Awaken

27

And I beheld therein a terrible throng

Of serpents, and of such a monstrous kind,

That the remembrance still congeals my blood …

DANTE ALIGHIERI, Inferno, Canto XXIV

I rushed to stand in front of Kayla and Mr. Smith, my whip ready. I wouldn’t be able to hold off the amassing hordes of Furies for long, but I was determined to go down trying.

“What’s wrong with your grandma?” Kayla demanded. Her “high adaptability” had apparently returned. “Grandmas are supposed to be sweet and bake you brownies and love you unconditionally. Why is yours such a bitch?”

Mr. Smith cleared his throat disapprovingly at Kayla’s strong language. “Mrs. Cabrero can’t help it; she’s possessed by a demonic —”

“Screw that,” Kayla said. “I’m tired of that excuse. She’s possessed by a Fury, she had a bad childhood. You know who had a bad childhood? Me. But I don’t take it out on innocent people.”

Kayla’s rant was reminding me of someone else’s. Then I remembered whose. Frank’s, when that guy in the khaki pants back in the Underworld had insisted he’d been put in the wrong line.

Better not to think of Frank right now.

“Come on,” I said. “If we hurry we can make it to the —”

— door to the Underworld in John’s crypt, where it’s safe, I’d been about to say.

But when we turned around, I found our path to the crypt blocked by Mike, the cemetery’s former handyman.

I hadn’t seen Mike since I’d given him a concussion in the yard behind Mr. Smith’s office some time ago, but he looked as if he’d healed up pretty nicely from that. Despite the fact that he’d resigned from his position, he was still in his sleeveless handyman coveralls, all of his lewd tattoos showing. He grinned at us while tapping the heavy end of a shovel into the palm of his hand, as if in eager expectation of tapping it against the side of one of our heads.

“Going somewhere?” Mike asked. A decidedly salacious grin lit up his otherwise dead eyes.

“He’s the one who killed Frank,” Kayla murmured. Beneath what little makeup remained on her face, her skin had taken on a deathly pallor. I’d never seen her look more frightened.

“Killing that scum was my pleasure,” Mike said, his grin growing broader.

“Please, Pierce,” Kayla whispered. “The flicky thing, with your whip. Do it.”

“Yes,” Mr. Smith said. “Although I don’t, in general, approve of violence, I think now would be a splendid time to do the, er, flicky thing Kayla suggests.”

I looked around. We were trapped. Even if I managed to get the shovel out of Mike’s hands — and a shovel was a lot heavier and harder to manage with a whip than a knife — there was no way all three of us would be able to pass him to get to the safety of the crypt. Mr. Smith was an academic and an old man, and not a very athletic one, at that. He’d never be able to outrun the Furies that were closing in on all sides. My grandmother was still behind us, too, laughing, despite the pain in her arm.

“Not so high-and-mighty are you now, eh, Miss Queen of the Underworld?” she cackled.

“We’re not going to make it,” I said to Mr. Smith and Kayla. “At least, not all three of us. We’re going to have to stay here and fight them.”

“I like the sound of that,” Mike said, licking his lips crudely at Kayla.

I expected her to collapse right then and there, given her ashen hue. But she seemed to have some last reserves of fire in her.

“You know what?” Kayla turned to snatch the knife from Mr. Smith — which was probably a good thing, since the cemetery sexton obviously had no idea what to do with it — and said, “Killing this scum will be my pleasure.”

Mike laughed when he saw the knife, then held up his shovel. “You seem to be forgetting something, girlie. Size matters.”

Kayla curled her lip. “I didn’t forget. The size of my hatred for you is so big, it can’t be measured by any instrument known to man.”

“Whoa,” I said. “Nice one, Kayla.”

“Girls.” Mr. Smith looked from me to Kayla in distress. “Please. Please don’t do this. Save yourselves.”

“Save yourselves,” Kayla said with a giggle. It was semihysterical, but it was still a giggle. Talking smack had given her some self-confidence. “After we get out of all this and I have my surgery and open my high-end beauty salon, that’s what I’m going to call it. Save Yourselves.”

“I love that idea,” I said. “I’ll be your first customer.”

“Thanks,” Kayla said. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that I think you could use some highlights. Just a few, to frame your face.”

“Girls,” Mr. Smith said. “Please. Don’t worry about me. You know I don’t mind dying. And now with Patrick —”

I held up a hand, palm out, to stem the flow of his words, and repeated what I’d said that horrible night in the castle, when we’d all been gathered around John’s body.

“No one gets left behind,” I said.

“No one.” Kayla narrowed her eyes at Mike as he began to circle us, holding the shovel above his head as if it were a baseball bat.

Mr. Smith blinked rapidly behind his spectacles. It was hard to tell in the bright sunlight, but I suspected he was blinking back tears. “Miss Oliviera, despite all our differences and everything that’s happened, I just want you to know that our acquaintance has been one of the greatest pleasures — and privileges — of my life.”

“Thanks, Mr. Smith,” I said, cracking my whip at a woman wearing a T-shirt that said I Survived Coffin Fest who’d come a little too close with her rake. The woman snarled and recoiled. “Same here.”

“I suppose,” Mr. Smith said, “now would be the appropriate time to say, er, see you in the next world?”

“Now would,” I said.

Suddenly Mike lunged at Kayla with a roar, holding his shovel high in the air. Kayla screamed and swung her knife at his midsection, but he easily dodged the blade, and she missed. A lascivious leer spread over Mike’s face. I’d have snapped my whip at him, but I was occupied by a large man carrying a stone cherub, which he was about to throw at my face. Mr. Smith, unfortunately, had my grandmother to contend with. She flung herself at him, hissing like a snake … a snake who owned a shop called Knuts for Knitting and wore orthopedic sneakers.

I was certain in the next second I was going to see Mike’s shovel connect with my best friend’s head, then have to hear her screams of pain.

Instead, I saw a familiar black tactical boot connect with Mike’s groin and heard his screams of pain.

“If you’d let me kill this man when I had the chance, Pierce,” John said calmly, “none of this would be happening.”

The only time I’d ever been happier to see him was the moment he’d come back to life.

John seemed to come from out of nowhere, a blaze of fists and glory. Mike had sunk to the ground, weeping in pain, red poinciana blossoms staining the knees of his coveralls. My grandmother was so surprised she backed away from Mr. Smith, shouting, “Get up! Get up, you fool!” in Mike’s direction. But it seemed unlikely Mike would be getting up anytime soon.

A moment later, the man who’d been about to throw the stone cherub at me joined Mike on the ground. Mr. Liu, who’d followed John from the half-collapsed crypt, had torn the cherub from his hands and struck him with it. The cherub crumbled to pieces.

My grandmother howled in rage, and above our heads, the ravens let out similar cries of wrath.

“Hello,” Mr. Liu said to me in his usual laconic fashion. “I see you’re using my gift.”

He nodded at the whip. I wanted to throw my arms around him, but this hardly seemed the time or place, since Furies were still coming at us from all sides.

“Not that I’m not happy to see you both,” I said, taking my whip to a third man who was rushing at us with a wickedly pointed garden hoe. “But what took you guys so long?”

“We were slightly preoccupied,” John said. He seized the hoe and broke it over his knee, then threw the non-pointed end forcefully at the man, hitting him in the solar plexus. “I had a couple of ships to deliver.”

“And passengers to board,” Mr. Liu added. He flung a piece of the stone cherub at a fifth Fury.

“Couldn’t that have waited?” I asked. “It’s a mess out here.”

“It was an even bigger mess back there,” John said. “But Mr. Graves finally got things under control, thanks to your father —”

“My father?”

“He got us the boats,” John said, looking at me in some surprise, as if to say, You were there. How could you not remember? He went on to explain patiently, “I was able to get them to the Underworld, and Mr. Graves was able to start boarding the passengers … with a little help.”

“From who?” I asked.

“Them,” John said, and nodded towards the wrought iron gate to his crypt.

I saw a familiar figure — one that was considerably smaller than anyone else in the cemetery — slip through the gate, then turn to gesture eagerly to someone still inside the vault.

Henry, of course, I expected — though I didn’t approve. A Fury battlefield was no place for a child, even one who’d lived a century and a half in the Underworld and had grown used to life without a mother.

But Reed, who’d found a shirt and a pair of long pants somewhere, and also armed himself with an ancient harpoon gun? Chloe, her hand wrapped tightly around Typhon’s collar, against which the enormous dog was lunging in excitement? Mrs. Engle and Mr. Graves, both with their hands wrapped around the bridle of a snorting Alastor, who barely fit through the tiny opening? When the horse finally managed to squeeze through it, he kicked the first Fury who was foolish enough to come close to him, square in the chest.

“John,” I said in horror. “No.”

John shrugged. “They volunteered to stay behind. Not only volunteered, they insisted.”

“John, Mr. Graves told them that if they came out that door, they’d lose any chance whatsoever at moving on to what awaits them in the afterlife. Now they’ll never be able to —”

“Pierce,” John said in a patient voice. “They know that. I explained it all again to them. None of them cared. I don’t know what went on down there while I was dead, but you developed some loyal subjects. No way were they going to leave you behind.”

I shook my head, tears filling my eyes. This was all too much. “John, I can’t let them do this for me. They’re revenants now.”

John looked me straight in the eye, a small smile playing on his lips, even as a man with a pair of pruning shears came charging at us.

“Pierce, a revenant is someone who’s returned from the dead,” John said, snatching away the shears. “You’re a revenant. So am I. We’re all revenants. Did you ever think we were anything else?”

Stunned, I stared at him. Why hadn’t it occurred to me before? No wonder my grandmother hated me so much and kept calling me an abomination. An NDE was simply another, more pleasant name for a revenant. Both Mr. Smith and I had actually died and come back to life, exactly like Reed and Chloe and Mrs. Engle … and Alex and John and Mr. Liu and Henry and Mr. Graves.

John was right. We were all revenants.

John gave the man who’d been holding the pruning shears a jab in the jaw that sent him spinning. Across the way, I heard Reed whoop admiringly. “Dead boy can punch!”

John turned to give a little bow of acknowledgment in Reed’s direction. Reed saluted, then sent the butt end of his harpoon gun into the sizable stomach of a nearby Fury.

I was still trying to puzzle out the intricacies of male camaraderie when I felt a hand on my arm and spun around, my whip flying, only to see Henry’s face peering up at me.

“Miss,” he cried, ducking beneath my lash. “It’s only me, miss.”

“Henry,” I said, relieved. “Don’t do that. You shouldn’t be here, it isn’t safe.” My point was illustrated as my bicycle went flying past us both, hurled by an outraged Fury. “What is it?”

“My slingshot,” he said. “The one I made you. Do you still have it? You should use it. Put your diamond in it, and shoot it at them, and then once they’re hit, they won’t be Furies anymore.”

Again with the slingshot.

“Henry,” I said, pulling him to the side of a nearby crypt, out of the range of flying bicycles, since Mr. Liu had picked up the shattered remains of mine, and was hurling it back at the original thrower. “Your slingshot is in my tote bag, which I left over there —”

I pointed across the blossom-strewn path, to where Mr. Smith was engaged in what looked like a fight to the death with my grandmother, something I’d only just noticed.

“Oh, no,” I said, my heart sinking.

“I’ll get it,” Henry cried, misunderstanding my disappointment, and darted towards the bag.

“Henry, don’t!” I raced to stop him, nearly colliding with a woman who seemed to come from out of nowhere, swinging a pickax at the little boy. I kneed her in the stomach, then struck her hard on the back of the neck with the butt of my whip. As I did so, the diamond at the end of my necklace brushed her skin. A puff of smoke trickled up from the small burn.

I didn’t have time to stick around to watch what happened next. Mr. Smith — and Henry — needed me.

Besides, no sooner had the woman collapsed than she was replaced by a man who came running up with a machete. They just kept coming, and coming, and coming. Every time one of us managed to disarm or knock a Fury down, another one seemed to rise up in his or her place, while overhead, ravens screamed so raucously, my ears had begun to ring.

Maybe we were revenants, I thought dimly. But this could be the day we all died, as my grandmother put it, “for good.”

Considering her broken arm, she and Mr. Smith were almost evenly matched, but she was still a Fury and so possessed inhuman strength. Also inhuman emotions.

“Sinners,” she hissed at Mr. Smith as her hands closed around his throat. “Abominators.”

Henry had landed, unscathed, beside my tote bag and was rooting through it.

“Hold on, miss,” he shouted at me. “I’ve almost found it. You’ve got a lot of things in here.”

Mr. Smith was incapable of making anything but a gurgling sound, but I believe he was saying something else. His eyes, behind his spectacles, which were askew, seemed to be saying, Do it.

I was happy to oblige.

I cracked my whip, sending it wrapping around my grandmother’s throat multiple times, enfolding her as tightly as a warm, hand-knit scarf … one that a loving grandmother might send to her granddaughter in the mail for her birthday. Then I yanked on it as hard as I could, so it was more like the grip of a boa constrictor than a muffler.

Grandma’s hands instantly left Mr. Smith’s neck and flew to her own throat. Now she was the one who was gurgling.

I pulled even harder on the whip, bringing my grandmother to her knees, and went to crouch beside her.

“How do you like the scarf I made you, Grandma?” I hissed in her ear.

Her dead eyes rolled towards me, showing no sign of fear, only hatred and contempt. She was unable to speak, because she was unable to draw in air to breathe. I knew the sensation. It was the one I’d felt when I’d been sitting at the bottom of the pool, after I’d tripped over the scarf she’d made me and drowned.

“Pierce.” Mr. Smith coughed out my name. He was finally able to speak. “Don’t.”

I barely heard him. All I could see was red, and all I could hear was the cawing of the ravens.

“So I’m an abomination, am I?” I whispered to Grandma. “You did all this so I would destroy John, and the Underworld? Kind of like Eve in the Garden of Eden, huh?”

Grandma nodded, an evil smile spreading across her face, even as she gulped for air.

“Pierce, no,” Mr. Smith said. “You mustn’t. I know it seems like it, but it isn’t her. It’s the demon inside her ….”

Dimly I became aware of footsteps striding up behind me. I heard Chloe’s voice saying my name, then John calling, Pierce. Pierce, don’t.

But I didn’t release my grandmother. If anything, I held on to her more tightly.

“Well, nice try, Grandma,” I said, reaching out to hold her close to me, so close I could feel her pulse beating next to mine. “You just made one mistake. I’m not Eve. I’m smarter than that. I’m the snake.”

Then I lifted the Persephone Diamond and crushed it to her heart.