Chapter 17

"Where are we going?" Nash asked from the driver's seat as I propped my right foot on the dashboard, glad to be back on my own side of the looking glass, even if only temporarily.

"I don't know yet. Here." I twisted to toss my phone over the backseat to Tod. Unfortunately, he was no longer fully with us—non-corporeal due to stress, maybe?—and the phone dropped through his body to land on the seat, like it had fallen through a hologram. His rear and my phone now occupied the same space at the same time.

Wasn't an event like that supposed to make the world explode, or something?

The reaper glanced down in surprise, then reached through himself to grab my phone from the seat—which had to be one of the weirdest things I'd ever seen. Even weirder than killer plants and little bald fiends with tails and needle-teeth.

Tod's body solidified, and he stared at me blankly. "What's this for?"

"Well, most people use it as a form of communication, but it would probably work as a projectile, in a pinch."

Tod frowned. "Funny. Who am I supposed to call?"

"Addy. Find out where she is. I have an idea." While he dialed, I turned my attention to the thorny coil of vine still wrapped tightly around my ankle. Nash had cut it close to the ground to get me loose, but there was still enough of the weed left to encircle my leg twice, long, thin thorns piercing both the denim and my skin. At two-inch intervals, thin four-leaf clusters dangled, dark green at the centers, bleeding to red on the serrated edges.

"Be careful with that," Nash warned, glancing from the road to my ankle, then back. "I think that's crimson creeper, and if it is, the thorns are poisonous."

Of course they were. Was anything in the Netherworld nontoxic?

"It's a little late for that. The stupid thorns went all the way through my jeans." I pinched the end of the creeper vine between my thumb and forefinger, completely horrified when thin red liquid dribbled from the severed tip, and gingerly pulled it away from my leg. Fortunately, now that the weird red vine was dead, it uncoiled easily. But each time a thorn pulled free from my skin, a fresh jolt of blazing pain shot through my ankle, as if I were being struck by tiny bolts of lightning. By the time I dropped the plant on the floorboard—the vine had to be eight inches long—a hot ache had settled into my ankle joint, throbbing with each beat of my heart.

I bit my bottom lip as I carefully rolled up the cuff of my jeans. Then I gasped in shock. My ankle was already swollen. Each of the dozen or so tiny holes was raised and puckered, and the wounds were almost as red as the vine itself.

"Shit!" Nash whistled through his teeth. "Definitely crimson creeper. My mom will know what to do for that, but if we tell her, she'll call your dad." Nash's eyes found mine, and I wondered if I looked as conflicted as he did. "Do you think you can wait a couple of hours, or do we need to go now?"

To the hospital, of course. Where Harmony worked as a third-shift RN on the orthopedic ward, where the patients were least likely to die.

I pressed my foot against the dashboard experimentally. The pain was constant, and did not increase with pressure, which meant I could probably walk on it. "I can wait." I closed my eyes briefly and exhaled, mourning the last of my hope that my dad might never discover what we were up to. Now that I was injured, full disclosure was unavoidable—hopefully after we'd reclaimed Addy's and Regan's souls.

When this was all over, I'd probably be spending a lot of time alone in my room.

"Hello, Addy?" Tod said from the backseat, and I loosened the chest strap of my seat belt so I could twist around to watch him, studying his face for any clue about Addison's half of their conversation. "Did I wake you up?"

She laughed bitterly over the line, but I couldn't make out her actual words.

"Yeah, I probably couldn't, either." Tod plucked a frayed thread from the thin layer of denim over his right knee. "Listen, where are you? I think we need to drop by for a minute…." He glanced at me to confirm, and I nodded while Addison said something else I couldn't understand. "Good. Can you arrange for a few minutes of privacy?" Another pause. "We'll be there in ten minutes."

"Twenty," I corrected him. "We have to make a stop first."

Tod relayed the correction to Addison, then said goodbye, hung up, and tossed my phone back to me. "She's at her mom's house. It's the only place she can avoid most of her entourage."

"Good." I slid my phone into my pocket and glanced out the windshield to read the passing highway signs. "Nash, we need an all-night Walmart, or grocery store. Or maybe a drugstore."

He nodded and slid smoothly into the right-hand lane, barely pausing to flick on Emma's blinker. "There's a twenty-four-hour Walgreens a couple of miles from Addy's house. Will that work?"

"With any luck. Do you think I should get something for this, while we're there?" I raised my cuff to show him my ankle, and Tod sucked in a sharp breath from the backseat, then leaned forward, gripping my headrest.

"Damn, Kaylee, is that from the weed?"

"Yeah." I poked gently at one of the swollen puncture marks, then hissed when a fresh jolt of pain shot through my tender flesh and into the core of the joint. A small bead of clear fluid oozed from the hole, and I dabbed at it with a tissue from the box on Emma's center console. "Nash thinks it's crimson creeper."

"He's right. Thank goodness it was a little one. Of course, if it was fully grown, you never would have stepped on it."

"Fully grown? How big do they get?"

Tod raised both brows, surprised by my cluelessness. Though, he shouldn't have been, considering that a couple of months ago I didn't even know my own species. "Fifty feet or better. And a puncture from one that size will kill you in a couple of hours, if it doesn't break your spine first. They're like giant pythons with roots."

"And thorns," I added bitterly.

Tod looked like he wanted to say something else, but whatever he was thinking was lost when Nash spoke up.

"You're gonna need something for that ankle." Nash glanced at it again, until I pulled my cuff down and set my foot on the floor. "But I have no idea whether or not human-world medicine will work on Netherworld toxin." He paused and flicked the right blinker on again, when he spied our exit. "So what else do we need at Walgreens?"

"Balloons." I smiled at Nash's perplexed expression, enjoying understanding more than he did for once.

Tod stuck his head between the front seats, looking just as confused as his brother. "We're taking Addy balloons? Should we stop for a cake and a present, too?"

My smile widened. "The balloons aren't for Addison. They're for the fiend. Addy's just going to…blow one up for us."

For a moment, Tod's eyes narrowed even further. Then his expression smoothed as comprehension settled in, and one half of his mouth quirked up.

"Clever…" Nash nodded at me in obvious respect. "I like it."

"Let's just hope it works."

At Walgreens, Tod found a bag of multicolored latex party balloons while Nash and I hunted down a tube of antibiotic cream. When we met at the cash register, the reaper also snagged three bars of chocolate. I paid—I knew my "paper currency" would come in handy!—then we rushed to Addison's house, beyond grateful for the light, middle-of-the-night traffic, because we had to be back at the stadium in half an hour.

We parked next to a shiny Lexus in Addison's driveway, and she must have heard the engine, because she pulled the front door open as we climbed the steps, then ushered us into the empty living room.

Addy closed the door behind us and stood in the entry with her hands deep in the pockets of a pair of snug, faded jeans. She was still fully dressed. She hadn't even tried to go to sleep. Not that I could blame her.

"Where's your mom?" Tod asked from the middle of the room. No one sat.

"She's passed out in her room." Addy's ironic smile said that for once, she was grateful for her mother's "issues."

"What about Regan?" I rubbed my left shoe against my right ankle, barely resisting the urge to bend over and scratch because that would have exposed my Netherworldly injury and led to questions we didn't have time to answer. And because I was pretty sure scratching would make more clear liquid run from my puncture wounds, rather than easing the fierce, burning itch that had settled in.

"She's sleeping off a couple of Mom's painkillers." Addison glanced at me, then down at her unpainted toenails. "I had to give them to her. She was freaking out, and I just wanted her go to sleep and shut up. I tried to warn her, but she didn't listen. She never listens…."

My heart ached for Addy, and her splintered relationship with her sister. They reminded me of me and Sophie, and that thought left a bitter taste in my mouth, as if I'd swallowed one of Addy's mother's pills.

"It's fine." Tod clearly didn't care what happened to Regan. He had eyes—and concern—only for Addison. "We're a step away from finding the hellion, but first we need you to blow up one of these."

"Maybe two or three of them," I interjected, tossing Tod the bag of party balloons. "I'm not sure what dose the fiend is looking for, or what the concentration is…inside her. So it might take more than one."

Tod ripped open the bag while Addison glanced from one of us to the other like we'd lost our minds.

"It's in your breath," I explained, while Tod pulled a cherry-red balloon from the bag and stretched it to make it easier to inflate. "The Demon's Breath. It rests in your core. And in your lungs, and I think that every time you exhale, you breathe a little bit of it into the air."

I'd gotten the idea from the fiends, who'd wanted to know if we exhaled Demon's Breath. We didn't, of course. But Addy might.

I wasn't sure how it worked. If she lost a little bit of the force keeping her alive with each exhale, or if the Demon's Breath replaced itself as each little bit was lost. But I was virtually certain—based on the fiends' odd dialogue—that Addy carried within herself the very currency we needed.

She took the balloon from Tod and stared at it for a second as if it might grow teeth and bite her. Then Addy put the latex to her mouth as we watched from a loosely formed semicircle on the beige carpet.

"Wait." I shrugged, my arms still crossed over my chest. "It seemed to me when Eden died that Demon's Breath is heavier than air, so it's probably at the bottom of your lungs. You'll have to empty them to exhale what we really need. So blow out as much as you can on each breath, okay?"

Addison nodded hesitantly, then put the red balloon to her lips again as Tod pulled a yellow one from the bag. She began to blow, and the balloon grew slowly, becoming more translucent with each millimeter it gained in circumference. She blew without inhaling, forcing more air from her lungs than I'd have thought possible, until her face was nearly as flushed as the balloon.

Singers must have very good lungs.

When she could exhale no more, the balloon was half-filled. She pinched it closed between her thumb and forefinger, and I took it from her to tie off the opening. When I let it go, the balloon sank quickly, as if it were tethered to some small weight.

Tod handed her the yellow balloon and she repeated the process without a word or a glance at any of us. When the second balloon had joined the red one on the floor, I couldn't help but smile as I stared at them, the room silent but for Addy's forceful exhaling into a third, purple, one.

The balloons on the floor looked festive, in a cheesy, child's-birthday-party kind of way. They seemed to mock their own dangerous content. But then, maybe that was appropriate, considering the origins of that content: a world where the residents would gladly eat us alive. If the plant life didn't get us first.

When Addy had finished the third balloon, Nash decided we had enough. Not because we were sure we actually did have enough, but because we were running out of time. Why hadn't I asked for two hours?

Not that it mattered. Addy's life-clock was ticking toward its last tock even without the fiend's deadline. According to the digital numbers on her DVD player, it was just after one o'clock on Thursday morning. Addy would die sometime in the next twenty-three hours—probably sooner, rather than later—and every moment we wasted brought that unknown time closer.

"We'll come back for you as soon as we can," Tod said as I gathered the filled balloons. "Get Regan up and moving." If she'd already been conscious, we could have just taken both Page sisters with us. "We'll call when we're on the way, but I can't promise much notice."

Because we had no idea where this hellion was going to be, or how long it would take to get there. And to find him.

"I'll try." Addy frowned, glancing toward the kitchen. "She won't touch coffee, but I think we have some Jolt in the fridge."

"Good. I'll call you when we know more," Tod promised, and left a kiss on her cheek on his way out the door.

Addison watched us from the front porch as we backed down the dark driveway, her arms crossed over the front of a thin, long-sleeved T-shirt, apparently oblivious to the middle-of-the-night November cold. My guess was that it was nothing compared to the chill inside her.

Nash drove again, and I spent the first part of the ride to the stadium applying antibiotic cream to my ankle, and the second part desperately wishing I hadn't. I'd barely wiped the thick white cream from my fingers when the puncture wounds began to bubble and hiss softly, as if I'd poured on hydrogen peroxide instead. The annoying ache/burn I'd been trying to ignore for the past forty minutes roared into a full-blown bonfire in my ankle.

I wiped off all the cream I could with more of Emma's tissues, wishing she had something wet so I could get all of it. The little bit that remained in the holes in my flesh bubbled softly, leaking tiny drops of white-tinged liquid now. By the time we pulled into the stadium parking lot, thin, red, weblike lines had begun to snake out from the double ring of punctures in all directions. The webbing extended less than an inch so far, but I had no doubt it would keep spreading.

Nash glanced at my ankle twice, his frown deepening each time, and I seriously considered his offer to take me to the hospital. To end the pain creeping up my leg and get our confession over with. But that would effectively end our night, leaving Addy to die without her soul. Damning her to an eternity of torture. And I couldn't do that. Not knowing what had happened to the souls my aunt had bargained with. How could I let Addy suffer the same fate?

Besides, there would be time to treat my injury after we'd reclaimed the Page souls, right? Because according to Tod, no matter how bad my ankle got, I wouldn't die until my name showed up on some reaper's list, and if that happened, no amount of Netherworldly cream or pills could save me. I refused to think about the fact that Tod's list couldn't predict the loss of my leg or foot. So I pressed on, in spite of the pain.

We negotiated the parking lot on the human plane—brightly colored balloons tucked under both of my arms and one of Nash's—to avoid stepping on any more crimson creeper, and we didn't stop to cross over until I judged that we were approximately where we'd stood when we'd bargained with the fiend. Then we moved several feet to the left, to avoid that stupid vine. I was pretty sure my estimate of the distance was good enough, because as far as I could tell, we hadn't lost any time crossing over earlier. The anchor at the stadium was very strong.

Tod crossed over first, to make sure all was clear, and that the fiend was waiting for us, because I wasn't going to make the effort if the little monster had ditched us, or if it wasn't safe to be in the Netherworld at that particular place and time. Only once he'd returned with the all clear did I summon my wail—with less effort than ever now—and haul Nash into the Netherworld with me.

The fiend stood very close to where we'd left him, running the tip of his tail through one small, loosely clenched fist over and over. His gaze jumped from place to place. His twitches had grown stronger, and he clearly could not stand still. And suddenly it occurred to me with an indescribable jolt of horror that I'd become a Netherworld drug dealer.

After several deep breaths, I decided I could live with that, so long as the ends justified the means. I hadn't gotten the little monster hooked on Demon's Breath in the first place, and I was only enabling him for one hit. Right?

The fiend's eyes widened at one glimpse of the balloons we carried, and I noticed for the first time that his bright yellow eyes were drastically dilated and shiny.

"Give!" he panted, reaching up with both short, stubby hands for the red balloon, the first to capture his attention. I wondered briefly if he were color-blind, and I was relieved to notice that he had no fingernails. At least I wouldn't have to worry about him clawing me in a rush for his fix.

"Information first," I insisted, holding both balloons over my head by the knots sealing them.

"No!" His arms began to tremble, even as his tail twitched furiously. He was hurting badly, and if he didn't get what he needed soon, someone was going to get hurt. Unfortunately, I didn't have needlelike metallic teeth with which to defend myself.

But my spine was starting to feel quite a bit like steel.

"Tell us where to find the hellion of avarice, or we'll pop the balloons one at a time. Too high up for you to inhale." I nodded at Nash, and he produced his folding knife from one pocket, flipping it open with the press of one button.

"No!" the fiend screeched, jumping for the balloon in vain.

Nash jerked back in surprise, and the point of his knife pierced the balloon he held. The latex exploded, showering him with bits of purple rubber. He coughed and waved a hand in front of his face, casually clearing away the very substance our little informant craved. Needed…

The fiend dropped to his knees, picking up one scrap of latex at a time, sniffing them desperately. But after several seconds, he looked up at us in bitter, pained defeat.

I held up the red balloon. "Tell us, or we'll pop this one, too," I threatened softly, hoping not to attract the attention of the fiends still madly trying to scale the stadium walls. Many of them now lay unconscious on the sidewalk, either from denial of their chemical fix, or from being stomped on by their stronger brethren.

The fiend squealed in fury, and his hands squeezed into tiny fists, his tail whipping behind him angrily, stirring dust from the surface of the parking lot. "Fine. Human monsters. No mercy…" he mumbled, and I almost laughed. His entire species seemed ready to bring about its own end for one more hit of a substance they had no business snorting. Or sniffing. Or whatever. Yet we had no mercy?

"Talk." I held the red balloon closer to Nash's knife, as he posed with it threateningly.

The small creature drew himself up straight and squared his shoulders, drawing what little dignity he still possessed around himself like a cape. "Hellions loiter where they feed. You want Avari, a hellion of avarice. He will be where greed best festers."

"Which is where?" I inched the red balloon closer to Nash's knife point.

The fiend shrugged, but the motion was not smooth enough to disguise the tremor now shaking his entire body. "Downtown. The greatest bastion of greed I know." The fiend gasped, as if he couldn't suck in a deep-enough breath. At least, not one that wasn't polluted with his poison of choice. "Humans call it Prime Life."

"The insurance company?" Nash cleared his throat gingerly, as if it hurt. Prime Life was the largest insurance firm in the country, and it was headquartered in Dallas.

Hmm, I thought, a moment before the fiend nodded silently. That kind of makes sense.

"Bastion of greed…" the fiend repeated. "Probably there now…" He extended both small arms, like a child begging to be picked up. Only this child wanted a party balloon filled with addictive Nether-toxins.

I handed it over, though my stomach churned in response to a less-honorable action than any I'd ever taken. After a second thought, I gave him the yellow balloon, too. We had no use for it, and he clearly needed it. The thought of which made my stomach pitch even harder.

But we'd gotten what we'd come for, and I crossed back into the human world satisfied, if not exactly pleased with myself.

The ends would eventually justify the means, right? So how come I felt like I'd just sold my soul…?