Soul Screamers, Volume 1

“Balloons.” I smiled at Nash’s perplexed expression, enjoying understanding more than he did for once.

Tod stuck his head between the front seats, looking just as confused as his brother. “We’re taking Addy balloons? Should we stop for a cake and a present, too?”

My smile widened. “The balloons aren’t for Addison. They’re for the fiend. Addy’s just going to…blow one up for us.”

For a moment, Tod’s eyes narrowed even further. Then his expression smoothed as comprehension settled in, and one half of his mouth quirked up.

“Clever…” Nash nodded at me in obvious respect. “I like it.”

“Let’s just hope it works.”

At Walgreens, Tod found a bag of multicolored latex party balloons while Nash and I hunted down a tube of antibiotic cream. When we met at the cash register, the reaper also snagged three bars of chocolate. I paid—I knew my “paper currency” would come in handy!—then we rushed to Addison’s house, beyond grateful for the light, middle-of-the-night traffic, because we had to be back at the stadium in half an hour.

We parked next to a shiny Lexus in Addison’s driveway, and she must have heard the engine, because she pulled the front door open as we climbed the steps, then ushered us into the empty living room.

Addy closed the door behind us and stood in the entry with her hands deep in the pockets of a pair of snug, faded jeans. She was still fully dressed. She hadn’t even tried to go to sleep. Not that I could blame her.

“Where’s your mom?” Tod asked from the middle of the room. No one sat.

“She’s passed out in her room.” Addy’s ironic smile said that for once, she was grateful for her mother’s “issues.”

“What about Regan?” I rubbed my left shoe against my right ankle, barely resisting the urge to bend over and scratch because that would have exposed my Netherworldly injury and led to questions we didn’t have time to answer. And because I was pretty sure scratching would make more clear liquid run from my puncture wounds, rather than easing the fierce, burning itch that had settled in.

“She’s sleeping off a couple of Mom’s painkillers.” Addison glanced at me, then down at her unpainted toenails. “I had to give them to her. She was freaking out, and I just wanted her go to sleep and shut up. I tried to warn her, but she didn’t listen. She never listens....”

My heart ached for Addy, and her splintered relationship with her sister. They reminded me of me and Sophie, and that thought left a bitter taste in my mouth, as if I’d swallowed one of Addy’s mother’s pills.

“It’s fine.” Tod clearly didn’t care what happened to Regan. He had eyes—and concern—only for Addison. “We’re a step away from finding the hellion, but first we need you to blow up one of these.”

“Maybe two or three of them,” I interjected, tossing Tod the bag of party balloons. “I’m not sure what dose the fiend is looking for, or what the concentration is…inside her. So it might take more than one.”

Tod ripped open the bag while Addison glanced from one of us to the other like we’d lost our minds.

“It’s in your breath,” I explained, while Tod pulled a cherry-red balloon from the bag and stretched it to make it easier to inflate. “The Demon’s Breath. It rests in your core. And in your lungs, and I think that every time you exhale, you breathe a little bit of it into the air.”

I’d gotten the idea from the fiends, who’d wanted to know if we exhaled Demon’s Breath. We didn’t, of course. But Addy might.

I wasn’t sure how it worked. If she lost a little bit of the force keeping her alive with each exhale, or if the Demon’s Breath replaced itself as each little bit was lost. But I was virtually certain—based on the fiends’ odd dialogue—that Addy carried within herself the very currency we needed.

She took the balloon from Tod and stared at it for a second as if it might grow teeth and bite her. Then Addy put the latex to her mouth as we watched from a loosely formed semicircle on the beige carpet.

“Wait.” I shrugged, my arms still crossed over my chest. “It seemed to me when Eden died that Demon’s Breath is heavier than air, so it’s probably at the bottom of your lungs. You’ll have to empty them to exhale what we really need. So blow out as much as you can on each breath, okay?”

Addison nodded hesitantly, then put the red balloon to her lips again as Tod pulled a yellow one from the bag. She began to blow, and the balloon grew slowly, becoming more translucent with each millimeter it gained in circumference. She blew without inhaling, forcing more air from her lungs than I’d have thought possible, until her face was nearly as flushed as the balloon.

Singers must have very good lungs.