What can I do for you? Madeline sat in the chair behind her large dark wood desk and waved a hand at the pair of leather-padded armchairs on my side. When her boss had found out exactly how dire our situation was, when Avari was stealing souls pell-mell from the human plane, hed increased our departments budget and tossed a little more manpower our way.
Too bad all of that came after all the death and chaos and after Thane stole the hellions collection of souls, which prevented them from appearing on the human plane again, at least until they could renew their supply.
I was assuming they hadnt yet managed that, based on the fact that Id only seen them in borrowedpossessedbodies since then.
I...um... I sank into the chair on the right and clasped my hands in my lap to keep from fidgeting. Looking nervous wouldnt do me any favors. Well, Tods at work, and everyone else I know is asleep, and I...
Her smile got a little kinder. Youre bored.
Yeah. That wasnt entirely a lie. My boredom usually peaked in the middle of the night, and at first the shortage of company and the complete lack of anything to keep me busy had led to a dangerous melancholy period, during which Id lost the desire to do...well, anything. I hadnt snapped out of it until Avari started parading the ghosts of my pasteveryone Id failed to savebefore me and making me kill them all over again.
The melancholy hadnt returned. It had been replaced with a relentless thirst for justice.
Though Ira would call that rage.
Well, fortunately, things have slowed down around here, and you know we have two new reclamation agents now.
Yes, I knew. My dad called it the hurry up and wait phenomenon. They raised me from the dead to help them with a very bean sidhespecific emergency job, and now that that job was overat least, as long as Avari was stuck in the Netherworldthey had much less immediate need of me. And since I was the rookie among more experienced employees again, I got the smallest, simplest, least complicated jobs. Which I was fine with. I was still in high school, after all. But...
I was thinking. Thane got away with several stolen souls. Shouldnt we be...reclaiming them? I mean, if the others are too busy, I guess I could look into it. That sounded casual. Right?
Madeline folded her hands on her desk. Kaylee, Thane is a rogue reaper. Hes completely beyond our authority. The reapers police their own.
But he stole souls. Lots of them. I hadnt been able to rescue them from him at the time, because Em had just died and Lydias body was on the verge of death. Id had to act quickly to save one of them. Or, a piece of each of them. Besides, we deal with hellions whove stolen souls, and theyre way more dangerous than rogue reapers.
Madeline nodded. Its not about the danger. Its about the jurisdiction. Theres no other agency in place to deal with hellions when they steal souls, but the reapers have their own authority. Around here, thats Levi, and Im not going to step on his toes, especially after everything hes done to help us recently.
But
No. She leaned closer to me over her desk. Thanes a reaper. Let the reapers deal with him.
Theyre the ones who lost him in the first place! When hed killed my mother, then come back to kill me when I was three.
Madelines frown deepened. Was there something else I can help you with, Kaylee?
That was a dismissal if Id ever heard one.
No. Thanks. I stood and headed toward the door, because using it seemed more polite than just disappearing right in front of her, and Id obviously already pissed her off. I paused in the doorway with my hand wrapped around the doorframe. Hey, Madeline?
Yes? She sounded annoyed now.
Whatever happened to Mr. Becks soul?
Mr. Beck?
The incubus. The one who killed me. His soul was in my dagger when I turned it in that first time. Did it get recycled along with the others?
Madelines brows rose in sudden interest, and she put down the pen shed picked up. No. As it turns out, an incubus soul is a relative rarity, and it carries quite a bit of power. And since no one was expecting it at the recycling facilityyour incubus wasnt on the list, of courseLevi decided to keep it as a sort of...souvenir. A conversation piece.
Is he allowed to do that?
Well, no. Not technically. But he wasnt allowed to bring back your young reaper suitor either. He did that as a favor to me because Id refused to work for her if she couldnt bring Tod back to me so I will, of course, be overlooking his small indiscretion. As will you, naturally.
Naturally... I hardly heard the word as I spoke it, because my head was spinning with other thoughts. Other possibilities.
Levi still had Becks soul. If it would work for the father, it would work for the son. No one else would have to die to give Tracis baby lifea pattern that would hopefully continue throughout the little parasites existence.
What exactly is a conversation piece, anyway? That wasnt really a lie either, because I hadnt actually said I didnt know the definition. Id just implied it.
Its a piece of art or decor intended to start conversations. Thus the name. In this case, its a highly stylized letter opener. Its obviously just for show. Something interesting to set on his desk. And now when people ask about it, he can tell them not only the history of the letter opener itselfits hellion-forged steel he won in some kind of gambling gamebut that it contains the soul of the only incubus ever known to have died at the hands of one of his victims.
I started to argue with that statement. I wasnt an incubuss victim in the traditional sense. He hadnt wanted my body; hed wanted my soul. However, he had killed me, so Levis story wasnt really inaccurate....
But I had just as much right to Becks soul as he did. More really. And I wanted Traci to have it.
Thanks, Madeline. Just let me know when you need me. Ill be...around.
Thank you, Kaylee. Id been dismissed again, and this time I was eager to go.
I blinked from Madelines office back into my bedroom, where I silently lifted the broken dagger from my dresser. Id taken it from Beckit was the weapon that had killed us bothand hed bought it from Avari, whod evidently ripped the metal from the Netherworld ground and forged the dagger himself.
That thought made me pause, stunned to realize that Avari, Beck, and I were tangled up in as intimate and distressing a knot as Nash, Sabine, Tod, and I. Hundreds of years before my birth Avari had made the blade that would kill me, but Id survived its useand my own deathto retain ownership of my own murder weapon. Which he no doubt wanted back.
On second thought, the Avari/Beck/me tangle was much more disturbing than anything forged in adolescent hormones and rooted in love.
I stared at the dagger in my hand for a moment, tracing the jagged, broken edges with my gaze. Invidia, the hellion of envy, had broken off both of the points on the night Emma had died. Afterward, Tod had gone back to the Netherworld to retrieve it for me, but he wasnt able to find the severed points.
Fortunately, the jagged blades were just as scaryand almost as sharpas the original weapon had been.
I slid the double-bladed dagger beneath the waistband of my jeans, at the base of my spine, uncomfortably aware that if I made the wrong move, Id knick my own backside with both broken points. But I couldnt exactly walk into reaper headquarters wielding a weapon.
In fact, I couldnt just walk into reaper headquarters at all. I wasnt even supposed to know where it was, and if Levi found out Tod had told me, hed get in trouble. Which meant I couldnt afford to wander around looking for his office. Id need to know exactly where I was going. Or as exactly as possible, to cut down on the walking Id have to do. I couldnt make myself invisible to reapers.
And I only knew one person who might know where Levis office was and be willing to tell me.
I blinked into Madelines apartment and spared a moment for relief over the fact that I already knew she was still at work. Lucas room was easy to findthere were only two bedrooms, and Madelines didnt even have a bed. Did the woman truly never sleep?
Luca was out cold in a twin bed, covered only in a thin sheet, which I could see easily in the red glow of his alarm clock numbers and the light from the bathroom across the hall.
Was Luca afraid of the dark?
I tiptoed silently to the side of his bed, but when I bent over to shake him awake, the broken dagger blades scratched the inside of my jeans. I pulled the blade out before I could accidentally slice open the seat of my own pants, then shook Luca awake with my other hand.
His eyes opened groggily, and that surprised me. For some reason, Id expected a boy with such an intimate connection to death to be a lighter sleeper. It took him several seconds to focus on my face, and another one to recognize it.
Kaylee?
Yeah. Its me.
And suddenly he was wide-awake. What are you...? His gaze fell on the broken dagger, which must have looked threatening from his perspectiveflat on his back in the middle of the night with a dead girl standing over himbecause he screamed like a little kid.
Relax. I just need some help.
What happened? Was I possessed?
Relax. I just need some help.
What happened? Was I possessed?
It took me a second to figure out what he was talking about, and why my reassurance had failed to reassure him.
Alec.
Like the rest of my friends and family, Luca knew that Id killed Alec when Id mistaken him for Avari. Id killed him in the middle of the night, with the very dagger I now held inches from Lucas stomach. By total coincidence.
No! I reached back and slid the dagger into my waistband again, to get it out of sight. I just need you to find something for me.
Luca exhaled, then glanced at his alarm clock. Its two in the morning.
I know. Sorry.
He leaned over and turned on his bedside lamp, then tossed off the sheet, and I had to admit that Sophie had good taste. The necromancer was hot. Which I could tell, because he slept in nothing but boxer briefs.
You may as well sit down and let me put on some pants. Luca knelt to pick up a pair of flannel pj bottoms from the floor at the foot of his bed. I pulled the dagger from my waistband again, then set it in my lap as I sank into his desk chair and glanced around his room, which was easier to see in the light.