With All My Soul (15 page)

My parents
had
to be the most
romantic couple in history, which would have been mind-blowingly cool...if their
love story didn’t have the most tragic ending ever.

Chapter Thirteen

We stood in pairs, holding hands in front of Lakeside,
the mental health ward attached to the hospital where Tod and Harmony both
worked, one to treat people, the other to kill them. Holding hands was the only
way Harmony and Sabine could keep my uncle and Nash invisible.

Tod and I just...didn’t want to let go.

“I hate this place,” I said, and Tod squeezed my hand.
“Something tells me it’ll only be worse on the other side of the world
barrier.”

Again, no one argued.

“So, what?” Nash said, staring up at the three-story building.
“We cross over first, then head into the basement? Or we blink into the
basement, then cross over?”

In truth, there were risks either way. “I vote for blinking in,
then crossing over, because once we cross over, there can be no blinking.”

“Good point,” my uncle said.

I let go of Tod and held my hands out to Nash and Uncle
Brendon, while Tod took his mother’s hand and Sabine’s. A second later, we all
six stood in the basement of the mental health building, and I wished I’d
thought to bring a flashlight. If the basement had ever been in common use, I
couldn’t tell from the dripping water, dank smell, and almost total absence of
light.

Sabine pulled her cell phone from her pocket and turned on a
flashlight app, but I realized quickly that I didn’t want to see any of what she
was showing me, even in the human world. With some additional light from our
cell phones, we found the largest room of the basement—there were only a few of
them—and decided that would be the best place to cross over. Even if my dad
wasn’t actually in that room, if Avari had an audience, or even just a few
current victims to play with, he’d probably like room to spread out.

Ira hadn’t actually told me that Avari was
with
my dad at Lakeside, but planning for anything less than the
worst-case scenario would have been foolish.

We split into our pairs again and agreed that Tod and I would
cross over first, to capture Avari’s attention. Then the other pairs would cross
over in two different areas of the basement, to increase their chances of
finding my dad quickly. Instead of walking around in the Netherworld version of
the basement, as soon as they’d determined that a room didn’t contain my father,
they would cross back to the human world, go to another room, then cross over
and search again. That would surely decrease the chances of them being
caught.

Sabine and Nash had instructions to cross back to the human
world immediately if they ran into something they couldn’t handle or if either
of them got hurt. Tod and I were given the same instructions, but I dismissed
them immediately. I had no plans to leave the Netherworld without my father.

My uncle seemed to realize that. He pulled me aside and took
both of my hands, staring straight into my eyes, though he couldn’t possibly
have seen them very well in the dark basement. “Kaylee, please be careful.”

“I’m always careful.”

Nash laughed out loud.

“Okay, I always
try
to be careful.”
But the truth was that “careful” doesn’t always get the job done. If you’re not
willing to risk everything you have and everything you are for those you love,
what’s the point in living? Er, in my case, not living? My afterlife wouldn’t be
worth having without my friends and my family, and I wasn’t going to let Avari
take any more of them from me. From the rest of us.

“Just...don’t do anything heroic, okay?”

I nodded. I had no plans to take crazy risks. I just wanted my
dad back.

My uncle must have seen some of that in my eyes, because he
turned to Tod next. “If this goes bad, get her out of there.”

Tod nodded. “Count on it.”

He and I took up a position near the outermost wall of the
large basement, not so close to the cinder blocks that anything growing on them
could reach for us, but close enough that we were unlikely to suddenly appear in
the middle of a crowd. Or a piece of furniture.

My palms were starting to sweat. Tod took my hand and squeezed
it. “It’s going to be okay, Kaylee,” he whispered. “One way or another.”

I let him cross us both over so I wouldn’t risk losing touch
with him in the process.

When I opened my eyes in the Netherworld, I was nearly blinded.
Not that the light was that bright, but after the darkness of the human-world
basement, any light shining in my eyes was a shock to my system. I stood as
still as possible while my eyes adjusted, clutching Tod’s hand, and the first
thing I noticed when I could see again was that the light was
dancing.
Shadows jumped and stretched. Light flickered
over grimy cinder-block walls, odds-and-ends furniture, and an assortment of
bizarre creatures sitting, standing, and lounging all over the large room.

Candles.
Avari had lit his creepy
basement lair with hundreds of tiny candles, unlike any I’d ever seen. Tiny
flames licked the air from shallow, irregularly shaped bowls of thick liquid,
but I couldn’t see a single wick. The liquid itself was on fire.

Tod squeezed my hand, and I nodded in silent acknowledgment
that yes, I saw it. I saw it
all.
I wasn’t willing
to speak or move, because no one had noticed us yet—an advantage I hadn’t
expected but intended to use.

The reason no one had noticed us yet was that they were all
busy noticing some kind of bloody spectacle at the other end of the room, where
one large creature appeared to be systematically devouring another, slightly
smaller creature, complete with a disturbing array of
crunchslurpgulp
noises.

I gagged, then slapped my free hand over my mouth to hold back
the lunch I now regretted eating.

Tod squeezed my hand again, and I sucked in a deep, silent
breath to calm myself, mostly out of habit. I didn’t really need to breathe
anymore. I made myself scan the large room, my gaze stumbling over misshapen
limbs, backward-bending joints, and more kinds of horns, scaly wings, and
twitching tails than I could even count. But I saw no sign of my father.

I decided no sign was a good sign.

“Find what you’re looking for, little
bean
sidhe?
” Avari’s voice crawled over me like an army of spiders
marching beneath my skin, and as I turned to find him watching us from the
nearest corner, a series of soft shuffles, scratches—like claws on concrete—and
the whisper of fabrics I couldn’t identify told me that everyone else in the
room was now watching us, too.

I didn’t look at them. I couldn’t without losing my
composure—just knowing they were there was bad enough. I’d been in a larger
Netherworld crowd, once, but I’d hidden my fear and mortality behind a mask.
This time I was exposed, no longer mortal, but as vulnerable as ever.

I might have been full of rage earlier, but standing there,
surrounded by at least two dozen Nether-creatures, any one of whom would gladly
snap off my head and suck out my insides, it was hard to focus on anything more
than my own paralyzing fear.

I swallowed, then let go of Tod’s hand. That gesture of
independence wouldn’t hide my fear, but hopefully it would expose my spine.
“Where’s my dad?”

Avari stalked closer, and it was obvious from his smooth,
menacing gait that he was pleased to have me back on his turf, where my options
were limited—in the Netherworld, I couldn’t become invisible, inaudible, or
incorporeal. The hellion looked just like he had the first time I’d seen him.
Tall, with dark hair and a dark suit that would have looked normal in any
accountant’s office in the human world but looked absurdly out of place in the
seething pit of bizarrely shaped evil that was the Netherworld.

His featureless black orb eyes seemed to be watching me as he
stalked closer, but I couldn’t be sure with no irises or pupils to indicate the
direction of his focus. “I’ve put your father away for safekeeping.”

“I want him back.”

“Of course you do.” He stopped and clasped his hands behind his
back. “And you know the price. Have you come to discuss the terms of your
surrender?”

“Yes.”

Avari actually chuckled. “Hellions cannot lie, but we are all
fully aware that little dead
bean sidhes
can. So I
assume you understand my disinclination to take you at your word.”

“Whatever.” On the edge of my vision, something slithered
closer, and chills crawled over my skin. “Here are my terms.” I would ask for
the world. It didn’t matter whether or not he agreed—what mattered was that I
kept him talking. “First, send my father home. Second, swear you’ll never
attempt to contact any of my friends and family ever again, through any means.
Third, swear that you’ll stay away from my school and all of its students, past,
present, and future. And the staff. When you’ve done all of that to my
satisfaction, I’ll hand over my immortal soul. That’s what you want, right?”

He needed me to give him my soul of my own free will. With it
in his possession, I could not escape. Ever.

“Surrender your soul, and you have my word that your father
will be returned to the human world.”

“You first.” A tentacle slithered past his foot, headed in my
direction from the crowd at his back, and I had to concentrate to still my
pounding heart before he heard that evidence of my terror. “And that’s only my
first demand.”
Stand strong, Kaylee.
I couldn’t
afford to let him see anything but confidence. And anger. “You’re not getting
what you want until I have everything
I
want.
Starting with my father’s return.”

“Immediately,” Tod said from my side. “Unharmed.”

Avari lifted one dark brow. “Even I cannot undo what has been
done to the living. But if you’d like me to kill him, I can then return his
undead form to its previous glory. Of course, he would have to remain
here....”

“No. Send him back as unharmed as possible, physically,
psychologically, mentally, and in any other states of health I may be
forgetting.” That tentacle still moved in my peripheral vision, but I resisted
the urge to actually look at it. “And I want your word that you won’t try to
hurt him again. Ever.”

Odd breathy titters and deep beastly grunts echoed from the
crowd at the hellion’s back, and another chill ran through me when I realized I
was hearing monstrous sounds of amusement.

“You aren’t in the position to make so many demands, Ms.
Cavanaugh.”

“The hell I’m not. I am in possession of my own soul, and we
both know you’ll do anything to get it. So give me your word, or I’m out of
here.”

“Little
bean sidhe,
your lies are
transparent.” Avari was on the move again, pacing in front of his assembled
audience, stepping over tails and through trails of sludge I hoped never to
identify, and I could no longer ignore the dozens of eyes, ears, and assorted
snouts and muzzles aimed my way. “You would never abandon your father to torture
and eventual death. To be followed by yet more torture. I don’t understand that
about you, but I don’t doubt it in the slightest.”

“I never said I’d abandon him. But if I surrender without your
word, you’ll torture him anyway, which means I’m better off retreating and
regrouping.”

Avari scowled. I could practically see him searching for a
loophole in what I’d told him to swear. He wanted my soul, most of all, but if
he could find a way to keep my father, he would. And if he got Tod in the
bargain, too, well...he
was
a hellion of
greed.

But I’d left no wiggle room.

“It’s your turn to talk,” Tod said when several seconds had
elapsed in pensive, angry silence from the hellion. “Negotiation is like playing
tennis with words instead of balls. I thought you’d be better at this,
considering your apparent lack of balls.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or tell Tod to quit poking the
lion with a stick.

Avari’s blank gaze narrowed on him, and the hellion gestured to
a nearby cluster of those weird candles. “Human fat puts off a nice glow, don’t
you think?”

I stared at the fiery, viscous substance, fresh horror crawling
beneath my skin.

Human fat. Taken from human beings. Dead humans, hopefully, but
thanks to Avari’s fondness for torture, I couldn’t be sure of that.

“Take a nice, long look at your future, reaper. You’ll soon be
burning as fuel for hundreds of tiny fires.”

Tod laughed out loud. “If that’s your way of saying I’m hot,
rest assured, I already know.” He spread his arms, inviting Avari and his
monstrous court to look him over. “But I’m going to have to keep lighting up the
room with my dazzling personality, because you couldn’t scrape enough fat off me
to fill even one of your sick-ass human candles. And, based on the crowd behind
you, I’m guessing most of your friends look better in the dark anyway.”

The hellion’s eyes narrowed. His rage-filled voice slid over me
like a blade under light pressure, constantly threatening to draw blood.
“Someday soon, reaper, your mouth will be the source of your own
destruction.”

“That does seem likely, doesn’t it?” Tod glanced at me and
shrugged. “Until then, it remains a source of my own amusement.”

“So are you ready to send my father back, or should I pack up
my soul and go home?”

Avari’s gaze fell on me with malevolent focus, and I remembered
every time he’d come after me. Every life he’d destroyed to get to me. He
wouldn’t stop until he had what he wanted, and when I slipped through his grip
again this time, he would only get hungrier. Angrier. More desperate, but no
less focused.

His rage made him more dangerous. Mine tended to make me
stupid. Ira was right about that.

“Fine. Once we’ve come to an agreement, your father will suffer
no further and I will return him to the human world immediately—after I take
possession of your soul.”