“One hundred percent of the time,” John said.
“There are so many of us now,” I said. “I was thinking we could probably time-share all the soul-sorting down there.”
“I don’t know what time-share means,” John said.
“A time-share in the Isla Huesos Underworld,” Reed said. “That sounds like heaven to me. ‘The parched ground shall become a pool,’” Reed quoted, “‘and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of jackals, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.’”
Mrs. Engle, impressed, began to applaud. “Oh, lovely,” she said. “And very apt. Isaiah?”
“Exactly,” Reed said, and winked. Chloe sighed again and clung to his arm. To me, he mouthed over her head, “My dad’s a pastor.”
I rolled my eyes, realizing Alex had never stood a chance with Chloe.
Funny how, as I was thinking this, I heard Alex call my name and turned to see him walking up to the porch.
“Where’s Kayla?” he asked.
“She’s right here,” I said. Kayla, who’d been sitting beside me, stood up. “Where have you been all this time?”
“Busy,” Alex said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Got a package for her.”
Frank was walking behind Alex, looking unhappy as he brushed the dust from his trousers.
“Does anyone have a drink?” he asked. “Dying’s thirsty business.”
30
O joy! O gladness inexpressible!
O perfect life of love and peacefulness!
DANTE ALIGHIERI, Paradiso, Canto XXVII
Anything can happen in the blink of an eye.
One. Two. Three.
Blink.
A girl meets a boy, full of sadness and longing. The boy takes that girl to another world, a dark world from which he tells the girl there is no escape.
You don’t have to worry about that girl, though, because she knows there is a way to escape, a way to break the curse, let sunlight into the world …
… or at least let the boy out for a vacation every now and then.
Mr. Graves had been right. There was a pestilence causing an imbalance in the Underworld. What he’d been wrong about was the cause. He’d suspected the pestilence was caused by John or one of the permanent inhabitants spending too much time away from the realm of the dead.
And while certainly the Underworld could not function smoothly without anyone to attend to the needs of the dead, leaving it for too long was not the cause of the imbalance.
The cause of the imbalance was Alex. None of us realized it — least of all Alex — until I released Thanatos from his prison inside Seth Rector’s body, and he found a new home inside Alex.
“He really seems to like me,” Alex informed us cheerfully, as we watched Kayla’s tearful reunion with Frank in front of Mr. Smith’s cottage. “Watch what I can do now.”
Alex picked up a coconut and kicked it. It disappeared, seemingly into the stratosphere. If Alex had any interest in continuing high school — which he did not — he would now have been extremely welcome on the Isla Huesos football team, instead of an object of ridicule to them.
“I can do that,” John said, unimpressed.
“Well,” Alex said. “I could kill you with a single touch. Should I do that, instead?”
“Please don’t,” I said, wrapping hands protectively around John’s arm.
“And how did you discover that you had this remarkable grasp over life and death?” Mr. Graves asked.
“Well,” Alex said. “After I got that little girl back to her mom — who thanked me profusely, by the way — and was following all the cops who were tailing Pierce on her bike, I saw them stop, because that crazy cop had pulled out his gun and was going to shoot this guy with a chain saw. And I felt this crazy urge come over me to go over and yank out the cop’s soul. I honestly can’t explain it any other way.” He took a swig from the water bottle he held. “So I did it.”
“You yanked a man’s soul from his body?” I asked slowly.
“Yeah,” Alex said with a shrug. “It was easy. That’s when I knew I had that death dude living inside me. And honestly, you guys, I’ve never felt better in my life.”
I think all of us were astonished except for Chloe, who said, “Well, it makes sense. After all, your name does mean protector of men. And who is a greater protector of men than someone who brings them the sweet relief of death?”
Frank and John and Mr. Liu and I all gave her sour looks, and Chloe hastily added, “Except of course someone who escorts their souls to their final resting place. That’s a really important job, too. And obviously anyone who dies before their time won’t consider you very protective, Alex.”
“Yeah,” Alex said with a nod. “I’m going to have to work on that. But I think it’s a handy skill to have, you know, in emergencies. I really can’t believe Thanatos spent so long in Seth’s body. I think even he thought Seth was a drag. But it was a Rector tradition to have Thanatos dwelling within the youngest male, so —”
My eyes widened. “So the Rectors knew?”
“They had to have,” Alex said with another shrug. “How else do you explain that hideous mausoleum and the statue of Hades and Persephone?”
“Extremely poor taste?” Kayla suggested.
“No,” I said, shaking my head as I thought of Seth’s shirts. “It was more than that. They knew something. They were proud of it. But they didn’t understand who Thanatos was, exactly. And they couldn’t control him. That’s what led to their downfall.”
“Exactly,” Alex said. “I think Thanatos really appreciated it when you released him, Pierce … you know, later, after he thought about it. Being a Rector wasn’t good for him. It put him in a bad mood. That’s why he chose me. I’m a lot more easygoing than Seth.”
“And more modest,” I pointed out wryly. “So where is Officer Poling’s soul now?”
“Oh,” Alex said with a shrug. “He’s down in the Underworld. He’s your responsibility now. I don’t want anything to do with him. That guy’s a real douche, even without the Fury in him. You know he killed Jade, right? He and that Mike guy mistook her for you, Pierce. I choked the truth out of him — his soul, I mean. I even got him to cough up where he hid the murder weapon. It’s a wrench, part of a set Mike owns.”
“You mean the cemetery owns,” Mr. Smith piped up. “Mike keeps his tools in the shed behind my office.”
“Poling said Mike threw the wrench into the harbor.”
“If I report it missing,” Mr. Smith said, “and suggest the police question Mike again, I’m sure it won’t be long before he strikes some kind of deal.”
Alex looked relieved. “That will clear my dad, then. Anyway, after I figured out I’m Thanatos, and then I dealt with your dad and the cops and stuff, and I heard Frank was dead, I just went over to the crypt and revived him. It seemed kind of natural, in a way, like I always knew how to do it … or was destined to do it, or something.”
I knew what he meant. It was the way I’d felt when I’d finally realized how the Persephone necklace and the whip Mr. Liu had given me fit together. As if I’d found my place in the world at last, and what I was destined to do, odd as it sounded.
Alex looked around. “Is there anything to eat? I’m starving.”
Mr. Smith was right. We do need storms sometimes, because they clear away the bracken so that the sun can shine on flowers that might never have otherwise had a chance to bloom.