Serpent's Storm

by Amber Benson

  “Please, I beg of you,” Tanuki wailed, but my sister, in her frenzy, ignored his pleas. Instead, she became even more aggressive, throwing the drawers—once she’d confirmed their emptiness—as far down the Hall as she could manage. Distraught, Tanuki put his head down on the desk and began to cry, while behind him, my sister systematically destroyed everything in her path.

  As I watched Thalia dismantle the cabinet, I began to wonder why she was down here without any kind of guard. If the Devil had really fallen for our plan and gone off to Hell to deal with the uprising we’d started, he would’ve at least left my sister with some protection, right? It just didn’t make any sense.

  And then I had the epiphany.

  The Devil had left her with protection. She’d just chosen to use her guard in a creative way. She’d sent them on a suicide mission to take the Hall of Death.

  The Devil was pretty smart. He knew that the Hall was the most heavily fortified place in all of Purgatory, and he’d chosen to starve Suri and her guard out rather than attempt to force his way in. He probably thought they’d surrender peaceably once he’d installed his puppet (Daniel) as the President of Death, Inc., and assumed full control of both Purgatory and Hell.

  But while the Devil had gone to take care of things down in Hell, Thalia had done as she liked, using her guard to descend on the Hall and take it—with maximum bloodshed. Of course, she’d greatly underestimated Suri and her knights, losing her whole guard in the takedown.

  “Nice job, Thalia,” I said, clapping, as I stepped out of the shadows and into the light. “You destroyed the Hall of Death and lost all your guards in the process. What’s the next thing on your agenda? Killing your mother and sisters?”

  At the sound of my voice, Thalia whirled around, her eyes scanning the darkened Hall. When she sighted me, an odd smile played at the corner of her lips and she shook her head sadly.

  “I was really hoping someone else would’ve killed you by now,” she said, leaving the confines of Tanuki’s apothecary cabinet and crossing back around to the front of the desk, where she was closer to me.

  “What happened to your buddy, the Devil?” I said, keeping my voice friendly. “He have a little accident down in Hell and had to leave his best girl here in Purgatory to hold down the fort?”

  Thalia’s eyes shone with menace.

  “You bitch! You’re responsible for what happened in Hell, aren’t you—”

  “I am most definitely the cause of and answer to all your problems, big sis,” I shot back at her before she could get herself too worked up. “So, does the Devil know you’ve raided the Hall of Death in his absence?”

  My well-chosen barb struck a nerve—Thalia’s face turned white and her mouth dropped open in surprise. In my peripheral vision, I saw Tanuki slowly rolling his chair away from the desk. I wished him all the luck in the world—I wouldn’t want to be caught between two very pissed-off immortal sisters dealing with some seriously screwed-up family issues.

  “I was just doing him a favor,” she said suddenly, backtracking. “He thought the Hall would be impenetrable, but look, it only took two hundred Bugbear guards and here we are.”

  “Here we are,” I echoed.

  She narrowed her eyes at me, irises glinting black in the overhead light.

  I spat my next words at her: “Why’d you kill Dad, Thalia?”

  My sister leaned against Tanuki’s desk and laughed, but it was the sound of bitterness, not mirth.

  “Calliope, you know why I had to do it,” she said, the odd smile still playing across her lips. “He left me no choice. He took away my future and then he had me locked away. When the Devil came and offered me his help through Evangeline, what else could I say, but yes?”

  There was no point in talking to Thalia, I realized. Nothing she said, no bizarre ramblings she indulged in, would ever give me the closure I wanted—because no matter which way you sliced it, ambition and insanity were not good reasons for murdering your family.

  “It’s over, Thalia.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so. You’ve done enough damage already, and now it’s time to stop,” I said, anger and nausea driving my words. “The Devil’s not coming back. It was a trap. And without him, you’re nothing.”

  She pursed her lips, her hand instinctively stroking her ponytail.

  “You’re lying. No one stops the Devil—”

  “We did,” I said, lying through my teeth. I had no idea if Jarvis and the others had secured Hell yet, but Thalia didn’t need to know that.

  Something behind me caught my sister’s attention and she turned her head to get a better look. Her face went slack with recognition and she lifted her hand aggressively.

  “What’re you doing down here?” she said, uncertainty blooming in her eyes.

  I turned around, too, wondering who’d decided to join the party now. To my shock, I saw my dad’s attorney, Father McGee, standing in the middle of the hallway, looking about half as old and decrepit as he usually did. Beside him stood my old buddy, Frank, who shot me a knowing grin. I guess he’d figured out who had tied him up with the light cords.

  “I’m afraid I’m here to put an end to your fun, Thalia,” Father McGee said, taking something from his jacket pocket and holding it up to the light.

  I had expected to see a gun or, at the very least, a Taser, but what I saw, instead . . . was a package of airplane peanuts.

  twenty-eight

  “Stay away from me!” Thalia screamed, bumping up against the edge of the desk as she tried to back away from the silvery-blue package in Father McGee’s hand. I would’ve laughed at the absurdity of the scenario: my megalomaniac sister being terrorized by a bag of airplane peanuts—except now I had an inkling what my sister’s immortal weakness was.

  As a child, I’d known that Thalia was allergic to peanuts. We’d never had them in the house, and Clio and I were forbidden from buying peanut butter cookies and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups or ordering peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when we went out to eat—but I’d just never put it all together before.

  Thalia had been born with the most common immortal weakness of all: peanuts.

  And then, with a leaden certainty, I knew who had sold out my family.

  It hadn’t taken me long to realize that someone had been feeding Sumi the particulars of my family’s immortal weaknesses—I just couldn’t figure out who the culprit was.

  I knew that the person, whoever they were, was close to my dad—that they knew every aspect of his life intimately, both personally and professionally, and that they were in a position of utter confidence within the Death, Inc., hierarchy. Since I could cross Jarvis off the list—my Dad’s Executive Assistant had done nothing but suffer for my family—the only other person with the kind of access necessary to crush the Reaper-Jones clan was the man standing in front of me, shaking a bag of peanuts in my sister’s face: Father McGee, my dad’s lawyer and personal confidante.

  “You bastard,” I said under my breath. “You as good as killed my father—”

  “No,” Father McGee said, interrupting me. “I didn’t kill your father. The Ender of Death has always known his weakness. I simply provided the necessary information about you, your mother, your sister, and Jarvis.”

  Father McGee’s face glowed with power—yet upon closer inspection, I saw that it wasn’t just power that was making him appear so sprightly. His skin was appreciably firmer, the lines around his mouth and eyes less pronounced. Even his hair was shinier, the color having molted from snow white to a more distinguished salt and pepper. It was almost as if he’d won a year’s worth of Botox in the church raffle and had used the whole supply in one sitting. Gone, too, were the clerical trappings I’d always known, replaced now by a well-tailored black Armani suit and sockless white calfskin penny loafers that made him look like Bob Hope on a USO Tour to Hell.

  I took a few steps forward, wanting to pummel the priest in his Ben
jamin Button face for what he’d done to my family, but it’d taken so much energy to confront Thalia that when Frank grabbed my arm to stop me, there was nothing I could do to fight him.

  “Get off me—” I growled as Frank threw me to the floor, where I had to bite my tongue not to scream in agony when I landed heavily on my bad shoulder.

  “Frank, go get the little minx,” Father McGee said, pointing to Thalia, who was still cowering by the desk.

  “Leave me alone,” Thalia yelled, swatting at Frank with both of her hands as she tried to climb over the desk to get away from him. Of course, he was bigger and stronger than she was, so it was no contest. He scooped her up under his arm and carried her back to where Father McGee was waiting.

  “What about her?” Thalia wailed, pointing at me.

  “What about me?” I rasped.

  “Why don’t you kill her, too?” Thalia said, ignoring me. “She deserves to be put out of her misery.”

  Selling me out even now, I thought wryly. What are sisters for?

  “You don’t have to worry about her,” Father McGee said, smiling as Frank dropped Thalia to her knees in front of him. “She’s already been taken care of.”

  Thalia closed her eyes, then opened them again, nodding.

  “Let’s get it over with, then,” she said, her voice even.

  “Good. I knew you would eventually see things my way,” Father McGee said, tearing open the package and presenting it to my sister.

  “But I’ll only do it if you let me administer them to myself,” Thalia said quickly—and I wondered what devious plan she’d just conjured to save herself.

  Father McGee motioned for Frank to release her. Frank let her go and she quickly moved away from the mutton-chopped henchman.

  “Let me have the stupid nuts,” she said, holding out her hand.

  Father McGee lifted his hand to drop the package into her outstretched palm, but she moved like a flash, slapping the peanuts away and driving her elbow into his gut as she pushed past him, knocking him to the ground. I had to admire her chutzpah, but I quickly saw that she’d made a serious error in judgment. As soon as she’d knocked out the priest, she should’ve taken off as fast as her little Shape-Ups could carry her, but instead, her actions fueled by her gigantic ego, she’d turned back around and lunged at Frank. Grabbing a handful of his shirt and pulling him to her, she’d kneed him in the crotch the minute he was in nut-crushing range.

  I decided not to encourage Thalia by cheering. Why remind her I was there when she still had her hands full with Frank?

  Speaking of Frank, Thalia’s crotch shot dropped the cowboy to his knees, his face going from milky white to scarlet in a heartbeat. I could see tears of agony forming in the corners of his eyes, but by then Thalia had turned her attention to me.

  “I’m gonna kill you myself, Calliope, you dumb bitch,” she spat at me, lifting her leg to kick me in the head, but I was too transfixed by the sight of Frank—muscling through mucho pain to drag himself onto his feet—to really defend myself. Reaching out a large hand, he easily caught hold of the back of Thalia’s hoodie, knocking her off balance and dragging her backward so that her kick went wide, missing my head by an inch.

  “Callie, help me!” Thalia cried, her eyes locking on to mine as Frank wrapped his arms around her torso, constricting her movement and forcing her back to where Father McGee was waiting, having used the opportunity to haul himself onto his feet. He looked pained by the fall, but he shook off his discomfort and lurched toward Thalia, the bag of peanuts back in his hand.

  “Callie, please!” Thalia begged, her eyes full of terror—the realization that death was fast approaching, and there was nothing she could do to prevent it, blooming on her face.

  After all we’d been through, after all the atrocities she’d perpetrated against me and the people I loved, after trying to kick my head in not even two minutes earlier, my sister still had the balls to ask me for my help. Jesus, the woman was unbelievable.

  Whether or not I wanted to help her, there was nothing I could do. I was barely keeping myself alive, and deep down, if I was really being honest with myself, I knew that even if I could save her, the world would be a much better place without her in it. So I made the only reasonable choice I could: I sat on the floor and watched as Frank held my sister’s mouth open and Father McGee poured the entire contents of the aluminum peanut wrapper down her throat.

  The effect was instantaneous.

  Thalia’s body went rigid and then her arms and legs began to flail like a marionette puppet as Frank held one palm over her mouth to prevent her from spitting out the peanuts. Bucking like a wild animal, she rocked against his restraining arms, her face turning white then puce and then the color of boiled beets, while the whites of her eyes shifted from ochre to oxblood red. Suddenly she screamed, the sound trapped behind Frank’s hand. Her eyes began to roll wildly in their sockets, and then, without any kind of warning, her head exploded like a volcano, viscera flying everywhere as her headless corpse slid down Frank’s body and crumpled to the floor. I was far enough away that I was saved from having bits of Thalia splattered all over me, but Frank and Father McGee both got slimed, the foul miasma of offal now exposed to the air coating them like a second skin. Secretly, it filled me with glee to think my sister—no matter how evil she’d been, she’d always be my sister—had had the last word, defiling Frank and Father McGee with the nasty gore of her own dead body.

  “You get what you deserve,” I said. It was directed at Father McGee and Frank, but it went for Thalia, too.

  “I think that same notion can be applied to you, as well, Calliope,” Father McGee said, fishing a clean handkerchief from his back pocket and beginning to wipe the gore from his face.

  “My dad trusted you and you gave his family up for what . . . immortality?”

  “Better than that,” Father McGee said, handing the befouled handkerchief to Frank, who waved it away. “Eternal youth. Even now you can see the aging process being reversed, and soon, I’ll look like I did when I was twenty-five—and I will remain that way forever.”

  “You may look young on the outside, but your conscience will be a black and foul thing,” I said.

  “As if I care about my conscience,” he replied, laughing. “Of course, you wouldn’t know anything about my motivations. You, who’ve been immortal your whole existence, who has never had your body ache with arthritis or your vision fail from glaucoma. You, who’ve never stared down the well of life and found only death and loss-of-self curled up at the bottom, lying in wait for you. You try being a mortal for one lifetime, Calliope Reaper-Jones, and then we’ll talk.”

  “I guess I’ll just have to save that for the next life,” I said, clutching my stomach as a corkscrew of fire from my gut ratcheted up into my throat.

  “You’re a bright girl, Calliope,” Father McGee said. “But I hope you come back as a fly.”

  “I’m gonna break you . . .” I said, crawling to my knees, my hands raised as if I were close enough to wrap them around Father McGee’s scrawny old neck and squeeze the life out of him, but then a wave of fire spread through my body, black spots dancing before my aching eyes.

  The promethium had hit me full force.

  “It won’t be long now, Calliope,” Father McGee said as he slammed his palms into my chest, sending me sprawling onto the floor again. “You’ve done us so many good turns—sending the Devil back to Hell, disposing of Evangeline and her Bugbears so Frank could come rescue me—it would be rude of us to let you suffer unnecessarily.”

  I lay on the floor where I’d landed, unable to feel anything but the agonized burning of the promethium as it flowed through my bloodstream. My muscles gave out and I found my face pressed into the plush fibers of the oriental carpet I’d been lying on. Trying to quell the agony I felt, I pulled my feet up into my chest in a modified version of the fetal position. The relief it gave was minimal, but it was something. I was in so much pain I could hardly move, not even to
lift my head up off the floor when Frank squatted down beside me, his features pinched with worry. He put a hand to my forehead, then brushed my hair back off my face.

  “I’m sorry you’re suffering so much, Callie,” he said. “I’m gonna get Sumi to fix you up when he gets here. He promised I could have you.”

  My eyes burning, I nodded, but I had little hope that Sumi was going to reverse the death sentence he’d already laid on me. I closed my eyes, trying to ease the ache behind my eyelids, and when I opened them again, I saw Father McGee pulling a tiny, cell phone-like device from his pocket. He pressed a numbered code into the screen and the device beeped, a wall of flickering light projecting out from inside it.

  I’d thought Thalia and the Devil had blocked anyone from entering or leaving the building via wormhole, but somehow Father McGee had called up one anyway. The priest caught my questioning glance and smiled.

  “Who do you think showed your sister how to shut down the wormhole system?” he purred, pleased with himself. “You really believe she was so smart? No, she was a brute, using other people’s expertise to further her own agenda—with an ego so large she could never believe anyone would ever double-cross her.”

  “You’re a prick . . .” I started to say, but then the wormhole flickered between us, its gray light shimmering like static on a television set, and I watched as first Hyacinth then Sumi crossed through, entering the Hall of Death as if they owned the place. As soon as they were both safely through the wormhole, it flickered and then disappeared.

  Sumi looked exactly as he had before—still wrapped in his kimono and grass skirt—while Hyacinth had slipped into something more comfortable: a pale linen and gold caftan with matching gold slippers. Her change of costume, coupled with her flaxen hair and rounded body, made her resemble a Wagnerian opera heroine.