Serpent's Storm

by Amber Benson

  “I thought it was just warded against enemies,” I interrupted, getting a little panicky.

  “Enemies, too,” Frank answered, giving me a wink.

  “You’re no match for them, Little Death,” Starr said suddenly, all the melodrama wrung from her voice. “Free me and I will fight on your side. I can be very persuasive.”

  Frank shook his head. I turned to Sumi, but the old man shrugged.

  “You unleash a Siren, then you will be responsible for putting her back where she belongs,” Sumi said, pulling a piece of straw from his skirt and wedging it in between his teeth like a makeshift toothpick.

  The old man was less than helpful.

  “Let me just figure this out first,” I said, walking across the room to peep out one of the windows so I could see what the hell was happening outside. I wanted to know exactly what I was dealing with before I leapt blindly into the fray—or released a Siren from bondage without proper cause. No way did I want to be responsible for Starr unless I absolutely needed her. She’d already gotten on my last nerve with all the whining she’d been doing.

  I lifted the white lace curtain away from the window, expecting to see an army of bad guys waiting to rip me limb from limb, but instead I found that the house was totally fogged in. I couldn’t see two feet in front of me, let alone tell if there was an armada of evildoers lurking around the yard or street.

  “There’s a whiteout,” I cried, spinning back around. I caught Frank’s eye first and was instantly sorry I had. He was giving me a strange look, like I was speaking gibberish at him.

  “There’s no fog out there,” Frank said, taking a step toward me. I didn’t want him to touch me, so I slid out of his way, moving toward the dead-bolted front door.

  “Yes, there is,” I nearly shrieked at him. “I’m not imagining it—”

  “There’s nothing but the sea out there, Death’s Daughter,” Sumi said, gesturing to the front door. “See for yourself.”

  I took another tentative step in the direction of the front door.

  “Are you nuts?” Starr screamed. “Don’t encourage her to open the door—”

  Frank tried to rush me, to keep my fingers from unlatching the dead bolts, but Sumi and Hyacinth sprang at him, restraining him before he could reach me. Possessed by an irrational need to prove to Frank that I wasn’t crazy, I forced my shaking fingers to undo the dead bolts and then threw the front door open—without a thought to the fact that I might be putting myself and everyone else in the room in danger.

  I gasped as I stood in the open doorway, the doorknob still in my quivering hand. On the porch directly in front of me stood Daniel, the Devil’s (former) protégé, wearing a creamy gold suit of armor and looking so delicious I wanted to cry. The pounded metal armor was molded to his muscular frame like a second skin, revealing every curve and “protrusion” he possessed. A glittering gold helmet in the shape of a bullet covered his head, except where the visor was raised to reveal his fine-boned face and pale, ice blue eyes.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I couldn’t even begin to form words to express what I was feeling. I swiveled around to escape, but stopped when I saw that Frank, Hyacinth, and Sumi had all vanished. The room that lay behind me was empty—no table and chairs, no dishes, no nets or trident hanging from the wall. Even the fireplace had gone cold, as if there had never been a fire there. Only Starr remained behind, the last link to the world I’d left behind me. Only she was no longer the living, breathing creature that had begged me to free her from her walled prison. Now, she had magically become the wooden embodiment of a ship’s figurehead and she was as silent as the dead wood she appeared to be hewn from.

  There was no help to be found inside the house. The fog had merely been a lure to get me to open the door—but Hyacinth and Sumi had known this. That’s why they’d held Frank back. They’d wanted me to answer the call, to do what was expected of me. I wondered if Jarvis would’ve been so cold-blooded had I been left in his charge, but I didn’t think so. He would’ve been my friend first, and my guide second.

  I was just a tiny cog in a much larger machine, as far as Hyacinth and Sumi were concerned. Hopefully, I would win my challenge, but if I didn’t, maybe they’d go after Daniel and try to bend him to their will. I had no way of knowing.

  We stood in the doorway, each silently appraising the other. I was curious what Daniel thought about our awkward situation. Did he even realize that I knew about his betrayal? I didn’t know how he could stand there, looking so adorable and bewildered, while my whole world was crashing down around me.

  “Hi,” I said, biting my lip, nervous as a kitten at a kill shelter.

  “Hey,” he said, giving me a sheepish look. “You look nice.”

  He had to be joking. I’d been dirtied, bloodied, almost drowned, then turned into a giant sea serpent, and he had the audacity to say I looked nice?! Then I looked down at myself and saw something I wasn’t prepared for. I was wearing a gleaming golden suit of armor, the twin of Daniel’s except for one thing: Mine had the image of a sea serpent etched on its breastplate.

  “So, what’s the dealio?” I asked, wanting to reach out and touch his face, but stilling my hand before it could act. I’d cuddled up beside this man night after night for weeks, and wanting to be as close as possible to him now was just my body’s reaction to his nearness—and a weakness, too, I supposed.

  “Well, I’m here to challenge you, Cal,” Daniel said, his tone serious.

  “Okay.”

  He seemed surprised. I guess he’d been waiting for me to protest, or maybe even to tell him he should just get it over with and end my existence right here and now—neither of which I was going to do.

  “Should we do this outside?” I asked, and Daniel nodded.

  “Yeah, we need to take a little walk,” he said.

  I followed him onto the porch, but before I’d gone very far, I turned around and I did something crazy. I made a snap decision about the Siren, something I hoped I wasn’t going to regret later.

  I swallowed hard then whispered:

  “Wake up, Starr.”

  Silence greeted my whisper.

  “Okay, fine, be that way,” I said. “Just know that I release you from bondage. Go and be free!”

  The stupid creature just hung there on the wall, still as a piece of driftwood—which I guess she kind of was—ignoring me. I rolled my eyes in annoyance.

  “Ugh,” I mumbled, rethinking my possibly unsound snap decision.

  “You coming?” I heard Daniel say from the head of the stairway.

  “On my way,” I called back, wishing I were anywhere but right there on that porch with Daniel.

  Of course, as usual I had no say in my fate.

  Typical, I thought to myself as I closed the door behind me, hoping I wasn’t closing the door on the innocent part of my life forever. Feeling uncertain about what the future held, I followed Daniel down the rickety stairs, careful not to touch the railing. My last experience with the stairs had not been positive, and though I doubted the gold armor was an electrical conductor, I wasn’t taking any chances—I didn’t want to get flambéed.

  For the first time since I’d been dragged back into the supernatural world, I was on my own. There was no Jarvis, no Hyacinth, no Clio or Runt to help guide me anymore. I just hoped I had what it took to do the right thing and save the people I loved.

  The old me would’ve sat down in the dirt and cried, lamenting the unfair predicament her family had entangled her in . . . But the new Callie? Well, she was made of tougher stuff.

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, marshaling every ounce of willpower I possessed. Then I did exactly what I knew Hyacinth and Sumi wanted me to do:

  I started jogging after my competition.

  “Wait up,” I called, chasing after Daniel, who was keeping an Olympic record-setting pace down the dirt sidewalk. He didn’t seem worried about having his back to me, not that I would play dirty and jump him while
he wasn’t looking, but it still made me feel funny, like he didn’t really consider me a threat even though I was wearing the exact same suit of golden armor that he had on—

  My thoughts were interrupted when, without warning, my body tensed, my fight-or-flight response triggered by something I couldn’t see. The hairs on the back of my neck bristled and I spun around, my breath coming hard and fast as fear, more palpable than the air I was breathing, invaded my body. My skin responded to the perceived threat by breaking into gooseflesh, but I ignored my cowardly body and took a visual scan of the surrounding space, my eyes testing every nook and cranny of darkness for signs of life.

  I found nothing.

  Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw something or someone waiting in the shadows underneath one of the stilted houses. Two sets of violet eyes, their tapeta lucida reflecting back at me under cover of night, were watching me with an intensity that was unsettling. My senses itched and I tried to figure out what was causing me to feel so unhinged.

  I swallowed, fear making my mouth so dry the flesh felt smooth, and let my attention wander back to Daniel. He’d put more distance between us than he’d realized and had to turn back around to reclaim me.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, but I shook my head. I had no words to describe the crawling sensation I felt.

  He didn’t seem to mind my silence, shrugging off my unwillingness to confide in him and gesturing for me to follow. At first, my body didn’t want to comply, but I picked up my feet and made them fall into sync with Daniel’s steps.

  I was still having trouble keeping up, so my former love slowed even more, giving me an opportunity to catch him, and together we headed back down the street. The fog was long gone now, allowing me to see more of the island as we walked. We were very close to the water here, and the surf was like a lullaby, gently rocking the land to sleep. I wanted to shuck off the heavy armor, run to the shoreline, and slip into the waiting embrace of the sea, but the human part of my brain held the impulse in check, reminding me that running away now meant letting my whole family down.

  We continued on the same road Sumi and I had taken, only going in the opposite direction, the asphalt giving way to dirt under our feet. Once again I began to feel kind of spooked by our setting, by all those houses on their crazy stilted legs, the gaps between their skeletal foundations casting shadows on the ground around us.

  Every so often, I thought I caught a flash of violet keeping pace with us, but when I turned my head to investigate, there was nothing there but empty night. My brain was trying to put the “violet-eyed creature” puzzle together as we walked, but it wasn’t having very much luck.

  “You all right?” Daniel asked after we’d trudged along for a few minutes in silence. “You’re usually a regular old chatterbox.”

  I knew he was trying to be cute, but all his little comment made me want to do was smack him. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly to stymie the violent impulse.

  “We don’t have to do this, you know,” I offered instead. I was half serious and half just hoping to distract myself from the creepy feeling I had in the pit of my stomach. I was pretty certain that nothing I had to say was gonna sway Daniel from fighting me and getting Hell as his reward.

  “You’re wrong,” he replied, shaking his head. “We do have to do this. We have no other choice.”

  Angry, he picked up speed and I had to trot to keep up with him.

  “We were going to go to Heaven and ask God for help,” I pleaded, but the pounding of the surf picked up just then, dulling my words. “We can still do that. It’s not too late.”

  Daniel stopped abruptly and grabbed my wrist, aggressively yanking me into him.

  “Ow,” I cried, trying to wrest my arm out of his grasp.

  “You don’t understand,” he rasped, gritting his teeth in frustration as I glared at him. “There are creatures counting on me to help them and time has run out. I have to do this or the Devil will do terrible things in Hell.”

  I couldn’t believe the bullshit he was spewing. How could he possibly believe the Devil and his cohorts would leave Hell alone if he just did what he was told and handed them Death on a silver platter?

  “So, you kill me and then they give you Hell,” I said, marveling at his naïveté. “You really think that’s what’s gonna happen?”

  He stared at me, his face riddled with confusion.

  “Kill you?” he asked, incredulous.

  “Damn straight, kill me,” I said, annoyed at his stupidity. “What do you think this armor is for? We’re supposed to battle it out for supremacy and that means death, buddy.”

  Daniel looked horrified. Apparently, he hadn’t taken the time to think the whole thing through.

  “My sister can never be Death, Daniel. She isn’t one of the chosen ones.”

  In every generation there were two or three people who were fated to possibly become Death, but only one would reign supreme by besting the others at three tasks set by the Board of Death. Daniel was aware of the 411 on how someone got to be the Grim Reaper, and he knew my sister was ineligible—a detail that had been one of the contributing factors in why she’d kidnapped my dad all those months before.

  “You challenge me and win? Well, then you’re Death,” I said, stabbing my gloved finger into his armored chest for emphasis. “You’ll be my sister’s plaything, and you’ll never get anywhere near Hell.”

  I was telling him the truth, as I knew it, and I could tell he believed what I was saying. If he defeated me, he’d be at the mercy of the Devil and my sister—and he’d actually be in a worse place than when I’d first met him.

  “So what do we do, then?” he asked me finally.

  I wished I could’ve told him I had a plan, but I didn’t even have the beginnings of one.

  “We gotta at least look like we’re down for doing this thing,” I said, letting my arms drop to my sides. “Just don’t kill me until I can put all the pieces together.”

  He nodded, flashing me a brief smile.

  With a truce of some sort in place, we continued walking down the derelict path. A few minutes later Daniel stopped abruptly in the middle of the road and declared:

  “We’re here.”

  I let my eyes sweep across the empty lane, following the curve of the land until it bowed to the sea. I couldn’t imagine what was so important about this random, uninhabited stretch of road that meant we had to stop and make our little battle party here.

  I didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

  The ground began to rumble like a freight train, the earth heaving beneath my feet in undulating waves that played havoc with my balance. Before I knew what was happening, I’d lost my footing and fallen flat on my ass in the middle of the road.

  “Come on, not fair—” I whined, but I shut up when I saw what had caused the tremor.

  Above me, in all its opalescent glory, rose the gleaming white seascape of Atlantis.

  I goggled at its majestic beauty, the creamy marble pavilions silhouetted against the agate swell of the sea. I’d always been in awe of the mysterious Lost City of Atlantis ever since I’d come across a picture of it in a book when I was a kid. I can still remember bugging my parents to take us there for summer vacation, only to be told we couldn’t actually go there because it was “lost.” I also remember the very strange looks I got from the other kids in school when I told them I would rather go to Atlantis for my vacation than dumb old Disney World.

  It seemed that the venue for our battle had been chosen for a reason. And though I was leery about fighting Daniel, period, I didn’t think I could’ve picked a better battle site.

  Atlantis was where I would make my stand.

  Hopefully it wouldn’t be my last.

  sixteen

  As I steeled myself for the battle ahead, I realized that, though it appeared to be daytime in Atlantis, I could still feel the coolness of the night at my back. I turned around and was shocked to find my feet still firmly planted i
n the marshy backwater of New York.

  “Whoa,” I said, the word escaping from my lips of its own volition. I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around the disorienting feeling of being in two places at once.

  “Pretty weird, huh?” Daniel said, giving me a nervous smile.

  “Yeah, weird,” I agreed.

  “Look,” Daniel said suddenly, grabbing my armor-clad arm with a clank. “I feel terrible about all of this. I really had no idea it would be a battle to the death—”

  “It’s okay,” I said, interrupting him. “I know you’re one of the good guys, Daniel.”

  I wasn’t sure if I really meant what I said or if the last bit had been laced with a hint of sarcasm. Daniel took it at face value, shaking his head, his handsome face creased with worry.

  “I meant everything I said this morning. I’m not gonna let you run away from me.”

  Because I was so not expecting to have a conversation about our relationship, I just stood there, dumbfounded.

  “Callie, I have very strong feelings for you,” he continued, taking my silence as an open invitation to keep talking. “And I want to make our relationship work, no matter what happens.”

  “Uhm, I don’t know if this is really the right time to be having this conversation,” I said, looking around uncomfortably. I was starting to feel like I was the guy in our relationship: all terror at having to talk about feelings and other intimate things.

  “Just know that whatever happens,” Daniel said with an air of finality in his voice, “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  He lifted my arm, pressing his lips to the top of my golden glove-encased hand—and even though there was no skin-on-skin contact, I had to say it was one of the more erotic experiences I’d ever had. He released my hand, his pale blue eyes raking my face for some sign of capitulation—which he must’ve found, because the taut muscles of his jaw visibly relaxed.

  “I love you, Calliope Reaper-Jones. With all of my heart.”

  He gave me a wan smile as he closed the face flap on his golden helmet and walked into Atlantis.