Rachel Vincent - With All My Soul

The hellion nodded slowly. “The delivery schedule is understood and agreed to. Now, for the up-front part of the payment.” His eyes glittered with perverse pleasure, and it took all of my self-control to keep from gagging. “What did you have in mind?”

I dipped my right index finger into the blood still pooled in my left palm, then reached out to trace his lower lip. “There will be much, much more, but it starts with another kiss....”

By the time I crossed into the Netherworld, dried blood had crusted on my lips and around my mouth. Ira was not a neat kisser.

That thought—and the fact that I had reason to think it—nearly made me lose what little I’d eaten since lunch the day before. My jaw ached and my tongue throbbed from being bitten, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the taste of my own blood out of my mouth. Not to mention the taste of hellion.

I scrubbed my mouth with the tail of my shirt as we walked, but since I had no mirror, I couldn’t be sure I’d gotten all the blood off.

The hospital rose in front of us, and we veered slowly toward the mental health unit across the parking lot from the main building. I stepped carefully to avoid baby creeper vines reaching for me from cracks in the concrete—they had crossed over from the human world, thanks to the steady human traffic on our side of the barrier. Ira let me set the pace, and I wasn’t sure why until he spoke.

“I would tell you not to worry, little fury, except that I’ve grown to enjoy the taste of your fear.”

I had nothing to say to that.

Lakeside looked extra-creepy in the red-tinted Netherworld moonlight, and our stunted shadows, splayed out on the sidewalk in front of us, bore little resemblance to our actual bodies. His even seemed to have an extra limb in my peripheral vision.

Things skittered in the high grass on either side of the walkway, and my instinct was to shy away from sounds I couldn’t identify. But Ira had already promised me a safe escort as part of his side of the deal we’d struck. Nothing would mess with me for the next few minutes.

After that, all bets were off.

I wanted to threaten him with the consequences of going back on his word, just to reassure myself, but there were no consequences, which was just as well, because he couldn’t go back on his word. That was the best thing about a hellion’s inability to lie.

However, just because he couldn’t back out didn’t mean everything would go as I’d planned. If there was something I’d missed—something I’d failed to stipulate or make him agree to—the whole thing would fall apart around me. And I wouldn’t be the only one to suffer for it.

“Ready, little fury?” Ira asked, and his words sent waves of anger rolling through me, a fan stoking flames of a rage I’d almost forgotten I’d left burning.

“I will never be ready for this,” I whispered, and he stared down into my eyes, as near as I could tell, considering that his had no pupils or irises.

“But you will do it anyway. That’s why he wants you. That selflessness is contrary to everything he is and everything he will ever be. He can’t understand you, but he will try, and that process will not be pleasant for you.”

“But it will be pleasant for you. ” As part of our deal. And it would be pleasant for Avari, because I’d found no way around that.

“Well then, shall we?”

I nodded again, and Ira looked up at the building in front of us. “Avarice!” He didn’t shout, but his voice was so loud it rang in my bones, a sensation like the residual ache after a blow from a blunt object. “Come out and claim your prize.”

For several seconds, nothing happened, and Ira leaned down—way down—to stage-whisper to me, an intoxicated smile forming on dark lips still smeared with my blood. “He’s here, and he’s thoroughly enraged. How delightful!”

“Ire.” Avari appeared several feet in front of Lakeside’s main entrance, a double set of glass doors that had both been shattered long ago, judging by the glass already ground into sand on the steps. “I did not realize you were making deliveries.”

“Anything, for the right price. Just like you.”

Avari’s brows furrowed. “You and I have reached no agreement—I acknowledge no debt for this delivery.”

“My agreement is with Ms. Cavanaugh. She is here under my escort and protection until she surrenders to your possession or returns to the human world.”

“She paid you to deliver her to me?” Avari demanded, and even I could hear the anger and greed dripping from his words. “How? At what price?”

“She is paying for my protection until she surrenders— if she surrenders. The price is beyond your concern.”

“And none of your damn business,” I added, thoroughly enjoying the angry lines that formed around his jaw and the brief moment during which he was obviously too pissed off to speak. “Let’s get on with it. You agreed to send my father back if I surrender. I’m here. Go get my dad. Now.”

Avari hesitated just long enough to demonstrate that he wasn’t taking orders from me; he was merely sticking to the deal he’d offered. Then, without looking away from me or raising his voice, he said, “Ladies...”

Belphegore and Invidia appeared behind him on the steps, each gripping one of my father’s arms as he sagged, unconscious, between them. Pulverized glass crunched beneath their feet, and the toes of my father’s shoes dragged twin paths through it.

“Is he okay?” I didn’t bother to screen fear from my voice—Avari already knew I loved my father.

“He yet lives and is not beyond repair.”

“Where are the others?” Invidia tossed her hair—an ever-flowing stream of molten envy—over one shoulder. Drops of it splattered around her, burning tiny holes in her dress and sizzling like acid on the steps.

“They will come for her, and when they do, you may each take one of your choosing. As per our arrangement.”

I could see how much the words hurt Avari to say. The hellion of greed didn’t like to share his toys, but if he’d given Invidia and Belphegore his word, in exchange for their help, he couldn’t go back on it.

“You won’t even get a shot at them,” I said, and Avari laughed.

“I may not understand emotions like love and compassion, but I can anticipate their results, little bean sidhe. Human heartstrings function like a marionette’s strings if properly manipulated. They will come for you because they value your company. Just like you came for your father.”

Leave it to a hellion to define love as “valuing” someone’s company.

As for his actual point...

“Ms. Cavanaugh’s friends and family are under my sworn protection for the duration of our arrangement.” Ira hadn’t been pleased with that particular clause when he’d agreed to it, but now pleasure echoed in his voice, as his announcement produced Avari’s rage. “Even if they come for her, I cannot let you take them.”

That was my fail-safe. If my plan worked, my friends and family would never try to rescue me because—thanks to Levi’s lie—they thought I was truly gone. They thought my soul had been recycled and that I was finally resting in peace.

But just in case one of them figured it out—Tod had the best chance because of his subconscious memory and because he worked with Levi—I had Ira. And Ira, as far as I knew, was the only being in existence who could stop Avari from doing what he did best. And Avari obviously knew it.

The sound that burst from the greed hellion’s mouth was unlike anything I’d ever heard. It was a roar of outrage. A bellow of fury that crashed over and through me so thoroughly my bones quivered and my teeth clacked together, completely beyond my control.