Awaken

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.