Soul Screamers Collection. Rachel Vincent

tell you what. When you hear back from this reaper, if it turns out that these girls weren’t on the list, I’ll look into it. With your father. On one condition. You swear to stay out of it.”

      “But—”

      “No buts. Do we have a deal?” I opened my mouth to answer, but he interrupted. “And before you answer, think about Nash, and Tod, and whoever else you might be putting in danger if you try to handle this yourself.”

      I sighed. He knew he had me with that last bit. “Fine. I’ll let you know what Tod finds out as soon as I know something.”

      “Thank you. I know none of this is easy for you.” He stood and shoved his hands into his pockets as I dropped my socks into the open drawer behind me.

      “Yeah, well, what’s a little mental illness and pathological screaming among family?”

      My uncle laughed, leaning against the door frame. “It could be worse. You could be an oracle.”

      “There are oracles?”

      “Not many anymore, and most of those are truly certifiable. If you think predicting one death at a time is hard on your sanity, try knowing what’s going to happen to everyone you meet, and being unable to turn the visions off.”

      I could only shudder at the thought. How could there be so much out there that I’d never known about? How could I not realize that half of my own family wasn’t even human? Shouldn’t the swirly eyes have clued me in?

      “How come I never saw your eyes swirl before tonight?”

      Uncle Brendon gave me a wistful smile. “Because I’m very old and have learned how to control my emotions, for the most part. Though that gets harder to do around you every day. I think that’s part of why your dad stays away. When he looks at you, he sees your mother, and he can’t hide his reaction. And if you saw his eyes, you’d have questions he wasn’t ready to answer.”

      Well, not-answering was no longer an option…. “So how old are you? For real.”

      Uncle Brendon chuckled and glanced at the ground, and for a moment I thought he wouldn’t answer—that I’d broken some kind of bean sidhe code of conduct by asking. But then he met my eyes, still smiling faintly. “I wondered how long that one would take you. I turned one hundred twenty-four last spring.”

      “Holy crap!” I felt my eyes go wide as his smile deepened. “You could have retired sixty years ago. Does Aunt Val know?”

      “Of course. And she teases me mercilessly. The children from my first marriage are older than she is.”

      “You were married before?” I couldn’t keep shock from my voice.

      That longing smile was back. “In Ireland, half a century ago. We had to move every couple of decades to keep people from noticing that we didn’t seem to age. My first wife died in Illinois twenty-four years ago, and our children—both bean sidhes—now have grandchildren of their own. Remind me and I’ll show you pictures sometime.”

      I nodded, numb with surprise. “Wow. So are those kids any nicer than Sophie?” I couldn’t help but ask.

      Uncle Brendon gave me a half hearted frown, which smoothed into a sympathetic smile. “Frankly, yes. But Sophie’s still young. She’ll grow into her attitude.”

      Somehow, I had my doubts.

      But then something else occurred to me. “Ironic, isn’t it?” I took another step back, assessing him from a better vantage point—and an all-new perspective. “You’re three times Aunt Val’s age, but you look so much younger.”

      He winked, one hand on the doorknob as he turned to leave. “Well, Kaylee, I can tell you right now that ‘ironic’ isn’t quite how she describes it.”

       14

      MUSIC RANG OUT from the dark, the heavy, crunchy beat throbbing near my ear. I blinked and pulled the blanket over my shoulder, irritated by the interruption in my sleep, even as I was relieved by the end of my dream. Which was really more of a nightmare.

      In my sleep, I’d been navigating a dark landscape dotted with peculiar, hazy landmarks. Misshapen, shadowy figures scurried and slithered all around me, always just out of sight when I whirled to face them. Farther out, larger shapes lumbered, and though they never came close enough to focus on, I knew they were following me. In the dream, I was looking for something. Or maybe looking for my way out of something. But I couldn’t find it.

      In my room, the music played on, and I groaned when I realized it was coming from my phone. Still groggy, I flopped over, tangling my leg in the comforter, and reached toward my nightstand. My right hand grazed the phone, still bouncing around on the varnished surface, and the vibrations tickled my fingertips.

      Blinking slowly, I held the phone up and glanced at the display, surprised to realize it cast a soft green glow over half the room. The number was unfamihar, and no name was available. Probably a wrong number, but I flipped the phone open anyway, because of the time of day displayed on the screen. It was 1:33 a.m. No one calls in the middle of the night unless something’s wrong.

      “Hello?” I croaked, sounding as alert as a bear in January. And almost as friendly.

      “Kaylee?”

      So much for a wrong number. “Mmm, yeah?”

      “It’s Tod.”

      I sat up so quickly my head spun, and I had to rub my eyes to make the lights on the back of my eyelids stop flashing. “Nash gave you my number?” That sounded suspicious even with sleep shrouding my brain like mist over a cold lake.

      “No, I haven’t called him yet. I wanted to tell you first.”

      “Okaaay…” Yet even with important information practically hanging from his lips, I couldn’t dismiss the hows and whys. “Where did you get my number?”

      “It’s programmed into Nash’s phone.”

      “And how did you get his phone?”

      “He left it on his dresser.” Tod’s voice was smooth and nonchalant, and I could almost picture him shrugging as he spoke.

      “You went into his room? How did you get in?” But then I remembered him disappearing from plain sight in the hospital dining room. “Never mind.”

      “Don’t worry, he has no idea.”

      “That’s not the point!” I groaned and leaned over to tap the base of my touch lamp once. It flared to life on the dimmest setting. “You can’t just sneak into people’s houses without permission. That’s trespassing. It’s an invasion of privacy. It’s… creepy.”

      Tod huffed over the line. “I work twelve hours a day. I don’t have to eat or sleep. What else am I supposed to do with the other half of my afterlife?”

      I leaned against the headboard and shoved tangled hair back from my face. “I don’t know. Go see a movie. Sign up for some classes. But stay out of——” I sat straighter, glancing at my own surroundings in suspicion as something occurred to me. “Have you been in my room?”

      A soft, genuine laugh rang over the line. “If I knew where your room is, we’d be talking in person. Unfortunately, Nash doesn’t have your address in his phone. Or

      written down anywhere I could find without waking him ^up.”

      “Small miracle,” I mumbled.

      “He does have your last name, though. Ms. Cavanaugh.”

      Crap. With my last name, and his convenient pooflike travel method, it wouldn’t take him long to find out where I lived. Maybe Uncle Brendon was right about reapers.

      “Don’t you want