Serpent's Storm (20 page)

“Let it rest, Starr,” Frank said, not even bothering to look up from his plate. “The little gal’s hungry and her dinner’s getting cold.”

“I was only having a little fun,” a tinkling voice cried. “Why do you always have to be so mean?”

Startled, I stared at the mermaid as she tilted her head in our direction and pouted prettily at Frank. He ignored her, which only turned her gaze murderous.

“You stick me up on this wall and then you don’t let me have any fun,” she twittered, her voice shrill. “You stink!”

Frank continued to ignore her, as did everyone else at the table, so she crossed her arms and turned her head away rudely.

I wanted to ask who and what the mermaid was, but I restrained my curiosity, not wanting to get caught up in conversation when I should be eating. I pulled my gaze away from the mermaid and focused on my food.

I found myself inhaling my dinner as if I were in a contest and all the food I hadn’t eaten before the timer went off would be taken away. The meatloaf was delicious, all warm and ketchupy, and the mashed potatoes went down like silk.

“This is fantastic.” I grinned, my mouth full of carrots. “I haven’t eaten like this in ages.”

It was true. I hadn’t had a home-cooked meal in I didn’t know how long. I hadn’t realized it until the second week of his stay, but Daniel was a closet junk food freak. I guess there was no delivery down in Hell, so the poor guy had been junk free for years. Of course, that was remedied once he started shacking up with me—and we’d been on a steady diet of pizza and Chinese takeout ever since. I’d depleted a good chunk of my savings in the process, but I really hadn’t minded. In the beginning, it’d been heaven to have him at my house, sleeping in my bed and sharing my life.

My praise made Frank sheepish.

“It was nothing,” he said.

I wasn’t having any of this false modesty crap. He was a fine cook and I wanted him to know it.

“No, seriously,” I pressed on. “You’re an excellent cook. Really, I can barely make mac and cheese without burning it.”

“Ha!” Starr harrumphed behind me.

I turned in my seat to face her, not liking her one bit.

“Why don’t you take a look at what you’re
really
eating?” she trilled.

I looked down at my place setting and saw that, instead of the meatloaf and mashed potatoes I’d
thought
I was eating, my plate was half filled with gelatinous sardines. I wanted to gag as I stared at the dead-eyed fish, but I fought to keep my stomach in check. I didn’t know when I was going to get another meal, so I needed to keep this one down. I may have been an immortal, but if I didn’t eat, I’d waste away to nothing—and an eternity spent as a wraith of my former self was not a life.

“That’s gross,” I said, pushing my plate away.

“Not gross,” Sumi said, his mouth full of the silvery skinned fish. “Yummy, yummy.”

“It’s what Sumi likes to eat,” Frank said. “I tried to put a glamour on it so it would be more appealing to you—”

“Appreciate the effort,” I interrupted, raising an eyebrow, “but I’m done.”

Like Sumi, Hyacinth didn’t seem bothered by the sardine development, so I figured I was the only one who didn’t like the nasty buggers.

I hate jellied meats of all kinds. I’d spent Passover with my friend, Noh, and her then boyfriend, Haskell, and I’d nearly thrown up when Haskell’s mom had plopped gefilte fish on my plate. Anything jellied and fishy that comes out of a can is a no-go for me.

“Well, if you’re finished,” Hyacinth said, setting her knife and fork down, “then I think we need to get our game plan in order.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling nauseous. “I’d love to know the plan—whatever it is.”

“Are you sure about that, Death?” Starr chimed in from her perch on the wall.

“I don’t care what your deal is,” I said, turning in my chair again, “but I’d seriously appreciate it if you’d shut up now.”

Starr opened her mouth in indignation.

“How dare you!?” she shouted. “How dare you talk to me like that—I’ve crushed boats on the rocks for less!”

“Wait, you’re a Siren?” I asked, surprised I hadn’t put it together sooner. “Of course, you are! You just said as much.”

“I said nothing,” Starr growled at me, then shut her mouth.

“I think my mom is part Siren,” I said to no one in particular.

Starr took offense at this.

“Your mom is no more a real Siren than you are, Death,” she bellowed, her high girly voice lowering about three octaves in anger. “You’re nothing but Anglo-Saxon trash on two legs!”

I snorted, not really able to give her old-school insult much credence. I supposed we were all Anglo-Saxon white trash to a Siren.

“So, how did you get her on the wall?” I asked Frank, but Sumi raised his hand for silence.

“The Siren’s fate is neither here nor there,” he said, sucking down the last fish on his plate before reaching for my leftovers. “We have to discuss your battle strategy, Death’s Daughter.”

“The challenge will come soon,” Hyacinth chimed in. “You’ll be forced to comply, whether you’re ready or not. And you must stop Daniel from winning, whatever the cost.”

“Okay,” I said, surprised at the larger woman’s vehemence. “What do I have to do? For the challenge, I mean.”

I’d been on a quest before, looking for the three objects the Board of Death had required me to find in order to save my family’s immortality during my dad’s kidnapping fiasco. I’d been successful then and I knew I was down to find even more magical objects, if that’s what the Board of Death wanted.

“This is open combat—a duel,” Sumi piped in. “And immortality becomes superfluous—”

“Hold on a minute,” I interrupted. “What did you say?”

Hyacinth rested one meaty hand underneath her chin, thoughtful.

“Sumi is saying,” she explained, “that your immortality is superfluous during the challenge and you will be forced to fight until the death.”

“Look, Daniel may be on my shit list right now,” I said, slamming my hand down on the table. “But that doesn’t mean I want to kill him—”

“You do not decide how things are run,” Sumi said abruptly, talking over my protests. “You will defeat your challenger . . .
or you will die
.”

I shook my head, anger boiling just below the surface.

“Then I’d rather die.”

“Don’t be stupid—” Frank began, but Sumi held up a hand as if to say that he would take care of this.

“You love your mother and sister, yes?”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“And you love the hellhound you call Runt, yes?”

I sighed, getting annoyed by the repetition.

“Yes, of course.”

Sumi nodded, thoughtful.

“If what you say is true, then you would want them to continue to exist, correct?” he asked.

“That’s a given—”

“Then you must choose,” Sumi said, spearing a sardine from Hyacinth’s plate and slipping it into his mouth. “The life of the Devil’s protégé . . . or the lives of the people you say you love. It is your choice.”

I didn’t answer—I couldn’t.

There was nothing I could say because I knew I’d been checkmated by the old man from the sea. I was, for all intents and purposes, well and royally screwed. I pulled the blanket up around my shoulders, trying to fight off the chill that had overtaken my body.

Somehow, the blanket didn’t help nearly enough.

I didn’t have time to ponder the catch-22 I’d been railroaded into because a thundering
boom
from outside shook the house, rattling the dishes and sending the metal trident above the fireplace crashing to the floor. Starr, stuck on the wall like an insect pinned to a specimen board, gave a high-pitched scream, then began begging Frank to release her from her prison.

“Frank, free me! Please!” she howled as another loud
boom
shook the walls. “How can I protect myself if I’m stuck on this wall!?”

Frank shot a warning look in Starr’s direction, then jumped out of his chair, knocking the wooden seat over in his haste. Ignoring the Siren’s pleading cries, he headed for the front door, throwing two heavy iron dead bolts I hadn’t even noticed were there, before turning his attention to the windows.

“What’s happening?” I asked Sumi as another
boom
sounded in the distance and our dinner plates crashed to the floor, sending the remains of the jellied sardines scattering.

“The time is nigh.”

“We can hold them off for a little while,” Frank shot back, flipping the lock on a window that looked out onto the porch. “The house is warded against magic—”

“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.