Underworld (21 page)

I
turned my disbelieving eyes to look up at John.

He was out of breath, his chest rising and falling rapidly as if he’d run a great distance, his dark hair sticking to his forehead, his fingers curled into fists … but when his gaze met mine, I saw his face break into one of the broadest grins I’d ever seen him wear.

I couldn’t blame him. I was fairly certain we’d just destroyed a Fury together.

“Do it again,” Henry said, bursting into delighted applause.

“Not tonight, please,” Mr. Smith said. He’d sagged onto the carpet, making it look as if he’d knelt there merely to lift Officer Hernandez’s wrist to take her pulse. But I could tell the fireworks display from John’s fingertips had caused him to lose some muscle control. “Keep in mind there are civilians present. Between Mike and now this, I’ve had about all the excitement I can take for one day. I’m assuming
that
was the Fury.” He nodded at the dark smudge on the wall.

“That was the Fury,” John confirmed. He turned back towards me. “How did you make it leave her body?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t,” I said. “The necklace did, I think, when she touched it. Look at her hand.”

Mr. Smith unfolded the unconscious woman’s fingers. There, in the middle of her palm, was the burn mark I’d seen. It was in the exact shape of my diamond.

“Well, that’s it, then, Captain,” Mr. Liu said, reverentially. “After nearly two hundred years, we finally know how to get rid of them.”

“Fascinating,” Mr. Smith murmured. “The diamond not only detects when Furies are present, it forces them out of their human hosts when put in contact with them.”

“Right,” Henry said, looking at me. “We just let her get choked by them. Then you zap ’em, Captain.”

“No, Henry,” John said dryly. “I don’t think that’s how we’ll do it. But a variation along those lines might do.”

“Um, excuse me,” called a tremulous voice from the hotel’s front desk. The clerk waved nervously when we all turned to look at him. “But does that police officer need help? Like an ambulance or something? Because I could call for one. Otherwise, my boss doesn’t like it when people sleep in the lobby.”

Mr. Smith raised his eyebrows. “What a good idea, young man,” he said to the clerk. “By all means, telephone for an ambulance immediately.”

“Okay,” the clerk said, and his face disappeared once more around the corner.

Officer Hernandez had begun to stir. She appeared confused, patting her belt for something, and then, not finding it, searching the ground around her.

“What’s going on?” she asked blearily, of no one in particular. There wasn’t a hint of any of the hostility I’d heard before in her voice. She actually sounded like quite a pleasant person. When her gaze passed over me, there was no recognition in it whatsoever. “What happened?”

Mr. Smith, his eyes widening behind the lenses of his glasses, asked, “You mean, you don’t remember?”

“No,” Officer Hernandez said, reaching up to touch her forehead, then seeing the wound on her hand. “Did I burn myself?”

“Yes,” Mr. Smith said gently. “I believe you did. If you wait here, Officer Hernandez, an ambulance is on its way.”

“Oh,” she said, smiling. “Well, aren’t you sweet? Call me Deanna.”

“We most certainly will,” he said.

I was reminded, for some reason, of what Mr. Smith had said earlier in the day, about how when people were moved to do good by the spirit of human kindness, that was the work of the Fates, but when they did evil, it was the work of the Furies.

“I thought you might be interested to know, Miss Oliviera,” he said, in a lower voice, so that the officer couldn’t overhear him, “that my head groundskeeper, Mike, has filed for workman’s compensation after injuring himself in the cemetery today.”

“Really?” I widened my eyes. This was one of the options Mr. Smith had suggested Mike would take.

“He was treated and discharged at the hospital,” Mr. Smith went on, “for a concussion after what he’s telling everyone was a fall down the back steps. I don’t think you need to have hit him quite so hard, Pierce. He’s called in sick for the rest of the week, poor man.”

“Pardon me if I can’t summon any more pity for him than for her grandmother,” John said flatly. “Pierce, do you feel up to going?”

I nodded. Henry, meanwhile, had found the Taser that had fallen beneath the chairs. It had gotten shut off during my mêlée with Deanna Hernandez, but it took Henry only a few seconds to figure out how to switch it back on. The blue spark brought a gigantic smile to his face.

“Brilliant,” he said. “Can I keep it, Captain?”

“No,” John said firmly. “You may not. Mr. Liu?”

Mr. Liu quickly disarmed Henry, while John helped me back to my feet. I felt steadier now … especially when he slipped a hand beneath my hair and across the back of my neck as he guided me towards the door. Suddenly I felt the same waves of warmth I had when he’d soothed the place where Hope had scratched my hand. Only now that soothing warmth was spreading along my neck and radiating to the front of my throat, where the links from my necklace had pinched my skin.

He looked down at me, his eyebrows still furrowed with worry for me. “Better?” he asked.

“Better,” I said, summoning up a smile.

But in spite of everything, I still heard a small voice inside my head.
Hayden and Sons, Hayden and Sons
, it whispered.

“Pierce, if anything had happened to you —” He broke off, unable to meet my gaze.

Tell him it’s no use,
Officer Hernandez had said.
There’s no safe place for you, not even the Underworld. We’ll always find you.
I gave a little shudder.

“It’s all right,” I said to John.

He raised his gaze to mine. “It isn’t,” he said, as if he’d read my thoughts.

“It’s my fault, I’m afraid.” Mr. Smith’s voice, sounding strangely hollow, startled me. I realized he’d followed us out through the veranda doors.

I stared at him. “
Your
fault? How so?”

I was surprised to see that out in the courtyard, everyone was gone. The canopy of leaves couldn’t offer protection from this sort of rain, which fell in a steady curtain from the sky. Even the band had fled, seeking shelter elsewhere … probably spurred to do so by what had occurred between their lead singer and John and his crew.

So I was especially surprised when a familiar-sounding voice from the shadows of the back porch said, “No,
I
was the distraction.”

I’d thought we were all alone, but a man I’d never seen before stepped out from the corner where he’d been huddling.

“Patrick,” Mr. Smith said, sounding irritated. “I told you to wait in the car.”

“I know,” the man said, sounding — and looking — strangely sheepish. He was wearing a pink short-sleeved shirt, khaki shorts, yellow socks, and a yellow bow tie, all drenched from having been caught in the rain. “But I only wanted to say again how sorry I am.” To me, he said, “Hi, we’ve never met before, but I’m Richard’s friend, Patrick Reynolds. I’m the one who took your picture, and I’m
so
sorry, I realize how uncool that was.”

“Oh,” I said, realizing why his voice sounded familiar. He’d been the man I’d heard apologizing to John through the veranda doors. “Hello.”

I remembered Mr. Smith having mentioned his partner, Patrick. The only thing I really knew about him was that he didn’t understand Mr. Smith’s fascination with the dead, and that he liked to knit. He looked younger than the cemetery sexton by about ten years or so. I wondered if he had the slightest idea what his partner was tangled up in.

Apparently not, since his next words were, “I was just so excited, because I’ve been following your case in the paper and on the news. It’s so dull in this town, you can’t imagine. I never thought I’d actually get to see you in the flesh, so when you walked by, I couldn’t help it, even though Richard told me not to —”

Slowly, realization dawned. Now I knew not only who’d taken the picture of me, but why John’s jaw was suddenly so dangerously set, and why there were twin fires raging in his eyes.

Considering John’s history, it was a miracle Patrick Reynolds was simply soaking wet and not physically maimed or suffering a cardiac blockage or something. I thought that showed real progress on John’s part. Although of course I could feel his fingers tightening on the back of my neck.

“I mean, to literally bump into Zack Oliviera’s daughter while watching the Busty Bayamos — they’re completely our favorite local band, and we just love Angelica, the lead singer” — Patrick had not stopped talking, even for a second, he was so intent on getting his apology out, even though the rain was beginning to slant past the porch roof and onto us — “I was like, well, it can’t hurt to get a photo, even though Richard was mortified, and I don’t know what came over Angelica, she’s normally —”

“Everyone is forgiven,” John said unsmilingly. “We have to go now.”

Mr. Smith’s friend said, looking uneasy, “Oh, my God, I’ve done it again, haven’t I? I’m sorry. Richard says I talk too much. But I think it’s all so romantic, the corporate magnate’s daughter and the —” He looked at John and smiled toothily. “Well, whatever, I just hope everything works out. Richard, did you tell them the good news?”

Mr. Liu and Henry had followed us out, and now stood on the back porch, as well. Henry, I saw, had found my book bag, and shouldered it.

“What good news?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine what
good
news there could possibly be, except that we had figured out a way to drive Furies from the human hosts they were possessing, then destroy them. Although it wasn’t a very practical solution to the problem, unless I was going to touch every Fury I encountered with my necklace, which meant that I had to get way more up close and personal to them than I thought was advisable.

“I already told John, Patrick,” Mr. Smith said. “Honestly, they have to go now, the poor girl —”

“Told John what?” I asked. “Is Alex all right?” After my recent scare — or series of them — I felt hypervigilant.

John’s hand went to my arm. “He’s fine,” he said gently. “You don’t need to worry about anything. Frank’s going to watch to make sure Alex gets home safely. I gave him your cousin’s phone and keys, and told him only when Alex gets safely to his door is he allowed to have them back. Frank is to find your cousin’s car — Kayla will tell him where it is — and disable it, so Alex can’t go anywhere. Then I’ll fetch Frank and bring him home.”

I blinked at him. “That … that’s perfect. Thank you.”

He smiled at me. “Take Henry’s hand.”

“What?” I did as he asked. “All right. But why?”

Then I realized what John was about to do, and dropped Henry’s hand, which was still sticky from all the cotton candy he’d consumed anyway.

“John,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.
“No.”
Then I turned to Patrick. “What were you saying about good news?”

“Oh,” Patrick said, looking confused. He’d been following our conversation intently, almost as if he’d been taking mental notes. I hoped it wasn’t for a blog or anything. “I don’t remember now. What was it? Something about pomegranates?” He looked at Mr. Smith, who appeared to be wishing for death. “I swear, I don’t know what Richard is talking about half the time, but this afternoon, he got on the phone with some professor in California, and afterwards, he would not stop going on about pomegranates, and how they are purely symbolic, and you can eat whatever you want and not worry. Is there some new pomegranate diet where you can eat what you want and not get fat or something? Because I could totally —”

“Henry,” John said curtly. “Take Miss Oliviera’s hand.” Henry reached up to take my fingers in one hand, then grabbed Mr. Liu’s arm with his other.

“Good-bye,” John said to Mr. Smith.

Then he stepped off the porch and out into the courtyard, pulling me with him, into the pouring rain.

“But I —” I began to say, turning my head to look back at the cemetery sexton and his partner. The latter seemed extremely surprised by our abrupt departure. Mr. Smith, however, appeared relieved to see us go. I saw him raise a hand to wave as the needle-like drops of rain began to stab me, quickly dampening my dress and hair.

Then I blinked to keep the water out of my eyes, and all of it — Mr. Smith, Patrick, the hotel, the courtyard, the rain, the entire island of Isla Huesos — disappeared.

W
hen I opened my eyes again, we were in a different courtyard … the one where I’d found Henry hiding, what seemed like a lifetime ago.

Though hours and hours had passed on earth since we’d been gone, little seemed to have changed in the realm of the dead. Time appeared not to move at the same pace in the Underworld as it did on earth. The grayish pink light in which John’s world was continuously bathed might have grown slightly more lavender, but not by much. The features of the marble woman in the courtyard’s center fountain were still easily discernible. The fire burning brightly in the enormous hearth in John’s bedroom continued to cast the same warm yellow glow against the white curtains in the interior archways as it had when we’d left. Nothing seemed different at all.

Until a bit of movement caught my eye, and I looked up, and saw the birds.

There were dozens of them — maybe hundreds — wheeling around and around in the air, their wings a pitiless black against the roof of the cavern. They weren’t flying in any sort of formation, they were just circling, the way vultures do when they’ve spotted dying prey.

But these birds weren’t making any sound. They appeared to be hovering over the island across the lake, down by the beach where the dead got sorted.

I gasped when I saw them, even though I was still reeling from having been ripped so suddenly from my world and thrust back to John’s. I forgot my indignation at John’s having done so in the middle of what I’d considered a pretty interesting conversation.

“Look!” I cried, pointing at the birds. Hope was the only bird I’d ever seen in the Underworld.

But to my relief, I saw that she wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to those ominous birds. She’d swooped to a perch on top of the fountain and was already busy grooming herself after her long journey.

“Why are they doing that?” I asked about the circling birds. “What does it mean?”

“That we’ve been away too long,” said Mr. Liu, and strode off in the opposite direction of the archways, towards a large wooden gate, his expression forbidding. “Henry, come. There’s work to be done.”

“Blankets,”
Henry said, with a sigh. “I’ll have to tell Mr. Graves about the Fury and the cotton candy later.” Apparently to him, tasting cotton candy for the first time and seeing a Fury torn from its human host and destroyed were equally exciting. He dumped my book bag unceremoniously at my feet, then ran after Mr. Liu, calling, “Can we at least take Typhon with us? I swear I’ll keep him from biting anyone this time.”

Then the gate banged shut, and John and I were alone for the first time in … well, what seemed like ages.

That was the only explanation I could think of for why, in the silence between us, the sound of Hope’s contented cooing and the water bubbling in the fountain both suddenly sounded so absurdly loud … and why there appeared to be an electrical charge in the air, so strong that I felt the hairs on my arms rising.

I tried to think of something to say to break the silence, because clearly
he
wasn’t going to do it. He was just standing there staring at me with an odd expression on his face, an expression I thought I recognized: It looked like the same one from that night by my mother’s pool, when he knew I’d learned something terrible about him from Mr. Smith, and was sure I must hate him.

He was partly right … I
had
learned something terrible about him. What I couldn’t figure out was how
he
knew. Had Mr. Smith told him that he’d loaned me the book? I doubted it, or Mr. Smith would have been soaking wet, along with his partner.

Yet there John stood, looking defensive and ashamed all at once, his jaw thrust out and that muscle twitching in his cheek … but his eyes shining bright as stars.

The problem with eyes that shined as bright as stars was that stars were unreadable. You couldn’t look into the sun and tell what it was thinking.

There were so many questions I wanted to ask him —
needed
to ask him. But I hardly knew where to start. I could tell from the way he was staring at me —
studying
me, like he was waiting for something, some signal or sign from me — that he knew questions of some kind were coming, and dreaded them.

Obviously, I couldn’t come straight out and ask,
Why did you kill your father?
Or
What was Patrick talking about, I can eat whatever I want and not worry? Why did you tell me that I couldn’t, then?

Stalling for time, I reached up to push back some of my hair, expecting to find it wet — I had, after all, just been pulled through a downpour to get here — but instead discovered it was dry as bone.

I looked down. Every other time John had dragged me to his world, he’d seen fit to give me a nineteenth-century fashion makeover.

But not this time. I was surprised to find myself in my own clothes, the white dress I’d taken from my closet at home. It looked fresh and newly pressed, despite the fact that I’d been recently wrestling in it on a hotel lobby floor with a member of Isla Huesos’s finest.

Pleased, I lifted my gaze back up to his, and smiled.

“Now
this
,” I said, fingering the skirt of the dress, “is more my style. If I had a closetful of clothes like this, I could deal with life down here a whole lot bet —”

In three long strides he was on me, seizing me around the waist and pulling me roughly to him, so that my soft body met his hard frame with a jolt I felt all the way down to my toes.

“John.” I looked up at him in surprise. This was not the response I’d been expecting to my fairly innocuous statement. Something inside of him had seemed to break. I had no idea what, or why. He didn’t make a sound, or even change expression. “What’s the matter with —?”

I never got to finish the question. Instead, his lips came down over mine, his mouth and tongue so commanding that any token resistance I might have considered putting up was quickly forgotten … not only because there didn’t seem to be any point, but because I realized the truth:

I wanted him every bit as much as he wanted me.

When his lips slid from my mouth to my throat to kiss each place the links from my necklace had left red marks, I knew I was lost. I had to cling to his shoulders just to remain upright. I could feel his heart racing through the walls of his solidly muscled chest.

My own heart was like a wild thing, urging me to do things I knew perfectly well that I shouldn’t. But who was going to stop me? Certainly not him. Something had come over him, a kind of desperate need that I could feel in every kiss, every look, every caress. I wasn’t sure where it was coming from, or what had sparked it so suddenly. There was a sense of urgency to his movements, even though I hadn’t heard the marina horn, so I didn’t know why he was in such a rush.

This time, however, when I found his fingers on the buttons on the front of my dress, I didn’t push his hand away. My own fingers tangled in his thick dark hair, and I murmured his name.

I don’t know why this caused him suddenly to lift me off my feet, carrying me through one of the archways to his room after impatiently kicking aside the gauzy white curtain. The next thing I knew, I was sinking into the impossibly soft, downy comforter on the big white bed. I couldn’t help thinking,
Oh, this is probably a mistake
.

But I couldn’t see
how
it could be a mistake, or how it could be wrong, especially when, a second later, he was on top of me, the masculine weight of him so deliciously heavy, and his big callused hands slipping inside my dress. Soon his fingers were touching me in places no one had ever touched me before, each caress leaving my nerve endings feeling as tingly as if they’d just been kissed by a shooting star, landing on my skin and leaving it as glistening as a newly formed galaxy.

Surely
that
couldn’t be wrong, could it?

At one point, though, he too seemed to experience a moment’s doubt. His body, in the firelight, was beautiful, even with the scars. I would have traced every one with my fingers, then kissed it, if he had let me.

When I tried, however, he took both my wrists and pressed them back against the comforter, saying, “Stop,” in a voice that sounded choked with emotion. He looked down at me with eyes that were no longer shining, but filled with a darkness I couldn’t read.

“You said you wanted to take things slow,” he reminded me gruffly.

Had I? My mind was moving so sluggishly from all the mini-explosions his fingers had been setting off along my skin that it took a moment to recall the conversation he was referring to. It seemed to have taken place a million years ago.

“Oh,
that
,” I said. “No, it’s okay.”

“Is it?” he asked, strangely anxious. “Are you sure? Despite the … consequences?”

Consequences? I couldn’t bear hearing the word
consequences
again. And certainly not
now
.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s quite all righ —”

His mouth came down over mine before I could finish what I was saying, kissing me with so much passion that I felt as if he and I were one already. Apparently the only thing he’d been waiting for was my permission. Once he received it, he took decidedly emphatic action. It wasn’t long before the shooting stars returned, only now they were entire galaxies of sparkling suns and planets that seemed to expand and expand until finally they collapsed, showering us both with little bits of stars and moons and cosmos.

Afterwards, he fell asleep …
his
head on
my
shoulder, for a change. I marveled at how untroubled he looked … the first time I’d ever seen him that way. It must, I decided, have been how he’d looked as a little boy.

Then I remembered
Hayden and Sons
, and decided it was probably best not to think about his childhood.

Still, he and I were obviously always meant to be together. Of course we had a few things to work out, like any couple. Well, maybe more difficult things than most couples.

But the storm was finally over.

I should have known it was only beginning.