Sophie.
I opened my eyes to find her glaring at me in full beauty-pageant makeup, both hands propped on her bony hips. But my relief at seeing her alive and well was dampened a bit by the contempt shining in her eyes.
“Did your dad finally kick you out?” Sophie sneered, then her expression tightened into a mask of dread and irritation.
“You’re not moving back in, are you?”
I pushed myself upright with my good arm, rolling my head on my neck to alleviate the stiffness that had set in. I wasn’t dumb enough to expect a thank-you for helping save her from demon possession, or for calling her dad when she was hurt, but a little courtesy would have been nice. Or even just a little quiet while I slept.
Of course, I wasn’t sure what Uncle Brendon had told her, but I doubted it referenced much of the truth, or my part in it. As usual.
“I was just taking a nap,” I said, leaning forward to fish my shoes from under the end table.
“Well, nap somewhere else. I have to get ready for the carnival, and I don’t need you hanging around, sucking all the normal out of the room.”
The Winter Carnival. Crap.
Sophie started toward her room and the pageant dress hanging over her door, pausing halfway to glance back at me over one shoulder. “Laura thinks we should cancel the whole thing, because of what happened to Doug, but I don’t think Doug would want his tragic death to take food out of the mouths of impoverished children, right? And anyway, we’re gonna open with a moment of silence, and there’s that whole memorial service next week.”
I shot her a blank stare. Untimely and tragic as his death may be considered in certain social circles, I seriously doubted Doug Fuller had ever given much thought to mouths that didn’t belong to hot, willing teenage girls. But if Sophie wanted to rationalize a way to preserve her party—despite the death of a friend and the mental breakdown of her own boyfriend—nothing I said would change her mind. And without the Winter Carnival, there would be no reason for Netherworlders to gather, and no way for us to get a fair shot at stealing back Nash and my dad.
I hopped into the kitchen on one foot while wedging my shoe onto the other. The clock over the stove read four fifty-five. I was running late.
“Where’s Uncle Brendon?” I shoved one arm into my coat sleeve on my way to the front door.
“Testing Christmas lights in the garage.” Sophie smoothed a wrinkle from the skirt of her hanging gown without even glancing my way. “I have a massive headache, and the blinking was making it worse.”
I raised one brow and tried not to smirk as I dug my keys from my jacket pocket, then hesitated with my hand on the doorknob, twisting to eye my cousin critically. “How do you feel?”
The sudden flush in her cheeks was hard to miss. “Dad told you I fell?” Her mouth stretched into a long, hard line. “I swear, Kaylee, if you tell anyone I was sleepwalking, I’ll make sure—”
“Sleepwalking?” I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Of all the ridiculous explanations Uncle Brendon had fed her to cover past bean sidhe activity, he was really pushing the credibility envelope with that one. “You sleepwalk?”
Sophie’s gaze hardened. “I never have before. But it figures that you’d show up the first time it happens.” Her frown deepened. “Somehow, you’re always there whenever anything really weird goes down. You’re like a walking bad luck charm.”
“Have fun at your carnival, Sophie,” I said, pulling open the front door. “I’m sure you’re a shoo-in for the Ice Bitch crown.” I slammed the door before she could reply.
I was halfway down the driveway when Tod materialized in front of me, wearing his usual loose jeans and dark tee. “You okay?”
“I overslept. Sophie’s fine, too, by the way.”
The reaper shrugged. “Like I’m going to pass up an opportunity to smack your cousin.”
I grinned, half hoping that next time she was possessed, I’d be there to do the honors. “You ready?”
“As ready as I’m gonna be.” He strode past me toward the car, sneakers squeaking on the concrete.
“You think Alec will make it?”
“Addy said she’d do her best. They won’t let her near Nash or your dad, but she thinks she can get to Alec. She’ll pay for it later, though.” Tod’s jaw bulged and he stuffed tightly clenched fists into his pockets. “We shouldn’t have involved her.”
“That’s her call, Tod. If she wants to help, she has every right. And we’re kind of screwed if she can’t get to Alec.”
“I know.” Conflict was clear on his face as he stepped through the passenger’s-side door and settled onto the seat with that weird, selective corporeality reapers typically flaunted. It must have been hell having to choose between the girl he loved and his own brother. Maybe as hard as it was for me to choose between Nash and my dad. Only Tod hadn’t gotten out of making his decision.
The school parking lot was already half-full when we got there, the pink-and-purple sunset reflecting broad streaks of color on row after row of windshields. Once the carnival actually began, cars would line the street in both directions. Fortunately, the park across the street was still mostly empty, and thanks to the frigid temperature, no one sat in front of the fountain. In our reality, anyway.
I parked as close as I could, then hunched into the fading warmth my coat held as Tod and I made our way toward the fountain. It was a simple scalloped circle of brick with a smooth concrete ledge, surrounding a single broad jet of water, still spraying in spite of the near-freezing temperature. We were hoping that since we were half an hour early, the crowd in the Netherworld would be as sparse as the one in our world.
“You want me to check first?” Tod asked, after one look at the terror which must have been churning in my eyes.
“That’d be great.” What I really wanted was for him to find out where Nash and my dad were being held, so we could cross over right next to them, then escape before anyone noticed we’d arrived. Unfortunately, they were probably being held in the Netherworld version of some building I didn’t have access to in our world.
Which was why we needed Alec.
“I’ll be right back,” Tod said. “And if for some reason I’m not, do not cross over alone. Okay?”
I nodded, but we both knew I was lying. If he didn’t come back, there would be no one left to go with me, and I wasn’t going to leave Nash and my father to die in the Netherworld. Or worse.
Tod shot me his lopsided, cherubic grin, then blinked out of existence.
I sat on the edge of the fountain, just out of reach of the frigid spray, prepared to wait as long as it took. Which turned out to be about fifteen seconds.
“This isn’t gonna work,” Tod said, and I heard the first word almost before he materialized in front of me. “They’re everywhere. It’s like that big Halloween party they have downtown, only the costumes are real. And everybody looks hungry.”
Great. My pulse swooshed rapidly in my ears, and my heart began to ache from beating so hard. “Did anyone see you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I don’t think it matters. Reapers aren’t very appetizing. You’re the one we have to worry about.”
“Okay, so what do you suggest? A costume?” I asked, thinking about the furry werewolf mask in a box at the top of my closet.
Tod frowned. “No costume you could possibly own would make you look like an actual monster. Some of them don’t look all that different from us, anyway…” His voice trailed off, and I saw the idea the moment it sparkled in his eyes. “But everyone is all dressed up for the festival, so if you had a fancy dress or something, you might pass for one of the harpies, or a visiting siren. I could pop into a store and try to find you something.” He stepped back and eyed me critically. “What size do you wear?”
“No need…” I said as movement from the school lot caught my eye. If I hadn’t known her all my life, I might never have recognized my cousin from such a distance, but there was no mistaking that slim build, or easy,
rhythmic sway of nonexistent hips as she walked down the sidewalk with a skinny friend who could only be Laura Bell. And if Sophie had arrived, so had her pageant gown. “Come on. I think I know where we can get one.”
Assuming I could squeeze my normal-size body into her skeleton-size dress.
We found Laura’s car in the third row, and when we were sure we were alone in the lot, Tod stepped through the door and sat in the driver’s seat with one leg hanging out as he popped the trunk from the inside. I pulled up the trunk lid when it bounced open, then lifted the long, white dress box from inside, hoping the gown would be long enough to cover my sneakers. Because even if I managed to squeeze myself into Sophie’s dress, I could never wear her size-five heels, and running around the Netherworld barefoot was not an option. Not after I’d nearly died when a Crimson Creeper vine had lashed itself around my ankle.
I changed into the dress from the semiprivacy of my own backseat, but had to emerge and suck in a deep breath so Tod could force the zipper past my hips. And finally I understood why pageant contestants had such good posture: they had no choice. I couldn’t breathe in the stupid dress, much less slouch.
“Wow.” Tod stepped back for a better look, and I had to glance down to see why he was staring. Sophie’s dress was too small for me, which meant that my meager assets were heaped above the strapless, gold-embroidered bodice, and my waist cinched by the torturous ribbing. The skirt flared with several gathered layers of material, and only barely brushed the ground around my shoes. It would have been longer on Sophie, but I wasn’t going to complain about the length of a stolen dress.
“You really think I’m going to blend in wearing this thing?” I eyed him skeptically, suddenly certain the reaper was playing a horrible, ill-timed joke.
He grinned. “Actually, now I’m pretty sure you’re gonna stand out, but in a good way.”
“But I still look human.” Especially with chill bumps popping up all over my exposed arms and shoulders.
“So do sirens. And anyway, they’ll probably assume there’s a tail or a third leg under your skirt.”
“How very comforting…” I mumbled, slamming the front door. Then I took a step forward and realized I’d closed Sophie’s skirt in the car. Frustrated, I opened the door and pulled the material free, wincing at the grease stain obvious on the white beaded satin, even in the rapidly fading daylight. Sophie was going to kill me. “Let’s get this over with.”
With any luck, I could reclaim my men and return Sophie’s dress before she discovered it missing. And under the circumstances, I’d be happy to let her wonder about the unexplained stain for the rest of her life.
“Okay, now try to walk around like you belong there, but don’t make eye contact with anyone,” Tod said, taking my hand as he half led, half tugged me across the street. “And if it looks like it’s going to go bad at any time, I want you to cross back over. You won’t do anyone any good if you get caught.”
“The same goes for you,” I pointed out, then clenched my jaw to stop my teeth from chattering as we came to a stop in front of the still-spraying fountain.
“Acknowledged.” Tod grinned again, but this time his smile felt forced. “You ready?”
“Not even a little bit.” But I bid a silent farewell to the human world, anyway, and closed my eyes as his hand tightened around mine. Tod was going to cross me over, so I could save my voice for the return trip.
Since they didn’t have to conjure up a death song, reapers crossed almost instantly, and I found the process disorienting, compared to my own routine.
While my eyes were still closed, the air around me took on a different quality as it brushed my bare arms and shoulders. It was every bit as cold as the December chill in the human world, but felt somehow sharper. More dangerous.
The sounds from my reality faded rapidly. Gone were the growl of a distant engine and the Christmas music tinkling faintly from inside the school gym. The park lights no longer buzzed overhead, nor did the wind rattle the skeletal branches of the trees all around us.
Instead, a constant hum of strange conversation filtered into my ears, and even the familiar words were spoken with an unfamiliar lilt, or pitch, or syllabic stress. Even the light pitter sound of the fountain had changed, as if something thicker than water now splashed onto the brick ledge to my left.
I opened my eyes and gasped. I now stood beside the stone park fountain in Sophie’s white Snow Queen dress, both of which had bled through from one reality to the other without so much as an atom out of place. Except that now the fountain shot a thin stream of blood high into the air, to splatter into the gruesome crimson pool at its base.
I really should have seen that coming.
But the fountain was just the beginning. Unlike the park in our world, on this side of the gray fog, Tod and I were no longer alone.
Not by a long shot.
24
“YOU OKAY?” TOD WHISPERED, leaning so close I could feel his breath on my ear, warm in contrast to the bone-deep chill of the Netherworld.
“Mmm-hmm,” I mumbled, afraid to speak for fear of somehow giving away my species. His hand squeezed mine, reassuring me with the physical presence he couldn’t avoid in the Netherworld.
All around us bodies milled, clustered in restless groups or walking aimlessly around the grassless park. Some whispered words as thin and wispy as the wind, while others thundered in deep, round tones. Everywhere I turned, sparkling, flowing gowns were decked with large multilobed feathers from birds I couldn’t identify. Long swaths of crystalline material draped forms whose gender I couldn’t determine.
Several people wore masks, and as I watched, a man with three legs and a tail lowered a visage painted with four glittering lilac eyes to reveal a smooth, featureless expanse of chalk-white flesh where his face should have been. I gasped, and Tod squeezed my hand, then pulled me swiftly through the crowd.
He stopped at a tree with a massive, twisting trunk in varying shades of a deep, earthy gold and tugged me beneath branches bowed with thick, spiky, rust-colored foliage. “If you want to blend in—” he whispered “—it might help not to flinch and gasp every time you see a Netherworlder. I hear they’re pretty common around here.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” But the featureless face was new to me. As were the short, thick creatures with wickedly curved claws instead of fingers, and long, sharp beaks where their noses should have been. “Do you see Alec?”
“I don’t know. What does he looks like?”
“You’ve never seen him?” Frustrated, I reached up to brush a spiky, orange-ish plant pod from my hair, then stopped myself just in time. For all I knew, the tree we stood under was just as poisonous as the Crimson Creeper that had nearly killed me a month earlier.
“When would I have seen Avari’s proxy? You think he parades his staff in front of me every time I visit Addison?”
Lovely. “Well, we know he’s human.” I shrugged. “Or at least he thinks he’s human.” But then again, so had I.
Tod stared out at the crowd. “Okay, so we’re looking for someone who probably stands out almost as badly as we do. How hard can that be?”
It turned out to be pretty damn hard. People were everywhere—“people” defined as beings able to move under their own power—and while the vast majority of them looked terrifying to my humanoid-accustomed eyes, sprinkled throughout the array of extra limbs, missing extremities, backward joints, wings, horns, claws, and the odd tentacle were the occasional normal-looking beings with the proper proportions and standard number of appendages.
Some of these creatures, upon closer examination, were very definitely not human. One normal-looking woman turned out to have perfectly round, anime eyes with bright teal irises, surrounded by rich, deep rings of lavender. Another man’s flesh, when I saw it up close, was covered in shallow but pervasive wrinkles, like a Sphinx kitten, and for several seconds, I battled a horrifying impulse to tug on a flap of the skin drooping from his arm to see how far it woul
d stretch.
Yet others could easily have been kids in my third-period class, or the parents who picked them up after school. The variety of shapes, sizes, and colors was truly astounding and almost too disorienting for me to process, with shock and fear still racing through my veins. So when my gaze finally settled on a familiar profile in the crowd, it was all I could do not to shout her name across the multitude, which would surely have gotten us all killed.
Instead, I grabbed Tod’s arm, trying to guide his gaze with my own. “Addison…” I whispered, standing on my toes to get as close as I could to his ear.
As if she heard me, Addy suddenly turned, and my breath caught in my throat, trapped by horror so profound it had no expression. Addison’s profile was just as I remembered it, bright blue eye, heavily lashed lid, and a flawless cheek and nose. But the other side of her face was a ruined mass of oozing red wounds and black crusted flesh, stretching from her scalp—where most of her beautiful blond hair had been burned off—to below her collarbone, where her skin disappeared beneath her shirt.
My hand tightened around Tod’s arm, but he only pried my fingers loose and squeezed them, then let me go.
I forced my gaze away from Addy to glance at Tod, who betrayed neither horror nor shock. He exhaled in relief, then headed for Addison with quick, determined strides.
Gathering Sophie’s stupid long skirt in both hands, I rushed after him and caught up as he sidestepped a tall, skeletal woman with dark eyes and cheeks hollow enough to cradle a pool ball. “What happened to her?” I whispered as we walked, my horror on Addison’s behalf almost eclipsing my terror of the creatures all around us.
“It looks like he lit her on fire today.”
“Today?”
Tod nodded grimly as Addy’s gaze found him, and her half-scarred mouth struggled into a gruesome smile. “What part of ‘eternal torture’ don’t you understand? Yesterday he peeled her flesh off while she screamed, and you could see her teeth through her cheek. He always leaves one side perfect, though, so she can mourn her own beauty. Her room is walled-in mirrors, and the damage goes all the way down her body.”
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