Serpent's Storm Part 17

"This sucks," I muttered in between the teeth chattering.

I'd done what I thought thought was the right thing, but I'd just screwed myself up. Depressed by the wretchedness of my current situation, I was sorely tempted to crawl into a doorway and take a nap, hoping that things would look brighter in the light of day. was the right thing, but I'd just screwed myself up. Depressed by the wretchedness of my current situation, I was sorely tempted to crawl into a doorway and take a nap, hoping that things would look brighter in the light of day.

Brighter, but not better, I thought uncharitably. I thought uncharitably.

I checked the empty doorways as I pa.s.sed them, looking to see if any of them would be appropriate for sleeping in, but then something caught my eye and I instantly changed my intentions.

At first, I thought it was only a shadow, but when I turned my full attention on the image, it refocused into something more tangible. My heart stopped for the span of two heartbeats-I know this because I counted-and then everything slid into slow motion. The air around me grew heavy with promise, my brain electrified by what it was processing. Then the world clicked back into normal speed and I was jogging toward the shade, fighting back tears as I ran.

"Jarvis!?" I screamed, my eyes locked on the pet.i.te shade barreling ahead of me like a nor'easter. I knew in a way that I couldn't give voice to, that this was Jarvis . . . or at least some incarnation of him. I screamed, my eyes locked on the pet.i.te shade barreling ahead of me like a nor'easter. I knew in a way that I couldn't give voice to, that this was Jarvis . . . or at least some incarnation of him.

"Jarvis! Wait for me!" I called, a st.i.tch forming in my side as I raced to keep up with him.

I was having trouble navigating the uneven boards of the wooden boardwalk as I scampered after the shade, but it still came as a surprise when my toe caught in a gap and I pitched forward, my arms pinwheeling uselessly as I went down, my knees taking the brunt of the fall. I slammed into the decking so hard I cried out in pain, but ignoring my bruised knees, I used the boardwalk's guardrail to hoist myself back onto my feet. My lungs heaving, I searched for Jarvis's shade, but it was no use.

I've lost him.

"Jarvis?" I took a few hesitant steps, but there was no response. I was alone again on the boardwalk, not a soul in sight, not even on the paved pathway that led away from the sea and into the heart of the residential area.

"d.a.m.n," I said, slamming my fist into my upper thigh in frustration.

It was easy to fall back on old habits. I could've sat down on the wooden treads and thrown myself a high-end pity party, tears would've flown, I would've rued the day I was born, yada, yada, yada . . . and I would've been about as effectual as a hangnail.

Instead, I closed my eyes and counted to ten in my head. With each number, I found myself relaxing as the tension and bad vibes left my body. I opened my eyes and looked around, noting that the sun was just starting to peak over the horizon, shooting streaks of orangey-yellow light into the faded gray-blue patchwork sky. The path I stood on led directly to a normal suburban street, tiny cottages bordering the sidewalk like overgrown white, gray, green, and blue wood-washed flowers. I noticed that the porch lights had begun to melt into the morning light, leaving only tiny halos of illumination around each lightbulb, but that the few cars parked higgledy-piggledy in driveways and on the street itself were still as silent as giant, sleeping beasts.

"Okay," I said. "What happens next?"

And that's when I noticed that the paved walkway beside the boardwalk forked into two separate paths. The first path fed away from the boardwalk and into the suburban sprawl, where it dead-ended at the street. The other, more oddly shaped path-it resembled the curling body of a coiled snake-turned away from the sleeping population of the island, its final destination a wrought iron spiral staircase that led upward into the sky.

I held my breath, my body frozen in place as I realized I'd arrived at my destination. Jarvis-or whatever I'd been chasing-had led me right to the very place I'd been seeking since I'd crawled out of the freezing water earlier that morning: This was the entrance to a New York City Subway station.

"Thank you, Jarvis," I whispered, hoping that wherever he was, he could hear me. It was strange, but I had the funny feeling I hadn't seen the last of the faun; that not even Death would be powerful enough to keep him out of my life.

A shock of cold air hit me in the face as I stepped onto the first stair, making me shiver involuntarily. The black wrought iron railing was cold to the touch-further chilling my body-and I felt the whole structure tremble under my weight as I climbed the next couple of steps. The stairway had been constructed in pieces, each stair connected to its brother by a series of thin iron joists, giving it the appearance of a dis...o...b..bulated black skeleton rising up into the air.

I felt the p.r.i.c.kle of eyes, the stare of a stranger drilling a hole into the back of my head, and I picked up speed, my feet pounding against the rickety stairway as I pulled myself up the last few steps. I heaved a sigh of relief as the stairway opened out onto the subway station, but my relief was short-lived when I found my way to the platform obstructed by a gleaming silver, full-height turnstile. If it had been one of the normal turnstiles you usually see in a subway station, I could've just jumped over it, fare be d.a.m.ned, but this revolving-door style of turnstile made that impossible.

"s.h.i.t," I mumbled, reaching into my pockets but coming up empty-I was wet, bedraggled . . . and without a cent to my name.

I felt my hackles rise as the sense of being watched intensified. I looked both ways, hoping to find a manned ticket booth as I scanned the s.p.a.ce, but there was nothing. Only one primary yellow MetroCard machine to my left, which was useless to me without cash or a credit card. Right now, I was alone on the wrong side of the station, but I had the impression this wouldn't last for very long. Something, or someone, was stalking me, waiting for just the right moment to slip out of the shadows and attack.

"And just where do you think you're going, dollface?"

I whirled around at the sound of the Ender of Death's voice. The tips of my fingers went numb and my whole body began to shake. I didn't know if it was fear or all-consuming rage that was making my body react so intensely.

The Ender of Death was the last creature I'd expected to find leering at me from the other side of the turnstile in this subway station to nowhere, but I shouldn't have been surprised. He'd murdered my dad and Jarvis to fulfill the dogma of his appellation-so adding another name to his kill list wasn't really a big deal. But I sensed there was more to it than that.

He looked just like any normal human being to anyone who saw him walking down the street, all fluffy hair and patrician features, but it was only a mask. I could see the raw obsession in his eyes as he stared at me from the other side of the turnstile. The years spent trapped in h.e.l.l at my dad's discretion had gnawed away whatever humanity he'd originally possessed, leaving only compulsive hatred behind, whittled like a sharpened stick ready to destroy whatever lay in its path.

"I'm going to Heaven," I spat at him. "Bite me."

The blood pounded in my temples. My vision tunneled into a pinhole: with Marcel's face as the bull's-eye. If I'd had the capability to destroy him, I would've done it right then.

Believe me when I say I tried.

"Die, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" I screamed. Of course, nothing happened, and Marcel laughed loudly at my pathetic attempt to get rid of him. I screamed. Of course, nothing happened, and Marcel laughed loudly at my pathetic attempt to get rid of him.

"I won't go that easily," he said, his long fingers grasping the bars on the other side of the turnstile. "Besides, when my time here is over, there'll be another and another and another of me after that to take my place."

"Whoopee," I said dryly. "Isn't that just peachy keen for you, then."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I told you that you should've given yourself up back at your office," he replied. "Then maybe all of this could've been avoided."

"Bulls.h.i.t. You'd already killed my dad before that."

Marcel shrugged.

"Yes, you're right about that. Your father deserved to be dispatched from this existence. He had no right to do what he did to me . . . But your friend, Jarvis, well, that one was all you, Calliope. We needed to stop the flow of information in order to keep you in the dark."

I swallowed hard, my throat dry as a bone as the weight of his words slammed into me. There was no way of knowing if he was telling the truth or not, but it didn't matter. He'd hit a nerve, and all the pent-up guilt I was harboring broke through. It was all I could do to gulp back a sob. I may not have hurt Jarvis with my own hands, but I was just as responsible for his death as the Ender of Death was.

"What do you want from me?" I asked, my hands shaking.

Marcel smiled like a crazed saint bound on a pyre, his face lit from within by his own madness.

"I just want what I want from every Death I meet," he murmured, his voice low and malevolent.

"I just want you to die."

nineteen.

Way back at the beginning of time as we know it, G.o.d created the Heavens and the Earth and things were good. All the angels and demons (demons didn't get a bad rap until way later in the future) lived happily together, enjoying their immortal existence by spending their days creating beautiful works of art, singing, dancing, and just having a grand old time. The angels were the good stewards of Heaven, and the demons, who were in charge of the day-to-day running of the place, kept everything in perfect working order. Everyone, regardless of their place in Heaven's hierarchy, was grateful to G.o.d for creating them, and they paid their creator homage in their works of art, their music, and their poetry. There were no conflicts, no aggression, no bad vibes; Heaven was a splendid place to live.

Now back then, h.e.l.l was just a suburb of Heaven-a quiet place with beautiful gardens and an overabundance of fruit and veggies that was used for recreational purposes only. The denizens of Heaven loved to take day trips there to frolic in the gardens, eat the fruit and veggies, and just, you know, chill. It was a nice place to visit, but no one wanted to live there full-time because it was in another dimension of time/s.p.a.ce and kind of far from all the hubbub of Heaven.

But then one day, totally out of the blue, G.o.d decided to do something nuts. He/she proclaimed from on high that he/ she was going get rid of the original inhabitants of Earth-the dinosaurs-and in their place he/she was going to people the Earth with these weird little furry creatures called h.o.m.o sapiens h.o.m.o sapiens. When G.o.d showed the first h.o.m.o sapiens h.o.m.o sapiens prototype (he/she called the very apelike creature "Adam") to the a.s.semblage up in Heaven, everyone was aghast. They couldn't understand why G.o.d would want to get rid of the lizards-which were always a gas to watch because they attacked and ate each other in spades-and replace them with those weird furry beings. prototype (he/she called the very apelike creature "Adam") to the a.s.semblage up in Heaven, everyone was aghast. They couldn't understand why G.o.d would want to get rid of the lizards-which were always a gas to watch because they attacked and ate each other in spades-and replace them with those weird furry beings.

G.o.d didn't like being second-guessed, especially when it came to the h.o.m.o sapiens h.o.m.o sapiens-or "human beings," as G.o.d had nicknamed his/her newest creations-and he/she got very mad. He/she decreed that anyone who said anything bad about the human beings would be stricken from the Record of Heaven and unceremoniously tossed out into h.e.l.l, where they could spend their immortal eternity weeding vegetable beds and watering plants. It seemed that G.o.d had chosen to lavish all his/ her love and affection on these new human beings, totally forsaking the angels and demons he/she had created first. The demons especially felt G.o.d's cold shoulder. They had less magical ability than the angels, which put them closer in origin to the human beings, so it was particularly hard for them to accept a new hierarchy where they were placed at the very bottom of the pecking order.

The majority of the angels accepted this new kink in the system, but a large chunk of the population-mostly demons, but a few angels, too-didn't like how hot and bothered G.o.d had gotten over the ape-men, so they decided to confront G.o.d directly with their displeasure. They selected a spokesman from among their number-an angel called Lucifer, who had immaculate oratorical skills-and they descended on G.o.d, en ma.s.se. Needless to say, G.o.d had not made an empty threat. Upon their arrival, the protesters were counted and tagged, and then their names were duly stricken from the Record of Heaven and they were banished to h.e.l.l-all without getting a word in edgewise.

As you can imagine, this was a real blow to Lucifer and the others, who'd just wanted to speak their piece. It twisted them, made them full of rage against the G.o.d who'd given them a taste of Heaven and then thrown them into the eternal d.a.m.nation of h.e.l.l. They swore that though they might have to live under G.o.d's rule, they would not like it. In fact, they would do everything in their power to undermine G.o.d and make the furry little human beings who had caused their downfall suffer as they had suffered. Lucifer was elected to lead the fallen of h.e.l.l, choosing "Devil" as his kingly name. Under his reign, the once-bountiful gardens were transformed into a desert wasteland, and a huge, enchanted forest was erected around the interior of h.e.l.l to mirror the darkness and hatred that consumed its people.

And if that wasn't enough to punish the minions of h.e.l.l, G.o.d did something even worse: he/she made h.e.l.l, the newly anointed land of wastrels and misanthropes, into a staging ground for the human Afterlife. Now the creatures of h.e.l.l would be responsible for meting out punishment to the naughtiest of the human beings from Earth before their souls were then recycled back into the human populace. On principle, the citizens of h.e.l.l refused the job. They didn't want anything to do with the stinky fur b.a.l.l.s G.o.d had chosen over them, but since he/she was the all-powerful Creator, in the end they were forced to do his/her bidding, whether they liked it or not.

To add insult to injury, G.o.d created the office of Death to oversee the transmigration of the human souls-and to keep the balance between the good of Heaven and the evil of h.e.l.l, something that infuriated the Devil and his minions to no end. It drove them crazy to think that one of G.o.d's h.o.m.o sapiens h.o.m.o sapiens might have any kind of power over them-and they definitely didn't need some immortalized human being reporting back to G.o.d about their comings and goings. So in secret, the Devil and his closest companions used their magic to create the Ender of Death, a soulless wraith sheathed in the body of an unsuspecting human being, whose job it was to find and destroy any and all incarnations of Death. might have any kind of power over them-and they definitely didn't need some immortalized human being reporting back to G.o.d about their comings and goings. So in secret, the Devil and his closest companions used their magic to create the Ender of Death, a soulless wraith sheathed in the body of an unsuspecting human being, whose job it was to find and destroy any and all incarnations of Death.

The Devil was pleased with his creation, but he did think that it was too little, too late. So as the first of the human souls invaded h.e.l.l for punishment and processing, the Devil swore that one day h.e.l.l would have its b.l.o.o.d.y revenge on G.o.d and his/her cherished human beings.

as i stood alone on an empty subway platform in Queens, my way to Heaven blocked by a revolving, full-height turnstile and the Ender of Death, I realized that the Devil's revenge had finally begun. alone on an empty subway platform in Queens, my way to Heaven blocked by a revolving, full-height turnstile and the Ender of Death, I realized that the Devil's revenge had finally begun.

And I was the only person who could put a stop to it.

the sun had risen by now, and even though the subway platform itself was covered by a metal sh.e.l.l, streaks of sunlight had started to filter in around its edges. risen by now, and even though the subway platform itself was covered by a metal sh.e.l.l, streaks of sunlight had started to filter in around its edges.

"So, what's the point of you getting rid of me," I asked, "if another Death is just going to rise up and take my place?"

The Ender of Death, or Marcel, as he had once asked me to call him, grinned at me.

"I will take great pleasure in destroying the child of the Death who hid me away in the deserts of h.e.l.l for over twenty years," he purred, his voice echoing in the empty platform.

"Okay, I get that," I said. "But what then? If the Devil and my sister have their way and they control Death . . . what's that do to your job description? You really think they're gonna put a stop to Death entirely? Imagine the backlog of souls that would create."

Silence.

"Fine," I mumbled. "Don't answer my question. I don't care. Once I get over onto that side of the platform, I'm gonna kick your a.s.s six ways to Sunday anyway, so I don't give a s.h.i.t."

Marcel laughed. "You do have a certain way with words, Calliope."

I shrugged. "Just a G.o.d-given talent, I suppose."

Just then I heard the clattering of human feet on the stairs behind me. A man in a blue business suit, briefcase held protectively under his arm, emerged from the stairwell. He paused midstride when he saw us, but then he put his head down and picked up his pace, ignoring us as he walked over to the turnstile, a golden MetroCard in his extended hand.

"Excuse me?" I called to the man. He paused again, this time with the MetroCard at the lip of the turnstile card reader.

"Look, I know you don't know me," I began, "but I really need to get on the other side of this turnstile."

The man didn't look up as I spoke, just stood there uncertainly.

"Normally, I wouldn't ask you to help me, but the fate of the world as we know it is at stake and I'm totally broke. Please, will you let me go through on your card?"

I waited expectantly for the guy to respond, but he just rammed his MetroCard through the reader and pushed through the turnstile as if he hadn't heard a word I'd just said.

Marcel found the whole exchange hysterical.

"The human beings are a selfish bunch."

"Oh, shut up," I shot back, watching the man with the briefcase move as far down the platform-and away from us-as possible. I'd probably totally freaked him out with my apocalyptical ravings, and now he was just gonna pretend like our conversation had never happened.

Ah, denial, what a wonderful place to live, I thought. I thought.

"I told you that there were greater forces at work here," Marcel said suddenly. "You should've listened to me when you had the chance. Of course, I told all of them that you would never do their bidding. That you were too stupid to see the advantages one side or the other could afford you."

I walked over to the turnstile and put my face up to the bars.

"I'm not scared of you, Marcel. Besides," I continued, "I'm not Death yet. The job is being split between Daniel and me until one of us drinks from the Cup of Jamshid."

Marcel stepped up to the other side of the turnstile, his face separated from mine by mere inches . . . and a few metal bars.

"You think that will stop me from ending your pathetic existence? You think because you aren't Death in its entirety that it will keep me from snuffing you out like I did your father?"

I glared at him.

"Like I said. When I get on the other side of that turnstile, I'm gonna make you wish you'd never been created."

Marcel just shook his head.

"And what's stopping me from coming over there to your side, Calliope? Hmmm?"

"I don't know," I said, goading him on. "But I think it's'cause you're just a big, old, fat coward."

"I'll show you what a coward is . . ."

Marcel pushed his way through the turnstile, but I was ready for him and and I had the advantage because he was coming after me, not the other way around. As soon as he hit my side, I grabbed him by the forearms and yanked him out of the turnstile. I held on tight, my hands like meat hooks digging into his flesh, and I began to swing him around and around in a dizzying circle, using my body as the fulcrum point. I spun him as fast as I could, my feet doing a modified two-step as I gathered momentum. I had the advantage because he was coming after me, not the other way around. As soon as he hit my side, I grabbed him by the forearms and yanked him out of the turnstile. I held on tight, my hands like meat hooks digging into his flesh, and I began to swing him around and around in a dizzying circle, using my body as the fulcrum point. I spun him as fast as I could, my feet doing a modified two-step as I gathered momentum.

"Gonna kick your a.s.s!" I screamed. The words ripped out of my mouth as we spun with more and more abandon. I could see the uncertainty on Marcel's face. The Ender of Death couldn't quite get a handle on what I was doing. He probably thought I was out of options and that this was some kind of Hail Mary pa.s.s I was trying in my desperation. I screamed. The words ripped out of my mouth as we spun with more and more abandon. I could see the uncertainty on Marcel's face. The Ender of Death couldn't quite get a handle on what I was doing. He probably thought I was out of options and that this was some kind of Hail Mary pa.s.s I was trying in my desperation.

I abruptly released my grip and he went sailing into the white subway-tiled wall, slamming into it with enough force to crack the tile into jagged little pieces that clattered to the floor around him.

He was immediately back on his feet, hands balled into fists at his sides, a new gash on his other cheekbone-to match the one my dad had given him-where he'd hit the wall. He glared at me, his eyes full of fury.

"You b.i.t.c.h," he growled, his face frozen into a rictus of rage.

"Come and get me, a.s.shole," I spat back at him.

He took me at my word. Using his hands to push himself off the wall, he snarled as he raced toward me, his teeth bared in a frightening grimace. I threw my arms over my head, covering my face as if I were seeking protection from his attack-which only made Marcel believe he had the upper hand. Lucky for me, his ego was too big to ever consider I might be faking it. Taking the bait, he barreled toward me with enough forward motion to knock out an NFL linebacker, but I waited until he was just past the failsafe point and then I slid to my left, stepping out of his way and allowing him to crash headfirst into the revolving turnstile with a horrific gristle-and-bone-shattering crunch crunch.

Dazed, he crumpled to the ground, blood from his broken nose pooling around him. He didn't stay down for long, though. Like a half-beaten boxer who's about one minute from a knockout but doesn't realize it yet, he slammed one fist into the ground and used it to leverage himself into a sitting position. I caught a peek at the other side of his face and saw that the skin above his eyebrow had split in two. Blood, like a string of black pearls, beaded in the tear.