Serpent's Storm

by Amber Benson

  I felt a tug on my leg and I realized I was no longer being dragged as viciously by the water as I’d initially been. Now I was free-floating, with very little tidal pull working over my body. I also discovered—though it freaked me out to no end—that my lungs weren’t screaming for air anymore. I was perfectly fine to hold my breath—or not hold my breath—while I sailed through the murky seawater. I opened my eyes, the saltwater stinging the delicate vitreous humor, but after a few moments my eyeballs adjusted and I was able to get a better look at my new surroundings. To my surprise, I found myself in a massive underwater grotto, miles away from the frightening wall of blackness that had originally captured me. Encircling me on all sides were mountainous embankments of coral in varying shades of blood orange and cream, their strange squiggly outcroppings like skeletal branches of a denuded forest. Marveling at the intricate beauty of the cavern, I used my arms and legs to propel myself forward, careful not to get caught on the intricate outcroppings of coral, which were sharp enough to slice open my skin like a razor blade if I was unlucky enough to get too close to them.

  As I maneuvered around the coral cavern, the lack of available light made it hard to get my bearings. To add to that, the farther forward I trekked, the less light filtered down, making it nearly impossible to discern which way was “out” and which way led deeper into the impenetrable ocean depths. To my relief, a smack of tiny Day-Glo purple jellyfish swam out from the gray shadows ahead of me, surrounding me with their luminescent bodies. Shimmering like neon blossoms in the dusky gloom, they beckoned me to follow them—and together we raced through the coral caverns.

  I didn’t know why I felt safe following the miniature jellyfish deeper into the underbelly of the ocean, but there was just something pleasant about them, calming even as we moved inextricably farther away from my normal habitat of earth and air.

  Finally, after what seemed like eons, the darkened cavern gave way to a brightly lit chamber full of twinkling rainbow-colored jewels in a multitude of sizes and shapes. They were everywhere: littering the floor, crammed into every available nook and cranny, the plethora of colors contrasting sharply with the bloodred coral that made up the circumference of the chamber.

  In the middle of said chamber, on a throne made out of the protracted jaws of a great white shark, sat a wizened old Japanese man. A black kimono hung limply from his thin frame while an odd grass skirt cinched in at his waist then flared primly to his ankles. A thick piece of black linen peeked out from underneath a mop of gray hair and wound around his forehead, almost obscuring his bushy salt-and-pepper-colored eyebrows.

  The jellyfish, having delivered me in one piece to their master, turned as a smack and swam back the way they had come. As soon as they’d gone, the chamber began to vibrate, and the entrance I’d just arrived through disappeared behind a quick-grow wall of bone white coral. This new wall acted like a lock, slowly sucking all the salty water out of the chamber, as if someone had pulled the plug on a slow-draining bathtub.

  Cool, dry air filled the chamber in the water’s wake, and I discovered I could breathe again. I found the gentle rise and fall of my chest as I drank in the sweet-tasting air to be an incredibly reassuring thing.

  “Why have you disturbed my slumber?” the old man growled at me, his voice projecting menace as he spoke, the deep lines around his jaw sagging and puckering like an angry fish.

  “I didn’t disturb you,” I said firmly. “I was just standing next to the lady who did.”

  The old man’s brows compressed in thought as he meditated over what I’d said.

  “Is that so?”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t even know who you are,” I added.

  This elicited a grin, exposing a nice set of pearly whites.

  “Seriously,” I continued, “I don’t know who you are or why I’m here, and I’m truly sorry about disturbing your ‘slumber,’ so if I you just want to send me back up to the surface, I’d be mucho appreciative.”

  “Hmm,” he said, resting his chin on his fist as he surveyed me.

  “Look, it’s been a rough day,” I said, as honest as I could be. “I look like crap, I feel like crap . . . I probably smell like crap, and I’d appreciate it if you could just help get back up onto dry land—”

  Something I said made the old man giggle, squeezing his eyes shut like a little kid as he enjoyed whatever I’d said that had tickled him. I grinned back at him, enjoying our strange little back and forth. I don’t know what it was, but when someone laughed at my stupid schtick, I felt compelled to totally debase myself in order to make that person laugh harder.

  “Oh, you like that, huh? When I said I smelled like crap?”

  The old man’s head went up and down like a pogo stick.

  “How about this one?” I said, enjoying myself. “I look like poopie pie and I taste like one, too.”

  Now the old man was snorting with laughter at the absurdity—I supposed—of what I’d just said.

  “You’re funny,” he said between guffaws. “Like a tuna fish.”

  I had no prior experience with tuna fish, but if the man said they were funny, then who was I to argue.

  “I have eaten tuna fish in the past,” I said. “But now that I know we have a similar sense of humor, I’ll only eat salmon.”

  He found my comparison of tuna and salmon hysterical. Once again, I couldn’t tell you what he found so humorous, but he was obviously enjoying my company immensely.

  “I like you,” the old man said abruptly. “You don’t take things too seriously. That’s a good way for Death to be.”

  That sobered me up.

  “I’m not Death.”

  “You might be,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Not if I don’t have to be . . .”

  “You are who you are.” He grinned back at me, sounding very philosophical. But since I was a purveyor of pop culture, not Pericles, I just shrugged.

  “Look, I don’t know why Hyacinth was trying to call you out of your slumber, but maybe you can just send me back up top now and we’ll call it even-steven?” I asked, hoping the idea would appeal as much to him as it did to me.

  He wrinkled his brow.

  “This Hyacinth . . . big tall lady with golden hair?”

  I nodded. “That’s the one.”

  “She sent this?” he asked, pulling a small white bone from his kimono pocket and holding it up for me to see. It was the pinkie bone Hyacinth had nicked off Jarvis’s corpse while we were preparing the funeral pyre.

  “It belonged to a friend,” I said softly, biting my lip.

  The old man seemed to sense that this was a touchy subject and slid the bone back into its hiding place in the folds of his kimono.

  “Okay, we go up top, then,” he said, answering my earlier question.

  “Uhm, you don’t need to go with me—” I started to protest, but he held up his hand.

  “I need to confer with the lady up top, see what she has to say. That would be the right thing.”

  “I guess so,” I said uncertainly.

  “All right, then,” he said, standing up and moving toward me, the magnificent shark jaw throne devolving into a pile of bones behind him. “It’s all settled.”

  “If you say so—”

  “This is for you,” he said, pulling a small uncut stone the color of heart’s blood from inside the magical folds of his kimono. He presented it to me, but at first I didn’t take it.

  “Oh, that’s really nice of you, but I can’t really—”

  “Take it!” He scowled at me, pressing the jewel into my hand, then wrapping my fingers into a tight fist around it. Satisfied, he stepped past me, waving his hand dismissively at the coral, indicating that it should get out of his way. Without a sound, the wall of coral receded, revealing the entrance through which I’d first arrived.

  “This way,” he said, waving for me to follow him out into the cavern.

  I took a deep breath, expecting to be inundated with seawa
ter, but the old man had created a magical air pocket that ran the length of the cavern. I barely knew this strange man, yet here he was trying to make me comfortable.

  “Come along.”

  He was already halfway down the cavern, almost out of sight, so I picked up my speed to catch up. The guy moved pretty damn quickly for an old man, and I had to jog to keep up with him, my feet crunching against the unprotected coral. The old man didn’t seem to mind the mess I was making, he just kept encouraging me forward.

  “Stop,” he said when we had reached the entrance to the coral grotto. “I will call the tuna.”

  I thought he was joking, but within ten seconds of him snapping his fingers, we were surrounded by a school of huge, bulbous-eyed tuna fish. They came over to the air pocket like hesitant goats in a petting zoo, and at the old man’s urging I grabbed hold of two of them. Suddenly, I found myself racing through the ocean, eyes shut tight against the sting of the saltwater. Air bubbles streamed from my nose as we flew, my body slicing through the cool water like Esther Williams on speed—but only a million times cooler because I was tuna skiing!

  As we got closer to the surface of the water, I released the friendly tuna, letting them return back to the depths while I swam the last few feet on my own. Relief filled my brain as my head broke through the water and the cold air plastered my wet hair down to my scalp. I wiped my eyes and looked around, certain I was back where I’d started and that land was within easy reach, but I was mistaken.

  To my horror, there was nothing but empty ocean for as far as the eye could see in any direction.

  “Shit!” I said, treading water like a maniac. After a few minutes, my limbs started to ache and, teeth chattering, I came to the realization that it was really cold out on the open water.

  “Help!” I cried, scared I was gonna be stuck in the middle of the ocean all by myself. “Help me!”

  The only response was the lone cry of a gull circling somewhere overhead.

  I felt something brush by my feet, and I instantly pulled my legs up to my chest, protectively wrapping my arms around my knees and floating on my back. Instinct was telling me to make myself as small as possible in the presence of whatever was lurking in the water below me, that I would be safer that way. With bated breath, I waited for something else to brush past me, but after a few minutes of nothing but calm seas, I chalked the whole thing up to a random fish drive-by and started to relax—until I saw a red fin break the surface tension of the water a few feet away from me then disappear again.

  I decided to stay in the tiny ball position for a little while longer.

  Too bad tiny ball position wasn’t enough to dissuade whatever was stalking me not to attack—before I even knew what was happening, something big had come up from underneath me, lifting me bodily into the air.

  Terrified, I screamed as I was hoisted skyward onto the back of a monstrous red sea serpent, replete with scales the size of roof tiles and a huge forked tail. Ascending far above the water, I started to slide down the beast’s back. It was all I could do to flip onto my stomach and grasp at the smooth red scales as they slipped between my fingers. Finally, I was able to catch hold of a scale, and getting as much purchase as I could, I held on for dear life.

  The beast reared, its giant head swiveling on its neck so it could get a better look at me. Crystalline blue eyes goggled in my direction, and I wilted under the creature’s fierce gaze—and then to my utter shock, the damn beast winked at me! I nearly lost my grip and slid all the way down the creature’s back; only a hundred feet or so of scaled slip-sliding and then I’d be free again.

  “Do you have a strong grip?” the serpent hissed.

  I had a hard time processing the fact that the beast’s voice was pure “old man from the coral grotto,” but the accent was unmistakable.

  “Yes!” I screamed in the direction of the monster’s flat, square head, making the assumption there were ears somewhere in the vicinity.

  “Hold on, then,” the creature growled before rearing its head and plunging back toward the water.

  I’ve ridden a few roller coasters in my time, and frankly, the experience is not something I overly enjoy. The theme-park feeling of having your stomach plunge from your abdomen down to your toes is awful, and riding a sea serpent as it slithered through the water was tantamount to getting on the biggest, scariest roller coaster ever. It made me think that the beast was probably better suited to traveling underwater, but since I was onboard, it was choosing to swim well above the waterline.

  Moving with a bizarre, rolling motion that started at its head then oozed down the line of its body until it reached its tail, the sea monster pushed against the water, propelling itself forward with a steady velocity. I likened it to a crazy sea-monster version of the butterfly stroke.

  Not fun.

  “Where are we going?” I screamed up at the beast’s head, but the monster didn’t answer me. I wasn’t even sure it had heard the question.

  I gritted my teeth and settled in for the ride.

  As we sliced through the endless seascape, I lay my head against the creature’s flesh and closed my eyes. Everyone kept telling me I was Death, but something didn’t feel right about the whole thing. If something had happened to my dad and I’d unwittingly been imbued with his powers, then the Ender of Death would’ve killed me back at my office—but he hadn’t, and that gave me hope. Besides, Daniel and I were both born with the propensity to become Death, and until one of us beat out the other to drink from the Cup of Jamshid, then neither of us could fully take over the job anyway.

  Both of these insights made me feel better, but then I started obsessing over the Jarvis situation and that made me feel crappy again. I’d unconsciously willed Jarvis back into life (and then killed him again), which was a point on the Death-side, so that just sent me back to square one.

  If only I still had Jarvis’s brain to pick, I thought angrily, then I’d have a much better understanding of my situation.

  By murdering the faun, the Ender of Death had destroyed my only source of knowledge about the Afterlife and all its strange rules and regulations. Without Jarvis, I was pretty much flying blind.

  It was frustrating to be at the mercy of Hyacinth and the odd little Japanese man/sea serpent when what I really needed to be doing was going to Sea Verge, finding my dad, and making damn sure he and my mom and Clio were safe and sound.

  When we were near the shore, I heard someone call my name.

  “Calliope?”

  It was Hyacinth. I opened my eyes—I was so high in the air that the Amazonian woman appeared to be a tiny speck below me. I gave a tug on the creature’s scales and it began to gently lower itself below the waves. When I was only a few feet from the water, I clambered off the beast’s back and slid into the sea. I’d had just enough time to dry out during the journey, so hitting the cold water was a bit of a shock. Teeth chattering, I shivered and set off toward shore at a modified dog paddle. Once I’d reached the point where the surf breached the land, I happily let Hyacinth haul me out of the water. I felt like a beached whale as I sat back in the marsh grass and caught my breath. Exhausted from my adventure, I could hardly move.

  Hyacinth hovered over me like a nursemaid. I’d never seen the woman be so solicitous before, and it struck me as funny—like she had some hidden ulterior motive for making sure I was all right. Also, she kept asking me if I needed anything—which really didn’t make any sense because we were in the middle of nowhere, so I wasn’t really sure what it was exactly she thought she could “get” for me out here. I shook my head and told her I was fine.

  “I just need a nap,” I said as something sharp poked me in the side.

  I fumbled in my pocket, pulling out the burgundy jewel the old man had given me. I held the sparkling gem up to the sun, marveling at the way its many facets flashed in the light. As I stared into the heart of the jewel, I began to relax, my eyes closing as I enjoyed the bristle of the marsh grass poking into the back of my
head. It was a pleasant, relaxing sensation . . . a marsh grass head massage, if you will. I’d been through a lot during the past few hours, both emotionally and physically, so it wasn’t a shocker when relaxation quickly metamorphosed into sleep.

  The last thing I remembered hearing as I drifted off into the land of Nod on a bed of massaging marsh grass was the old Japanese man’s voice, like a low hiss in my ear, intoning these words:

  “Rest now. There will be no chance for sleep when the time comes to slay the challenger.”

  ten

  I dreamt I was in a room with no windows and no doors. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling were made of pale gray stone, so smooth that when I ran my palm over it, it felt like water. I was sitting in the middle of the room, Indian style, wearing a white nightdress right out of a BBC/Jane Austen flick. The sleeves were long and puffy, buttoning at my wrists, the neckline encircling my throat in a lacy poof that tickled the underside of my chin.

  The nightdress was made of sheer linen, which left nothing to the imagination, and was in direct contrast to the modest cut of the gown. I found the garment both revealing and constricting at the same time, two sensations I’d never experienced together before.

  At first, I stayed where I was, observing the space, trying to discover any escape routes, but the more I looked, the less likely it seemed I would be leaving the place of my own volition. So, I stood up and began pacing out its dimensions, running my hands across the walls and floor, marveling at how even they were to my touch. I couldn’t feel any groove marks, any place where a tool had touched the stone. I’d seen craftsmanship like this before in Purgatory, when I’d gone to the Hall of Death with Jarvis. That gave me a pretty good idea of the room’s location: I was probably in the bowels of Purgatory in one of the holding cells housing political prisoners before they went to trial. My sister had been held here while she awaited sentencing for our dad’s kidnapping and the attempted coup on Death, Inc.