Awaken

you this military base had fired on American soldiers?”

“John, don’t listen to him. Dad, I told you, John already has a job.”

“Right, right, he sorts souls of the dead. How much does one earn in a job like that, if you don’t mind my asking? Ballpark figure, of course.”

“Dad!”

“I’m just saying, if the boy came to work for me, I could pay him double or triple what he’s earning now —”

“It’s not that kind of job, Dad. But I do think there might be a way you could help us.”

John scowled at me over the forkful of eggs he was scooping into his mouth. We’d foregone the waffles, the memory of our great waffle fight still being a little too fresh in our minds for comfort. Fortunately, there were also scrambled eggs.

I could understand how John might not be eager to accept help from a man who’d threatened to shoot him in the knees, but the truth was, my dad had access to considerable resources. And I figured if there was anything the two of us — not to mention the Underworld — could use right now, it was resources.

“My dad owns a really big company, John,” I explained.

Now John scowled into the cup of coffee he was drinking. “You might have mentioned it one or two hundred times since I met you.”

“It’s a company that makes things for the military.” I raised my eyebrows meaningfully.

John’s scowl deepened as he set down the coffee cup. “Weapons don’t work on Furies. You know that.”

“Not Furies again,” my mom said. “All this talk of Fates and Furies … none of it makes any sense.”

“Grandma being possessed by a murderous demon from hell makes perfect sense to me,” Dad said. “It’s about the only thing I’ve heard this morning that does.”

My mother dropped her head down onto her folded arms. “You told Christopher it was drugs,” she said to the kitchen counter. “Why couldn’t it be drugs?”

I stared at her. “You’d rather this whole thing was about drugs?”

Mom lifted her head. “Than demons? Yes, Pierce, I would. Drugs I can understand. Drugs make sense. With drugs you can go to rehab or call the police and have someone arrested. What are we supposed to do about a demon possessing my mother?”

Dad lifted his coffee. “You’re entitled to your own opinion, of course, but if she really did try to kill Pierce —”

Mom dropped her head into her arms and groaned.

“— well, then I say John here should just hit her with one of his lightning bolts.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Dad,” I said.

“I need an aspirin,” pleaded my mom.

“And I’m not talking about weapons,” I said to John. “I’m talking about boats. Really big boats.”

My dad glanced from me to John and then back again. “A division of my company does make boats. What kind of boat are you talking about? Tanker? Frac? Lift?”

“Passenger,” I said quickly. “I was thinking of a passenger ship. Something along the lines of a ferry.”

“Pierce,” John said warily.

“We make ships specializing in oil services,” Dad said, pulling his cell phone from his pocket. “But I know a guy who … well, let’s just say I know a guy.”

“We’d need two,” I said. “And we’d need them right away.”

“For how long?” Dad scrolled through his contact list.

“Forever.”

My father’s finger froze on the screen of his phone as he glanced at me in surprise. “I’m sorry. What?”

“Pierce.” John pushed away from the kitchen counter and stood up. “May I have a word with you outside?”

I knew how much he hated asking my father for help, but I couldn’t see any alternative.

“John, it’s all right. After everything we’ve been through, I think we can talk in front of my parents.” I crossed the room to take one of his hands. He was so tense, he was holding them both clenched in fists. I had to pry his fingers open in order to slip mine through his. “If you’ve thought of some other way to get the ships, tell me what it is.”

Even with me standing right there beside him holding his hand, John looked extremely uncomfortable. He wore an expression similar to the one he’d had on when my uncle Chris had confronted him (in this very same room) about kidnapping me. His dark eyebrows were furrowed deeply, his silver eyes glowing defiantly, his free hand clenching and unclenching at his side as if he was going to punch the world.

“The ships will be provided, as they always have,” he said in a low voice, “by the Fates.”

“John, the Fates are gone. They left before you died. And I don’t see any sign of their speedy return. You’re here, the storm’s over, the sun is shining, but Hope’s not back.” Saying it aloud made my throat feel sore. But I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t true. “She knows where I live. She’s been here before. But she isn’t here.”

“Hope will be back,” John assured me. “And so will the Fates. I know they will.”

Before I had a chance to point out that Mr. Smith had never believed the Fates were distinct entities — he believed they were the spirits of human kindness, which made it sort of understandable how they’d be few and far between on Isla Huesos — my father began shaking his head.

“Son,” he said to John, “maybe it’s time you realized that these Fates of yours don’t exist.”

“Dad,” I said, my throat tighter than ever. “You’re not helping.”

“Most of us have been making our own fates for a long time,” Dad went on, ignoring me. “Some of us didn’t grow up getting everything we wanted handed to us on gold platters by invisible fairies —”

“Neither did I,” John interrupted, his eyes flashing dangerously.

“Where I grew up,” my father went on, as if John hadn’t spoken, “there was no such thing as fate, or luck, or wishing on a lucky star. There was only hard work and being ready to seize whatever opportunity presented itself. Now, I’m not criticizing you. I appreciate what you did, looking out for my daughter when things weren’t going so well for her. I wish I’d been a better listener when she came to me with her problems. I’m glad you were there for her. To me, that’s fate … being there to give other people a hand when they need it, not being a stubborn ass —”

“Zachary,” my mother said in a warning voice, her eyes wide.

“No,” Dad said. “It’s all right, Debbie. He knows what I’m talking about. He’s not going to set the carpet on fire again. Are you, son?”

John regarded my father with a narrow-eyed stare from the center of the room. I did not share Dad’s faith that John wasn’t about to do something reckless. His breathing was shallow, and his fingers holding mine were clenched so tightly, I half expected that the next time I blinked, I’d open my eyes to find myself back in the Underworld.

It was difficult for John to trust strangers when he’d lived for so long in one place amongst a handful of people he knew so well. It had to be especially difficult for him to trust a man who was in so many ways like Seth’s wrecker great-great-great grandfather.

But my father hadn’t meant for anyone to be hurt in the oil spill that caused so much damage to the shoreline. My father had been trying to help. William Rector, in contrast, hadn’t been trying to help. He hadn’t cared how many lives he ruined in the wrecks he caused.

I squeezed John’s hand. I love you, I love you, I love you, I thought, gazing up at him.

I don’t know if he heard me, but something in either my father’s words or my grip seemed to get through to him, since he said, his voice carefully controlled, “Please call me John, not son. I won’t be your son until your daughter agrees to marry me, which she says she won’t do for now because her mother would want her to graduate from high school first. Pierce says no one our age gets married anymore.”

A high-pitched sound between a scream and a sob escaped my mother. When we all turned to look at her, she’d slapped a hand across her mouth.

“Deborah,” my father said curiously. “Are you all right?”