Serpent's Storm

by Amber Benson

  I started coughing again, but this fit wasn’t as prolific as the last one and I was able to get it in check much more quickly.

  So promethium is my weakness, I thought. I just wonder how they knew . . . when even I didn’t know what my weakness was.

  “I tried to help you,” Frank said. “I sent Starr your way so she could warn you, but the damn fish is so mercurial I was worried she wouldn’t tell you.”

  “She tried.” I sighed. “She told me to ask ‘smart’ questions. I just didn’t understand what she meant.”

  Frank nodded, as if he’d suspected as much.

  “So, you’ve been following me, for what?” I asked. “I mean, who are you, Frank?”

  “It’s like this, Cal,” Frank said sheepishly. “You know how you and your friend Daniel are Deaths-in-Waiting?”

  “Yeah?” I said, not really seeing where this was going.

  “Well, I’m, uh, another one.”

  “Another one what?” I said.

  He stood up then, reinforcing something I already knew: He was a lot bigger than I was. And if he decided to come after me, well, in the state I was in, there wasn’t very much I could do to stop him. But to my surprise, he stopped short of moving any closer and just stood there, a silly little grin plastered on his handsome face.

  “I’m a Death-in-Waiting, too.”

  twenty-six

  In the back of my mind, I remembered the Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut (though she’d been in her guise as an aura specialist at the time) had once told me that there were actually three possible Deaths running around the world at any given time. I knew that I was one and Daniel was another, but until now, I’d never even had a clue as to the identity of the third possible Death. In truth, I’d never factored his/her presence into any of my equations because it hadn’t really occurred to me to—but now that I knew who and what Frank was, everything clicked into place.

  “You got real quiet, Callie,” Frank said nervously.

  “I didn’t understand,” I replied. “I needed a moment to process what you were saying.”

  This seemed to appease the wannabe cowboy.

  “Sumi and Hyacinth, they want to kill you, Cal,” Frank said. “It’s so I can be Death, but I’m starting to get cold feet. I never even knew there was all this Afterlife stuff until I was a teenager—and even then, I knew more about the magic part and not very much about anything else.”

  So, Jarvis had been right. Sumi and Hyacinth were trying to usurp the Devil’s power by destroying Daniel and me and setting their own Death on the throne of Death, Inc., in our place—and if they controlled Purgatory, that would put a pretty big kink in Thalia’s plans. The Ender of Death had implied as much back at the subway station, but I hadn’t understood the game I’d been playing until right that very moment.

  “So, you’ll help me, then?” Frank said pitifully, hat in hand.

  I wanted to trust him, to believe he had nothing to do with Sumi and Hyacinth’s plan—a plan, it appeared, they’d been hatching for a long, long time. I’d been working for Hy since I’d moved to New York and that had been years ago. Oh well, at least now I understood why she’d never promoted me: Being my boss made it way easier for her to keep tabs on my comings and goings.

  “I’ll help you,” I said, not sure if I was sealing my own Death warrant by agreeing to the deal. I just knew I had to get out of Hell, and having Frank’s help would only make things easier.

  “Thank you so much, Cal. You’re a real lifesaver,” he said, reaching out and running his hands through his hair. It was a move I would’ve found sexy in another life, but I was so over Frank now that it wasn’t even funny.

  “Where are Sumi and Hyacinth?” I asked.

  “They’re in Purgatory. They’re just waiting for the promethium to kill you, and then they’re gonna try and crown me as Death.”

  The breeze—God knew where it had come from—picked up and wrapped itself sinuously around my sweat-soaked body. The thought of dying right then and there didn’t frighten me at all. Maybe that was my fate; maybe I was supposed to tell Frank to go on to Purgatory without me, then when he was gone, I could just curl up on the forest floor and go to sleep.

  Forever.

  Maybe Death wasn’t such a terrible eventuality. At least the idea of expiring in such a beautiful place, surrounded by burnt scarlet maple leaves and the rushing wind, was appealing. So appealing, in fact, that I almost told Frank to go suck on an egg—which would’ve thus ended my pathetic existence in one fell swoop—but then an image of my sister Clio came unbidden into my mind’s eye. Her rakish face, Buddy Holly glasses, and mischievous smile as she laughed at some stupid joke I’d made . . . brought me back to reality like a punch to my solar plexus.

  “Hold my hand, Frank,” I said, taking a step toward him so I could slip my hand into his own larger one.

  “I like you, Callie,” he said as if he’d known all along I would do his bidding. “So much more than I ever thought I would.”

  I shivered as the wind whipped through my hair, sending chills of trepidation shimmying down my spine. I felt like I’d just traded my soul for absolutely nothing in return.

  I put a hand to my belly, my gut twitching under my fingers.

  “Take us to Purgatory,” I said to the jewel.

  And then we were there.

  I purposely hadn’t closed my eyes this time, keeping them open so I could see for myself how the jewel worked, but I learned nothing. One moment we were in a copse of red maple trees, the next we were in the lobby of Death, Inc.

  “Wow,” Frank said, looking around the place, “this is wild.”

  He wasn’t talking about the building. He was referring to the frenzied fighting that was taking place outside the plate glass windows surrounding us. It was a battle of epic proportions: a chaotic shuffle of tattered and bloodied bodies, set against the stark emptiness of the Purgatorial landscape.

  I walked over to one of the windows, pressing my face against the transparent surface so I could get a better look at the bloodfest outside. Instantly, a thread of white-hot heat shot through me, propelling me away from the window. Now I understood why the fighting had remained outside: someone had placed a protection spell around the entire building, so no one could get in or out.

  Standing a safe distance away from the window, I watched as the fighting escalated so that I had a hard time separating the good guys from the bad ones. Once, I caught sight of Kali, her perfect feminine form bathed in the blood of her foes, teeth gnashing together as she ripped the head off a tall man in casual office attire, hungrily sucking down the hot, red arterial blood as it pulsed in time to his dissipating heartbeat.

  I also saw a number of poop ball monsters—the preferred foot soldier of Thalia’s dead demon husband, Vritra—and that was enough to make me superglad I was dying inside the building rather than out there with the walking poop patrol. Since I’d been eaten by one of them in the past, a repeat of the experience was not high on my list of things to revisit. There were also fauns and satyrs, Gopi and dragons, human-looking men and women in gold-plated chain mail, and beasts of all shapes and sizes. It was a menagerie of all the mythological creatures from all the different mythological canons the world had ever known.

  “I wonder who’s winning,” I said to Frank, who’d come to stand beside me at the window.

  “Looks like a stalemate,” he said thoughtfully.

  Struck by another round of gut-wrenching coughing, I was left with a specter of deep, red rose-colored sputum in my hand. Each coughing fit left me breathless, my body aching from the effort. I was getting weaker with every passing second and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

  “I take that back, Cal,” he said, eyes lingering on the carnage outside. “Maybe both sides are gonna be losers.”

  He moved away from the glass, his eyes roving over the darkened lobby as he took in the cold sterility of the place. The lights were off down here, but you could see the space had
good bones—a real architect’s construct of what a concrete and steel skeleton should look like.

  “It’s cold down here,” he continued, pausing before the empty receptionist’s desk. He ran a finger over the metal and glass desktop, then flipped through a crumpled beige folder that was spread out across the workspace, obviously left behind when someone was yanked away from their seat without warning.

  “They keep the air conditioner set on high,” I replied—but I had to admit I was glad for the chilly air. It was a welcome change from the penetrating heat I’d suffered through down in Hell

  I noticed a mug of overturned tea on a glass-topped coffee table. I’d waited in the seat beside it the first time I’d been summoned to see the Board of Death with Jarvis. The liquid was still wet, but just starting to dry around the edges. A magazine lay smashed on the floor next to the seat, haphazardly opened to an article on breast-feeding.

  “You think if we find your sister and explain the situation, she’ll help me with Sumi and Hyacinth?” Frank asked suddenly, picking up the magazine and giving it a cursory look before throwing it down on a nearby chair.

  So that was Frank’s game, I realized. Like the Ender of Death, he was looking to play both sides and then he’d sidle up to whoever won.

  What a jerk, I thought to myself. And I’d actually felt sorry for the guy.

  Freed from any and all guilt where Frank was concerned, I decided I would apply his own double-crossing methods to my dilemma—only with better (I hoped) results.

  “Well, if it were me,” I said, leading him right into my hands. “I’d probably be up in the cafeteria hiding out, but since it’s Thalia we’re talking about here, I’d try my dad’s office. She’s always wanted the top job.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  I pointed to the bank of elevators.

  “We take a little ride.”

  I doubted Thalia would be up in the Executive Offices, but I had a strong suspicion that that was where she would’ve stored my mom and sister.

  “Let’s take a little look-see,” he said, and he walked over to the elevators and pushed the flat gray call button marked UP. The light above the brushed steel door winked on and the machine whirred to life. Patiently, we waited for a car to descend to our level; then, as the door glided open, we stepped inside.

  The interior was fashioned like a simple metal box, its only unique feature being the long panel of buttons demarcating the different floors. These buttons were so numerous that they ascended from the floor to the ceiling of one whole wall.

  “What floor?” Frank asked.

  I knew the Executive Offices were on the top floor, so I pointed to the uppermost button on the panel—one I couldn’t have reached by myself without a step stool—and watched as Frank stood on his tippy-toes to press it.

  “Good eye.” Then he added: “You feel pretty bad, huh?”

  That was an understatement. I’d gone from overheating to freezing and now my skin was blanketed in a slick of sickly sweat. Shivering was on the bill, too, but I drew the line at teeth chattering. The elevator door eased shut in front of us, and since I didn’t feel like discussing my illness with the man who’d been a party to creating it, I used the hum of the upwardly mobile elevator to try to block him out.

  “You really think your sister will be upstairs?” Frank slipped his cowboy hat back on his head.

  “I think so,” I murmured.

  Exhausted, I leaned against the elevator wall, my body sprouting gooseflesh in the chilled air. I decided I didn’t like the tenor of his questions one bit, and so silence became the elevator music of choice.

  After a few minutes of strained silence, Frank reached out and took my clammy hand, giving my fingers a furtive squeeze. The move so set my teeth on edge I had to really fight the urge to slug him. He was so smarmy, and I was so dying, that it was hard for me to reconcile the idea of the two things being able to coexist at the same time. I just didn’t understand how he, or anyone for that matter, could hold the hand of the person they were murdering and not feel badly about it. He obviously had a clear conscience—while I, on the other hand, was filled with loathing.

  I was fast approaching the point where being trapped in an elevator with Frank was making me claustrophobic, but luckily the car chose that moment to reach its final destination, slowing to a stop and chiming twice as the door swept open to reveal a plain beige hallway, industrial-grade Berber carpet, matte beige walls, and a brass plaque listing all the suite numbers for the floor, fitted onto the wall directly across from us.

  “This doesn’t look right,” Frank said, furrowing his brow uncertainly.

  I ignored him, stepping out of the elevator and walking over to the brass plaque to get a better look at the suite numbers engraved on it. There were five of them for my perusal—372, 373, 374, 375, and 376—but I was only concerned with the last one.

  “Nope, this is the place,” I said, starting down the hallway toward Suite 376.

  I didn’t care if Frank was following me or not. Actually, I was hoping he’d take the hint and go away, because my tolerance for the guy was quickly hitting an all-time low. I couldn’t believe I’d let the schmuck anywhere near me; just thinking about those double-crossing fingers running up and down the length of my body made me furious.

  Setting his hesitancy aside, Frank chased after me, our feet making swishing sounds on the Berber carpeting as we walked. Each doorway we passed was identical to the next: all pale brown doors, brass doorknobs, and suite numbers engraved on brass wedges affixed to the doorframe. I liked the blandness of the hallway, the sameness of door and doorknob.

  It was comforting.

  “This is it,” I said, stopping in front of Suite 376.

  I rested my fist on the face of the door, but didn’t knock.

  “What’re we waiting for?” Frank asked.

  I opened my mouth to tell him that he should do the knocking, but a gaseous, foul-smelling belch escaped my lips instead.

  “Oh, Callie, honey,” Frank said, covering his nose, “that is disgusting.”

  I leaned my forehead against the door and shrugged.

  “You know how it is,” I replied. “When you’re dying from the inside out, things can get kind of stinky.”

  Undone by the ferocity of that last belch, I lifted my fist and knocked feebly on the door.

  As if Evangeline had been waiting there anticipating our arrival, the door flew open and I found myself shoved against the far wall, my head slamming into the opposite doorframe. But Evangeline didn’t wait for my body to hit the floor before she attacked again. This time, to her own misfortune, she chose to ram her bald pate into my gut, thus releasing another hideous belch from my diseased stomach.

  She may have anticipated our arrival, but no way in Hell did she expect that belch. Gagging, she turned away from me, surprise and disgust etched on her face.

  “You’re sick,” Evangeline screeched, pinching her nostrils together to ward off the smell.

  “Yes, I am,” I said. “And this is Frank.”

  Frank took the hint, slamming his fist into the side of Evangeline’s neck. She made a grotesque gurgling sound deep in her gullet then dropped to her knees, clutching her throat. Seizing the opportunity that had presented itself to him, he slammed his ample fist into the back of her head. I heard a tiny pop and then Evangeline went down face-first, her glassy eyes staring up at nothing.

  I normally didn’t condone murder, but I decided that Evangeline had had it coming.

  Of course, the bitch chose that moment to blink, dashing my hopes for a quick end to my sister’s henchwoman. Still, I knew she was too incapacitated to be much of a threat to anyone anymore—and that was good enough for me.

  “After you,” Frank said, gesturing to Evangeline’s prone body.

  I did as instructed, using her back as a stepping-stone, and crossed the threshold into the suite that had once been my dad’s office.

  It was almost too easy.

>   I flipped on the overhead light, adding to the meager glow coming from the desk lamp, and found Clio trussed up on a brown leather sofa, her hands and feet bound with twine, a leather gag in her mouth. I saw the purple bruising around her eye and the split lower lip, and I was reminded of my father’s last few moments on this earth—and the rage in Clio’s eyes as she had watched him die.

  Beside her, my mother sat similarly bound, her once beautiful face slack in the harsh fluorescent light. At first, I thought she was dead because her eyes were so dull and lifeless, but then they welled up with tears and I understood that she was very much alive, just locked inside the terrible grief she was experiencing. I could imagine what she was going through—and I knew the shock alone would be enough to drive anyone a little insane.

  “Help me untie them—” I yelled at Frank, but stopped, the words frozen in my mouth when I saw two Bugbear guards waiting behind the office door. I instinctively threw myself down on the floor, out of the way of the punishing violet light emanating from the creatures’ eyes.

  But Frank wasn’t so lucky.

  Hit with a direct blast, he fell to the floor and started convulsing, his arms and legs twitching as both Bugbears focused their energy on him. Something I’d noticed during my last two run-ins with the Bugbears was that their laser beam eyes seemed to work best on corporeal flesh, not on inanimate objects—which had given me an idea of a way to protect myself. With the Bugbears otherwise engaged, I started crawling toward my dad’s polished brown oak desk.

  “Come on, you pricks!” I screamed, trying to draw their eyes as I crouched underneath a large, rectangular plate glass window. “I’m over here!”

  Immediately Frank was forgotten in favor of me, the moving target. I crawled as fast as my hands and knees would carry me, sliding toward the safety of the other side of the desk just as the Bugbears unleashed their precision laserlike beams of light. The spot where I’d crouched only seconds before sizzled under their gaze, then the violet light faded as they realized I wasn’t there. They moved to readjust their trajectory, but by then I was safely ensconced behind the thick wooden desk and completely out of their reach.