Soul Screamers Volume Four: With All My Soul\Fearless\Niederwald\Last Request: 4 (39 page)

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.

Ira seemed to swell with the sound. He took it in, sucking it from the very air like a sponge absorbing water, until Avari realized he was feeding his new nemesis and bit the roar off with a painful-sounding gurgle-growl.

But that wasn’t the end of his rage. Though he probably had no idea, that was only the very beginning of what he would eventually feed Ira, as payment by proxy for the deal the hellion of rage and I had struck.

“Well played, little fury,” Ira said, loud enough for Avari to hear, even if his ears were ringing like mine were. “Hellion rage is not as pure and satisfying as that of a mortal, but what it lacks in quality, it makes up for in quantity. This rage will burn within him for decades.”

And that was just the tip of the anger-iceberg.

“You’re paying him with my wrath?” the hellion of greed demanded, and yet more fury leaked out with his words, a verbal appetizer for Ira.

“Yes.” In part. And I was well aware that Avari’s anger would not improve my treatment at his hands. But there was nothing I could do about that, so I tried not to think about it. “Let’s talk terms.”

“You surrender. Your father goes home. Those are my terms.” Avari was more furious than I’d ever seen him. More furious than I could ever have imagined. Ice grew beneath his feet, spreading slowly down the steps and over the sidewalk toward us, and he didn’t even seem to see it.

“That’s the general idea, but it does me no good to free my father from you if you’re just going to go after him or someone else I love later.” And he’d do it, after my deal with Ira expired. “With that in mind, I have two demands. If you turn down either one of them, I will walk away from this deal.” He didn’t look like he believed me. I didn’t give a damn. “First, we both agree that in exchange for my immortal soul, you will free my father. Immediately.”

“Agreed.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear Avari was rolling featureless eyes at me. “In fact, that is the offer
I
presented to
you.
”

Yes. But I needed his offer to me to stand separately—officially—from my real demand.

“Good. Second, I want your word that once I’ve surrendered, you will never again attempt to contact or hurt any member of my family or any of my established friends, in any way, shape, or form, personally or through any other agency acting on your behalf.”

Ira had helped me with the phrasing. Based on Avari’s still-escalating expression of fury—he was nearly speechless—the wrath demon didn’t regret offering me that little bit of assistance at no additional charge.

Avari growled through clenched teeth, and the familiar—and very human—demonstration of his anger almost pleased me. “For what duration?”

What part of “never again” did he not understand?

I propped both hands on my hips, pretending to think it over. “How long do you plan to keep my soul?”

“As long as I like. The blink of a hellion’s eye stretches well beyond a mortal’s understanding of the passage of time, and I intend to enjoy the torment of your soul for much longer than that.”

“So, forever, at least from a ‘mortal’s understanding’?” I said. “Is that a reasonable assumption?”

“Depending on your definition of ‘reasonable,’ yes.” He looked hesitant to admit that. Suspicious.

“Well then, I think ‘forever’ is reasonable in this instance, as well. You will have nothing to do with my friends and family,
forever,
beginning the moment I surrender to you.”

“No.” Avari seemed to take a perverse pleasure in that one word.

“No deal, then.” He started to object, and I spoke over him. “Why should I give myself to you to save my father if you’re just going to go after my friends and family later? That’s not me saving my father—that’s me delaying his torture and inevitably painful death. I’m not going to sell my own soul for anything less than the absolute freedom—from
you
—of everyone I love.” My heart thundered within my chest. My pulse was the fevered race of fear through my veins as I turned to Ira to say the words that would either pull Avari into our trap or trigger the collapse of everything I’d lied, stolen, and negotiated for. “Let’s go.”

He nodded triumphantly, virtually glutted on Avari’s rage, and we started to turn.

“Wait!” Avari roared at my back, and the sound rolled over me like an arctic gust, raising chill bumps the length of my body even as it threw me forward. I stumbled to keep from falling, grinning the whole time. I could practically feel his greed, at just the
thought
that some other hellion might make off with the prize he’d been chasing for months—which obviously didn’t feel like a “blink of the eye” at the moment. “Fine. I agree,” he said, and the words sounded like icicles shattering on concrete. “Once I take possession of your soul, I will have no further contact with your friends or family members, directly or indirectly. From now, until the end of my own existence, should that day ever arrive.”

I glanced up at Ira. “Does that about cover it?”

“I believe it does.” His black orb eyes shined. “And that means this is goodbye, little fury.”

My pulse raced out of control, flushing my system with fear and dread. Panic tripped in my chest, and my heart skipped one beat, then another. My hands tingled, and I could no longer feel my feet. “Don’t forget what you promised....”

“Like it or not, I am a hellion of my word. We all are.” He shot an amused look at Avari, who seemed to hate the hellion of wrath with an all-new passion. “One more kiss for the road?”

I nodded, and Ira leaned down to kiss me one more time, in front of three other hellions and assorted creepy-crawlies that had gathered to watch, no doubt waiting for the chance to grab a scrap of flesh or a chip of bone should one be tossed their way.

But that kiss wasn’t just a goodbye between me and Ira, who was only playing the part of my friend because I was paying him. That kiss was a vital part of my deal with the hellion of wrath.

This time when his lips met mine, he inhaled and warmth seemed to flow from my body, pulled through my throat, then from my mouth into his. A bitter cold remained in its absence, and suddenly I couldn’t remember...something.

There was something I’d known a moment earlier, but couldn’t...quite...recall. Whatever it was, it was important. So important it had to be removed before Avari could find it in my head, when he took me apart.

And now it was completely gone.

Ira stepped back and licked his lips, and more ice spread across the ground toward us from beneath Avari’s feet. “Your father is waiting,” he said, and little crystals of ice seemed to fall from his words.

Greed is a cold emotion; wrath is white-hot. Stuck between them, I felt like an icicle on fire.

“Fine.” My head spun, and my stomach cramped. Avari had told me months ago that in the Netherworld, my existence could stretch into eternity, but I’d never imagined that my eternal existence would belong to
him,
much less that I would give it to him of my own free will.

But I had no other option. Nothing else would protect my friends and family, and if I’d learned anything about Avari over the past year, it was that he would not stop hunting us until he got what he wanted.

Until he got me.

“It has to be your choice,” he reminded me, and I nodded. I had to agree to stay. I had to give him my soul.

I took in a deep breath, more out of habit than any real need for air. Then I said the words that had been rolling around in my head for the past couple of hours.

“You’ll let my dad go if I give you my soul?”

“Yes.”

“And beginning from the moment you take possession, you’ll never again try to contact anyone I care about, forever and ever, amen?”

“This redundancy is exasperating, Ms. Cavanaugh.”

“Just say it.”

He growled in frustration, and Ira chuckled. “Yes. Beginning the moment I take possession of your soul, I will never again attempt to contact your friends and family for any reason whatsoever.”