"Kaylee…" Tod said from the backseat.
"What's wrong?" I twisted so I could see all three of the other occupants.
"I just didn't see the light change." Emma slammed on the brake when the school bus in front of us slowed to a rumbling stop, the pop-out stop sign swinging away from its side.
Of course, I wasn't talking to her. I was talking to the uninvited, invisible reaper in her backseat.
"I can't get Addy and Regan alone long enough to explain the plan to them. They're constantly surrounded by this whole entourage. Assistants, and publicists, and Security, and their mother, who, by the way—" he turned to Nash " — hasn't changed one bit, except for a whole web of new wrinkles. She still has her nose in everything Addy does."
"Is there a point to this?" I looked from one brother to the other.
"A point to what?" Emma glanced in the rearview mirror again to see what she was missing. "What is wrong with you guys today?"
"Sorry, Em." I turned to face her more directly. "It's—"
"Bean sidhe business. I know. And I'm getting pretty damn sick of the whole thing." She smacked the steering wheel with the heel of one palm, then swerved into a right-hand turn without even touching the brake.
I grabbed the door grip, but she only stomped on the gas again before the wheel even straightened out. "I lied to your dad last night, and I got stuck in the ticket booth with Glen 'the human sprinkler' Frank for four hours yesterday. And I've driven you around today like your own personal chauffeur. The least you could do is explain why you two are acting so weird."
Sighing, I glanced at Nash, then pointedly at Tod, raising my brows in question. Should we tell her?
He shrugged, leaving the decision up to me. She was my best friend.
I shifted to face Emma, exhaling slowly. "I don't want you mixed up in all this. It's dangerous."
She rolled her eyes, and when she turned to look at me, she accidently turned the wheel, too, and the front right tire scraped the curb. Emma didn't seem to notice. "I'm not asking to go with you on some kind of scary field trip. I just hate being in the dark all the time."
I knew exactly how she felt, but before I could say anything, Tod shrugged at me, blue eyes shining in mischief. "Sounds like she wants to help. Ask if we can borrow her car. Preferably before she drives it into the side of a building…"
"No!" Nash and I snapped in unison. Then, before Emma could get even angrier, I glared at Tod. "Show her."
"You sure?" He frowned, no doubt thinking of my standing order for him to stay as far from Emma as possible, and never to let her see him. I didn't want death getting a crush on my best friend.
"Yeah, I'm sure."
"Wha—" Emma started. Then she squealed, and her eyes went huge as she stared into the rearview mirror in total shock. I grabbed the wheel when her hands fell away from it, trying to keep us on the right side of the road while her foot got heavier and heavier on the gas.
"Told you this was a bad idea," Tod said from the backseat, as Nash growled wordlessly at him in frustration.
"Em!" I yelled. "Hit the brake!" We were racing toward a four-way stop, where a group of tweens waited to cross the road on bicycles.
"Who…? How…?" She blinked, then actually twisted to look into the backseat, and the car lurched forward even faster when she braced herself against the gas pedal instead of the floorboard.
"Emma, stop!" I shouted, and she whirled around and stomped on the brake, bringing us to a screeching halt two feet from the crosswalk.
"Okay, we probably shouldn't have done that while she was actually driving." Nash studied her profile in concern.
"You call that driving?" Tod crossed his arms casually over his chest as if we hadn't nearly flattened three kids and totaled Emma's car.
The tweens rode their bikes across the street, glaring at us through the windshield. The last one flipped us off, then tossed long, purple-striped hair over his shoulder and rode off, standing on his pedals.
In the driver's seat, Emma sat frozen, staring wide-eyed into the rearview mirror. Her chest rose and fell heavily with each breath, and her hands shook on the wheel.
"Want me to drive?" I offered, laying one hand on her arm.
She shook her head without taking her gaze from Tod. "I want you to tell me what the hell just happened. Who is he, and how did he get in my car?"
"Okay, but we can't sit here forever." Another car had stopped behind us at the four-way, already honking. "Pull into the lot up there and we'll explain." Part of it, anyway.
Emma forced her attention from the rearview mirror with obvious effort. "This is part of your bean sidhe business? Who is that?" She glanced quickly at Tod again, as she drove slowly through the intersection.
Nash braced his arm on the back of my seat, steeling himself for something he obviously didn't want to say. "Emma, this is my brother. Tod." Calm flowed with his words, and I could tell the moment it hit Emma, because her shoulders relaxed, and her grip on the wheel loosened just a bit.
"You have a…Wait." She turned the car smoothly into a small lot in front of a park full of preschoolers and their parents, then pulled into the first empty spot, facing the road. Emma cut the engine and twisted onto her knees to peer over the back of her seat. "You have a brother?" she said to Nash, after a quick glance at me for confirmation. No one from Eastlake High knew about Nash's dead brother, because he and Harmony had moved—and changed schools—after the funeral two years earlier. "And he can…what? Teleport into strange cars? Is that a bean sidhe ability?"
"No…" I started, trying to decide how much to tell her. But then the reaper took that decision right out of my hands, in classic Tod-style.
"Okay, we're kind of on a tight schedule here, so let's get this over with…."
"Tod—" Nash snapped, but his brother held up one hand and rushed on before either of us could stop him.
"I'm a bean sidhe, just like Nash and Kaylee. Except that I'm dead. Teleportation—never really heard it called that—isn't a bean sidhe ability. It's a reaper ability. I'm a grim reaper. I can appear wherever I want, whenever I want, and I can choose who sees and hears me." He hesitated, and I wondered if my face could possibly be as red as Nash's. Or my eyes as wide as Emma's.
"You're Nash's brother. And a grim reaper?" She blinked again, and I readied myself for hysterics, or fear, or laughter. But knowing Emma, I should have known better. "So you, what? Kill people? Did you kill me that day in the gym?" She clenched the headrest, her expression an odd mix of anger, awe, and confusion. But there was no disbelief. She'd seen and heard enough of the bizarre following her own temporary death that Tod's admission obviously didn't come as that much of a surprise.
Or maybe Nash's Influence was still affecting her a little.
"No," Tod shook his head firmly, but the corners of his mouth turned up in amusement. "I had nothing to do with that. I do kill people, then I reap their souls and take them to be recycled. But only people who are on my list."
"So, you're not…dangerous?"
His pouty grin deepened into something almost predatory, like the Tod I'd first met two months earlier. "Oh, I'm dangerous…."
"Tod…" I warned, as Nash punched his brother in the arm, hard enough to actually hurt.
"Just not to you," the reaper finished, shrugging at Emma. "I see you all the time, but you've never seen me, because Kaylee said if I got too close to you, I'd suffer eternity without my balls."
"Jeez, Tod!" I shouted, my anger threatening to boil over and scald us all.
The reaper leaned closer to Emma and spoke in a stage whisper. "She's not as scary as she thinks she is, but I respect her intent."
Em looked like she didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and I rolled my eyes at Tod. "Do you have to be so difficult?"
He shrugged and leaned back in his seat. "You wanted me to show her, so I showed her. Now ask her if we can borrow her car so I can get back to my part in the plan."
"Borrowing a car was your part of t
he plan, and we are not taking Emma's." Even if she was willing to lend it to us, I wasn't willing to ask. I wanted as little contact between her and the Netherworld as possible.
And I was already regretting asking Tod to show himself.
"Wait, why do you need my car?" Emma glanced from Tod to Nash, then to me.
"Kaylee's dad took her keys," the reaper said.
"We don't need your car." I glared at Tod. "Though, we really appreciate you taking us to Nash's house. Assuming you're not completely freaked out by all this."
"Oh, I'm totally freaked." Emma smiled slowly, and I wondered how deep her shock went. "But I asked, right? Besides, this isn't much weirder than you and Nash bringing people back to life. Not really." As if she were trying to convince herself. "And it's much better than listening to you talk to people who aren't there. Or yell at me." She raised one brow at me. "You were yelling at him, not me, right?"
"Yes." I returned her hesitant smile easily. "We yell at Tod a lot."
"I can see why. So…" She glanced at all three of us again. "You need to borrow my car?"
"Yes," Tod said, just as Nash and I said, "No."
"Look." Tod turned a dark look my way. "Everyone I know is dead, and has no use for a car. Except Mom, and she needs hers to get to work tonight. So either you let me take one, let me get your keys back from your dad, or we borrow Emma's car. Those are the options."
"What about Addy?" I demanded, before Emma could break in and volunteer her car. And that's exactly what she would have done. I recognized the gleam of curiosity in her eyes, and I knew that if we used her car, she'd insist on coming with us. And that could not happen. "You can't tell me Addy doesn't have a car."
"She doesn't." Tod scowled, and I got the distinct impression he was a little irritated with his pop princess. "She never got her license, because there's always someone else around to take her wherever she wants to go. Which poses a whole new problem. If we can't get some time alone with her, whether or not we can find a car won't matter."
"Who's Addy?" Emma asked.
"No one." I glared at Tod to keep him from contradicting me. "Just some girl Tod has a crush on."
"It's not a crush," he spat, as if the word burned his tongue. "I'm trying to save her life."
"Not really her life," I corrected, when Emma's brow wrinkled in worry. She knew that each life had a price, and I couldn't let her think we were willing to kill some likely innocent bystander to save Tod's girlfriend. "We're trying to save her soul."
"What's wrong with her soul?" Emma asked Tod, having obviously come to the conclusion that he was her best source of information.
The reaper shrugged. "Nothing. She's just not actually in possession of it. At the moment."
"Whoooa…" Emma sank back into her seat slowly, her expression bleak, and I realized that somehow she understood the gravity of what she'd just heard, though she wasn't privy to the whole story. And if I had my way, she wouldn't be. "I get off at eight. My car's yours after that."
"Emma, no." I shook my head, one hand gripping the side of my headrest, but she only shook hers back at me. "Thanks, but…"
"You need the car. Take the car. Don't let some poor girl lose her soul because you were too stubborn to drive a loaner."
I sighed and closed my eyes briefly before giving in with a short nod, despite my better judgment. "Thanks, Em."
"You're welcome." Her smile grew, and her eyes glinted with mischief eerily similar to what I usually saw in Tod's. "And you're buying your own gas. Unless you let me tag along…"
"No." I smiled, to soften the blow. "It's too dangerous. And if you argue, I won't take your car."
"Yeah, I figured. Okay, let's go. I have to be at the Cinemark by four." Emma straightened in her seat and started the car again. "Though, how I'm supposed to serve popcorn for four hours after this, I have no idea…."
CHAPTER 14
"Hey, come on in." Harmony Hudson held the front door propped open for us before we'd even made it out of the car. "What's wrong with Emma?"
Nash glanced back at her as he crossed the dead grass, and I followed his gaze to find Emma looking a little dazed as she locked her car, as if what she'd learned had finally truly sunk in. The reaper had disappeared entirely.
"She just met Tod." I stepped into Nash's dark, warm living room and dropped my bag on the floor by the couch.
"Aah…" Harmony smiled knowingly as Emma stepped onto the porch. "You're going to need some processed sugar. Come on in and have a cookie."
Emma didn't even try to resist. She'd had enough of Harmony's treats to know better than to turn down the offer, even though she was already running late for work, thanks to our short detour.
Harmony closed the front door and followed us into the kitchen, where we gathered around the island and a plate of still-warm chocolate cookies, glittering under the fluorescent lights with a sprinkling of granulated sugar.
"I swear, Harmony, if you don't stop baking, I won't be able to fit in my own car. Assuming I ever get it back." I let my backpack slide to the floor while I bit into the cookie, surprised to discover a sweetened-peanut-butter center. "I'm sorry my dad bugged you last night," I said around another mouthful. "He totally overreacted."
"You know, it wouldn't hurt you to check in with him every now and then, to keep him from worrying." Nash's mom reached across the island to smack her son's shoulder. "You, too. You have a cell phone for a reason."
Nash shrugged and avoided answering by shoving an entire cookie into his mouth. But I felt obligated to answer.
"He's my dad. He's going to worry no matter what I do." And part of me was grateful that he was concerned over something legitimate, rather than something stupid, like the lead content of my shampoo bottle. But the other part of me couldn't quite escape the irony. For the past thirteen years, he hadn't even known when my curfew was, and now he'd gone all father-of-the-year.
Before Addy'd called, we were on track to get home before anyone expected us. If I'd known what was going to happen, I'd have called my dad, even if only to make up a reason I'd be late. But after Addy's call, things had moved so fast I'd honestly forgotten I had a cell, much less a curfew.
"Mmm," Emma groaned around her first bite, and I swear her eyes nearly rolled back into her head. "Can I take one for the road?"
Harmony beamed and immediately began rooting through one of the island drawers. "I'll pack several for you."
Emma left five minutes later, armed with a paper bag of peanut-butter-surprise cookies and a private promise to meet us in Nash's driveway at midnight. His mom would already be at work, and surely my dad would be asleep by then. Assuming I didn't wake him sneaking out of the house.
With Emma gone, Harmony sent Nash to his room with a plateful of cookies and a strong suggestion that he take advantage of the privacy to do some homework.
When his Xbox whirred to life a minute later, we shared an eye roll. Nash would leave his homework until the last possible moment, and likely only half finish it. And he'd still manage straight Bs. If he'd ever actually applied himself, he could probably have been valedictorian.
Harmony poured soda over ice in two glasses, then gestured with a nod of her head for me to grab a couple of cookies on our way into the living room. "Your dad knows you're here, right?" She sipped from her glass as she walked backward through the swinging door, to hold it open for me.
"Yeah. These lessons were his idea. He says arming myself with information is the best way to avoid trouble. Or something like that." A fact I'd reminded him of when he threatened to make me come straight home from school.
With any luck, he wouldn't guess that the knowledge I was about to arm myself with could get me into more trouble than he could possibly imagine.
Hopefully it would be enough to get us all out of trouble, too.
I had a vague plan for how to get Harmony to teach me what we needed to know, and to make her think it was her idea. Reverse psychology. It only works on preschoolers and adults.
"We could just skip today's lesson and gorge on junk food instead." I sank onto the couch and set the napkin-wrapped bundle of cookies on the coffee table. "We don't have to tell my dad."
The shades of blue in Harmony's irises churned languidly, and her frown looked impossibly cute for an eighty-two-year-old woman. But then again, she was holding up remarkably well for an octogenarian. "Kaylee, you need to learn about your bean sidhe heritage and your abilities. I'd hate for you to stumble into something by accident later, like you did with Belphegore."
"Oh, I won't. Not now that I know what I am. And it's not like I'm ever going to use any of this, right?" I shrugged, but inside I flinched from her hurt look. "I mean, I already know how to hold back my wail, and that's all I really need, right?" I hated feigning disinterest in what she had to show me, when I was really very curious. And I hated it even worse that I sounded ungrateful for her help. But Addy's and Regan's souls depended on making Harmony want to teach me something my father wouldn't approve of. Something she'd normally never show me.
"You never know, Kaylee." She drank from her glass again, probably to hide her disappointment, which had virtually erased the deep dimples from her cheeks. "Emergencies happen, and you might need to know how to go to the Netherworld someday, instead of just peeking into it."
I frowned, showcasing my hesitance as I chewed my last bite of cookie. "Isn't that dangerous?"
She shrugged and pushed up the sleeves of her snug lilac sweater. "Unsupervised, yes. But the risk would be pretty minimal if we cross over from here."
"Because human houses don't exist in the Netherworld?" I was thinking of what she'd told me on Sunday.
"That's true, but Netherworlders do have homes of their own, and if you cross over without knowing where you'll come out, you could wind up somewhere you don't want to be."
I was betting that was a pretty big understatement.
"Can't we just peek in and see what's here on the Netherworld plane?"
"Kind of." Harmony sat straighter; she was perking up now that I was openly curious. "When you peek into the Netherworld from here, or vice versa, you're seeing the two realities layered, one over the other. That can be really confusing if you aren't used to mentally sorting out what you're seeing. You could easily overlook something important. Or dangerous."
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