Rachel Vincent - Before I Wake

“The word doornail comes to mind,” Tod said.

I nodded and gestured toward the thing still clutching Emma to its chest. “Ask him. Hellions can’t lie.”

Tears spilled from Emma’s eyes and trailed down her cheeks, and I couldn’t tell which hurt her worse: her bleeding cut or the thought that her new human boyfriend—innocent, and ignorant of the danger he’d walked into—had been killed by a monster. “Are you Avari?” Her words were halting, half choked with her own tears. “Did you kill Jayson?”

The Jayson-monster’s brows rose at me over Emma’s head. “No, to both questions.” He was challenging me. Daring me to prove him wrong.

But… Hellions couldn’t lie. Of course, they weren’t supposed to be able to cross over, either. What was I missing?

“Okay. I believe you,” Em said, holding my gaze with a teary one of her own. She was talking to me, but he was supposed to think she was talking to him. “But I’m hurt, Jayson. Let me go, so they can take me to the hospital.”

“I will.” He glanced over my shoulder toward the pavilion, probably making sure no one else had noticed the trouble yet. “As soon as she puts the knife down.”

But I couldn’t do that.

“Who are you?” I demanded. “Obviously you’re a hellion. Someone working with Avari.” But no self-respecting hellion would help out another without something to gain from the favor. Was Emma the payment? If so, why not just take her? Why would the Jayson-thing practically tell me he’d left something in his car for me, then walk down the shore with Em in plain sight, instead of just crossing over with her? “Belphegore?” I said. “Invidia?”

“Oh, now you’re just guessing,” the hellion said. And with that, the charade was over.

“Let me go,” Em said, her voice deep with hatred, haggard with pain. “Let go of me, you murdering, soul-stealing demon bastard!”

Jayson laughed. “I like this one. Easy on the eyes and even better on the tongue.” He bent toward her ear again. “Do you think they’ll save you?” he stage-whispered loud enough for me and Tod to hear. “If she has to kill you to get to me, do you think she’ll even hesitate?”

Fresh rage blossomed inside me, fire shooting up my spine. He was playing on old fears that I would let her die. On doubt that I would be able to save her a second time.

“Kaylee would never hurt me. On purpose,” she amended as blood continued to seep slowly between her fingers.

“Tell her what really happened to Alec,” the hellion said, and my rage was drenched in a cold wash of dread as he met my gaze again. “Don’t your friends deserve the truth?”

“I don’t want the truth.” Emma’s voice was weaker now from blood loss, and fear, and maybe from confusion. “I just want to go to the hospital. Please…”

“She killed him,” the hellion whispered. “Kaylee stabbed Alec, and it wasn’t an accident, like the scratch she just gave you, which smells so deliciously painful.” The Jayson-thing pushed Emma’s hand aside and pressed his fingers into her wound. She gasped in pain. He lifted his hand and licked a smear of blood from it, his hungry gaze holding mine the whole time. “She stabbed him on purpose. It’s true. I can’t lie.”

Em looked at me through tear-filled eyes, asking me for the truth without actually asking for anything.

“That’s not how it happened,” Tod insisted when I made no attempt to defend myself. “He was possessed, but we thought Alec was already dead. We thought Avari was wearing his soul.”

“Let her go,” I demanded.

Jayson laughed and licked another smear of blood from his hand, his other arm tight around Emma’s waist. “Drop the knife, or I’ll take a real bite out of her, right here. I do love a picnic at the lake.”

Emma’s breathing sped up and her face paled even more. My fist tightened around the hilt of the knife. I glanced at Tod, and he nodded. I blinked, sure I’d seen wrong. But he was still nodding, telling me to drop the knife.

“Drop it and distract him,” Tod said, his lip barely moving, and I knew from Em’s lack of reaction that I was the only one who could hear him.

I held up the knife, blade down, to catch Jayson’s attention. Then I dropped it. The knife speared the sand in front of my feet, stuck hilt up. “Now let her go. You said you would, when I put the knife down.”

Jayson’s head cocked to the side, like he was thinking back over everything he’d said. “True…” He let her go, and Emma stumbled toward me, one hand clutching her bloodied side, relief and fear mixing in her features only to be overshadowed by pain. I reached for her, but the second her hand touched mine, the hellion snatched her back.

Emma screamed, and he laughed. “I never said I wouldn’t take her back.”

I looked around for Tod, but he was gone. I glanced toward the pavilion and saw several human shapes, but we were too far away for me to tell who I was looking at. Had they heard her scream? Why was no one running to help?

“Distract him and move away from the knife,” Tod said from behind me and I realized no one else could see or hear him now.

Distract him? How? What would distract a hellion who already had what he wanted? But then, he’d had what he wanted the whole time. So why were he and Em still there? Unless he didn’t have what he wanted…

“Take me instead,” I said, stepping to my left. “You need me to go willingly, don’t you?” Because I was already dead, stealing my soul wasn’t as simple as just killing me for it.

The hellion shrugged. “Willing, or unconscious. Similar to mating rituals here on the human plane, isn’t it?” He laughed at his joke, and my stomach churned.

“Keep moving…” Tod said, and I stepped to my left again. This time the hellion had to turn Emma to keep me in sight. But in turning, he stepped closer to the dagger.

“Fine. I’m willing. Let her go.”

“Prove it.” The Jayson-monster lifted one foot and deliberately stomped on the hellion-forged dagger. The hilt broke off with less than two inches of blade, and a scream of despair rose up inside me, like a mockery of my bean sidhe wail. “Cross over.”

“Shit!” Tod swore.

“What?” I’d heard Jayson, but I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. I couldn’t drag my gaze from the ruined dagger, and the loss it represented.

“Cross into the Netherworld, and I will let her go,” Jayson said. “You have my word.”

“No!” Tod said, and I glanced at him. The hellion followed my gaze, but he couldn’t focus on what he couldn’t see. “Kaylee, do not cross over.”

“Cross. Now. Or I’ll chew her throat out, slurp up her blood, and keep her soul.”

“Kaylee…” Emma was terrified.

“Kaylee…” Tod was terrified.

In the Netherworld, I wouldn’t have any of my undead advantages, except for the ability to cross back into the human world. But if I didn’t go, he’d kill Emma, and I’d have to chase him into the Netherworld to retrieve her soul, anyway—there was no way I’d let Em’s soul be tortured or worn like a costume.

“I cross, and you let Emma go? Alive?”

Jayson nodded. “That’s the deal.”

I looked straight at Tod. “Take her to the hospital. I’ll be right back.” Then I crossed over.

In the Netherworld, I stood alone next to the lake. Except I wasn’t really alone. I couldn’t be.

Everything looked the same, only different. The sand was too pale. White. More like salt than like sand. The trees were skeletal, as if they were caught out of season, and the few leaves still hanging had shapes I didn’t recognize.