With All My Soul (9 page)

“I didn’t have any choice. Don’t be mad. What was I supposed to
say, ‘Hey, guys, I died, but then Kaylee got me a new body, but you’re still
gonna have to bury me, and pretend you don’t know I’m still here’?”

“I guess not.” Traci sank into her seat again, but she couldn’t
stop staring at Emma. “You look so different. Except your eyes...”

Emma glanced at me with her brows arched. “Oh,
now
she notices my eyes.”

“Girls, I truly wish we had time for the reunion this moment
deserves. But we’re running out of time on this dose.” She gestured to Traci’s
empty teacup. “And I’d rather not risk Traci still being under the influence of
a second dose when her mother comes home. I’d hate for her to forget something
she needs to remember.”

“So, I’m really not going to remember any of this? I won’t
remember about Emma?”

“I’m afraid not. However, you may subconsciously remember that
she’s alive, and that could make it easier for you to move on, even if you still
believe on the surface that your sister is dead.”

Traci nodded, and I privately wondered how many good uses I
could find for a vial of Netherworld forget-me water if I had one.

“But as sorry as I am for everything you’ve been through,”
Harmony continued, “we really need to get back to the matter at hand. Do you
understand what we’ve been telling you?”

“I think so.” Traci’s eyes narrowed in thought. “My sister’s
still alive, but my baby’s going to die. Or else I will.”

“No. You’re not going to die.” Harmony looked...heartbroken.
She leaned toward Traci on the couch to emphasize the importance of what she was
saying. “We came here to tell you the truth, so you can do what needs to be
done. To save your life.”

“Well, I won’t do it.” Traci leaned back against the cushion,
one hand on her small belly, as if the matter was already decided. “I’m not
going to kill my baby.”

“Traci...” Em said, but her sister shook her head firmly.

“No. He’s sharing my soul. My
soul,
Emma. That means he’s part of me. How am I supposed to kill part of myself? I
can’t live with myself, knowing his death was the price for my life.”

A storm of horror and empathy collided within me, trapping me
between that figurative rock and hard place. The decision was Traci’s to
make—but I wasn’t sure she fully understood the choice she was making. Or the
consequences of letting an incubus baby live.

“But, Trace, he’s probably going to die anyway!” Emma insisted.
“You can’t carry him, and if you try, you’ll both die. You’re already sick, and
it’s still your first trimester!”

“There’s another problem, Traci,” I said quietly, and Harmony’s
attention settled on me like a comforting hand on my back, silently encouraging
me to say what had to be said, even as waves of nausea rolled over me at the
very thought. I took a deep breath. When I was sure I had Traci’s full
attention, I continued, “Your son isn’t human. The male offspring of an incubus
is always an incubus, so...you need to understand that even if you could carry
and deliver this baby, and even if you both survived, you wouldn’t be raising a
normal little boy. You’d be raising a predator.”

Her uncertain frown deepened. “What does that mean,
exactly?”

“When your son reaches puberty, he’ll develop an appetite—a
need
—to feed on lust, in any form. If he
doesn’t, he’ll starve to death, just like he would without food.” I scooted
forward in my chair. I could practically
feel
her
taking in every word I said, studying them for truth and, beyond that, for
meaning. “Your son will grow up to do to other girls what Beck did to you. He
will bowl them over with a desire he exudes—and won’t be able to control without
practice—then he’ll take what he needs, when he needs it, from whoever is
convenient at the time. Like you were convenient for Beck. At best, he’ll try
and fail to control his appetite, unintentionally victimizing girls who don’t
even know they’re victims. Girls who won’t understand why they slept with a
strange boy and might think of themselves as sluts because of something they had
no control over. I can only imagine how damaging that kind of self-image will be
for the rest of their lives. At worst, your son will be a flat-out rapist and
murderer, like his father.”

I could see her horror growing with every word I said, but I
continued because she needed to know all of it. She needed to understand.

“Either way, he will be the most dangerous thing on the middle
school playground, and that will only get worse the older he gets. He’ll be a
sexual predator, Traci. There’s nothing any of us can do to change that. That’s
what incubi
are.
It’s how they survive, and their
survival is in direct opposition to the free will of every woman in their path.
You know that even better than we do.”

Traci’s hands started to shake in her lap, and her gaze lost
focus beneath the tears now standing in her eyes.

“And it’ll be even worse than that when he feels the need
to...reproduce, about once a century,” Harmony added. “During each of those
spawning periods—for lack of a better term—up to a dozen young girls could die
trying to carry his child. Which is the same risk you’re facing now. Do you
understand?”

Please, please let her understand.
Somehow, telling Traci that her child would grow up to be a monster was even
harder than telling her that the conception was a crime of convenience committed
against both her mind and her body. I hated myself for having to tell her either
of those things, and suddenly I understood why some people might be inclined to
shoot the messenger.

“You’re telling me that my son will be a psychological rapist,
right?” Harmony nodded, and for the first time since we’d arrived at Emma’s
house she looked uncomfortable to be there. “Well, I don’t accept that,” Traci
continued. “You may know
what
this baby will be, but
you don’t know
who
he’ll be. You can’t possibly know
how much nurture can affect his nature, and you don’t have any right to judge
him now for crimes he
may
commit sixteen years from
now. And you don’t have the right to judge the kind of mother I’m going to be.
The kind who would
never
let her child turn into the
monster you’re describing. He deserves a chance.
I
deserve a chance. And he’s
mine.
” Tears filled her
eyes again, and she sniffled, trying to hold herself together.

“Trace—” Emma started, but her sister interrupted.

“No! You can’t just come in here and tell me that this thing
happened to me. This thing I couldn’t stop and didn’t even understand. You can’t
tell me that this murdering bastard came into my house and got into my head and
scrambled everything up, and made me think I wanted him to do what he did, and
that none of what I felt about that was real. That the whole thing
was...corrupt.” She gestured angrily at the front door and at her own head as
she spoke, and my heart beat so hard my chest ached from the pounding. “You
can’t come in here and tell me all that, then tell me I can’t keep the one good
thing to come out of the most horrible thing that’s ever happened to me. He
might have taken a decision away from me, but
you’re
not going to. This is
my
choice. This is
my
baby.” Traci stood, staring boldly down at the
sister she’d just rediscovered. “I’m not going to end my pregnancy. If that’s
what you expect me to do, then...get out. Thanks for coming and telling me all
these horrible things, but now you need to go. All of you. Now.”

“Wait.” Emma stood. Unspent tears trembled in her eyes. “Wait.”
She turned to me. “We have to help her.”

“Em, there’s nothing I could do.” I’d rarely felt more
helpless. More useless. But we were
way
out of my
league.

“She just needs a soul. You can get her a soul. I know you can.
You’re a
bean sidhe,
and you’re a reclamationist. Or
whatever. Right?”

Traci looked so suddenly hopeful that my heart broke for her
all over again. “Can you?”

“No! I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work like that. I don’t get to
keep the souls I reclaim! I have to turn them in. And it’s not like I have
extras lying around.” But as soon as I’d said it, I realized that might not be
true.

“What?” Em’s gaze narrowed on me. “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing. Just...maybe. It might be possible. But I can’t
promise anything.”

Harmony stood, her hands opening and closing at her sides like
she was nervous. Like we were making her nervous. “Girls, this won’t work. It’s
not our place to...give people souls that don’t belong to them. That’s beyond
what a
bean sidhe
can do. It’s beyond what we’re
supposed
to do.”

“But Kaylee did it! She put my soul here in Lydia’s body, so I
know she could do that for Traci’s baby. If we had a soul for him.”

Harmony blinked. She opened her mouth like she’d make another
objection or tell us how dangerous that idea was. But nothing came out.

“But finding a soul for your baby will be a moot point if you
don’t survive the pregnancy,” I said, and Traci’s expression fell so far I
thought her jaw might actually drop off her face.

Emma turned to Harmony. “You have another vial in your purse,
don’t you?” Her voice was quiet. Sad. Thoughtful. “What does the other vial
do?”

“It’s a mixture of some plants and roots from the Netherworld.
For Traci. For if she decides to end her pregnancy.” She reached into her purse
and pulled out a second plastic vial a quarter of the way full with a pale
yellow liquid. “This is the safest way.”

“If you can do that...” Em’s voice broke, and I realized she
was crying. “If you can help her lose the baby safely...can’t you help her keep
it safely? Isn’t there some plant or root in the Netherworld that can...I don’t
know. Boost her immune system, or give her a superdose of vitamins, or somehow
make her healthy enough to carry the baby to term?”

“Emma, Traci, I know this is hard, but the chances of this
ending well are so small,” Harmony said.

Em swiped one arm across her eyes angrily. “No. This is my
nephew we’re talking about. And my sister. She’s lost enough already. She can’t
lose the baby, too. If you can help her, you
have
to.”

Harmony sighed. She closed her eyes, and her lips moved without
making any sound. Like she was praying. When she finally looked at us again, her
blue eyes were swirling with...sadness. Or maybe regret. I couldn’t tell for
sure. I’d never seen her unable to control the swirling before.

“I can’t promise anything. I can help, but...there are no
guarantees. The chances are still slim—”

“I’ll take them.” Traci wiped tears from her cheeks. “I’ll take
those chances. Please. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll pay you. Just please do
whatever you can for my baby.”

“Oh, honey...” Harmony took Traci’s hand and pulled her closer.
“I would never charge you. I just need you to understand that I have no idea
whether or not this will work. We’ll have to take it day by day. And your baby
may come early. We may have to
make
him come early,
if your body starts to fail you.”

“Fine. Whatever it takes.”

“Okay.” Harmony sat, and Traci sat next to her. Em and I sank
into our seats, fascinated and a little scared. “First, let’s put this away.”
She slid the yellow vial back into her purse. “Second, you’ll need to eat
healthily. Exercise, but don’t overdo it. Get plenty of rest. And...I’ll be back
tomorrow with something for you to take every day. With tea or water. No
coffee.”

Emma frowned. “Harmony, is she going to remember this?”

“No.” Harmony glanced at the ground for a second, thinking.
“You’ll have to introduce me to her again, Kaylee, and I’ll give her the mixture
as a prenatal supplement.” She turned back to Traci. “Are you sure you want to
do this? You won’t remember what we’ve told you. You won’t remember the risks.
You won’t remember...so much of this.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Traci insisted. “I would never give him up,
no matter what I know or don’t know about this pregnancy. If you tell me
tomorrow that I need whatever you’re bringing, I’ll believe you. I’ll take
it.”

“If she doesn’t, Nash can help, right?” Emma leaned closer to
whisper.

I nodded. “Nash, or Tod, or my dad.” Any one of them could
Influence Traci into wanting to take what she needed to take to help her keep
the baby. And I was only willing to let them do that—to play with her
mind—because we’d all seen how badly she wanted to keep her baby.

But... “Traci, there’s one more thing.” I’d never hated myself
as badly as I did for what I was about to say. She nodded for me to go on, and I
could see in her eyes that though she might not have anticipated the wording,
she knew at least some of what I was going to say. “If you can’t do this...” I
took a deep breath, then started over.

“If it turns out that nurture can’t trump nature and your son
becomes dangerous, I’ll have to...stop him.” That wasn’t in my job description,
strictly speaking, but I already felt responsible for whatever this theoretic
incubus might do later in life, because I’d agreed to help bring him into the
world. Against my better judgment. “I can’t let him hurt people, Traci. I’ll be
watching him. And I won’t be alone. Your son will get a chance, but he’ll only
get
this one chance.
And the next tough decision on
his behalf won’t be yours to make.”

It would be mine.

And I would damn well make the right one.

Chapter Eight

“You know, there were times when we were little when I
would have done almost anything to be an only child, but now all I want in the
world is to be her sister again.”

“You’ll always be her sister, Em,” I said as we backed out of
the drive, wishing I could see her face from the backseat. “Even if she doesn’t
remember that.”

I’d never had a sister. I’d had Sophie for thirteen years, but
she never let anyone labor long under the impression that we were anything more
than cousins. Emma was the closest thing I’d ever had to a sister, and I knew
exactly how Traci felt having lost her, because I’d lost Emma twice before, and
both times I’d found a way to bring her back from the dead.

And even if she died a dozen more times, I would move heaven,
earth, and the Netherworld as many times as it took to bring her back.

But it would be much easier if I could figure out how to keep
her from dying again in the first place.

“Girls.” The tone of Harmony’s voice told me I wasn’t going to
like whatever she had to say next. “I can’t explain how badly I hate to have to
say this, but I think we need to consider the hard truth here.”

“No.” Em crossed her arms over her chest and stared out the
passenger’s-side window. “We’re not killing her baby.”

“Of course not!” Harmony stomped on the brake and the tires
squealed as she pulled to a stop two full feet from the curb. She shifted into
Park, then twisted in the driver’s seat to face us both. “I would never suggest
anything like that. Whether or not to end her pregnancy is your sister’s choice.
But you both need to understand that even with my help, there’s every chance in
the world that Traci will still lose this baby and maybe her own life in the
process. In fact, whatever help I’m able to give her may make that more
likely.”

“What? Why?” Em looked almost as confused as she was clearly
terrified.

“Because if left alone, her body will almost certainly reject
the pregnancy when it starts to threaten her life. That’s the case in a full
two-thirds of incubus pregnancies. But if I help her keep the baby into her
second or third trimester and her body still rejects it, the miscarriage could
kill her, too. You’d be losing not just your nephew, but your sister. Is that
something you’re willing to risk?” She was talking to Emma now. I had no say in
this.

Emma shouldn’t have either. She shouldn’t have had to wrestle
with a decision like that. But she was the only one of Traci’s relatives who
knew the truth.

“Me? No.” Em shook her head firmly. “But Traci knows the risks.
She made her own decision, and I don’t think that would change, even if she
remembered making it.”

“So you’re sure you want me to help her, rather than letting
nature run its course?”

Em turned on her, and the spark of anger in her eyes surprised
me for a second. “There’s nothing natural about this.
Nothing.
” She swiped unshed tears from her eyes in one angry motion.
“My sister was raped by a monster, and now she’s carrying one. I was killed by
another monster. Nothing will ever be the same for either of us.” She glanced at
me and seemed to reconsider. “For
any
of us. But
Traci’s made her choice, and we are damn well going to respect it.”

Harmony nodded. And that was the last of that.

* * *

“Where were you today?” I dropped onto the end of Tod’s
bed and crossed my legs beneath me, then set my shoes on the floor. They landed
on a pile of laundry he wouldn’t get around to washing until he had nothing left
to wear. At all.

Laundry day was my favorite day to visit for that very
reason.

“Work. I didn’t get your text till this afternoon.” He came out
of the teeny bathroom—the only other room in his tiny suite in the reaper
headquarters building—holding two plastic cups of water. “I’m all yours now,
though. What
will
you do with me?”

“What are my options?”

“Anything you want, Kaylee.” The heat in his gaze set me on
fire in all the right places. “Time is on our side, youth is our immortal
legacy, and you are all I’ve ever wanted. This could be the best night of our
afterlives.”

“Then what would we do tomorrow night?”

“Tomorrow, we top our personal best.” He set the cups on the
minifridge serving as his bedside table, and the dim overhead light cast
highlights and shadows on every plane and ridge of his bare chest. “I like a
challenge.”

“I like
you.
” I pulled him onto the
twin mattress with me. Tod landed on his side, propped up on one elbow. I leaned
down to kiss him, and when I started to pull away, his hand slid behind the back
of my head, his fingers in my hair, holding me in place gently so our kiss would
last. And last. And last...

When Tod finally let me go, my head was spinning, and that had
nothing to do with the fact that I hadn’t taken a breath in several minutes and
everything to do with the fact that he made me feel alive. He was the closest
thing to a drug that I’d ever experienced, and I had yet to find a limit to what
I’d be willing to do to protect him. To keep us together.

I’d spent most of my life setting boundaries. Lines I wouldn’t
cross. Lines I wouldn’t let others cross. But with Tod, there were no
boundaries. No limits. Time was not an issue. I loved him without reservation.
I’d given him everything I had and everything I was, and he’d done the same.
He’d given up his life for Nash, but he’d been willing to give up eternity for
me. Not just willing—he’d actually done it.

I’d seen Levi, his boss, confiscate his soul and end his
afterlife because he’d refused to kill me and reap my soul.

We had eternity to love each other, but after the way our
relationship had begun—with loss and death and sacrifice—every single moment
felt like a gift neither of us was willing to take for granted.

“Oh! I almost forgot.” Tod rolled away from me and reached past
the edge of the mattress to pull open the top door of the minifridge, which
exposed the even more mini freezer. When he rolled toward me again, he held a
small container of Phish Food, my favorite ice cream, and two plastic spoons. “I
know it’s small. This is the only size that would fit in the freezer.”

“What’s the occasion?” I took the spoon he handed me while he
opened the carton and peeled off the plastic seal.

“Tuesday.” He frowned and twisted to glance at the alarm clock
on top of the freezer. “For another forty minutes, anyway.” He handed me the
plastic seal and I licked ice cream from it, then leaned over to drop it into
the trash can at the foot of his bed. Which was wedged into a scant foot of
space between the mattress and the only chair in the room. His place was so
small we could practically reach everything in the room from one end of the bed
or another.

But it was all his. Ours, he insisted, on nearly a daily basis.
We were the only two people in either world who knew exactly where his place
was. Nash had been in the room, but Tod had blinked him there, so on his own,
Nash couldn’t find reaper headquarters again even if he wanted to. And he did
not.

The rest of the reapers and my dad knew where the headquarters
building was but not which room was Tod’s.

And the best part about Tod’s place was that there was no exit.
Literally. The only door was the one separating the tiny bathroom from the small
main room. There was no exit because reapers didn’t need doors, and now I didn’t
either, and that was
beyond
convenient, because this
way neither of us could lose the key. The absence of windows made things feel a
little claustrophobic sometimes, but the fact that no one could burst in on us
made up for that completely.

“Do you have any idea how hot it is when you lick that plastic
ice cream thing?” Tod’s eyes were swirling when I scooted across the mattress
toward him, rumpling the already chaotic mess of sheets and blankets. It never
ceased to amaze me how disheveled his bed always was, considering that he rarely
slept at all. If ever. I’d never seen him sleep, anyway.

“No. But you’re welcome to tell me....”

“It’s so hot I’m considering opening another carton, just to
watch the replay.”

I smiled. “Sounds like you need to cool off.”

“That’s not what I need. In fact, that’s the opposite of what I
need. But I might accept a short delay in the form of one of those little
chocolate fishes.”

Laughing, I dug a fish-shaped bite of fudge out with my spoon
and fed it to him.

“Mmm... This is the best part of being dead.”

“No,
this
is the best part of being
dead.” I kissed him, and his tongue was cold and he tasted like fudge. So I
kissed him again.

“We did that when you were alive, you know.”

Yeah, but only for a day. Because I’d died on the second day of
our relationship. And... “But never here. Never in absolute privacy. Never after
my father went to sleep, in a totally separate building, with no idea where we
are or what we’re doing.” If I were still alive, my dad would be enforcing my
curfew much more strictly.

I took a bite of ice cream and let it melt slowly in my mouth.
We’d suffered a criminal lack of perfect moments since the day I’d kissed him in
the hall at school. There always seemed to be something or someone standing in
the way of perfection, however brief, and that something was a hellion more
often than not. But
this
moment was perfect. This
moment was chocolate, and privacy, and bare skin, and cold mouths, and warm
hands, and cell phones set on Silent.

I didn’t want to ruin the moment, but Tod seemed to realize at
about the same point I did that we could eat ice cream and hold hands, but if we
didn’t also do something constructive, we would look back on this moment plagued
with guilt, when our lack of preparation got someone killed.

Someone who wasn’t already supposed to die, that is.

“Anything new with Sophie?” he said, but his tone and the eye
contact he was making with my mouth told me he was less interested in the answer
than he was in...me.

“Sabine says half a drop of liquid envy is more than enough. We
were right about that. Turns out my cousin is a possessive little monster,
though, so Sabine’s going to skip the morning dose tomorrow, because no one has
any pre-lunch classes with Sophie, and we don’t want her to...well...go psycho
when no one’s there to help.”

“Really? I think that might be kind of entertaining. What’s the
worst that could happen?”

“You know how Laura Bell has this horrible Pat
Benatar-from-the-eighties haircut?”

“I don’t even know who Laura Bell is, and I can’t honestly say
I care about her hair. Your hair is the only hair I care about.” He ran a strand
of it through his fingers. “And I love how it looks kinda red in the light, and
how it feels when it trails over my skin when we’re—”

I could feel my cheeks burn. “Well, Laura has tragically short
hair, courtesy of Sophie, from back when Invidia was polluting the entire school
with a monster dose of jealousy. We’re trying to avoid as many civilian
casualties as possible this time. Especially since the point of this whole thing
is to keep the hellions from doing any more damage at Eastlake.”

“Great. Good plan. I approve. Now can we do that thing where
your hair trails over...?” He made a vague gesture encompassing his chest and my
hair.

I laughed. “In a minute. Business first.” I slid another
spoonful of ice cream into his mouth when he started to object.

“Fine,” Tod said when his mouth was empty again. “So, how’s
Emma holding up? Any more accidental syphoning?”

“Yeah,” I said around a bite of chocolate-laced marshmallow
cream. “I think she was taking a bit of her sister’s...pregnancy emotion this
afternoon.”

“What emotion would that be?”

“Several at once, as near as I can tell. Fear. Grief. This
fierce love for her unborn child, which was kind of amazing to watch. I mean,
she’s never even seen the baby. And she can’t have felt it kick yet. I looked it
up, and it’s too early for that, unless things are different for an incubus
pregnancy. But she loves that baby like it’s the only thing she has in the whole
world.” Which wasn’t true. But that didn’t make the intense love I’d seen in her
eyes any less real.

“I guess sometimes the parental bond begins in utero.”

“I guess.” I sat up and put the lid on the ice cream carton,
then handed it to him. “Tod, do you ever wind up with any...
extras?
”

“Extra what?” He swiveled on the edge of the mattress to put up
the ice cream, and when he turned again, he handed me one of the cups of water,
then took a sip from his own.

“Extra souls.”

Tod choked on his drink, then coughed while I pounded on his
back. Dead people can’t choke to death, but you’d never know that from the way
it still feels when you inhale water.

“You okay?” I said, when he finally stopped coughing and met my
gaze.

He set his cup on the fridge without even glancing away from
me. “Kaylee, I know what you’re thinking, and you need to stop thinking it.
Seriously. It won’t work.”

“He’s a
baby.
We can’t just let
Traci’s baby die.”

“Yes, we can. We have to.”

“What is wrong with you?” Angry and disappointed, I stood and
stomped across the floor and into the bathroom—a four-step trip—and dumped my
water into the sink.

Tod followed but hovered in the doorway. Giving me space but
not giving in. “Kay, listen to me. Please. I’m not just being randomly cruel. I
have nothing against Traci Marshall, and you know I’d never intentionally hurt
Emma.”

Unless it was to save me. He’d hurt Em to save me. He’d hurt
anyone
to save me, and I didn’t quite know how
to deal with that knowledge.

“Traci’s baby is an incubus. She wouldn’t be so sick otherwise,
right?”