and misery.

Dark hair fell over one eye as he smirked. “I see Angie’s having a sale—two jackasses for the price of one. And it’s not even my birthday. How are you boys getting along these days, without Ms. Cavanaugh to come between you?”

Tod sat on the edge of the table across from him and crossed his arms over his chest, and if he’d ever in his entire life been nervous or scared, I couldn’t tell it in that moment. My brother was born cool. He’d probably just grinned at the doctor who’d slapped his newborn butt. “Actually, we’re here on Kaylee’s behalf,” he said. “Tying up loose ends.”

Thane nodded, taking the announcement in stride. “I’m one of those ends?”

“The loosest,” I said, and the rogue reaper actually laughed.

“And Angie is...?”

“Indisposed.” I fought not to glance behind me at her office, where she was still hidden. “Our business is with you.”

“Are we gonna fight again? It’s been a while. I might need to limber up.” Thane extended one arm over his head and tugged on it with his opposite hand.

“No fighting,” I said. “We’re here to make a deal.”

Tod shot me an exaggerated frown. “That’s not what we agreed on. You’re kind of spoiling this for me.”

“Violence never solved anything,” I maintained, fully aware that my eyes were probably twisting with mirth.

“That’s not true!” Tod insisted, playing along. “Violence is the
cornerstone
of negotiation!”

“Hey, Orville and Wilbur, I don’t have all day.” Thane thought about that for a second, then shrugged. “Well, I do, really, but I’m not spending it here with The Brothers Dim, so get to the point. Are we killing each other or not?”

“Actually, we were going to offer you a chance to continue with your miserable farce of an afterlife,” Tod said. “In exchange for one of the souls you stole.”

Thane snorted. “You couldn’t kill me if you tried.” As far as I knew, the only things powerful enough to revoke a reaper’s afterlife were a reaper with true authority—like Levi—or a hellion, and the process required actual physical contact. “But I
am
curious. What do you want with a black-market soul? Are you two dabbling on the dark side?”

“We don’t want just any soul,” I said. “We want Darcy Cavanaugh.”

“Darcy...?” Thane frowned, then comprehension brightened his dark eyes. “Wow, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. So...what? You two are trying to save your dead lover’s dead mother? What’s in it for you? It’s not like Kaylee’s around to show either of you how grateful she is.”

“You don’t get to say her name.” Tod’s voice was as dark and still as the grave, and chill bumps popped up the length of my body. “You don’t ever,
ever
get to say her name.”

Thane scowled. “Hey, I’m not happy about the way that went down, either, assuming the rumors are true. She forfeited her own afterlife? What kind of horseshit martyrdom is that? Do you have any idea what an undead
bean sidhe’s
soul would have been worth on the black market?”

Tod’s jaw was clenched so tight I was afraid he’d break a tooth, so I jumped in before he could lose it. “I’m going to say this simply, so even you can understand, Thane. Give us Darcy’s soul, and we part ways peacefully. Hold out on us—or smirk at me
one more time
—and we beat you into a pile of blood and bones, then turn you over to Levi for expulsion from the afterlife.” I shrugged. “I don’t really care which one you pick. I know saving an innocent soul is
probably
the right thing to do, but beating on you for a while sounds like fun, too, and I’m not exactly known for my stellar decision-making skills.”

Thane crossed his arms over his chest. “And if I just blink out of here right now?”

I shook my head slowly, in mock concern over his stupidity. “My brother has nothing but time. He’ll
find
you, and along the way, he’ll report every client you have to the reclamation department and spread word that
you
sold them out. We all know the Netherworld’s not safe for you anymore, since you stole those souls from Avari, and if you piss us off, the human world won’t be safe for you, either.” I gave him another shrug. “Your call.”

“For the next minute and a half,” Tod added. “Then I make the decision for you.”

For several seconds, Thane stared back and forth between us, thinking, his expression carefully blank. The only sound was the occasional thud from the glass case behind me, where Netherworld flytraps as big as my forearm continued to attack the glass separating us from them.

“Okay, you’ve clearly put some thought into this, so I almost hate to disappoint you,” Thane said at last. “But I don’t have Darcy’s soul.”

“Bullshit,” Tod spat. “If you’d sold it, it would have been devoured years ago, and the bit of Aiden’s soul that was wound up with it would have returned to him. He’d be whole again. But he’s not, so Darcy’s soul’s still intact and suffering. Which means you never sold it.”

“You’re right about that,” Thane said. “But I don’t have it. If I did, I’d tell you, so you’d know I’m the one dangling the carrot in front of your face.” He shrugged, his arms still crossed over his wrinkled white shirt. “But I
don’t
have it, and I don’t know where it is, and wreaking havoc with my customer base isn’t going to change that.”

“What happened to the soul, Thane?” Tod demanded, each word so low-pitched and steady that the question seemed to come from within my own head.

“I’m gonna give you the scoop for free, out of respect for our honored profession,” Thane said, and that time I snorted. I’d never met a reaper with less honor. Thane would cooperate—up to a point—in the interest of self-preservation. “I held onto Darcy’s soul for a while after I took it, letting it appreciate. Two or three years. Maybe four. Time starts to run together after a while.” The rogue reaper picked up a clipped rose stem and began systematically breaking off the thorns. “Have you noticed that yet, or are you still too young?”

“Each minute is like a year,” Tod said, and I wasn’t sure whether that was a yes or a no, but Thane seemed to understand.

“Yeah. Anyway, about a decade back, I entered into an ill-advised business dealing with some folks I didn’t know well enough to trust. Not that anyone’s truly trustworthy in the black market, but these guys...well, they made off with everything they could carry. Including Darcy’s soul.”

“You got robbed?” I laughed. Coming from an infamous thief of souls, the irony was too sweet.

“I wouldn’t characterize it as a robbery, so much as a snatching. And it was definitely a crime of impulse. I could see their eyes growing wider and wider with every item I put in front of them. I thought I was about to make a big sale.” Thane shrugged, and I could see the humiliation he tried to hide behind a casual delivery. “Instead, when I turned for my inventory chart, they grabbed everything they could carry, then flew off.”

“They
flew
off?” Surely he didn’t mean that literally. Unless the robbery took place in the Netherworld.

“Snatching?” Tod seemed to be tasting the word, and I could practically hear the gears turning in his head. “You got robbed by harpies.”

Thane shrugged again, and this time the gesture looked stiff. “Turns out they have a different interpretation of ‘free enterprise.’ Emphasis on the ‘free.’”

“What would harpies want with human souls?” I glanced from one reaper to the next, frustrated by my own ignorance. “Can they even use them?”

“They didn’t want the souls, did they?” Tod said, still pinning Thane with his gaze, and I frowned with the realization that my brother had figured out more than I had. “They just wanted the pretty trinkets. That’s why Darcy’s soul’s still intact.”

Thane huffed. “Harpies like shiny things. Who knew?”

“Everyone.” My brother’s dark blond brows rose over deep blue eyes. “Everyone knows that.”

I hadn’t known. I’d never even
seen
a harpy, so I covered the gap in my Netherworld education with another question. “Who were they? Did you get any names?”

“What was her soul in? What kind of bauble?” Tod demanded, and I could practically see his patience draining, like water swirling down the sink.

Thane’s grin morphed into a satisfied smirk. “I’ve been about as helpful as I plan to be today, boys. Happy hunting.”

Before the rogue reaper could blink out, Tod lunged forward and grabbed his wrist, below his rolled-up sleeve. My brother’s left fist was a blur of motion as it slammed into Thane’s jaw. Thane stumbled backward, but Tod refused to let go, even as he turned to me with a wicked grin of his own. “He smirked. You warned him about the smirking.”

Thane recovered his balance quickly and jerked free from Tod’s grasp. When I tried to grab him, to keep him from blinking out without us, his fist crashed into my ribs. I sucked in a stunned breath and was already swinging when Tod landed another blow to the reaper’s face.

I grabbed Thane’s wrists while he was still hunched in pain and pulled his arms behind him. “Get something to tie him up with.” We had to remain in physical contact to keep him from blinking away, and that’d be easier if he couldn’t fight.

“Who were these harpies?” I demanded, while Tod opened drawers and cabinets in Angie’s back room, and the reaper cursed and tried to pull free from my grasp. “There’s duct tape in the office!” I reminded him, then turned back to Thane. “Where do they—?”

Thane jerked free and swung on me. I ducked and he missed, then I buried my fist in his stomach. The reaper stumbled back and I pressed forward, shoving one of Angie’s folding tables out of my way. Thane panted and tried to stand, and I swung on him again; if he had a chance to catch his breath, we’d lose him.

Thane blocked my blow and threw one of his own, but it only glanced across my chin. When he stood, I shoved him backward. The rogue reaper crashed into the red curtain, and glass shattered.

Tod appeared in the doorway just as the curtain ripped free from its rod and the front of the case behind it broke into several large chunks of glass, which lodged in the fallen curtain and shattered into even smaller pieces on the concrete floor at our feet.

Thane gasped, then grunted. When he tried to pick himself up, he fell through the case and his back hit the front of the giant sundew plant. For a moment, he just hung there, snagged on the marble-size blobs of “dew” at the end of the sundew’s spines.

Then he started struggling.