"And if you were not meant to die of such poison?" Avari's brows lifted once more as he stepped forward, and again I limped backward, my vision going gray with the sudden, harsh movement. "I see your lifeline spread before me like a length of road, and the miles should tick away your fleeting, insignificant life for some time to come. Yet the stench of death clings to you. It flows through your veins like a river through its channel, and the toxin will reach your heart within minutes."
He paused, and I thought I glimpsed a dark flash of pleasure, even through the opaque tint of his lenses. "If you stay in the Nether much longer, you will die here."
Fresh fear skittered up my spine to lodge in my throat, and my gaze flitted from Nash's horrified expression to the smug hellion. Then I asked the question he clearly wanted to hear, in spite of some strong instinct urging me to retreat into silence. I had to know. "But you said my lifeline goes on." I stopped to breathe through another agonizing wave of pain. "How can I die here?"
"The date stamped on your feeble body means nothing in the Netherworld. If you suffer a mortal injury or contract a deadly infection here, you will die among us. As one of us. But you have a few minutes yet. Enough time to barter for your friends. Or to escape to your own world."
Was he telling the truth?
Horror drew my hands into fists so tight my fingernails cut into my flesh. If I fled the Netherworld to save myself, there would be no one left to suspend Addy's and Regan's souls once the hellion released them, so Nash could guide them back into the proper bodies. But if I stayed to help them, I would die.
Unless I sold my soul to Avari.
"Which will it be, little bean sidhe?" The hellion's faux-sympathetic smile sent a spike of terror through my heart. "Your life, or your friends'? Or your soul?"
"Tod?" I turned on him, silently demanding the truth, keeping the hellion safely in my peripheral vision.
The reaper's tortured, conflicted expression greeted me. "Kaylee, he's just trying to buy your soul."
I knew that, of course. But I also knew Tod would say anything to save Addison's soul. He would also not say anything with that same goal in mind. "Tell me the truth, Tod. Can I die here?"
The reaper sighed but nodded. "Your expiration date means nothing here. You know, 'Offer not valid in the Netherworld, the Bermuda Triangle, and various undiscovered warp zones across the globe…. "
I closed my eyes briefly and exhaled. "Awesome, Tod. Thanks for that." Anger flamed through me, thawing some of the chill Avari's voice had left in my veins. But it could do nothing to ease the agony clawing its way up my right leg and into my torso. "Thanks for warning me before we crossed over."
And suddenly I realized. I remembered. "You knew!" He'd almost said something in the car. He'd started to tell me my ankle couldn't wait. But then he didn't.
On the edge of my vision, Nash's hands curled into fists at his sides, and his eyes churned furiously in fear and rage.
"I'm sorry, Kay," Tod began as Addy and Regan stared at me in horror. "I'm so sorry…."
I turned my back on him, ignoring his silent plea for forgiveness. "If I die, it will be with my soul in my possession," I said to the hellion, summoning every ounce of that fortitude he'd mentioned. "It will never be yours." I paused, as cold, treacherous anger flowed swiftly over the demon's face. "Got that, Tod?"
"I got it," he whispered from behind me. He would take my soul if I died, to keep it from the demon. It was the least he owed me. That, and a few tears spilled over my grave…
"So be it, bean sidhe." Avari's voice was as still and deadly as an Arctic winter. He turned that toxic hunger on Addison. "What do you offer?"
Addy nodded at Tod, who'd recovered most of his composure. "Your colleague Bana is no longer with us," the reaper said. "Not in body, anyway."
The hellion's expression did not change, but I suffered in silence for several tense moments before he spoke again. "You have Bana's soul?"
"Yes." Tod let a slow smile stretch across his face. "She was more than one hundred years old. Her soul has more accumulated energy than both Addison's and Regan's combined, and I can personally attest to the quality of that energy." He patted his stomach, like he'd just eaten a particularly satisfying burger.
Again, Avari betrayed no thought or emotion, and frustration spiked with my pulse. I couldn't tell if he was even interested in our bait, much less how close we were to a deal.
The entire right side of my body throbbed during Avari's silence, pain cresting and falling with each beat of my heart. Small, sharp tongues of anguish licked at the base of my spine, replacing the numbing cold with a searing heat. I could almost feel the creeper venom flowing through me, taking over my body one cell at a time, one limb after another.
"No." Finally the hellion spoke, and I concentrated on his words to distract me from the pain that hunched my back and singed my nerve endings. "Human souls are pure, and particularly innocent are the souls of children." His gaze seemed to focus on Regan then, though I couldn't be sure with his eyes hidden. "If you want your souls back, you will offer a fair exchange. That is the agreement you signed."
Regan moaned, and Addy squeezed her sister's hand. "Please," the pop star begged, stepping in front of Regan to block her from the demon's sight, and vice versa. But the moment the word left her mouth, both Nash and Tod went stiff, and it didn't take me long to catch on. Addison had just shown the hellion another weak link in our chain, and exactly how to exploit it.
The demon smiled, and the temperature in the room plummeted. My goose bumps grew fatter, and my nose started to run, like I'd caught a cold. I began to shiver, and each small movement sent fresh waves of pain throughout my body, one after the other, cresting in my injured ankle.
"You want to save your sister?" Avari's voice pierced me like a massive icicle through the chest, and I couldn't hold back a gasp. I wasn't the only one; Regan looked like her blood had just frozen in her veins.
Addison hesitated, and Nash tried unsuccessfully to catch her eye without speaking. "Yes," Addy said finally, her pretty face twisted with fear and desperation.
The hellion's smile widened almost imperceptibly, and some small motion caught my eye from his desk. I glanced down to see a thin, blue-tinted film of frost forming on the glass desktop, crawling across the surface in tiny, flat ice-vines. The frost branched steadily in all directions, a network of captured snowflakes. It was beautiful.
It was also one of the scariest things I'd ever seen.
"I will trade one unspoiled human soul for this reaper's accumulated energy." Avari's soft words rolled over me like thunder as ice continued to spread toward the edge of the desk. "Show me Bana's soul."
"You first," I gasped, clutching my abdomen as the toxin spreading within me set my stomach on fire. Soon the poison's flames would meet the ice Avari's words had driven through my chest, and I knew better than to hope the two would simply cancel each other out. "Give us the soul first," I repeated, ignoring the shocked faces staring at me. "Or there's no deal."
A growl rumbled from the demon's throat to shake the entire room, and a sudden gush of frigid power sent more frost surging over the edge of the desk and onto the floor. Avari ripped the sunglasses from his face and they froze in his hand, tiny icicles hanging from the earpieces and the left lens. His fist closed, and the frozen plastic shattered, clinking to the floor like glass.