Soul Screamers Collection. Rachel Vincent

lips brushed my ear. “Let it go.” His words slid over me like warm satin gliding over my skin. I felt myself relax, even as the largest of those gray figures turned to walk away. “We’re here now, so just let it go.”

      I let the wail fade, and the grayness melted from my vision, leaving me with a scratchy throat and haunting images lingering behind my eyes. And a crystal-clear view of a large brick house with a stone facade around a bright red front door, illuminated by a series of floodlights.

      Parked on the street in front of the house was a plain black limousine—if a limo can ever be considered plain—with the engine still running, the driver half asleep behind the wheel. That would have been a remarkable sight on my street, but in Addy’s neighborhood, it was probably commonplace.

      Nash dashed toward the house, and I sprinted after him, without taking time to truly reorient myself in the human world. I tripped over the front step, but he caught me with one hand, already twisting the knob with the other.

      It opened easily. Dekker and the reaper obviously weren’t expecting company. Fortunately, Addison was.

      We rushed through the tiled foyer into a large, plush living room, where John Dekker held Addison Page by her upper arm, his other hand gripping an expanding file folder closed with a built-in rubber band.

      Was that Regan’s contract? Excitement surged through me like an electrical charge. Could the hellion’s name really be so close?

      An instant later, two female figures appeared in the center of the floor, holding hands.

      The taller form I assumed to be the rogue reaper. The other was Regan Page. I recognized her from the ads for her new tween drama. Except that on TV, she had crystalline blue eyes only a couple of shades darker than her sister’s.

      Now her eyes were solid white orbs, shot through with tiny red veins, as if the whites had absorbed her pupils and irises.

      Despair crashed through me, heavy and almost too thick to breathe through. My hand tightened around Nash’s. We were too late. She’d sold her soul, and the brief, dark-’n’-blurry glimpse I’d gotten of the hellion who took it wasn’t enough to let me identify him, much less find him.

      I’d failed—again—and another girl had lost her soul.

       11

      “REGAN …” ADDISON MOANED, staring into her sister’s featureless eyes, slowly shaking her head. Her own eerie, fake-blue eyes filled with tears and her hands began to tremble.

      “You made the right choice,” Dekker told Regan, flashing that famous, million-dollar smile. The caps that launched a thousand amusement park rides. His grandfather would have been proud. “You’ll be rich and famous for the rest of your life.”

      Sudden anger flamed behind the icy blue rings of Addy’s contact lenses, blazing through her weaker emotions like kindling. She ripped her arm from Dekker’s grasp and pulled Regan away from the reaper. “Is the hellion still there?” she demanded, her focus shifting between me and Nash as she held her sister’s thin arm with a granite grip. “If we destroy her contract, will that kill the deal?”

      “No!” Regan tried to twist away, and Dekker followed Addison’s gaze to me and Nash, standing at the edge of the room like freshmen at the prom.

      “Who are they?” he asked calmly, clearly speaking to his female colleague, though he looked at us.

      The reaper sneered but looked like she really wanted to hiss. “Bean sidhes,” she spat.

      “Friends,” Addison said. “I … invited them.”

      Dekker dismissed us at a glance and turned back to Addy, flipping open his folder so we could all see that it was empty. Because, as Tod had discovered, demon paperwork was kept in the Netherworld. “It doesn’t work like that, Addison.” Dekker shot her a smug, patient smile. “Hellion contracts are indestructible by human means. Like fireproof, Kevlar paperwork. And if Regan invokes her out-clause before she has a pedestal to fall from, her willpower and decorum will corrode until she wouldn’t recognize a good decision if it ran her over on the street. You’ll likely be an aunt in a couple of years, and I’m sure the brat’s father will be a convict, or a dealer, or something equally prestigious.”

      “Regan’s flaws will be exploited and magnified, and because her sister’s famous, her every stumble will be front-page news.” He paused, and his eager brown eyes seemed to spark with a little extra oomph. “Oh, and any tendencies toward addiction—something she might have inherited, for example?” His raised eyebrows said Dekker was more than familiar with Ms. Page’s fondness for prescription drugs. “Well, let’s just say they’ll be awfully hard for a new, disgraced teen mother to resist….”

      Regan stared at Dekker in growing horror, and rage flushed Addy’s cheeks. “It doesn’t matter,” she insisted, while her sister’s head whipped back and forth in denial. “She’s not taking the out-clause.”

      “Why not?” Regan demanded, but Addy turned to me without answering her.

      “Is the demon still there? I want to talk to him.”

      “He’s gone,” I said, remembering the largest of the three dark figures I’d seen in the Netherworld. The one who’d walked away as I let my wail fade.

      “Take us,” Addy demanded softly. “We’ll find him.”

      “No.” Nash shook his head firmly. “You can’t go there, and neither can Kaylee. It’s not safe.”

      “Neither is this!” Addison shoved her sister forward, and Nash flinched as his gaze found Regan’s newly empty eyes.

      “What’s happening?” Regan shouted, tears filling her eyes. “Who’re they?” She waved one arm at me and Nash, then her bewildered gaze slid back to Dekker. “Why is he threatening to wreck my life?”

      Dekker crossed his arms over his chest, the empty folder flat against his side. “I’m not threatening you. I’m simply stating facts. You’ve signed a contract, and you’ll be expected to stand by your word.”

      “She had no idea what she was signing,” Addy said. “You didn’t tell her the truth.”

      “I never lied,” Dekker insisted calmly.

      “What are you guys talking about?” Regan demanded, more bewildered than truly scared.

      “We’re talking about this!” Addison whirled her sister around until she faced a mirror hanging on the wall above a beige couch. “Look!”

      Regan looked, and her eyes went anime-wide. But though her cheeks flushed bright red, no color returned to her eyes. That beautiful blue was gone, along with her soul.

      “What …?” Regan started to step closer to the mirror for a better look, then changed her mind and stepped back instead, shaking her head slowly in denial. Then she whirled on John Dekker and his reaper with a rage and confusion almost equal to her sister’s. “What’s wrong with my eyes? How can I see if I don’t have eyes? You didn’t say anything about this.”

      “It was in the fine print.” The reaper crossed her arms over a gaunt, black-clad chest, contempt glittering in her normal gray eyes. “You are old enough to read, aren’t you?”

      Dekker laid one hand on her forearm, and the reaper seemed to fold into herself, as if he’d just jabbed her off button. “There’s nothing wrong with your eyes.” His voice was calm and smooth, but it had nothing on Nash. “It’s a side effect of the process. And we have an easy fix for this, don’t we, Addison?”

      Dekker glanced at the older Page sister, but she only glared at him, jaw clenched in vicious anger as he handed two small white boxes to her sister. “These are your prescription, I believe, and a virtual match to your own eye color. I’ll have new boxes hand-delivered