Soul Screamers Collection. Rachel Vincent

I could tell she was worried. “Kaylee, you have no business in the Netherworld.”

      Let’s hope you’re right.

      “I know.” I smiled to set her at ease. “I just want to make sure I don’t wind up there accidentally, practicing what I learned today.”

      She relaxed at my explanation, and the light flowed back into her eyes. “You won’t. The difference between looking through the glass and stepping through it is all a matter of intent. You have to want to go there to be there.”

      “That’s it?” I frowned as she stood and rummaged through a drawer, clanging silverware together in search of something. “Have desire, will travel?” It couldn’t be that easy. Or that scary.

      “Well, that and the soul song.”

      Of course. I felt the tension in my body ease, and I took another short sip of my milk, saving the rest to wash down my brownie.

      Harmony finally pulled a knife from the drawer, followed by a long, thin metal spatula. She ran the knife across the glass dish, cutting the brownies into large, even squares.

      “Harmony?”

      “Hmm?” She slid the spatula under the first square and lifted it carefully out of the pan and onto a small paper plate. She liked baking but hated doing dishes.

      “How can someone live without a soul?” “What?” Harmony froze with a brownie crumb halfway to her mouth, the spatula still in her other hand. “Why are you …? What’s going on, Kaylee?” Her eyes narrowed, and I felt guilty for making her worry.

      I decided to tell her the truth. Part of it, anyway. “Nash and I saw Eden’s concert last night in Dallas, remember?”

      “Of course.” Fear drained from her features again, and she scooped an extra-large brownie onto the second plate, then carried them both to the table, without forks. The Hudsons ate their brownies the proper way—with their fingers. My aunt would have thrown a fit, but I was enjoying being converted.

      “I saw that on the news this morning.” She set one plate in front of me, then sank into her chair with the other, smaller square. Her eyes brightened as the next piece of the puzzle slid into place. “Are you saying Eden died without her soul?”

      I nodded, then chewed, swallowed, and washed the first rich bite down with a sip of milk before answering. “It was weird. She dropped dead right there on the stage, but I thought she’d just passed out, because there was no premonition. No death shroud. No urge to wail. But Tod said she was dead, and sure enough, a few seconds later, this weird, dark stuff floated up from her body. Too dark and heavy-looking to be a soul.”

      “Demon’s Breath, probably.” Harmony took another bite, licking a crumb from her lip before she chewed.

      “That’s what Tod said.” I twisted my half-full glass of milk on the table. “That Eden sold her soul to a hellion.”

      She shrugged and brushed a ringlet back from her forehead. “That’s the only explanation I can think of. A soul can’t be taken from a living being. It can be stolen after a person’s death—” or murder, as with Aunt Val’s victims “—or it can be given up willingly by its owner. But then something else has to take its place, to keep the body alive. Usually, that something else is Demon’s Breath.”

      “But I thought a person’s soul is what determines his life span. If Eden’s was gone, how did the reapers know when she was supposed to die?”

      Harmony held up one finger as she swallowed, and I bit another huge, unladylike bite from my brownie. She wiped her lips on a paper towel, already shaking her head. “A person’s soul doesn’t determine how long he or she lives. The list does.”

      “So … where does the list come from? Who decides when everyone has to die?”

      Harmony raised one brow, like she was impressed. “Now you’re asking the good questions. Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer for that one. But maybe that’s a good thing….”

      I frowned, twisting my used napkin into a thin paper rope. “What do you mean?”

      “No one actually knows who makes out the list. No one I know, anyway.” She sipped from her cup before continuing. “Maybe the Fates traded in their thread and scissors for a pen and paper. Maybe the list comes from some automated printer in a secure room none of us will ever see. Maybe it comes straight from God. But there has to be a reason we don’t know the specifics, and frankly, I’m pretty blissful about that particular nugget of ignorance.”

      “Me, too.” I wasn’t exactly eager to see whoever plotted my lifeline; I’d kind of drawn the short straw on that one. Though, it was very likely I’d live longer than I would have as a regular human.

      “All we really know is that upsetting the balance between life and death is not an option. Somebody has to die for every entry on the list. Fortunately, there’s a little wiggle room for special circumstances.” Harmony hesitated, then met my eyes before continuing. “Which is how your mom was able to trade her death date for yours.”

      I cleared my throat and swallowed my last bite, trying to swallow my guilt along with it. I was supposed to die when I was three, but my mother took my place. I hadn’t known the truth about her death until I discovered my bean sidhe heritage and my family was finally forced to tell me everything. Despite their insistence that what happened to my mom was not my fault, the fact was that if it weren’t for me, she’d still be alive.

      Guilt was inevitable. Right?

      “Considering the sacrifice your mom made for you, I find it hard to understand how Eden—or anyone else for that matter—could possibly see her own soul as acceptable currency. As payment for something else.”

      I shrugged and dropped my wadded-up napkin on my empty plate. “I don’t think she understood what she was getting into. Humans don’t know about any of this.”

      “They’re supposed to know, before they sign the contract. Hellion law requires full disclosure. But who knows if the poor fool actually read her contract before signing. What a waste.” Harmony shook her head in disappointment and pushed the rest of her brownie toward me. “So much potential, squandered. For what, do you know?”

      I shook my head, staring at her plate. I’d lost my appetite.

      My best guess would be that Eden sold her soul for fame and fortune, but I didn’t know for sure. All I knew for certain was that she was probably regretting that decision now, and that if we couldn’t get Addison’s soul back in four days, she would suffer the same fate. I would not let that happen.

       6

      “SO, WHAT’S WITH THE FAKE name at the hotel? She’s avoiding the press?” I tried to distract myself as I typed “hellion” into the search bar at the top of my laptop screen, then tapped the enter key. Links filled the screen faster than I could read the entries, and my vision started to blur with exhaustion. I hadn’t slept very well the night before, thanks to nightmares of dead girls being tortured in the Netherworld, and had poured the last of my energy into my bean sidhe lesson that afternoon.

      “I guess.” Nash leaned back on my bed and I watched him in the mirror, my heart tripping faster when he put his hands behind his head and cords of muscle stood out beneath his short sleeves. Sometimes it still felt weird to be going out with a jock, but Nash Hudson wasn’t your average football player. His bean sidhe bloodline, dead father, not-so-dead reaper brother, and familiarity with a world that would land most humans in a straitjacket meant that on the inside, Nash didn’t fit in at school any more than I did.

      He just hid it better.

      And there were definite advantages to having a boyfriend as … aesthetically gifted as Nash. The downside was that I had trouble concentrating on anything else while he was around.

      Focus,