The first floor was deserted, except for the closet where Tod had stashed the unconscious lampade, so we ran up the wide staircase and repeated the search again, racing from room to room. And finally, through the rectangular window in the last door on the right, I spotted my father, slumped over a warped and dented metal teacher’s desk, still in the flannel shirt he’d worn to work.
My heart leaped into my throat and I struggled to breathe around it as I twisted the knob desperately. But it wouldn’t turn, nor would the door budge. “Dad!” I shouted, begging him frantically to wake up and let us in. To help us help him. But he didn’t move, and only once I’d forced myself to go still and concentrate could I see that he was still breathing.
“Here, let me try.” Tod pushed me aside with one outstretched arm, and I remembered that he couldn’t walk through walls in the Netherworld. Alec and I stepped back, and the reaper exploded into motion. His foot flew, connecting with the door just beneath the knob with an echoing crack of wood. But the door didn’t open, so Tod backed up and tried again, this time letting loose a heartfelt grunt as his leg shot out.
That time more wood splintered and the door swung open with the metallic groan of little-used hinges. I rushed past Tod and dropped onto my knees on the floor next to my father. “Dad?” I ran one hand down his ruddy, stubbly cheek. His eyes didn’t open, but he moaned, and his head fell to one side. “I think he’s okay.” I glanced up at Tod and laid one hand on my father’s shoulder. “I’m going to cross over with him, but I’ll be right back.”
“Take me, too.” Alec’s voice trembled, and for the first time I saw true fear shining in his greenish eyes. “Please. You don’t need me anymore.”
“You’re not going anywhere until we find Nash,” I insisted, folding my hand around my father’s. I almost felt guilty, knowing that if we left Alec, he’d probably be punished like Addy had, or worse, for his part in my father’s escape. But as callous as it sounded, even after everything he’d done, Nash meant more to me than any stranger. Even a stranger who’d helped me find my father. “I’ll be right back.”
Before either the proxy or the reaper could protest, I closed my eyes and called forth my wail with practiced speed, trying not to think about the fact that the more often I crossed over, the harder it would be to stop myself from doing that very thing by accident. As my recent dream-shrieking had shown me.
The odd cacophony from outside faded into a more familiar, benign, excited buzz. I opened my eyes to find myself standing in one of the Spanish classrooms, surrounded by empty desks and travel posters from Spain, Mexico, and South America. My father sat beside me, and as soon as I was sure he was still breathing, I stood and dug my cell phone from my pocket, only mildly relieved to be in the relative safety of my native reality.
I dialed by memory, and the familiar electronic tone rang in my ear. “Kaylee?” Uncle Brendon said, his voice thick with tension. “Are you okay? Did you get them back?”
“I got my dad, and I need you to come get him out of here. He’s in the last classroom on the right, on the second floor. The door’s open.”
“You’re at the school?”
I rushed across the room and twisted the lock to open the door. “Yeah, and I have to go back for Nash and Alec, or Avari’s going to use the lampades to open a big doorway into the Netherworld, and everyone here’s going to walk right through it.”
“No, that’s impossible. Kaylee, Sophie’s there.”
“I know. I’m wearing her dress.”
“What?” Over the line, I heard a door slam, then an engine purred to life. My uncle was already on his way. “Kaylee, you have to get her out of there.”
“I can’t, Uncle Brendon. I have to go back for Nash and Alec. Call Sophie and tell her to go home. And tell her I’m sorry about her dress.”
“Wait, Kaylee, who’s Alec—?”
But I hung up without answering, then kissed my unconscious father on the cheek and summoned my wail to cross over one more time.
In the Netherworld classroom, Alec had his hands curled around clumps of dark curls on either side of his skull, as if he were about to rip them out. Tod stood in the doorway, staring down the hall in case anyone else showed up. “Okay, let’s go find Nash,” I said, and both heads whipped in my direction.
“You came back…” Alec said, relief and disbelief warring for control of his wavering voice.
“Of course I came back. You think I’d leave Nash here?” The proxy frowned, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Or you? Let’s go!”
But we’d only made it halfway down the hall when a sudden unanimous roar of triumph from outside made my blood run cold in my veins. I grabbed two thick handfuls of white satin skirt and ran into the nearest classroom and over to the row of windows set into the outside wall, which—thanks to the H-shaped footprint of the school—looked out over the broad front lawn.
I yanked on the dusty pull-cord dangling in front of my face and the aluminum blinds ratcheted up, shining the dying, anemic light from outside into the dark classroom. The crowd gathered in front of the school had nearly doubled since we’d come inside. And every single bizarre, misshapen face was turned toward the broad front porch, where three familiar figures now stood.
In the center was a tall, darkly elegant male form who could only have been Avari, the host of the night’s twisted jamboree. And on either side of him stood a glowing, white-clad female figure.
Avari had found the missing lampade, and the night’s festivities were back on schedule.
As if to punctuate that fact, Alec suddenly doubled over, arms wrapped around his middle like his guts were being twisted from within. “He’s drawing power from me. It’s too much, too fast, without a supplement from your dad.” The proxy gasped, and struggled to stand in spite of obvious pain. “He’s feeding them, and it’s going to kill me. And your boyfriend.”
“Tod, do something!” I insisted, panicked, unable to tear my gaze from the spectacle outside. “Whatever it takes to stop them from opening that doorway.”
The reaper glanced from my desperate, earnest expression to the spectacle outside, to the now-pallid proxy, then back to me. “I’m not leaving you here, Kaylee.”
“I’ll be fine. I have Alec, right?” I insisted, and the proxy nodded halfheartedly, his face now waxy with pain. “We’ll cross over as soon as I find Nash. Now go, or none of us will get that chance!”
After another moment’s hesitation, Tod nodded, then disappeared from the Netherworld just as a sudden swell of bright light from the ground drew an eerie “Ahhh…” from the crowd below, and a low groan from Alec. And while all eyes were focused on the light shining from the front of the school, a sudden, darker movement in the opposite direction caught my gaze.
Something was moving in the crowd. Something headed steadily away from the lampades, while everyone else was easing gradually toward them.
I squinted against the painful glare of living light and finally made out Addison’s long, half-head-full of straight blond hair, the other half of which had been singed from her scarred, pink skull. And just behind her, being pulled along by her good hand, was a form I would have recognized anywhere, in any reality, even hunched over in obvious pain.
Nash.
“There he is!” I cried, my voice approaching dog-whistle pitch. I pointed with one finger pressed to the cold window glass, and Alec’s pained gaze followed mine as he clutched the windowsill for balance. “See? Heading for the tree at the back of the crowd?” The one we’d huddled beneath only a quarter of an hour earlier.
Alec nodded and stifled a moan. “I see him.”
Unfortunately, while Addison was pulling him away from the Netherworld crowd and Avari’s new pets, she was also pulling him away from us, and I wasn’t sure we could get to them in time. Not without being noticed.
But we had to try.