“Go to Mr. Smith,” I said to Kayla, because she looked equally stunned, not certain she was entirely free.
Her face crumpled, and she ran to the cemetery sexton, who dropped the broom and took her in his free arm, the other holding the knife in a ridiculous defensive stance he must have seen in an Isla Huesos Community Theater production of West Side Story.
“It’s not over, Pierce,” he warned, as Kayla clung to him. “There are others.”
“Of course there are others,” I said, taking off my necklace and walking towards my grandmother, who was staring at me with her tiny, dead eyes narrowed in hatred and disbelief, cradling what appeared to be a broken arm. “There will always be others. I’ll have to spend the rest of my life fighting evil Furies. With great power comes great responsibility. I know, I saw the movie.”
I wasn’t really listening to Mr. Smith. I was trying to figure out how John and I were going to revive Frank. Patrick wasn’t going to be a problem, if he actually was dead. He hadn’t been dead to begin with. But Frank?
Frank was going to be a problem. His soul wasn’t being held hostage by Thanatos. Because there was no Thanatos anymore. So how could Frank be dead?
“No, Pierce, you don’t understand,” Mr. Smith said, his voice rising with something that sounded a little like hysteria. “There are many, many others. And they’re coming this way. Right now.”
I turned around to see what he was talking about. Then I froze.
Every single one of the people who’d been in the cemetery tidying up their loved ones’ tombs was now moving steadily in my direction, their rakes and shovels held high in the air, like villagers intent on driving a monster from their princess’s castle.
The problem was, these people had mistaken the princess for the monster. I could tell by the direction of their flat, dead-eyed gazes, and the name their slack-jawed mouths kept murmuring over and over, the same name Officer Poling had been shouting through his squad car’s loudspeaker.
Pierce Oliviera.
It wasn’t my grandmother they were coming after.
It was me.
27
And I beheld therein a terrible throng
Of serpents, and of such a monstrous kind,
That the remembrance still congeals my blood …
DANTE ALIGHIERI, Inferno, Canto XXIV
I rushed to stand in front of Kayla and Mr. Smith, my whip ready. I wouldn’t be able to hold off the amassing hordes of Furies for long, but I was determined to go down trying.
“What’s wrong with your grandma?” Kayla demanded. Her “high adaptability” had apparently returned. “Grandmas are supposed to be sweet and bake you brownies and love you unconditionally. Why is yours such a bitch?”
Mr. Smith cleared his throat disapprovingly at Kayla’s strong language. “Mrs. Cabrero can’t help it; she’s possessed by a demonic —”
“Screw that,” Kayla said. “I’m tired of that excuse. She’s possessed by a Fury, she had a bad childhood. You know who had a bad childhood? Me. But I don’t take it out on innocent people.”
Kayla’s rant was reminding me of someone else’s. Then I remembered whose. Frank’s, when that guy in the 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.”