But the moment my scream ended, her soul began to rise. Belphegore opened her mouth and inhaled, and Em’s soul began to float toward her.
My heart hurt. My head hurt. My throat hurt. My entire existence was pain and bleak darkness. Em could not die.
But it was too late. She was already dead. And even if the hellions would let me put her soul back in her body, there was no guarantee she’d ever regain consciousness. Her neck would still be broken, her body irreparably damaged.
So this time I screamed for her soul. Belphegore wouldn’t get it. Neither would Avari or Invidia. No part of the Netherworld would have Emma, or any of the rest of my friends.
I sang for Emma’s soul, and when I held my amphora out, her soul slid into the heart around my neck like it was always meant to be there. It wasn’t. But at least she was safe there. Even if they took the amphora, they couldn’t destroy it, and they couldn’t remove her soul from it.
“Wonderful!” Belphegore clapped her flawless hands, her perfect lips curled into a forgettable smile. “Now bind her soul to me. Pull her out of your little heart and—”
“No.” I laid Emma’s body gently on the ground and stood, clutching the amphora in my fist, glaring at the world through fresh, furious tears. “Hell, no. You’re not getting her. You’re not getting any of us. You can kill every single one of them, and I’ll put every single soul in here, where you can’t touch it.”
Sophie and Lydia cried harder behind me, and Luca tried to comfort them both through his own shock.
“And if we kill you?” Avari demanded. The hellions stood in front of me now, all in a row, united in their shared rage. In power so strong it radiated from them in waves that stung my skin.
“If you kill me, you will never, ever get what you want.”
Avari opened his mouth to make another threat, and Tod shouted over him. A single word that approached the power and volume of my own voice.
“Now!”
He charged Avari, and from the other side, Nash charged Belphegore. Both hellions screamed, then bent at odd angles, reaching for something behind them. When they turned, still reaching in vain, I understood. The hilt end of my broken dagger protruded from the center of Avari’s back, where he couldn’t reach it. The blade end was stuck in Belphegore, where she couldn’t reach it.
Only Invidia remained unhurt, and she was so confused by the chaos and competing demands from Avari and Belphegore for her help that for a moment she turned in circles, paralyzed by indecision.
Nash rushed around Belphegore and pulled Luca off the bench. I held Emma’s arm while each of the boys grabbed one of my wrists, and right before I blinked us into the human world, I realized that Thane was gone, but I had no idea when he’d left.
A minute later, Tod appeared next to us beneath the human-world pavilion, with both Lydia and Sophie.
I dropped onto the ground with Emma’s hand clutched in mine, and though the others stood around me, I saw nothing but Em. Until Nash picked her body up and her hand slid from my grip. He carried her toward the cars, while Luca herded the other girls and Tod pulled me to my feet. I walked, but I didn’t see where I was going.
I didn’t care.
After only a few steps, Lydia collapsed and I blinked, jarred out of my own shock. Tod and I knelt next to her. She was still breathing. She still had a pulse. But her eyes were closed and she wasn’t moving.
“We have to go,” Tod said, sliding one arm behind her shoulders to pick her up. “They’ll cross over as soon as they get the blades out and heal.”
“No, they won’t,” Thane said, and I jumped, startled, to find him behind us. “I cleaned out their stockpile, during your convenient distraction.”
“Their stockpile?”
“The restored souls. I took them all. Including mine.” He took off his glasses, and I was oddly relieved to see that he had both pupils and irises again. “Can’t have them coming after me, now can I? And the restored souls will fetch one hell of a price somewhere else. Anywhere else.”
Before I could demand that he turn the souls over to the proper authority, his gaze fell to Lydia, lying motionless on the ground. “I couldn’t get hers, though.”
“What? Her soul? Where is it?”
“In the Nether. Here. Everywhere. She was syphoning Emma’s pain when Emma died, and part of her soul went with Emma’s.”
“Part?” I wrapped my hand around the heart hanging against my sternum. It was unnaturally warm.
“The rest dissipated.”
“So she’s…empty?” Tod said, staring at Lydia, and his hand curled around mine, around the amphora, like he would help me protect it.
Thane nodded. “I’ve only seen that a couple of times—a living body with no soul. She’ll be dead in minutes.”
“If she doesn’t get a soul…” Tod said, his gaze holding mine. Challenging it. There was a choice to be made, and I had to make it.
I nodded. I understood.
I could save Emma. Part of her, anyway. And I could save part of Lydia. Nothing would be the same. But at least life would go on. I owed it to them both to try.
Nash laid Emma on the ground next to Lydia.
I closed my eyes, but I could still see them in my head and I could feel everyone watching me. Sophie was still sniffling, clutching Luca’s arm. Nash held Emma’s limp hand. Tod was waiting, and he was ready, too. Once I withdrew Em’s soul from the amphora, I’d need a male bean sidhe to help guide it into another body.
I sang out to Emma’s soul, and when it came out of the amphora, Tod helped me guide it into Lydia’s body. Then we waited.
At first, nothing happened, and I didn’t know whether to be horrified or relieved by the thought that I’d done it wrong. That Emma’s suffering would end with her life.
Then Lydia opened her eyes. They weren’t blue, like they should have been. They were brown. Emma-brown.
“Kaylee?” Emma said with Lydia’s voice, blinking those familiar brown eyes at me. “What happened? Where are we?” She sat up, and everyone moved back to give her space. “Why do I sound weird? Why am I so pale?” she demanded, staring at Lydia’s forearm, stretched out in front of her.
“I couldn’t save you,” I whispered, and those four words held more shame than I’d known I could feel. I’d promised I wouldn’t let her die. Then I’d failed her. “This was the best I could do. But I swear on my afterlife that they’ll pay, Em. All three of them.”
Avari wanted my soul, but he was going to get a hell of a lot more than that. He was going to get pain. And loss. And justice. He was going to get vengeance in kind for every soul he’d stolen. For every friend he’d taken from me. This time I would feed from his pain, and with any luck, it would hurt worse knowing that he’d put into motion his own downfall.
Avari had woken me up and given my afterlife purpose. He’d awakened my rage.
Emma had given me reason to use it.
A special treat from Rachel Vincent
A Day in the Afterlife of Tod
(pre-IF I DIE)
8:00 a.m.—Another cup of coffee. Pecan caramel, this time. I’ve tried every flavor of creamer the cafeteria has. The coffee still sucks.
8:54 a.m.—These E.R. chairs were manufactured in the seventies. I swear cave men were more comfortable sitting on logs and rocks. That’s it. I’m filing that requisition form today. Eight months of practicing the attending physician’s signature is about to pay off… .
9:47 a.m.—Rush-hour traffic collision. Crushed sternum. Splinters of bone sticking through his skin. Two punctured lungs. Death is a mercy. Hey, is that coffee on his shirt? Smells good. Wonder what kind of creamer he uses?
10:38 a.m.—Third period. Kaylee has no class this period. I have no one to kill. Coincidence, or fate?