Rachel Vincent - If I Die

My gaze slid toward Emma, then Sophie, both somehow still asleep, and he glanced at them over his shoulder. “Don’t worry. They’re going to sleep for a while.”

“You’re feeding from them in their sleep?” How was that even possible?

“Just enough to keep them out of the way. Our desires don’t sleep, even when we do, which makes sleepers the psychic version of fast food.”

“I’ll kill you if you hurt either of them.”

Beck laughed out loud. “Do you know where I spent my evening, Kaylee? After I left Miss Marshall to her rest?” I shook my head, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I went to check on a former student, who’s been faithfully nurturing a precious little bundle of mine, in spite of her own failing health.”

Uh-oh . “Farrah?”

He smiled, like I’d just performed a particularly impressive magic trick. “That’s why you’re such a good student, Kaylee—you do your homework.”

I shrugged and took another glance at the clock. 12:12. Had time actually stopped? “How is Farrah?”

The glint of dark humor faded in Beck’s eyes as they narrowed. “Farrah is dead. I took her to the Netherworld to give birth in peace, and she delivered my son with her last breath. He died in my arms, less than fifteen minutes later. Months of hard work and hope, gone.” He stepped closer, and again I stepped back, until my spine hit the edge of the kitchen counter. There was nowhere left to go.

“Farrah was seven months pregnant,” he said. “The infant would have been viable—if I’d had a soul to give him.” Another step toward me, and panic echoed in every whoosh of my racing pulse. “But when I took my newborn son to collect the soul kept warm for him in the body of a certain young syphon, she was gone . And my son died, staring up at me with blind eyes, empty for want of a soul.” Fury blazed in his own eyes, like he was the bonfire and I was the fuel. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Ms. Cavanaugh?”

“Lydia wasn’t crazy,” I whispered, then cleared my voice, determined to project both volume and confidence I didn’t feel. “She shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

“Yes, but she was there, and her soul was mine for the taking. You’ve cost me a soul, Ms. Cavanaugh, and you’re going to make up for that loss tonight.”

I burst into laughter, grimly, and maybe inappropriately amused by the irony. “You’re out of luck, Mr. Beck.” And the truth of that statement—the unexpected upside to my imminent death—rolled through me on a sudden surge of reckless courage. I braced my hands on the counter behind me and hopped onto it, my legs dangling in front of the cabinet doors, suddenly a bit more confident because of what I knew and he did not. “You can’t get life out of me, Mr. Beck. I’m going to die today, so I’m no use to you. So why don’t you just go away?”

Beck blinked, and I relished those short seconds of surprise. Then they died a swift, brutal death. “If I wanted you to carry my child, your expiration date would be a bit of a problem. Fortunately, that’s not what I have in mind for you. My inherent charm works best on humans. The bitter irony in that is that humans are rarely able to carry an incubus baby to full term, and never able to provide the infant with a soul.”

I shrugged, trying not to let him see my renewed fear. “Sucks for you.”

He nodded solemnly. “Succinctly put. I can either breed with a human and look elsewhere for a soul, or I can try to force someone in possession of the desired soul to carry my child. And since I find physical force a repulsive way to start new life, I have no use for your body. I was going to have to kill you for your soul anyway.” He shrugged, evidently satisfied with how fate had dealt the cards. “But on the bright side, at least you no longer have to wonder how you’re going to die.”

Panic swelled in my chest, numbing me to the point that I could barely breathe. I couldn’t think fast enough to process what he’d just said. All I’d understood was that I was going to die because he was going to kill me. And take my soul.

“No.” I slid off of the counter, terrified to realize that my legs no longer wanted to support me—they were shaky from shock. “I am not going to die without my soul.”

“You’ll be dead—what does it matter? It’s not like you’re going to be tortured for all of eternity. You’re simply giving life to my son. Could be worse, right?”

“No. It couldn’t.” Call me crazy, but I didn’t want to be reincarnated as the hell spawn of a lust-demon. “You don’t need me,” I insisted, edging slowly along the counter, silently counting the drawers my fingers skimmed over, headed toward the last one. “I’m not the only nonhuman girl in town, you know. I’m not even the only one in the school. This soul doesn’t have to come from a girl, right?”

No, I wasn’t selling out Nash and Sabine. But if I could get rid of Beck long enough to make sure Em, Sophie and I were safe, I could call Tod and he could get Sabine and Nash somewhere safe. We could call my dad and meet up for safety in numbers. Or something.

“Oh, I know.” Beck’s brows rose in mild interest. “This town has become quite the hotbed of nonhuman activity. But neither your mara friend—Sabine is a mara, right?” he asked, and I could only nod. “Smart girl, but a little too eager. I never would have figured out her secret if she hadn’t tried to read my fears. But my point is that neither she nor your boyfriend will suffice. I haven’t figured out what Nash is, thanks to the dissimulatus, but I can tell that he isn’t pure, and neither is Sabine. They won’t work.”

“Pure?” That’s all I could manage, from the litany of questions firing from my overloaded synapses like sparks from a dying flame.

“Oooh, missed that part of the homework, did you?” Beck stepped closer, cutting off my escape. “The baby’s soul has to be pure. Untouched, in one way or another, because it comes directly from the source, without all the purification, sterilization, or whatever they do to souls that are turned in to the proper authority. And pure souls get harder and harder to find, with each passing generation.”

“They do?” Pointless question. Keep him talking …

“Nash and Sabine have been around the block a few times—I can tell that even with their psychic shields. And your boyfriend’s soul is bruised and battered from something else. Something dark that he tries to hide.”

Addiction to frost, of course. That was a soul-smudge if I’d ever heard of one.

“And like every predator, Ms. Campbell drinks from the fount of life. Even if she were virginal and blushing, you can’t just buff off a soul that survives by skimming from others.”

But I couldn’t think past Nash and Sabine, and the block they’d both been around….

“Virginity? That’s what makes a soul pure?” Oh, the irony stung . My fingers found the last drawer and I pulled it open behind me, relieved when it rolled silently.

Beck shrugged. “It’s among the qualifiers, as is a selfless desire to do what’s right, despite the personal consequences. Ironic, isn’t it, considering your soul will soon belong to a perfect little predator.”

“A virgin sacrifice? I’m your virgin sacrifice? Seriously?” I couldn’t get my hand into the drawer from my current angle. Not without him seeing.

“Oh, I’m quite serious. And grateful for how tightly you’ve clung to antiquated virtue. That couldn’t have been easy, in today’s world.”

“Stay away from me!” I stepped to the side and grabbed the butcher knife from the open drawer, surprised by how steady my two-handed grip felt. I’d said I could kill in self-defense, but I hadn’t really believed it until that moment. Until the thought of facing death with no soul scared me far beyond the loss of my own life.