Awaken

“I’m fine,” I said quickly, and adjusted my bag so it sat more squarely on my shoulder. “We need to find something to wedge that door open.”

The door either hadn’t been there or hadn’t been particularly noticeable any of the other times I’d been inside the tomb …. No big surprise since it was made of rotting wood and hidden in shadow. I was worried if it didn’t stay open, we’d be locked forever from the Underworld (unless I really messed things up and wound up dying again). I didn’t have John’s gift of teleportation. If I did manage to get help for these people, I was going to need a way to deliver it to them (although how I was going to fit a boat through such a small door was a problem I was going to have to deal with later).

“Hang on,” Frank said. “I have just the thing.”

Frank reached down, then pulled a long object from the dead blossoms on the crypt floor. In the darkness I couldn’t tell what it was until I heard the sound of breaking glass as he smashed it against the wall.

“Captain Rob’s Rum,” I said with a sad smile. The brand had been named after John’s abusive, alcoholic father. “How appropriate.”

“Finally, a use for it that won’t give a man a splitting hangover.” Frank wedged the broken neck in the door.

“Are you coming or not?” Alex shouted at us from beneath the poinciana tree.

“We’re coming,” I assured him, and stepped out into the rain.

12

I swooned away as if I had been dying,

And fell, even as a dead body falls.

DANTE ALIGHIERI, Inferno, Canto V

Kayla found four soggy parking tickets beneath her wipers.

“Isla Huesos cops really are evil,” she declared.

She’d unlocked the doors, and we were all inside her messy subcompact.

“You think they’d suspend alternate-side-of-the-street parking regulations during a hurricane,” Alex said. “I can’t believe you didn’t get towed.”

“I can’t believe your automobile didn’t get stolen,” Frank said. “Is it normal to keep the keys in a little case in the wheel well?”

“It is for me. That way I can’t lose them.” Kayla stuffed the parking tickets into her glove compartment, where I couldn’t help noticing there appeared to be half a dozen other unpaid tickets. “Besides, no one ever looks there for them.”

“I’m shocked you ever have trouble finding anything,” Frank commented sarcastically, peeling away an Island Queen napkin that had become stuck to the bottom of his boot. “It’s so tidy in here. What’s this?”

Kayla snatched the ruby-colored bra he’d dug out from behind his back. “You should know, you’re the one who got it off me,” she said.

Alex, seated behind them, hooted. Now that he was safely out of the cemetery, he seemed to be in a better mood.

“Shut up, Cabrero,” Kayla said, chucking the bra at him. Alex laughingly deflected it as Kayla checked her reflection in the light-up compact mirror she’d fished from the side panel of her door. “Oh, great, my eyeliner is running. I look like a drowned hoochie mama.”

“You look fine,” I said. “Can we please go before someone sees us?”

“Who’s going to see us?” Kayla reached for a spare makeup bag she also kept in the side panel. “It’s pitch- black on this street.”

It was true. All up and down the narrow streets along the cemetery, the windows of every quaintly painted beach cottage were dark, even though, according to Alex’s watch, it was now only a little after eleven o’clock at night.

“For all we know,” Kayla went on as she carefully repainted the black lines around her eyes, “there isn’t a single soul left alive in this town except for us. Well, and the cops who gave me these tickets.”

“Thanks, Kayla.” It was Alex’s turn to sound sarcastic. “That’s a really pleasant thought. Some of us have family members we’re worried about, you know.”

“I’m sure your dad is fine, Alex,” I said as comfortingly as I could. “The power is out in this part of town, is all.”

“And you’re not the only one with family,” Kayla reminded him as she painted. “I’m worried about my mom. Well, not really, because she’s required to be on duty at the hospital for as long as this storm lasts, and the hospital was built to withstand category-five hurricane-force winds. But she’s probably freaked I haven’t called. Which reminds me, do you think if there’s any Furies around they’ll find us if I turn on the AC and charge my phone? Because my battery is dead and the windows are too fogged up for me to see out of to drive. Could you all breathe less?”

She switched on the engine, and a second later, a powerful blast of lukewarm air was blowing at Alex and me from the front seat. Kayla immediately pulled her phone from the bodice of her dress and plugged it into the charger on her console. “Okay, Pierce,” she asked, “where are we going?”

“Richard Smith’s house,” I said at the same time Alex said, “My house.”

Alex glared at me. “Who’s Richard Smith?”

“He’s the cemetery sexton. Remember, you met him at school the day we had that assembly about Coffin Night. He’s an old friend of Grandpa’s. I think he might be able to help us figure out where the Fates went, and if there really is a Thanatos —”

Alex’s expression, in the dim glow from Kayla’s dashboard, was twisted with outrage. “Pierce, my dad probably thinks I’m dead —”

“You are dead, mate,” Frank said. “To everyone who ever mattered to you, anyway. Get used to it.”

“But I’m not dead,” Alex said. “I’m an NDE, like Pierce. And the last thing I want to do right now is go visit some old friend of Grandpa’s —”

“Alex, Mr. Smith is the only person I can think of who might know of a way to help your dad and all those people we left behind in the Underworld —”

“Meaning your boyfriend,” Alex interrupted, with a scowl.

I prickled. “I didn’t say that.”

“But it’s obvious he’s your biggest priority,” Alex snapped. “Thanatos? That was practically the first word out of your mouth. And you never even mentioned going to see your mom. Ever since you met him, he’s all you care about. The rest of us were worried sick the whole time you were gone, but you didn’t care. Now he’s dead, but he and his world are still all you’re worried about.”

“Oh, my God, Alex,” I said. “That isn’t true. I worried about you and Uncle Chris and my mom and dad the entire time I was gone.”

Frank tilted the rearview mirror so he could see Alex.

“It’s true, mate,” he said. “First time I ever met her, you were all she talked about, how she had to go back and fetch you out of that coffin. Nearly drove the captain mad.”

I gave Frank a disapproving look in the mirror to show him that I didn’t need his help. When I looked back at Alex, I could see that his expression remained defiant, but his eyes had a sheen to them, reflecting the light … or maybe some unshed tears.

“I did worry a lot about you,” I said to Alex. “And your dad, too. But if we don’t fix what’s happening in the Underworld, your dad’s problems aren’t going to matter, nor is anyone else’s who lives in Isla Huesos, because Isla Huesos itself isn’t going to be around for much longer.”

Then it occurred to me. Alex’s eyes were reflecting the light.

What light? All the streetlamps were out, and the dashboard console was glowing green.