Underworld

by Meg Cabot

  “I know,” I said softly, dropping my gaze to look down at our joined fingers. We’d each kept a hand on Alex. “I know you did.”

  “I don’t want to lose you again,” he said fiercely. “I lost you once and I couldn’t bear it. I won’t go through that again. I … I know I did the wrong thing. But it didn’t feel wrong at the time.”

  I raised my gaze to his. “You’re right about that, at least,” I said.

  “So am I forgiven?” he asked.

  I hesitated, confused by the myriad of emotions I was feeling. John had known. He’d known the whole time we had been together the night before that he was forever sealing my destiny to his.

  Of course, he’d thought I’d known, too. He’d asked if I was sure it was what I wanted, despite the consequences. I might have misunderstood what those consequences were, but I’d been very adamant in my response. I’d said yes. And I’d meant it.

  “Excuse me,” called Frank’s voice from the opposite wall of vaults. “But you might want to take a look at the boy.”

  John and I both glanced down. Beneath the hands we’d left on Alex, he’d come back to life.

  It was impossible.

  “Hey,” Alex murmured. His eyelids had begun to flutter. He raised a hand to fight some unseen enemy. “Get off me. I said, get off.”

  “No,” I breathed, quickly removing my hand. “No.” I lifted my astonished gaze to John’s. “Did you do this?”

  The eyes he raised to meet mine were every bit as incredulous. “I didn’t. I didn’t mean to, anyway.”

  John did not look happy. Anything but. His thick dark eyebrows slanted into a V as he stared down at Alex, who murmured “Stop that!” before fully opening his eyes.

  “Oh, Pierce,” he said, recognizing me. “I had the worst dream. What … what happened?”

  “You’re an idiot,” Frank strolled up to inform him. “And someone killed you for it. That’s what happened.”

  “Frank,” John said, irritated. He looked back down at Alex. “How do you feel? Do you think you can walk?”

  I wondered why John was asking about this, until I heard it … the sound of a siren in the distance. The ambulance I’d made him call was on its way. Of course we didn’t need it anymore.

  I wondered how the vehicle was going to get in to the cemetery, when both gates were locked. The EMTs didn’t have a key.

  Unless Mike was coming back to let his friends out …

  “I … I don’t know,” Alex said. “I feel strange.” He looked off into the distance. “Is that the sunrise?” he asked. “Or the sunset?”

  Frank glanced where he was looking. “Sunrise,” he said.

  “It’s beautiful,” Alex said, in a wondering voice. “So red.”

  I was surprised. Alex had never been prone to comment on the beauty of things like sunrises before. Maybe dying had given him a new appreciation for life.

  Of course it had, I realized. He was an NDE now, just like me.

  “Nothing beautiful about that sky,” Frank said, with a snort. “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailor, take warning. That means there’s a storm coming, boy. A much bigger one than what you’ve just been through.”

  John shot Frank an exasperated look. Alex, meanwhile, had glanced at the casket lying next to him, the lid open. Things seemed slowly to be coming back to him, judging by his expression. “Oh, God,” he choked.

  “Alex.” I reached out and took his hand, my heart aching with pity for him … and for Uncle Chris. Neither of them had any idea what they were in for. “I know what you’ve just been through must have been horrible. I tried to come as soon as I realized. But —”

  “It was them, Pierce,” Alex said. He lifted his dark eyes, and I saw they weren’t pain-filled at all. They were burning with rage … and a desire for what I could only guess was revenge. “I knew it. I went back out and followed them. They came here. Guess why?”

  “Alex,” I said. Now I didn’t feel pity. “None of that matters anymore. I have to tell you something important.” Because I realized he didn’t know. He didn’t understand what had happened to him, or remember —

  “No, it does matter,” Alex said fiercely, rising to his elbows. “Seth and those guys, they act like they own this island. But guess what? We have them right where we want them now. I snuck out and followed them, and I saw where they’re keeping their stash these days. In here.” He pointed at the casket.

  “But …” I blinked. “It’s empty.”

  “Yeah, now it is,” Alex said, exasperated. “’cause when they caught me spying on them, they took it out, and stuffed me in there instead. But isn’t it genius? No one comes in this cemetery, ’cause it’s supposed to be haunted or something, so there are no security cameras, no lights, nothing. I bet this is why Jade got killed. She saw them sneaking around in here, so they snuffed her.”

  I realized Alex might be right.

  “They think they shut me up, stuffing me in there,” Alex said, sitting up. He wasn’t listening to me. “Well, guess who has the upper hand now? They’re gonna freak! They think I’m dead.” He laughed. “We’ll show them.”

  “Uh, Alex,” I said, glancing at John. His mouth had pressed into a line so tight, his lips had practically disappeared. “I have to tell you something —”

  I was interrupted by the sound of a woman’s sob. Everyone looked at me.

  Although I certainly felt like crying, I wasn’t sobbing. I turned my head, and was shocked to see Kayla sitting by the fire pit, tears streaming down her face. She hadn’t even changed out of her Coffin Fest finery, though she’d lost a rhinestone from the corner of one of her eyes, and her cape was missing.

  “I … I’m sorry,” she said, holding a hand towards us, palm out. “It’s just … someone had better tell him the truth.”

  John whipped his head around to stare daggers at Frank. “What is she doing here?” he demanded, under his breath.

  “I don’t know,” Frank muttered, as he hurried to Kayla’s side. “Kayla, how long have been here, honey?”

  “Long enough to have figured out exactly what’s going on with you people,” she said, loudly.

  “Kayla.” I rose to my feet. The siren sounded quite close now.

  She ignored me, snatching her arm from Frank’s grasp when he attempted to take it, saying, “Let me explain.”

  “I don’t need your explanations,” Kayla said, her chest rising and falling dramatically in the early morning light. “I thought there was something weird with all of you, I just couldn’t figure out what it was. But now I know. It all makes sense.” Her dark, tear-filled eyes sparkled as her accusatory gaze traveled from one of us to the other. “I can tell you battle on the side of good, and I want to join you.” She turned to Frank, brushed her curly hair away from her throat, and closed her eyes. “Go ahead. Do it.”

  There was a long silence as everyone stared at Kayla’s shapely neck. Then Frank looked helplessly at John.

  “It’s no use,” he said. “We have to take her with us. She knows everything.”

  “No,” John said. Now the thunder was directly overhead, so loud it drowned out even the sound of the siren.

  “Kayla,” I said, walking over to her and giving her shoulders a shake. “No one’s going to bite you.”

  She opened her eyes, looking confused. “Then what … how did you bring Alex back from the dead like that? How did John kick in that gate? How did John bring Frank back to life? What are the Rectors hiding in caskets? What have you guys been talking about?”

  I realized Frank was right. She really did know everything. Or almost everything.

  “Jesus Christ,” Alex said, his eyes round and suddenly frightened looking. “What’s she saying? Is she on something? Because I haven’t come back from the dead. I almost died, but I didn’t. Not like Pierce.”

  I threw him a pitying look. He clearly hadn’t seen a light.

  “She’ll talk, and they’ll kill her,” Frank said t
o John. “They already killed him.” He gestured at Alex. “What makes you think they won’t do the same to her?”

  Alex looked even more alarmed. “Why do people keep saying I’m dead? I’m not dead.”

  John stormed up to Frank and hissed, “It’s the realm of the dead, not a safe house for girls in trouble.”

  “Why not?” Frank asked, not batting an eye. “That’s what you’re using it for … Captain.”

  I widened my eyes. I half expected John to hit him. The old John would have.

  But though I saw John’s fingers curl into fists, he didn’t lift them. He took a deep, measured breath.

  This wasn’t the old, wild John. This was the new John … still full of unpredictable behavior, but more thought-out behavior than before I’d joined him in the Underworld.

  I walked over to him and whispered, slipping a hand around his arm, “Frank’s right. We can’t just leave her here. They killed Jade, and now Alex. Maybe she could stay a little while. Only until things settle down.” I slid a nervous glance at Frank. “We can try to keep them in separate parts of the castle.”

  John swiveled his head towards me, his gaze a mix of incredulity and skepticism. “And how, precisely, are we going to do that?” he asked.

  “The same way we brought Alex back to life,” I said. “And that we got rid of that Fury. And that we’re going to get rid of the rest of them. And the Rectors, too, eventually.” I raised my necklace, showing him the diamond. “Teamwork.”

  His jaw muscles tightened. “Pierce,” he said, lifting his gaze to mine. “It’s —”

  Black. That’s how he would have finished that sentence. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with everything going on, I would have looked down and noticed myself, or seen that Hope had taken off, and was flying in high, tight circles above us, letting out cries of alarm, frightened to death of something.

  It was too late, though. By the time we realized the danger, it was already at the door.

  The familiar voice crackled so loudly, I ducked, thinking it was coming from somewhere close by. So did John, at first. He threw a protective arm around my shoulders.

  “Pierce Oliviera,” Police Chief Santos called out. “We know you’re in there. You’re trespassing on private property. Please come out now, and you and your companions won’t be hurt.”

  John was the first to figure it out.

  “Megaphone,” he said, straightening. “They must be right outside.”

  Frank ran to look, flattening himself against the wall of entombed Rector ancestors. He nodded, then slunk quickly back towards us.

  “Police,” he said. “Pulled their cars right into the graveyard.” He lowered his voice so Kayla and Alex couldn’t overhear. “They appear to be extremely well armed.”

  I realized the siren we’d heard hadn’t been an ambulance at all.

  “It’s my fault,” I murmured. “They traced that 9-1-1 call. I can’t believe it. I’m so stupid.”

  John’s arm tightened reassuringly. “It’s not your fault,” he said, pointing. “Look.”

  I looked where he indicated. I hadn’t noticed before, but in each of the four corners of the open area where the fire pit was located were security cameras. They were pointed right at us. They’d been filming our every move.

  “Again,” Police Chief Santos’s voice boomed, “you are trespassing on private property. I’m counting down from five. If you do not come out by the time I’ve reached one, we will use force to remove you. Five —”

  Kayla’s eyes were wide and frightened as she moved closer to me. “That’s the chief of police,” she said worriedly. “Remember, from the convocation? I’d know his voice anywhere.”

  John laid his other hand on Kayla’s arm, as if to comfort her. Frank took her hand.

  It was in that moment that I knew that John had made his decision … or that he’d realized the Furies had made it for him. There was no going back.

  The rhyme Frank had said earlier popped into my head. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailor, take warning.

  The sky in the east, I noticed, had turned bloodred.

  Kayla looked down at Frank’s hand, confused. “Wait,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  “Four,” the police chief boomed into the megaphone.

  “Rector is going to press charges for defacing his property,” Alex said, climbing to his feet. “I know it. No one’s going to believe anything I say, because of who my dad is.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said, following John’s lead, and taking his hand.

  “I’m not going to jail for what those guys did to me,” Alex declared.

  “Three.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You won’t have to.”

  “Wait.” Alex looked at me bewilderedly. “How do you know?”

  “Two.”

  I looked up at John. He looked down at me, then tightened his hold on my shoulders.

  “Forgiven?” he asked, his gray eyes glowing.

  I smiled. “We’ll see,” I said.

  “One.”

  Blink.

  Death has her in his clutches. She doesn’t want him to let go.

  Seventeen-year-old Pierce Oliviera knew by accepting the love of John Hayden, she’d be forced to live forever in the one place she’s always dreaded most: the Underworld.

  The sacrifice seemed worth it, though, because it meant she could be with the boy she loves.

  But now her happiness — and safety — in the realm over which John rules are threatened, all because the Furies have discovered that John has broken one of their strictest rules: He revived a human soul.

  Now, if the balance between life and death isn’t restored, both the Underworld and Pierce’s home back on earth will be wiped away by the Furies’ wrath … and not even a necklace forged by an ancient god can stop them. This time, the Furies are out for blood — and they’d prefer John’s, if they can get it.

  But if all they want is a life for a life, Pierce is willing to volunteer her own. John won’t hear of it, but Pierce has already cheated death once before. What’s she got to lose?

  Except her life … and, if she fails, the thing she loves more than anything else in this world, or the next:

  John.

  BOOKS BY MEG CABOT

  Abandon

  Underworld

  Airhead

  Being Nikki

  Runaway

  Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls series

  The Princess Diaries series

  The Mediator series

  Vanished series

  Avalon High series

  All-American Girl

  Ready or Not

  Teen Idol

  How to Be Popular

  Pants on Fire

  Jinx

  Nicola and the Viscount

  Victoria and the Rogue

  Insatiable

  Overbite

  Heather Wells series

  Queen of Babble series

  The Boy Book series

  Copyright © 2012 by Meg Cabot, LLC

  All rights reserved. Published by Point, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, POINT, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

  First edition, June 2012

  Jacket photograph by Michael Frost © 2011 Scholastic Inc.

  Jacket design by Elizabeth B. Parisi

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-41507-1

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Perm
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