He scowled. "Do my eyes look empty to you?"
I breathed a little easier, knowing the dead boy in my backseat wasn't soulless—even if his conscience wasn't exactly bright and shiny. "So, what happens to a reaper's soul once it's confiscated?" I asked, watching his face for any unspoken reaction. Because a fired reaper was a dead reaper. Permanently dead.
"It's recycled, just like a human's," Tod said, and I could see the gears grinding behind his eyes, as he tried to follow my thought process. His brother's expression was eerily similar, only without that edge of suspicion. Nash might not have known exactly what I was up to, but he trusted me completely.
I wasn't sure whether that made him sweet or naive.
"So…who collects it?" I asked, not surprised to see my brow crinkle in the mirror. "Can just any reaper kill a fellow reaper and take her soul?"
Tod shrugged, and suddenly looked completely invested in the conversation—a relative rarity for him. "In theory, yes. But that would be a really good way to piss off your coworkers. So we usually leave that to managers and Dark reapers, like Libby."
The rain had started to slow, so I dared a little more pressure on the gas pedal. "Does it work the same way it does with humans?"
"As far as I know. Though, reaper souls are much rarer than human souls, so I've never actually seen it done."
"What are you getting at, Kaylee?" Nash asked, as I put my blinker on to pass an old pickup in the right lane.
"I was just curious," I said, not yet willing to mention the kernel of an idea sprouting slowly in my head. "Do you know how to get to Addison's mom's house?" I asked Nash, and when he nodded, I eyed Tod in the mirror. "Go find Levi. We'll meet you there as soon as we can."
He nodded, then disappeared.
I drove as fast as I could without risking an accident or police intervention, and when we got to Hurst, Nash gave me directions to her neighborhood. Which is where we got lost. The roads in Addison's subdivision wound around in interconnected circles and cul-de-sacs, several of which seemed to share variations of the same name. And all the houses looked the same, especially in the dark.
My ten-thirty curfew came and went while we wandered the neighborhood, trying to call Addy the whole time, but she never answered her phone. Finally, Nash suggested I let him drive while I took a peek into the Netherworld to see if I could give him a general direction from there. Reluctantly—very reluctantly—I agreed.
In the passenger seat of my own car, as a late-night mist still sprayed my windshield, I called up the memory of Emma's death, forcing myself to relive it one more time. I told myself I was doing a good thing. Trying to save the soul of a thirteen-year-old girl who had no idea what she was getting herself into, rather than simply exploring my own abilities.
It didn't help.
Summoning my own wail was still one of the most difficult things I'd ever had to do, probably because I didn't really want to remember how Emma had looked when she'd died. How her face had gone blank, her eyes staring up at the gym ceiling as if she could see straight through it and into the heavens. Though, she actually saw nothing at all….
That did it. The wail began deep in my chest, fighting to break free from my throat, but I held it back. Swallowed most of it, as Harmony had taught me. What came out was a soft, high-pitched keening, which buzzed in my ears and seemed to resonate in my fillings. And finally a thin gray haze formed over everything, in spite of the fact that there was very little light to filter through it. To reflect off of it.
Since I was just peeking into the Netherworld, rather than going there, my vision seemed to split as one reality layered itself over the other. It was a bit like watching a 3-D movie without the proper cardboard glasses. The images didn't quite line up.
And the Netherworld—rather than being lit by what paltry moonlight shone in the human plane—was illuminated by a ubiquitous white glow from above, similar to the way the lights of a city in the distance reflect off low-lying clouds in the dark. This light was indistinct and somehow cold, and seemed to blur the world before me, rather than to truly lighten it.
However that was par for the course, at least as far as I could tell. I'd never been able to see very far in the Netherworld, which gave me the impression that if I took one step too many, I'd fall into some huge, gaping pit, or step off the edge of the world. That thought, and the cool, hazy light, made me want to step very carefully. Or to close my eyes and shake my head until the Netherworld disappeared altogether.
But I resisted the urge to deny the Netherworld, though every survival instinct I had groaned within me. I'd never find Regan and Addy in time if I didn't look in both worlds.
"What do you see?" Nash asked. Because he could hear my keening, he would have been able to see into the Netherworld with me, if he'd wanted. But someone had to drive.
I couldn't answer him—not while I was holding back my wail. So I shrugged, and squinted into the distance, turning slowly in my seat. At first there was nothing but the usual gray fog, paler toward the sky, and the eerie impression of movement just outside my field of vision.
As Harmony had explained, human private residences didn't exist in the Netherworld, so when I peeked into it, Addy's neighborhood was suddenly overlaid with a second, similar series of gravel streets and walkways, which ended in nothing. And some darkly intuitive part of my mind insisted that the gravel was really crushed bone. Though, from what sort of creature I couldn't begin to imagine….
I wondered what I'd see if I were actually in the Netherworld. What would the homes look like? Could I go in one? Would I want to?
"Well?" The urgency in Nash's voice reminded me of the ticking clock. I squinted into the fog again and this time made out a series of darker-than-normal shapes in the ever-present gray spliced into our world. Shapes that weren't moving. Or at least, weren't moving away.
I pointed to my right, and was surprised when my hand smashed into the glass of my own window. Though I still sat bodily in the human world, my senses were so intensely focused on that other world that I'd become oblivious to my physical surroundings. The car didn't exist in the Netherworld, where I seemed to float over the road alone, in an invisible chair.
Weird.
Nash turned the wheel in the direction I'd pointed, and vertigo washed over me as I moved along with a vehicle I could only see and feel on one plane. In one reality.
Double weird. Evidently I get carsick in the Nether-reality.
As we drew closer, the shapes became a little more distinct. Two tall forms, and one small. Small, like a little girl. A young teenager, maybe.
Crap. Regan had already crossed over.
A little more of my wail slipped out, and I was surprised all over again when the echo of my voice bounced around in the car, rather than rolling out to points unknown. Nash followed my finger, and I had to slap a hand over my mouth to keep from vomiting when the car tilted up suddenly, and he slammed my gearshift into Park. We were in a sharply sloping driveway, only feet from those three dark figures now.
The driver's side door opened, and cold air swirled around me. A moment later, my door opened, and Nash helped me out of the car by one arm. Icy mist settled on me, rendering me instantly damp and cold, and distantly I wished I'd worn a jacket.
Nash's 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.