Nash glanced across the coffee table from her to Tod. “But how does that benefit the company?”
“Greed, plain and simple. Right?” I looked to Addy for confirmation.
She shrugged and swallowed thickly, like her dinner was trying to come back up. “That’s my guess. I mean, if we’re rich and famous, so are the suits and pencil pushers, right?”
Nash frowned. “So what if their stars leave the corporation? Go mainstream, like Eden did?”
Addison crossed her arms over her chest, probably to keep her hands from fidgeting. “Eden went mainstream on-screen two years ago, but only after six years and three contracts with Dekker, during which she brought in cash faster than any other child star in history. But she’s still on their record label, and so am I.”
The singer inhaled deeply, as if her next words would be difficult to say. “When you sign with Dekker, even if you’re not selling your soul, you’re selling out. They get most of us before we hit puberty, and you become whatever they want you to be. They design your look, cast you in their shows, and put you in at least one made-for-TV movie a year. The movies themselves don’t make much, but the merchandising brings in some serious cash.” She sighed and began ticking points off on her fingers. “They pick the songs you’ll record, schedule your appearances, and book your tours. They’ll even choose your haircut unless your agent is a real shark. But most of the agents are in John Dekker’s pocket, too, because they want clients who have guaranteed careers.”
So. Creepy. Dekker Media was starting to sound scarier than the Netherworld.
“Okay, maybe I’m misunderstanding, but we’re talking about the Dekker Media, right? The child-friendly, shiny-happy sitcoms? With the cartoon squirrel and the squeaky-clean animated fairy tales? That Dekker Media is actually reaping the souls of its stars in exchange for commercial success?”
Addison’s lip curled into a bitter smile. “Ironic, isn’t it?”
I didn’t know how to answer. Until they grew up and went mainstream, Dekker’s stars didn’t even bare their midriffs. Yet they were all soulless shells of humanity. Irony didn’t even begin to cover it.
And I’d thought the whole bean sidhe wail thing was weird….
Tod shot a smile of support at Addison, and Nash rubbed his face with both hands. Acid churned in my stomach, threatening to devour me from the inside out, and the very air tasted bitter, heavy with the aftertaste of such sour words. But I had to ask.
“Addison, how long has this been going on? This soul trafficking?”
She shrugged and pulled a strand of white-blond hair over her shoulder, twisting the end of it as she spoke. “I don’t know, but rumor has it a couple of their stars from the fifties sold out, back when they were still broadcasting in black and white. Who was the girl who did all those bonfire slasher movies after she left Dekker?”
“Campfire Stalker movies,” Tod corrected.
“Yeah, those. That girl sold her soul. And she’s getting old now….” Addison’s voice trailed off, but the horror on her face was easy to read.
“Guys, this is much bigger than we thought.” I crossed my arms over my chest, glancing from one somber, shocked face to the next. “Too big.” The thought of tracking down one hellion with a secondhand soul was scary enough. But I had no idea how to go up against the Netherworld and Dekker Media over an arrangement they’d evidently had going for more than half a century.
All we could really do was take Addison to the Netherworld so she could enforce the out-clause.
“So, what’s the deal with this out-clause? What happens if you ask for your soul back?”
“They take everything.” Tod stood and waved one arm to indicate the hotel suite, and Addison’s entire career, then crossed the room toward a small refrigerator against one wall. “Everything she’s worked for will just be … gone.”
“If she wasn’t prepared for that, she shouldn’t have sold her soul,” Nash snapped, his irises a churning sea of brown and green. But I knew he wasn’t so much mad at Addy as he was worried about us. In his opinion, risking two mostly innocent lives and one afterlife for a single compromised soul made little sense.
I was starting to agree with him. I wanted to help Addy, but not if she wasn’t willing to help herself. What were fame and fortune compared to an eternity of torture? “That’s kind of how the whole contract thing works, Addison. You fulfill it, or you have to pay back everything they’ve given you. But isn’t your eternal soul worth it?”
She blinked at me, and her tears finally overflowed. “It’s not about the money, or even the fame. There are days I’d like to trade my face in for one no one’s ever seen.” Addison swiped tears from her cheeks with both hands, smearing expertly applied eyeliner in the process, and I pushed a box of tissues across the table toward her.
“So, what is it about?”
She took a deep breath. “If I demand my soul back, they’ll take back everything I ever got as a result of signing that contract—and everything anyone else ever got from it through me. They’ll ruin me, but the fallout will hit my agent, my lawyer, my publicist, and everyone who ever worked for me. It’ll devastate my whole family.” She sniffled, but now there was a sharp edge of anger in her voice. “My mom. Regan. My dad, and whatever twenty-year-old he’s shacked up with this week. And I’m not just talking about money. We’ve been poor, and we can be poor again. I’m talking debt, disgrace, and public humiliation, a thousand times worse than any of them would have suffered if I’d turned down the original offer.”
Nash’s eyes narrowed as Tod kicked the fridge shut and returned with four cans of diet Coke, evidently all Addy kept on hand. “They can’t do that. Can they?”
Addison laughed bitterly, and accepted the can Tod handed her. “You remember Whitney Lance? Lindy Cohen? Between the two of them, they have three divorces, seven arrests, five stints in rehab, and two children taken away by the courts. And it gets much worse. Others have had nude photo scandals, public breakdowns, and weeks spent in the psychiatric ward. Carolina Burke served two years for tax evasion, and Denison Clark was arrested for drunk driving two months before his twenty-first birthday. Then again for statutory rape six months later.”
“Yeah, but they all actually did those things, right?” Nash popped open his can, looking less sympathetic by the moment. “Please tell me you don’t have an arrest record or a love child hidden away somewhere.”
“Of course not.” Addy’s eyes flashed in anger, and I was glad to see it. If she couldn’t stand up to us, how could she possibly have enough nerve to demand her soul back from a hellion?
“Well, if you haven’t given them any rope, how are they supposed to hang you?”
“I’m not perfect, Nash!” Addison used the arms of her chair to shove herself to her feet and stood staring down at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve never had a drink. Or that you’re a virgin.”
Nash’s face hardened, but he remained silent.
“My contract keeps me bubble wrapped, but if I get my soul back, not only will they strip the padding, they’ll start throwing knives at me. They’ll twist every decision I make and hurl it back at me. Every drink I take will be a public binge. Every relationship I get into will be a disaster played out in full color on newsstands all over the world. Exes will sell stories and pictures to magazines.” She was pacing now, words falling from her lips almost faster than I could understand them. “The paparazzi will get shots of my mom all strung out. Hell, she’ll probably go to prison for buying narcotics online, or something like that. My dad’s DUIs will catch up with him, and without me to bail him out when he gets in over his head, his creditors will eat him alive. And I don’t even want to know what’ll happen to Regan. She just scored a role in a new tween drama. Her career will be over before it