Awaken

3

Each in his eyes was dark and cavernous,

Pallid in face, and so emaciate

That from the bones the skin did shape itself.

DANTE ALIGHIERI, Purgatorio, Canto XXIII

Come on.” Alex tightened his grip on my arm. “We don’t have much time. I overheard that blind guy tell the kid that all hell was about to break loose —”

I winced at my cousin’s choice of words as the crowd of mostly senior citizens, plus Tropical Shorts and the He Is First girl, began to murmur again in alarm.

“No.” Yanking my wrist from Alex’s grasp, I shoved the tray of water glasses at him. He took hold of it instinctively, letting me snatch away the whip. “You want to help keep hell from breaking loose? Give these people water. Got it? Water. Not whips.”

Then, lowering my voice so those nearby wouldn’t overhear, I asked, “What’s wrong with you? We brought you here to keep you out of danger — to get you away from the people who were trying to hurt you back in Isla Huesos. Remember? Seth Rector? Coffin Fest? Ring a bell?”

Alex’s dark eyebrows lowered into a scowl. “Of course it rings a bell. I’m not an idiot. I finally find the evidence I need to put away those bastards for good, and the next thing I know, I get knocked out and I wake up in some —” He hesitated, his scowl turning into an expression of confusion as he looked around. “What is this place, anyway?”

Of course he couldn’t remember. Seth Rector had purposefully locked him into a coffin in the Isla Huesos Cemetery. He’d suffocated to death.

I, on the other hand, don’t think I’d ever be able to forget the memory of Alex’s lifeless body tumbling out of that casket, though John and I had done everything we possibly could to find him in time. Then, after finding him dead, we’d done what some might consider the unspeakable … and others would consider a miracle.

“Go back to the castle, Alex,” I said to him gently. “Find Kayla. I know I should have been there when you woke up, but you’ve been asleep for hours, and Mr. Graves was so worried about the —”

I broke off, realizing it was probably best not to mention the word pestilence. But Mr. Graves was convinced — and John seemed to agree — that the fog, the unbearable heat, and the ever-darkening cloud of ravens above our heads were all due to one reason: the souls of the dead not being sent quickly enough to their final destinations … or pestilence, as the ship’s surgeon called it.

Worse, I was the one who’d insisted John help me search for Alex. I was the one who’d made him — and Frank, and Mr. Liu, and little Henry, who’d been the cabin boy on the ship on which all the men had served — spend so much time away from their world.

So if Mr. Graves’s dire prediction was coming true, it was entirely my fault.

“Worried about the what?” Alex asked.

“Boats,” I said, instead of pestilence.

My cell phone buzzed. I knew why without having to check it. It was another text warning me of the storm approaching Isla Huesos. Except, of course, I already knew there was a storm approaching Isla Huesos. Frank, the Liberty’s second mate, had known about it without even having watched the Weather Channel or receiving a text. He’d merely glanced up at the sky the morning we’d gone looking for Alex and noticed the reddish glow in the clouds.

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight, Frank had said. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.

If we had taken his warning more seriously, maybe none of this would be happening and I wouldn’t be standing here, having to explain the situation to my cousin Alex.

Well, you see, Alex, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is, even though you got killed last night by some jerks from your high school, my boyfriend, the lord of the Underworld, and I brought you back to life. So now you’ll never get sick or grow old.

The bad news is, you have to stay forever in the realm of the dead that exists underneath the cemetery in your hometown. No time for questions, as I have to get these people on their boat to their final destinations before this place implodes. The end.

Hmmm, that probably wouldn’t work.

“Look, Alex, you’re in the Underworld,” I said to him baldly. “I’m sure you remember reading about it in school —”

He stared at me, his expression blank.

“— or maybe not. In any case, you’re safe here. Or relatively safe, anyway. Everything is going to be all right. You just need to be a little patient —”

“Get used to hearing that one,” Tropical Shorts advised Alex with an eye roll.

“You know, there’s still plenty of room for you over on that other dock,” I said to Tropical Shorts, pointing across the way. He clamped his mouth shut. I turned back to Alex. “Now, what’s with this whip?”

Alex looked down at the tray of glasses he was holding, his expression still slightly dazed. “I … I found it on my way here. It’s funny ’cause I was wishing for something to use to protect myself from that freaking dog that was following me, and it … it kind of just appeared. Did you say the Underworld?”

I nodded. If there’d been time, I could have explained to him exactly why his wish had come true: It was courtesy of the Fates, who operated as sort of invisible caretakers of the Underworld and provided almost anything their full-time mortal inhabitants desired on demand. Waffles for breakfast? They appeared like magic, piping hot and swimming in butter. Dresses in your exact size that most flattered your figure? I had a closetful. A weapon with which to protect yourself from John’s over-exuberant, massive hellhound, Typhon? Apparently a whip would conveniently appear.

The only thing the Fates would not supply was what Alex seemed to want most … an exit from their world.

But there was no time to explain any of this to him.

“Yes,” I said. “The Underworld. Now go on back to the castle and find Kayla and I promise everything will be all —”

“Wait. The Underworld?” Alex’s voice cracked. “Where dead people go? How stupid do you think I am? There’s no Underworld —”

The last person I expected to come to my aid was the He Is First girl. But that’s what happened.

“Have faith,” Chloe said, laying a gentle hand upon Alex’s arm. “If you keep Him first in your heart, He’ll do the same for you.”

Tropical Shorts rolled his eyes. “Here we go again.”

“It’s true,” the He Is First girl said to him. To Alex, she said more gently, “I’m Chloe. I heard her call you Alex. That’s a nice name. Did you know Alexander means protector of men?”

“I didn’t know that.” A flush had begun to creep from the neckline of Alex’s T-shirt all the way to his dark hairline, I guess because Chloe was touching him. Despite the angry red wound on her forehead and blood in her hair, she really was very lovely, especially when she smiled, like she was doing now. “Uh … Chloe’s a nice name, too.”

“Thanks,” Chloe said. “It’s from the Bible. It means young and blooming.”

“Uh,” Alex said, looking down at her hand. “That’s nice.”

Great, I thought as I looped the whip through the sash of my dress. Alex had been in the Underworld less than twenty-four hours, and he was already attracted to a girl with whom he didn’t have the slightest chance of having a relationship, because in a few minutes, she’d be leaving for her final destination.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. The people in my family seemed to have an uncanny knack for picking exactly the worst person to fall in love with, myself included.

“I’m Reed,” Tropical Shorts leaned in to say to them. He obviously didn’t like being left out. “That’s from the Bible, too.”

Chloe looked perplexed. “I don’t remember anyone in the Bible named Reed.”

“Really?” Reed folded his muscular arms. “When the pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, where did she find the basket holding the baby Moses?”

Chloe’s reply was automatic. “Floating among the reeds.”

Reed smiled. “There you go.”

Alex smiled as well. “Cool,” he said, and fist-bumped Reed, causing Chloe’s hand to slip off his arm as he did so. Alex apparently didn’t notice, but Chloe did. She looked even more perplexed.

I could sympathize. Confusion over Alex’s behavior was nothing new. Also, I’d gone to an all-girls school most of my life, so boys were a mystery in general, with the exception of my boyfriend: He was a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

I was starting to suspect that was one of the things I found so appealing about John. He might have been frustrating at times, but at least he was never boring. Or, as Mr. Smith, the Isla Huesos Cemetery sexton (and resident expert on the Underworld), once put it, Eternity is a long time. So if you have to spend it with someone, I could see wanting to spend it with someone impossible … but interesting.

A horn sounded, so loudly it seemed to shake the dock. Everyone jumped, even me. Hope let out a startled screech and took off. Her white wings were easily discernible, however, against all the black ones above our heads.

Unfortunately, I was all too familiar with that horn — I’d just never heard it quite so close before — and I recognized the rumble that followed the ear-piercing blast. It wasn’t thunder or my cell phone vibrating, letting me know the latest weather alert from Isla Huesos. It was a ferry engine.

“It’s okay,” I said. I couldn’t yet see its bow cutting through the thick wall of fog, but what else could it be? “That’s just the boat.”

“It’s coming?” The He Is First girl gasped with excitement, looking around bright-eyed at the other passengers. None of them could summon up her same enthusiasm, maybe because they were mostly all in their eighties and nineties and were still really upset about the humidity and the remark the other old guy had made about the ravens eating their flesh. “Oh, yay! I’ve been waiting for this day my whole life practically. I’m finally going home.”

Alex had brightened up. He looked about as excited as Chloe.

“Great,” he said. “Our chance to get out of here.”

“Uh, Alex.” I watched as he looked around frantically for somewhere to set the tray of water glasses I’d handed him. “You aren’t getting out of here. Only they are.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, continuing to fumble with the tray. “The boat’s coming. You just said so.”

“Right,” I said, aware that Chloe’s lovely blue eyes had gone wide and troubled as she watched our interaction. “But we can’t get on the boat. Only they can.”

Alex shoved the tray so roughly that a few of the glasses tumbled from it, dropping into the lake. “You said we were going home.”

“No, Chloe said that,” I pointed out. “And she didn’t mean home home. She meant —”

“I meant I’m finally going home to Him,” Chloe said, still wide-eyed. She looked at me questioningly. “That is where the boat’s taking us, right?”

“Absolutely,” I said to Chloe.

If they ask, John had told me earlier, tell them the boat is taking them wherever they want to go. Heaven, their next life … whatever you have to say to get them moving so we can load the next batch of passengers.

Where do the boats take them? I’d asked him.

He’d shrugged. How would I know? The only ones who return to tell us are the ones who don’t like where they got sent.

Also known as Furies, I’d thought with a shudder. I’d had more experience with them than I cared to.

But they only return to earth, I’d said, just to make sure I’d got it straight, to possess the bodies of stupid people. Right?

Weak-willed people, he’d said with a smile. And yes … usually.

Usually? I hadn’t liked the sound of that, but there hadn’t been time to ask more questions.

“What about them?” Alex pointed at the crowded dock opposite the one on which we stood. I could no longer see John, but Frank and Mr. Liu were still hard at work subduing the far more aggressive passengers waiting there.

“Those people are leaving, too,” I said. “But they’re not going back to Isla Huesos, either. And I’m definitely sure you don’t want to go where they’re going.”

Oh, my God, how much plainer did I have to make it? Did I actually have to say the words out loud? It seemed rude to blurt it out in front of them — They’re dead, Alex. But it seemed like I was going to have to, since my cousin was being so obtuse.

“Well, I’m sure as hell not staying here.” Alex stood so close to me, our noses were nearly touching. “How am I going to help prove my dad didn’t kill anyone if I’m stuck in the damned Underworld?”

“As soon as we’ve helped these people, we can go back to the castle to discuss how we’re going to help your dad.”

“Go back to the castle to discuss it? Who are you now, Principal Alvarez?”

What had happened to the old Alex, I wondered, who was so moody and withdrawn he barely said an entire sentence in a single day? Being revived from the dead affected everyone differently, I supposed. It had made Alex a real pain in the butt.

“Hey,” Reed said to Alex. “Don’t take it out on her. She’s just doing her job.”

Maybe Tropical Shorts wasn’t so bad after all.

“Yes, I’m sorry you won’t be coming with us,” Chloe said to Alex. “But please don’t worry. I’m certain the Lord has another plan for you.” She glanced at me. “For both of you.”

“Oh, I can assure you,” said a new, deeply masculine voice from behind me. I turned to see John sitting, tall and dark and disapproving, on the back of his horse, Alastor. “He does.”