Mr. Smith looked slightly paler under his brown skin. “You killed him?”
“Thanatos,” I assured him. “Not Seth. He’s still alive and well and pressing charges against me — and John — for assault. Why? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” Mr. Smith said. “Only … it explains a lot.”
“A lot about what? Was I not supposed to kill him? I wondered about that, but I couldn’t help it, he was such a jerk.”
“Thanatos takes on the personality traits of the person he possesses,” Mr. Smith said. There was something a bit mournful in his tone. “If he was possessing Seth Rector he would, I suppose, seem like a jerk.”
I couldn’t help noticing that Mr. Smith’s gaze was all over the place, on me one second, the ravens the next, the poinciana blossoms beneath his feet the next. What was he looking for? That reminded me of something.
“Have you seen Frank and Kayla?” I asked, glancing around, but still seeing only family members carrying gardening tools with which to tidy up their loved ones’ vaults. “They were supposed to be stopping by your place to drop the car off, then meet us here.”
“Yes,” Mr. Smith said shortly. “I’ve seen them.”
“You have?” I glanced back at him, surprised. “Where are they?”
There was definitely something off about Mr. Smith, besides the weird things he was saying. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, precisely. He looked as well put together as ever, in a pressed white shirt, sporty green bow tie, and trim khakis, his gold-rimmed spectacles sparkling in the sun.
But I saw that he was clutching the broom handle much more tightly than necessary.
“Oh,” he said. “They’ll be here soon.”
“Mr. Smith,” I said, beginning to feel less relieved at seeing him and more disturbed. It was hard to explain, but in the stillness of the cemetery — the police sirens had been cut off, and all I could hear was the occasional distant cackle of a raven — I’d begun to feel almost as if someone was watching us … someone besides the birds overhead. “What is it? Did something happen to Kayla? To John?” My pulse sped up a little. “Has John been here? Because I’m supposed to meet up with him here, too. Did he say something to you? Did something go wrong with the —”
“No,” Mr. Smith cut me off, a little rudely, I thought. He slipped a hand into his trouser pocket and pulled out one of his ubiquitous handkerchiefs. “No, no, John hasn’t been here. Everything’s wonderful. Why wouldn’t it be?”
Everything was not wonderful.
I knew that because not only would Mr. Smith never use a word like wonderful — I was pretty certain he’d consider wonderful the equivalent of awesome, a word he’d once said was overused by my generation — but he lifted the handkerchief to mop some sweat from his forehead.
No matter what the weather, I’d never seen Mr. Smith sweat … not unless he was extremely uncomfortable, like if I was asking him about the possibility of getting pregnant in the Underworld.
But if he was so uncomfortable, why wasn’t the cemetery sexton telling me what the matter was?
I saw his gaze dart again to my chest, the way it had when he’d mentioned my helmet.
Only then did I know what was wrong, and I didn’t have to follow his gaze to see what it was.
My diamond was black. There was a Fury around … maybe more than one. Mr. Smith knew it, but hadn’t said anything to warn me.
There could be only one explanation as to why. I saw it in the way his hand trembled as he put the handkerchief back into his pocket. The truth hit me like a slap in the face.
Mr. Smith was afraid. And for Mr. Smith to be afraid, something had to be seriously wrong. Both the cemetery sexton and myself were NDEs. We knew what it was like to die, so death didn’t frighten either of us terribly much. I wouldn’t say Mr. Smith had enjoyed dying, but I knew for certain he longed to go to the Underworld again, because he didn’t remember his journey there. He’d always been a little jealous of the fact that I did, even though I hadn’t liked it.
No, Richard Smith didn’t fear death … not for himself.
But he was definitely afraid of death — or possibly something worse — now. What was it?
Without changing my tone or looking around, I slowly began to unhook the whip that still sat on my belt.
“So you know what John and I did last night after I rescued him?” I asked him conversationally.
“I cannot even begin to imagine,” the cemetery sexton said, looking extremely uncomfortable.
“We went back to my mom’s house,” I said, “snuck into my room, and made sweet love all night.”
“That’s simply wonderful,” Mr. Smith said. His head looked like it was about to explode not only from the effort he was making not to chastise me for my irresponsible behavior, but because of his fear. Trickles of perspiration were flowing down the sides of his face, and there was a smile frozen on his lips. “Simply wonderful.”
Bingo. I’d been right. Something was definitely going on. There was no way the cemetery sexton would ever say that John and I sneaking up to my room to “make sweet love all night” was “wonderful” — not unless he’d been given a complete lobotomy.
The Mr. Smith I knew would have given me a lecture about how I should have used protection because when making love outside the Underworld, death deities were notorious for their ability to make little death deities … or something along those lines.
Whatever it was that was going on, Mr. Smith was deathly afraid. So afraid, he was ignoring his basic principles in order to warn me about it. But what could it be? What could possibly be so awful to two people who’d already experienced the worst possible thing there was — death — and lived to tell of it?
“Yeah,” I said, careful not to look around, since I didn’t want whoever it was that was threatening Mr. Smith to know that I was onto them. “I wonder what we’ll call the baby, if there is one. Maybe, if it’s a boy, we’ll name him Richard, after you, Mr. Smith —”
“That is enough.”
The sharp-toned voice came from behind me, but I knew exactly who it belonged to. I’d have recognized it anywhere.
It was the voice of the woman who’d killed me.
26
And lo! at one who was upon our side
There darted forth a serpent, which transfixed him
There where the neck is knotted to the shoulders.
DANTE ALIGHIERI, Inferno, Canto XXIV
Really? It was my grandmother Mr. Smith was so afraid of?
I wanted to laugh.
I didn’t, of course. It would have been rude. But honestly, my grandmother wasn’t that frightening. True, she’d killed me once — and tried to kill me a few other times. And when she got her Fury face on, she was ugly as sin, which I could understand for Mr. Smith — who wasn’t as experienced with Furies as I was — was probably quite frightening.
But she was still only my grandmother.
Granted, she’d bested me once or twice — okay, three times — before.
This time, however, things were going to be different. This time, I wasn’t some scared, lonely high school girl. This time, I was armed with John’s father’s whip, which I knew how to use. This time, I was on my own turf, the Isla Huesos Cemetery, which I’d tromped through so many times, I knew it like the back of my hand. This time, I had friends — not to mention the police — who were about to show up any minute to support me.