But we were not almost there. We'd gone less than a quarter of the way—just far enough to attract attention.
As we crossed the room, oddly lilted, strangely pitched snippets of conversation began to fade into silence as one creature after another noticed our presence. Then, as we passed an arrangement of formal, burgundy-colored couches, that conversation started back up, as if I'd just yawned to pop my ears and could suddenly hear again. This time I caught actual words here and there.
"Overworlders…"
"…taste their fear…"
"…used-up husks…"
"…plump, soft flesh…"
"…beacons of energy…"
"…swimming in pain…"
"…strong, young hearts…"
Chills traveled up my arms and down my spine. I became aware of a steady movement toward us, as the creatures slowly converged, slinking, slithering, lurching, and gliding in our direction from every corner of the room. I caught glimpses of extra arms, coiling tails, and flashing eyes in all manner of wrong colors. Whispered hisses followed us. Outstretched appendages welcomed us.
Something brushed a strand of hair from my shoulder, then trailed lightly down my back. I swallowed a shudder of revulsion and forced myself to face forward. To keep walking.
"This one smells like warm rot…." a female voice whispered into my ear, though as near as I could tell, the speaker was all the way across the lobby, beside the reception desk. Skeletal hands peeked from beneath long, wide sleeves, but she stood on nothing that I could see. No feet. No paws. No flippers. She simply hung on the air, sunken eyes glowing a dark, eerie blue.
As we moved forward, the crowd parted reluctantly, some beings moving so slowly we had to wait for them to vacate our path. Oddly textured hems brushed my jeans. Scalding fingers tugged on mine. And something cold and airy, like a breeze somehow made solid, wound around my ankles, forming an almost physical resistance to my forward motion and introducing a new, prickly cold pain to the agony still throbbing in my leg.
When we finally reached Tod and the bank of elevators—I'd come to view them as salvation itself—my sigh of relief was audible. Without a word, he pressed a button on the wall, and a set of doors slid open. We stepped inside, and Addy jabbed the "close door" button repeatedly with one trembling finger.
When the door closed, she turned on us, tears welling in her oddly blank eyes. "What the hell was that?"
"Hell's about right," I mumbled, and she whirled on me, fierce anger overwhelming her fear for the first time.
I was glad to see it. Leaking fear in the Netherworld was like leaking blood in a shark tank.
"You could have warned us!"
"What did you think you were getting into when you sold your soul?" Nash demanded, and I glanced at him in surprise. Contempt shone in his eyes. "These creatures live off the human life force that bleeds through from our world to theirs. Some of them eat souls. Some of them eat flesh. Some of them just like new toys. Either way, walking through that lobby was like dangling a bloody steak in front of a tiger, and Kaylee and I did that for you two, even though she's in horrible pain and huge trouble with her father. And neither of us have a thing to gain from this. So if you have any further complaints, you can lodge them right up your own ass, pop star, because nobody here gives a damn who you are or how much you're worth. Without us, you're meat, pure and simple. Got it?"
Addison blinked her big, empty eyes. Then she nodded, still trembling, and I couldn't resist a smile.
But then the elevator binged and the doors slid open, and my heart jumped so far up my throat I could have spit it on the floor.
Tod stepped out first and we followed quickly, pleased to find the hallway deserted. And carpeted, which meant our shoes were silent. The reaper led us to a door near the end of the hall, where he stopped and turned to whisper. "He's in there. I peeked right before you got here." He hesitated, and forced a tense smile at Addy and Regan. "You guys ready?"
Addy nodded hesitantly and squeezed Regan's hand until she nodded, too.
"Good. Let's do this." Tod put one hand on the knob. My heart raced so fast I felt dizzy. He twisted the knob, and my pulse pumped scalding ribbons of adrenaline through my veins. He pushed the door open, and I had to swallow back vomit.
Behind a desk in the middle of a normal-looking office sat a normal-looking man in a suit, tie, and pair of sunglasses. He showed no surprise at our arrival. This was the hellion of greed?
"Avari?" Tod said, and the man nodded slowly, silently. "We're here to bargain for the souls of Addison and Regan Page."
And as the impossibility of what we were about to attempt truly sank in, I focused on one thought to keep myself calm: Weirdest. Wednesday. Ever.
CHAPTER 19
Avari rose, placing both palms flat on the glossy work surface of a desk that stood empty in the Netherworld, but was probably cluttered with some worker-drone's papers, pens, and coffee mug in our world. "Come inside," he said, his words as smooth and dark as good fudge, but nowhere near as sweet.
His voice sent shivers through me, leaving tiny icicle shards to chill the blood in my veins.
Tod stepped inside and we followed him reluctantly. I brought up the rear, fighting to control the wince of pain my features wanted to form, and to deny the groan lodged in my throat. I would not expose myself as the weakest member of the herd.
With the casual wave of one hand, Avari closed the door behind us, from across the room. "Addison. Regan." The hellion nodded formally, rounding his desk to stand in front of it. "I assume you've come to invoke your respective out-clauses?"
"No." Addy spoke firmly and clearly, in spite of the trembling hands she clasped at her back. "We won't damn someone else to eternity with you. We're here to make a different sort of trade."
Avari sat with one hip on the corner of his desk, tugging the sleeves of an immaculate, coal-gray suit jacket into place. If not for the sunglasses—and the ability to close doors without touching them—he could have been any ordinary cog in the life-insurance machine. "What makes you think I'm open to such an exchange?" Power radiated from him in waves of bitter cold, drawing goose bumps from my skin, even beneath my jacket.
"You're a hellion of avarice," I began, but when the demon's head turned my way, the words froze in my throat, and I had to cough to force them up. "Why wouldn't you want more for less?"
Avari's brows rose above his sunglasses, and my heart thumped painfully from the knowledge that both his attention and his gaze were focused on me. Being scrutinized by a hellion was definitely not part of the plan.
Nash stepped protectively closer to me, his hand brushing mine, but Avari took no notice.
"You reek, bean sidhe." The hellion's words wove through me on a gust of frigid air, coiling around my chest until I could hardly feel my heartbeat through the simultaneous numbing cold and stabbing, icy pressure. "The rot spreads inside you quickly. I smell it. I feel it, though you disguise your pain with uncommon strength and fortitude. Both qualities I find quite appetizing in a soul."
He rose from his desk and took a single stride toward me. I answered it with a backward step, swallowing a cry as my bad foot hit the floor. Needlelike pain shot down my foot and up my leg, this time enveloping my entire pelvis, as well.
I was getting worse. Fast.
The hellion's long, straight nose twitched as he inhaled, and a terrifying flash of hunger flickered across his otherwise empty expression. "I can eat your pain. I can spare your life."
Panic shot through me and I squelched it all, except the tremor in my hands. "When my death comes, you can't stop it, and I won't even try. If I'm supposed to die from crimson creeper venom, so be it." Not that I was exactly eager to go, but I would not die without my soul. Not even for the promise of a quick, painless death.