Before I Wake

The first is that you have to help yourself, too. I’m not doing it on my own.”

Thane nodded eagerly. Maybe a little too eagerly.

“Second, you tell us everything you know first. Right now.”

He shook his head and leaned against the end of the short kitchen peninsula. “That’s not how this works. You give a little, I give a little.”

“I can’t give you a little of your soul, and I’m not going after it until I know exactly what’ll be waiting for me. So start talking now, or we’ll take our chances without you.”

Thane’s brows rose. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the grave.”

I shrugged, afraid to admit that I wasn’t sure I’d woken up yet at all—most of the past month felt like a nightmare. “What’s it gonna be?”

“Fine. But I have a couple of conditions of my own.”

“Hell, no. You don’t get to make up the rules,” Nash said.

Thane ignored him. “First of all, keep your assorted collection of authority figures out of it. Levi will kill me the minute he sees me, and I don’t trust Madeline. There’s something in her eyes…”

“I believe that’s integrity and dedication to her job.”

“Yeah. It’s disturbing.”

“What about my dad?”

“I don’t know how much help he’ll be in the Netherworld, but sure, bring him along.” Thane shrugged. “If he gets hurt, that’s all on you.”

I had no plans to take my dad to the Netherworld, but he and my uncle could be helpful on this side of the world barrier. If I could keep them from tattling to Levi and Madeline.

“Second—and you’re gonna want to pay attention here,” Thane said. “If you go back on your word and I’m stuck with that hellion bastard, I will help him torture and kill everyone you’ve ever even said hello to.”

“That’s a big threat,” Tod said. “Someone’s compensating for inadequacies.”

“Do we have a deal?”

“No.” I sank onto the arm of my father’s recliner. “We have an agreement and a bunch of pointless threats. If you’re going to talk, start now. I have no idea how long it’ll be before Madeline checks in.”

“So, should I just make myself at home, like company?” Thane started toward the living room, but Nash stepped into his path.

“No, you should stay right where you are, or my estranged brother and I will settle our differences by seeing who can break more of your bones.”

Tod glanced at him, brows raised. “You want to settle our differences?”

Nash frowned. “No, I want to break every bone in his body, and I didn’t think you’d let me do it alone.”

Tod nodded. “Good call.”

Thane glanced at me, brows arched over empty white eyes. “Are they always like this?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes they’re less subtle. Let’s get this thing moving.”

Thane nodded. “What do you want to know?”

“Who killed Scott?” Nash demanded. That wasn’t where I would have started, but I couldn’t blame him for jumping in, and honestly, I was glad to see him participating in something other than his own self-destruction.

“That was me, but I was under orders,” Thane said, leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed over his chest. Like he was comfortable. “Avari needed a form that would traumatize her, and psycho-boy fit the bill.”

“How’d he know we’d go see Scott?” I asked.

“He didn’t. He was going to bring the party to you, but Scott died with no shoes on, so Avari went looking for some in his room. Then you two showed up and saved him the trouble of hunting you down.”

“So it was a possession, then? Is that why he needed the shoes?” I asked.

“No. Hellions can’t possess the dead. Avari figured out how to cross over. But that comes with both requirements and limitations.”

“Requirements?” Tod said.

“Souls,” Thane said. “A pair of them, specifically. One is to get him through the fog, like a ticket for a train ride. The other provides his physical form on the human plane. But here’s the catch. That first one—the one that lets him cross over—has to be a resurrected soul.”

15

“A RESURRECTED SOUL? Restored? Like mine?” My chills were so strong I was starting to feel more like a corpse in refrigerated storage than a warm-blooded member of the undead.

“Yes, or a reaper’s soul. Or anyone else whose soul has been restored. It has something to do with that process. I tried to find out more from the reanimation department, but those are the most closed-lipped sons of bitches you’ll ever meet. They just kept repeating the same line about proprietary processes and—”

“So that’s why he sent you after me and Mareth?” Tod’s voice was deep, almost shaking with rage.

Thane nodded. “He’s using my restored soul as we speak, but eventually he’ll use it up—I get weaker every day he has it—and he’ll have to replace it. But right now, he’s just collecting them. Trying to corner the market before anyone else realizes there’s a profit to be made. He’s an enterprising hellion who knows big business when he sees it.”

By “enterprising,” of course he meant greedy.

“He’s selling restored souls?” Like a train-station ticket booth in the Netherworld.

“Only a couple so far. I bet you can guess who the first one went to… .”

“No, I—” But then suddenly I did. “Belphegore. That’s how he got Heidi’s soul. And Meredith’s. He traded a resurrected soul for them.”

“For those two, and for several more. He can charge whatever he wants. That’s the beauty of a monopoly.”

“Where’s Mareth?” Tod demanded.

“I don’t know,” Thane said, and Nash huffed.

“This isn’t a good time to start lying, reaper.”

“There’s never a bad time to start lying, but I’m telling the truth. I turned her over to Avari, but I didn’t stick around to see what he did with her. He could have her in cold storage, with the rest of the collection, but if I had to guess, I’d say he sold her. At a huge profit.”

“Who would he sell her to?” I asked, trying not to think about the fact that Tod could have easily been taken instead of Mareth. As could I.

Thane shrugged again. “Could be anyone. There are hundreds of other hellions in the Netherworld, and every one of them would pay anything for a single day spent on this plane. Avari has what they need to cross over. The prize goes to the highest bidder. And the demand far exceeds the supply.”

“And every time Madeline sent an extractor after Avari, she was just giving him another ticket to sell,” I said, unable to purge horror from my voice.

“He found that irony especially satisfying.”

“So, why hasn’t he taken me?” I asked, and Thane frowned like he didn’t understand the question. “I’m not a fighter. If he could take the other extractors so easily, why hasn’t he done the same with me?”

“He will. You’re part of the long game,” Thane said. “Until then, he’s playing with you. I think he wants to see just how deep your noble streak runs. He wants to see if you’ll really turn yourself in to save everyone else you love. While you resist, he feeds from your guilt and angst over the deaths you could have prevented. Once you give in, he’ll be able to feed from you directly.” Thane shrugged. “He can’t lose.”

“Bullshit,” Nash spat. “He’s not going to stop killing just because Kaylee turns herself in. I don’t care what he says. He’ll never stop killing.”

“True. Avari has never been in a better position to slaughter at will. But he can’t go back on his word. If she turns herself in, he’ll stop choosing his victims from the Kaylee Cavanaugh friends-and-family plan.”