My Soul to Take (23 page)

“S
OPHIE
?” M
Y FATHER
stood and turned toward her without a single glance my way. “Wow, you look just like your mother, except for your eyes. Those are Brendon’s eyes—I’d lay my life on it.” If he’d looked at me, he’d have seen her fate. I was sure of it. But he didn’t look.

Even Nash was watching my cousin.

Fear and adrenaline sent a painful jolt through my chest, and I gripped the edge of the countertop. “Sophie…” I whispered with as much volume as I could muster, desperate to warn her before the panic kicked in for real. But no one heard me.

Sophie picked herself up with more grace than I’d ever wielded in my life, brushing off the front of the dark, slim dress she’d worn to the memorial. “Uncle Aiden.” She pasted on a weary smile, to match red-rimmed eyes, polite even in the grip of grief. “And Nash. Two of my favorite men in the same room.”

For once, I barely registered the flames of jealousy her claim should have lit within me, because the inside of my throat had begun to burn viciously. Yes, I often wanted to shut her up, but not
permanently.

“Dad!” I rasped, still clinging to the countertop for support, but again, no one noticed me.

Except Sophie.

“What’s wrong with her?” My cousin clacked into the dining room in her dress shoes, hands propped on narrow, pointy hips. “Kaylee, you look like you’re gonna throw up in your…What is that?” She eyed the half-used brick of Velveeta. “Mac and cheese?”

Nash turned to me so fast he nearly lost his balance. “Kaylee?” But I could only watch him, my jaws already clenched against the wail for my cousin’s soul. “Again?” I nodded, and he pulled me close, already whispering words I couldn’t concentrate on, his rough cheek scratchy against mine.

“Kay?” My father whirled toward me a second behind Nash, and a look of horror slid over his features when he recognized the look on mine. He followed my gaze to my cousin slowly, as if afraid of what he’d see. “Sophie?” he asked, and I nodded, gritting my teeth so hard pain shot through my temples. “How long?”

I shook my head. I’d had no idea my ability came with a built in time gauge, much less how to use it.

“Brendon!” my father shouted, his focus locked on me.

Sophie flinched, then stepped forward to see me better, leaning over the back of a dining-room chair, her eerily shadowed forehead wrinkled in confusion.

Nash was still whispering to me, holding me tight with his back to the stove. His lips brushed my ear, his words gliding over me with a soothing breath of Influence, helping me hold the panic in check. I breathed deeply, trying to hold back the looming wail as I stared over his shoulder, my focus glued to my oddly darkened cousin.

“What’s going on?” Sophie gripped the high back of the chair in both hands, and her gaze met mine. “She’s freaking
out again, isn’t she? Mom keeps that shrink’s number around here somewhere.” She started toward the kitchen, but my father put out one arm to stop her.

“No, Sophie.” He glanced toward the hall and shouted, “Brendon! Get out here!” Then he turned back to his niece. “Kaylee will be fine.”

“No, she won’t.” Sophie shook her head and tugged her arm from his grasp, green eyes wide. Her concern felt genuine. I think she was actually afraid for me. Or maybe afraid
of
me. “I know you’re worried about her, but she needs serious help, Uncle Aiden. Something’s wrong with her. I told them this would happen again, but no one ever listens to me. They should have let that doctor give her shock therapy.”

“Sophie…” My dad’s shoulders tensed, his expression caught between fear and anger. He was going to set her straight—except that Nash beat him to it.

“Damn it, Sophie, she’s trying to help you, and you…” He whirled on her, eyes churning furiously. But the moment he stepped away from me, the panic descended in full force. I pulled him back by one arm, and Nash’s look of surprise melted into understanding, and he resumed whispering, as if he’d never stopped.

Footsteps pounded down the hall and I opened my eyes to see Uncle Brendon stumble to a halt in the middle of the living room. He looked from me to my dad, then followed my father’s gaze to Sophie. As I watched, my uncle’s features crumpled in an agony so complete, so encompassing, that I could barely stand to see it.

For several seconds, no one moved, as if afraid that the slightest twitch would draw the reaper out of hiding and bring about the inevitable conclusion. Sophie glanced from one of us to the next in total confusion. Then my father sighed, and
the soft sound seemed to reach every corner of the wide-open living area. “Are you okay?” he asked, and I nodded unsteadily. I wasn’t the one facing death. Not yet, anyway.

“What’s going on?” Sophie demanded, shattering the quiet like a gunshot at a funeral. But no one answered. She was the source of all the trouble, yet no one even looked at her. For once, everyone was looking at me.

“Is it Sophie?” Uncle Brendon asked, walking slowly toward us, as if it hurt to move. His voice was barely audible over the unvoiced scream already reverberating in my head. I nodded, and his eyes closed as he inhaled deeply, then exhaled. “Are you sure?” He had to open his eyes to see me nod again, then the line of his jaw hardened. “Will you help me?” he asked, pain twisting his features into a mask I barely recognized. “I swear I won’t let her take you.”

Unfortunately, after my father’s story, I wasn’t sure Uncle Brendon would have any control over who the reaper took instead. Any reaper who would reap a soul not on the list wouldn’t think twice about taking the
bean sidhe
who got in her way. Or everyone else in the room, for that matter.

But I couldn’t just let Sophie die, even if she was a royal pain in the butt most of the time.

“What are you all talking about?” My cousin glanced at each of us in turn, like we’d all lost our minds, and sanity was getting lonely. “What’s going on?”

Uncle Brendon crossed the living room in four huge steps and motioned to his daughter to join him on the couch. She went reluctantly, and he pulled her down onto the center cushion. “Honey, I have to tell you something, and I don’t have time for the long, gentle version.” He took Sophie’s hands, and my chest ached with what could only be the splintering of my heart.

“You’re going to die in a few minutes,” he said. Sophie frowned, but her father rushed on before she could interrupt. “But I don’t want you to worry, because Kaylee and I are going to bring you right back. You’ll be fine. I’m not sure what’ll happen after that, but what I need you to know is that you’re going to be
just fine.
”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Confusion pinched Sophie’s fine features into a scowl, and I could see panic lurking on the edge of her expression. Her world had just ceased making sense, and she didn’t know what to do with information she couldn’t understand. I knew exactly how she felt. “Why would I die? And what on earth can Kaylee do about it?”

Uncle Brendon shook his head. “We don’t have time for all that now. I don’t know how long we have, so I need you to trust me. I
will
bring you back.”

Sophie nodded, but she looked terrified, as much for her father as for herself. She probably thought he’d gone over the proverbial deep end and was now drowning in it. She glared at me over his shoulder, as if I’d somehow contaminated him with my mental defect, but I couldn’t summon any irritation toward my cousin—not with her moments from death.

“Noooo.”

Every head in the room swiveled toward the hall, where Aunt Val now stood, clutching the door frame as if that were the only thing holding her up. “It wasn’t supposed to be Sophie.”

“What?” Uncle Brendon stood so fast the motion made
me
dizzy. He stared at his wife in dawning horror. “Valerie, what did you
do?
”

Aunt Val?
What did she have to do with grim reapers and
bean sidhes?
She was human!

Before my aunt could answer, a fresh wave of grief rolled
over me and I staggered on my feet. Nash caught me before I hit the dining-room table and lowered me carefully into one of the chairs. It wouldn’t be long now.

Sophie started to tremble then, and the very sight of her sent tremors through my own limbs. Anguish racked me from the inside out. My heart felt too big for my chest. My throat burned like I was breathing flames.

But beyond the physical pain of holding back Sophie’s soul song, I felt my cousin’s loss intensely, though the reaper had yet to strike. It was like watching my own hand laid out on a chopping block, knowing the woodsman was coming for it. Knowing I’d never get it back. And it didn’t matter that we’d never been close. I wasn’t in love with my feet either, but I didn’t want to lose them.

“Mom?” Sophie squeaked, shifting her weight from one side to the other as she hugged herself. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t worry, honey,” Aunt Val said from the middle of the living-room carpet, her focus darting all over the place, like a junkie on a bad trip. “I won’t let her take you.” She paused, without ever looking at her daughter, and threw her head back as far as it would go, blond waves cascading down her back almost to her waist.

“Marg!” she shouted, and I flinched. My hands gripped the chair arms as I tried to regain my control after she’d nearly shaken it lose. “I know you’re here, Marg!”

Marg?
I hadn’t told Aunt Val about seeing the reaper, or that she was, in fact, female. And I hadn’t even known the reaper’s name. Until now.

And suddenly I understood. Aunt Val knew the reaper’s name because she had hired her.

No!
Denial and devastation pinged through me. I couldn’t believe it. Aunt Val was the only mother I’d known for the past
thirteen years. She loved me, and she certainly loved Sophie and Uncle Brendon. She would never do business with a reaper, much less bargain with the souls of the innocent.

But the drinking, and the questions…She’d known all along why the girls were dying!

“This wasn’t part of the deal!” my aunt screamed, hands clenched into fists, shaking in either fear or fury. Or both. “Show yourself, you coward! You can’t
do
this!”

But that’s where she was so very wrong.

A
UNT
V
AL’S SHRIEK
had yet to fade from my ears when Sophie’s legs collapsed beneath her. As she fell, she smacked the back of her head on the edge of an end table. She hit the floor with a muffled thud, and blood trickled from her hair to stain the white carpet.

Neither of her parents saw. Uncle Brendon was scanning the bright room obsessively, as if the reaper might be hiding behind an armchair, or in one of the potted plants. Aunt Val still stared at the ceiling, shouting for Marg to appear and explain herself.

As if reapers hailed from above.

But the moment Sophie died, her soul song forced itself from my throat, and I nearly choked, trying to hold it back out of habit.

Aunt Val noticed me retching and whirled around to look for her daughter. “No!” she screamed, and I’d never heard a human voice come so close to my own screech until that moment.

She dropped to her knees on the floor. “Wake up, Sophie.” She stroked loose blond curls back from her daughter’s face, and her fingers came away smeared with blood. “Marg,
fix this!
This wasn’t the deal!”

“Sophie!” Uncle Brendon joined his wife beside his daughter’s lifeless body, as Nash and I looked on in horror, too shocked to move. Then my uncle looked at me over his wife’s shoulder, but I couldn’t understand what he wanted. I was too busy holding back the scream.

Nash dropped into a squat by my chair and took my hands, his gaze piercing mine with quiet strength and intensity. “Let it out,” he whispered. “Show us her soul so we can guide it.”

So I sang for Sophie.

I sang for a soul taken before its time, for a young life lost. For childless parents, and for a girl who would never get to decide who and what she wanted to be. For my cousin, my surrogate sister, whose quick tongue would never be tempered by age and experience.

As I screamed, the lights dimmed, though I could see no noticeable difference in any one bulb. The entire room began to gray, like the gym had earlier, and I glanced hesitantly around the room, suddenly terrified of finding dark, misshapen creatures skulking around my own house.

There were none to be found. I was clearly seeing the Netherworld, but it was…empty, somehow.

But even more disconcerting than that was the sound. Or rather, the
absence
of sound. While I sang, I heard nothing else around me, as if someone had pushed the mute button on some cosmic remote control. After a few seconds, I couldn’t even hear myself scream, though I knew from the fire in my throat and lungs that I was, in fact, still screeching at the top of my inhuman lungs.

Nash stayed with me, his fingers linked through mine on the arm of the dining-room chair, completely unbothered by the ungodly screech clawing its way from my mouth. My father stood still, staring at my cousin’s soul, a pale, pink-tinged
amorphous shape hovering several feet above her body, bobbing like a kite tethered to the ground in a brisk wind.

Her soul had risen higher than Emma’s had, and some part of me understood that that was my fault. Because Nash had to prompt me to release the wail for Sophie.

Uncle Brendon stood with his arms stiff at his sides, his hands fisted, exposed forearms bulging with great effort. I couldn’t see his face, but I imagined it looked like Nash’s, when he’d guided Emma’s soul: red and tense, and damp with sweat.

Aunt Val had collapsed over her daughter, crying inconsolably now. She was the only one in the room who couldn’t see Sophie’s soul, and some distant part of me found that unbearably tragic.

Uncle Brendon’s shoulders fell, and he turned to me in exhaustion. “Hold her,” he mouthed, and I nodded, still screaming. I would do my best, but my throat was still sore from singing Emma’s song that afternoon, and I wasn’t sure how long I could hold on to Sophie.

My uncle gestured to my father. I didn’t catch all of what he said, but the gist of it was clear: he couldn’t do it alone. For some reason, he couldn’t budge his daughter’s soul.

My dad nodded, and they both turned back to Sophie, working together now.

Aunt Val knelt with her hand on her daughter’s sternum, facing the rest of the room. But she wasn’t looking at any of us. She was talking, evidently, to the room in general. Her face was splotched with tears, and flushed with both grief and guilt. I couldn’t understand much of what she said, but I made out two words based on the familiar motion of her lips.

“Take me.”

And then I got it. She was talking to the reaper—Marg—begging her to spare Sophie’s life in exchange for her own.

And that’s when everything changed. The feel of the room abruptly
shifted,
as if all the angles had changed, the proportions recalibrated. It was like watching a movie with the screen ratio all messed up.

A slim, dark figure appeared in the middle of the weird-looking living room, only feet from my father and uncle, across the room from Sophie’s body.

I recognized her instantly from Meredith’s memorial. Marg. She still wore the same long black sweater, cut to accentuate her slight figure, and soft ballet-style slippers, now half-sunk into my aunt’s thick pile carpet.

The reaper spared me a glance and frowned, then dismissed me and turned toward Aunt Val. I could see only a sliver of the reaper’s face now, but that was plenty. “Are you sure?” she asked, her voice like molten metal, smooth and slow-flowing, but hot enough to singe at a touch.

I was so surprised to hear her that I almost stopped singing, and Sophie’s soul began to drift toward Marg. Then Nash squeezed my hand and my voice strengthened. Sophie’s soul steadied once more.

The reaper didn’t seem to notice. She was watching my aunt, who was saying something else I couldn’t hear. I could only hear Marg, which meant the reaper hadn’t forgotten about me—that for some reason, she wanted me to hear what she was saying.

Aunt Val nodded firmly in response to the reaper’s question, her lips moving rapidly.

The reaper studied her for a moment, then shook her head, and what little I could see of her mouth curved into a slow, malicious smile. “Your soul will not suffice,” Marg said, her voice trailing over me with an almost physical presence. “You promised Belphegore young, beautiful souls, and like your body, your soul is aging and blemished. She will not accept it.”

My aunt was speaking again, gesturing angrily, and her husband flinched all over at something she said, fists still clenched in effort. Again I desperately wished I could hear both sides of the argument.

“We reached no agreement on the specific souls to be harvested,” the reaper said, and chills popped up on my arms. Just listening to her was going to kill me. “I have collected the first four, in spite of piddling interference from your young minions—”

Minions?
She did
not
just call me a minion!

“—and I’ll have the fifth when I tire of this game. I will have your money, Belphegore will have her souls, and you will have youth and beauty like you never imagined.”

Youth?
Aunt Val had hired a reaper to poach innocent souls in exchange for her youth? Could anyone truly be so vain?

Aunt Val was shouting now, the veins standing out in her slim neck. But Marg only laughed. “I am in possession of four young, strong souls, and while I hold them, half a dozen
bean sidhes
couldn’t take this one from me.” To demonstrate, she waved one hand in the air, palm up. Pain ripped through my chest, and Sophie’s soul rose a foot higher in spite of my song and the efforts of my father and uncle to guide it.

Nash stood then, and added his best to the group effort, his face flushing with the strain.

Sophie’s soul bobbed, then sank slightly, but would go no farther.

The reaper whirled around then, turning her back on my aunt to focus her fury on me and Nash. “You…”

I shook harder with each step she took toward me, and my voice began to warble. I was losing it, and once the wail faded, there would be no soul for the men to guide.

“Something is…” Her sweater flared out at the sides as she
walked, giving her a larger, more intimidating presence than her small frame should have carried. Then her eyes narrowed as she studied me from mere feet away, while my heart tripped its way through a few more terrified beats. Her slow smile returned. “You live someone else’s life. Belphegore would surely love a taste of your borrowed life force. If you want to see the next day’s sun, shut your mouth and release that soul. Otherwise, your family will watch me feed you your own tongue before I take your soul in place of hers.”

Her depraved smile broadened, and the sight of such normal, even white teeth in such a vicious face sent chills through me. “And you will die in perfect silence, little one. There is no one left to sing your soul song.”

“I will sing for her.” The voice was soft and lyrical, and as eerie in the odd silence as the reaper’s was. My head swiveled toward the source.

Tod stood in front of the closed front door. His feet were spread for an even stance, hands fisted at his sides, jaw clenched in fury. He looked ready to do battle with the devil himself, but Tod’s voice didn’t match the one I’d heard.

Someone stepped out from behind him, and my pulse raced in hope. Harmony Hudson. Nash’s mother. And she looked
pissed.

“Can you hear me, hon?” she asked, and I nodded, so grateful for her presence that I didn’t think to question how she’d known she was needed. “Your voice is fadin’, but I can sing all night.” She faced Marg then, and seemed to stand taller. “You’re not leaving with her soul. Or the other one’s either,” she said, glancing at Sophie’s soul where it still bobbed sluggishly in the air over her body.

Marg hissed like an angry cat, mouth open, teeth exposed, and for a moment I thought she’d swipe at Nash’s mother
with a set of retractable claws. Then she seemed to collect herself. “You’ll fare no better than the child,” Marg purred, slinking toward the entryway slowly. “It will take more than three of your men to steal from me while I hold four strong souls in reserve.”

“How ’bout four men?” Tod said through clenched teeth. He glanced at me, then at Nash, who nodded, giving him the go-ahead for something I didn’t understand. Then Tod closed his eyes in concentration, and Sophie’s soul bobbed a bit lower.

My eyes widened. Tod was a reaper. Yet he was very clearly helping the others guide Sophie’s soul.

Marg’s eyes went dark with fury, and she whirled to face Sophie, clearly intent on taking her before she lost her chance.

And that’s when my voice died.

“No!” I croaked, but no sound came out.

Yet no sooner had my scream faded from the air than true sound came roaring back to me, as if my ears had popped from a change in pressure. And the first thing to greet them was the most beautiful, ethereal music I’d ever heard in my life.

Nash’s mom was singing for Sophie.

All four of the men were tugging on my cousin’s soul now, with Harmony’s song binding it. But Marg was pulling on it too. Sophie’s soul began to rise again, and this time it edged toward the reaper, her arms spread to receive it.

“Marg, please!” Aunt Val shouted. “Take me. My soul may not be young, but it’s strong, and you can’t have Sophie!”

“You can’t save her….” Marg sang, and, glancing around, I saw that she was right. With four souls in reserve, she was too strong for even four male
bean sidhes
. Ironic, considering how small and frail she looked….

Wait. She
was
frail. My dad had said reapers had to take on physical form to interact with their surroundings. Which meant
Marg had the same physical weaknesses as the reaper who’d tried to take me. The reaper my father had
punched…

My head spinning, throat throbbing, I ran into the kitchen. I glanced at the knife rack, then shook my head. I didn’t know if I could stop her with one blow.

But I could whack the crap out of her.

I pulled open the cabinet beneath the oven and dug around for the old cast-iron skillet Uncle Brendon used for corn bread, then lugged the pan out and raced through the dining room. I passed Nash, Harmony, and Tod, and had already pulled the skillet back for a blow when I came even with my father.

Marg must have heard me coming, or seen some sign of it in my aunt’s face, because she turned at the last minute. The pan hit her in the shoulder, rather than the head, so instead of knocking her unconscious, I simply knocked her down.

But she went down
hard.
Her hip hit the floor with a thud, shaking the end table two feet away.

I couldn’t suppress a grin of triumph, even as a vicious ache rebounded up my arm from the blow I’d landed.

For a moment, the reaper lay stunned, glossy black waves spread around her head, arms splayed at her sides. On the edge of my vision, I saw Sophie’s soul sink smoothly toward her body. Then Aunt Val let loose a shriek of rage and launched herself across the floor. I’d never seen her look less graceful or poised—and I’d never admired her more.

She landed on Marg’s slim hips, straddling her, hands grasping the reaper’s shoulders. Her eyes were wild, her hair nearly standing on end. She looked crazy, and I had little doubt that if she wasn’t there yet, she would be soon.