Awaken

18

“That forehead there which has the hair so black … ”

DANTE ALIGHIERI, Inferno, Canto XII

John put a pretty solid end to the coffin party when he broke the host’s nose.

At that exact moment, the sea broke through the glass wall around the spec home’s deck and came gushing through the backyard, around the side of the house, and towards the driveway full of cars.

The party guests who weren’t screaming about all the blood coursing down Seth’s face suddenly began screaming about their vehicles, and they streamed from the house in a futile effort to save them … everyone except those helping Seth, who was cradling his own head and moaning, and Bryce, who immediately came to his QB’s defense.

Dropping his head, Bryce came at John like a bull, his face red with rage. John sidestepped him, then slammed a fist into the younger boy’s stomach. As a ball player, it couldn’t have been the first time Bryce had ever been struck in the gut, but it might have been the first time he’d ever been struck with such force, judging by the look of injured surprise that spread across his face. While Bryce was still doubled over in pain, trying to catch his breath, John plunged another fist into his kidneys. Bryce grunted, then sank to his knees, all the fight clearly knocked out of him.

“John,” I said urgently, since he was still breathing hard and pacing back and forth in front of Bryce, looking not unlike the “wild thing” I used to accuse him of being. He seemed ready to hit Bryce again — or anyone else in the room — at the least provocation.

None of the few remaining males looked as if they cared to engage, however. The DJ, Anton, was pointedly minding his own business as he swiftly packed up his equipment, and a few stoners were watching the fight with wide, astonished gazes from a nearby couch.

“John,” I said again, reaching for him as he swung by me with no sign of recognition. Wherever Thanatos had been keeping him, the conditions had evidently not been pleasant. “It’s me, Pierce. It’s all right.”

He threw me a skeptical look from beneath a lock of dark hair that had fallen over one eye. “Is it?” he asked as he paced, opening and closing the hand he’d used to punch Seth and then Bryce. “Funny, because it doesn’t feel all right. How could you have let him kiss you like that?”

Oddly, it was that irritable snarl, more than any loving greeting, that made me realize John was fine. He had really and truly come back, just as he’d assured me he would on that dock back in the Underworld, and he was entirely himself.

“John,” I said, my eyes filling with tears. Tears of joy.

“How could you even have let him touch you?” he asked. “Didn’t you know who he was?”

“Of course I knew who he was,” I said. Waves of love and relief were washing over me with as much force as the waves of seawater that were washing over — and destroying — Reef Key. “Thanatos, the Greek personification of death. He was holding you captive —”

“Yes,” John said. “Exactly. And you kissed him!”

“Well, all of Seth’s friends were standing around. How else was I supposed to get my necklace close enough to him long enough to burn him without making it look suspicious?”

John’s scowl deepened. “You could have had Frank hold him down,” he said.

I couldn’t help grinning up at him. I was so happy he was back and arguing with me. “Next time,” I said, “I will definitely have Frank hold him down.”

“It isn’t funny,” John said. “You kissed him on purpose just to annoy me. So do you know what I get to do now?” He stopped pacing and pointed at himself. “I get to kiss someone — whoever I want — just to annoy you.”

I reached out and took hold of the hand he’d used to point at himself, which also happened to be his punching hand. He’d skinned his knuckles on something sharp — possibly Seth’s teeth — and they looked tender. I raised the bruised, battered hand to my lips.

I was standing close enough to him that I could see how quickly his pulse was leaping in his neck, and how, at my gentle touch, his pulse began to slow. His expression softened. Somehow he’d managed to acquire a shirt — a white one, loose around the collar, but close-fitting everywhere else, like his jeans — and a pair of boots not unlike the ones he’d left on the dock back in the Underworld. I wondered where he’d found them. Although his long dark hair was a tangled mess, and he needed a shave, he looked good. Death suited him.

“All right,” I whispered, rubbing his hand across my cheek. “You get one free kiss … whoever you want.”

Although I could see him struggling, he couldn’t maintain his scowl. A smile broke across his face. It was like the sun breaking out across a tempest-tossed sea.

“What if who I want to kiss is you?” he asked.

“I think that can be arranged,” I said.

Wrapping his hand around the back of my neck, he drew me to the hard wall of his chest. His arms weren’t the only thing that enveloped me. The smell of him enveloped me, as well — that comforting smell of wood smoke and autumn and something distinctly John that I realized, as his lips came down over mine, now meant only one thing to me: home.

“There’s something you promised you’d tell me when I got back,” he murmured after finally letting me up for air.

At first I was too dazzled by his kiss to remember what he was referring to. Then I blushed.

“Not now,” I said, looking down at Seth, who sat on the floor a few feet away being fussed over by Farah’s friends Nicole and Serena. Bryce was still recuperating nearby, too, though Seth didn’t seem all that sympathetic.

“Did you not hear me?” Seth demanded of Bryce, swatting away the blood-soaked napkins the girls kept pressing to his face. “I said get up and take him out.” He shot a deadly look in John’s direction.

“Bro, I’m not feeling so good.” Bryce clutched his stomach. “Maybe if Cody and those guys hadn’t left. But that guy is pretty big.” Looking up at John, Bryce whispered, as if Seth wouldn’t be able to hear him, “Dude, I think you’d better go. My friend here is really mad at you.”

John glared at Seth. “Tell your friend the feeling is mutual. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him. In fact —”

John began to move with murderous purpose towards Seth, but I caught him by the wrist.

“John, no,” I said. “Don’t waste your energy on him. We have more important things to do —”

Right then, one of them came stumbling from the back bedroom into which Frank had carried her.

“Seth,” Farah cried. “Where are you?”

She wasn’t exactly fully recovered, as Seth had assured me she’d be. Kayla and Frank stood on either side of her, each with an arm around her waist. Their support appeared to be all that was keeping Farah on her feet. The only reason she’d stopped moving was because they’d both stumbled to a halt when they saw John. A pleased smile spread over Frank’s face.

“Well,” he said. “Look who’s back from the dead.”

Farah, however, only had eyes for Seth.

“I turn my back on you for one minute,” Farah cried, weaving unsteadily on her high heels, despite her human crutches, but nevertheless able to focus a laser-like glare of wrath at Seth, “and I find out you’ve been hooking up with Pierce Oliviera?”

Seth wasn’t paying any attention to Farah, however. He was staring at someone who stood behind her. Not Kayla or Frank, though. It was someone who’d popped his dark shaggy head up from the basement stairwell.

“Hey, Seth,” Alex said, waving a file folder he had tucked in one hand. “Bad news. Your dad’s office is completely flooded. So’s your truck. But there’s some good news. I managed to print out all this stuff from your dad’s computer before it got ruined. Some kind of geographic reports on Reef Key and how it shouldn’t ever have been made into a housing development on account of — well, your dad probably told you why, didn’t he, Seth?” Alex winked at him. “I’m sure some nerds who know more about this stuff than I do are going to find it very interesting when I send it to them.”

Seth went white as a ghost beneath the blood that was smeared all over his face.

“No,” I heard him mutter. “It’s not possible. You’re dead.”

“No, he’s not,” I said. “I told you.”

“Listen,” Kayla said, ignoring everyone. The usual sparkle was gone from her eyes, and not because she was missing the rhinestones she often pasted at the corner of each of her eyelids. She looked at John and me. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said to John. “But I don’t want to be responsible for adding another inhabitant to your world. Princess here has had way more than just too much to drink —”

Farah’s head had been lolling, but it jerked up at the word princess. “Don’t call me that,” she slurred. “Can’t you call me chiquita like you do your friends?”

“Yeah,” Kayla said unsmilingly. “Not gonna happen. I think we need to get her to the hospital. Nine-one-one says the ambulance can’t make it through with the tidal surge this high, but I know Patrick’s Jeep can —”

“Take her and go,” John said. “Pierce and I will settle things here.”

Outside, the wind was howling so loudly, the sliding glass doors had begun to shake. I questioned once again Seth’s wisdom in not boarding them up. My diamond had gone from ink black to a midnight blue, indicating that while no Furies were immediately present, we weren’t entirely clear of danger.

Seth climbed to his feet as Kayla and Frank began to drag an unresisting Farah towards the front door. “Bryce,” he said, in a tightly controlled voice. “Don’t let those freaks go another step farther.”

Bryce was distracted, however. “Hey,” he said, gazing at the sliding glass doors. “Maybe we should go with them. It’s getting kind of bad out there.”

Seth whirled on Bryce to demand, “Are you kidding me? Have you seen who’s with them?”

The DJ, who himself was on his way out, looked up in alarm at hearing Seth’s tone, and even a couple of the stoners raised their heads from the leather couches and blinked at him.

“Cabrero,” Seth shouted, when Bryce only looked at him blankly. “The file, you idiot! Get that file from Cabrero!”

Bryce shook his head, then turned his attention back towards the storm. “I’m sorry, dude,” he said. “It’s like what they were saying on the news. The bad side of the hurricane is starting to pass over, you know?”

Alex had hurried forward to open the front door for Frank and Kayla. Now, after the two of them had safely passed the stained-glass double dolphins, Alex turned to wave the file folder suggestively at Seth, along with both his middle fingers.

“Better luck killing me next time,” he called. “Oh, and great party, thanks.”

He disappeared into the storm, slamming the double doors behind him.

“You idiot,” Seth yelled, throwing an empty red party cup at Bryce. The floor was littered with them, everyone having dropped them where they stood as they’d fled the party. They lined the floor the way red poinciana blossoms lined John’s crypt, surrounding the cracked, empty coffin Farah and Serena had decorated.

“Hey, man. Not cool,” the DJ said disapprovingly to Seth. He threw on a rain poncho. “I’m out of here.”

“Can we get a ride?” Nicole asked, grabbing her sequined clutch. “I’m pretty sure my Audi’s not gonna start.”

“If you help carry my equipment,” the DJ said. He strode over to lift each of the remaining stoners from the couch by their shirt collars, like a shepherd tending to his flock. “Blue van parked over by the bulldozers. It’s a hike. My speakers get wet, you’re paying for them.”

Serena grabbed a turntable. “Bye, Seth,” she called over her shoulder. “Great party.” The gaze she sent in my direction — or, more accurately, John’s direction — indicated that she hadn’t actually thought it was such a great party at all. “See you later.”

“Yeah, bye,” Nicole said. She grabbed a box of cables and headed out the door, not seeming to care that her carefully straightened hair was about to be ruined.

“I’ll take the speakers,” Bryce said as he ambled forward. “You coming, Seth?”

Seth shot Bryce a look of pure contempt. “No, I’m not coming. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But … ” Bryce looked confused. “He said he’d give us a ride. And your truck’s underwater, bro.”

“I’m staying right here.” Seth was staring at John, who was staring right back at him, aquamarine-eyed gaze meeting gray-eyed gaze. “Until I’ve finished up my business.”

Bryce shrugged. “Okay, bro. But I don’t think Anton’s gonna wait.” He shuffled out the door.

“Really, Seth?” I couldn’t believe it. “I think your business with us is finished, for the time being.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t think so. Who is your cousin going to give those papers to?”

“How am I supposed to know?” I asked. “I don’t even know what they say.”

“Doesn’t your mom work for the Isla Huesos Marine Institute?”

“How’d you know that?” I demanded, shocked.

“Because while this guy was allegedly kidnapping you,” Seth said, with a sneer in John’s direction, “my dad and I went to comfort your mom in her grief, and she told us.”

John took a threatening step towards Seth, but I put out a hand to stop him. I’d forgotten how Seth and his father had been inside my house.

“You weren’t comforting her,” I said. “You went there to get the coffin materials back.”

“If your cousin rats my family out,” Seth said, “all of you might find yourselves in coffins — real ones.”

“And you,” John said, taking a forceful step, one I was powerless to stop, “might find yourself thrown out of those windows over there.”

“John,” I said, grasping his arms with both hands. To Seth, I said, “If building this place is in violation of some kind of environmental regulation, I’m sure someone would have already noticed by now, don’t you think? Unless,” I added, my voice dripping with sarcasm, “your dad bribed a bunch of people to look the other way, which I can’t imagine he’d have done, because he’s always been such an upstanding, law-abiding citizen, hasn’t he?”

Only Seth, John, and I remained in the house. I don’t know who Seth was trying to impress when he said, “Reef Key has been in my family for years. My great-great-great — whatever — grandfather William Rector bought it from Isla Huesos County in 1845 when it was nothing but a sandbar covered in shrubs. No one else has ever given two shits about it. We should be able to do whatever we want with it.”

To John’s credit, he didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t show any indication at all that he’d known Seth’s great-great-great — whatever — grandfather William, nor that he had despised him for the thieving pirate he’d been, colluding with ship captains to wreck their own boats on purpose so that Rector could swoop in and “save” their cargo for one half its value. John’s own father hadn’t been much better, having been one of those captains willing to risk the lives of his crew for a percentage of the profit from that cargo.

“It appears to me,” John said with admirable calm, “that your family — and you in particular — does whatever it wants, regardless.”

“Damn right,” Seth said. “And we’ve gotten rich because of it. Maybe not Oliviera rich, but —”

Something struck one of the sliding glass doors overlooking the backyard. Not with enough force to break it, but hard enough to make a startlingly loud sound. I threw both arms in front of my face, and John quickly thrust me behind him, placing himself between me and the still rattling glass.

“Oh, crap,” Seth said with a shaky laugh. “That scared me. But look. It was just a bird.”

“A bird?”

Horrified, I lowered my arms and started for the windows, but not before John had a chance to grab and stop me.

“Not that bird,” he said. “Hope is safe.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “Was she with you?”

“No,” he said. “But trust me, she has enough sense not to be out in a storm like this.”

“Well, that bird didn’t,” I said. “Why would Hope? What if she’s trying to find me?”

“Hey, you should see this,” Seth said, from in front of the sliding glass doors, where he’d gone to look out over the balcony. “It’s some kind of black bird. There’s hundreds of them. They’re all over the place. They’re raining down from the sky. I’ve got to get a shot of this.” He dug into his jean pocket for his cell phone. “No one will ever believe it.”

“Seth,” I said anxiously. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

I knew he’d tried to kill my cousin. I knew he’d probably killed Jade. I knew he — or at least a death god who’d possessed him — had ordered my boyfriend to be killed by the Furies, then held him captive. He’d threatened to kill me, multiple times, and even threatened my mother. But I couldn’t stand there and watch him kill himself.

Seth laughed. “God, would you relax? I’m not stupid, all right? These doors are made from the same kind of glass they use in windshields, impact resistant.”

Remembering Chloe, and the tiny shards of glass she’d had embedded in her hair like diamonds from a tiara, I said, “Impact resistant doesn’t mean if something hits them hard enough they won’t shatter.”

Seth had his mobile out and was snapping away eagerly as, outside, the wind raged and ravens rained from the sky.

“Yeah, well,” he said. “You guys can run if you want, but I’m staying here. These babies can withstand gusts of up to two hundred miles per hour —”

Another raven struck one of the doors, almost as if it had hurled itself at it in an effort to get inside. No, to get at someone inside. Not Seth. It hadn’t chosen the sliding glass door nearest Seth. It had chosen the one nearest us.

John and I exchanged looks. We were under attack.

The second door didn’t hold. The entire panel shattered into a spiderweb configuration, then the glass fell from the metal frame and splintered against the tiled floor at our feet.

John yanked me into his arms.

“We’re going,” John shouted to be heard above the wind and rain.

I knew what was going to happen next. When I opened my eyes again, I’d be somewhere else — most likely the Underworld. John didn’t know that in the Underworld, ravens were also raining from the sky … or maybe he did. There wasn’t time to ask, nor was there time to tell him. There was time to say only one thing.

“Seth.”

John’s hold on me tightened. He knew precisely what I was saying. Save Seth, too.

“No,” he said.

And as I heard another glass door explode, the room disappeared.

When I opened my eyes again, we were in darkness.