by Amber Benson
“We can’t go through with this,” I said to Daniel, still waving the mace in Evangeline’s face. She took the hint and stood up. “I don’t want to fight you and you don’t want to fight me. We’re not fighters. We’re . . . I don’t know, lovers or partners or whatever.”
I paused, not sure where I was going with my little speech.
“I just—”
But I didn’t get a chance to finish my thought because Evangeline took the opportunity to shove me as hard as she could, knocking me sideways as she pushed past me and sprinted across the pavilion. Luckily Daniel was able to catch me before I hit the ground, but Evangeline had managed her escape beautifully. When she was far enough away from us to feel safe, she turned back around, her bald pate glistening like a sunburst, and shook her fist at me.
“Get them!” she screamed, gesturing wildly, her face beet red as she glared back at us. I didn’t know whom she was talking to, but my ignorance was soon remedied by the arrival of a troop of Bugbears who magically materialized beside her.
Under normal circumstances, I would’ve been glad to see the hulking security guards from Hell, but these Bugbears were under Evangeline’s command, and from the determined look in their brown eyes, they meant business. With their reptilian, prehensile tails, four sets of eyes (two of which were situated on either side of their heads), and humanoid-looking—but backward-bending—legs, they were monsters in the most standard definition of the word. Yet if you took a second glance (after you were done freaking out), you would see that they actually possessed very cute velveteen noses, plush teddy bear ears, and kindly brown eyes that flashed with a violet sheen in the sunlight.
As they descended on us, I realized what an idiot I had been: The flashes of violet light I’d seen in the darkness had belonged to them.
“They don’t look very happy to see us,” Daniel murmured under his breath.
“You were the Devil’s protégé once upon a time,” I said back at him, thrusting my mace forward and assuming what I hoped was a threatening stance. “Won’t they listen to you?”
Daniel only grimaced.
“This is exactly why I wanted to go to Heaven, Callie. These guys have families down in Hell, and I’m sure your sister and the Devil are using that fact to make the Bugbears do their bidding.”
“I’m sorry,” I said meekly.
“It’s my fault, Cal,” he said, trying to take the sting out of his last comment. “I could’ve gone on my own at any point. It was my call.”
I still felt horrible—and exceedingly guilty. Daniel wasn’t just a do-gooder trying to get an audience with God to stroke his own ego. He’d had very specific reasons why it was imperative to help the denizens of Hell—like keeping the Bugbears out of Thalia’s hands—and I’d done nothing but act like a selfish ass at every turn, making things impossible for him. Once again, I’d been acting like everything revolved around me, and there was no excuse for it. As God was my witness (literally), I was going to go to Heaven and make things right.
“Look, you were right,” I said, grabbing Daniel’s gloved hand. “We should’ve gone to Heaven weeks ago when you wanted to—”
“Callie,” Daniel said, interrupting me, but I shook my head.
“No, listen to me. I was an ass and I’m really sorry—”
Daniel nodded.
“But I really think we should cut our losses and make a run for it. We can go to Heaven right now and get help . . .”
I trailed off. I could see Daniel’s eyes behind the faceplate of his helmet, and what I saw in them made my heart break into a million little pieces of pulpy pink muscle.
“I can’t go with you, Cal,” he said sadly.
“Why not?” I pleaded.
“Because someone has to deal with the Bugbears and Evangeline so you can get out of here . . .”
As we’d been talking, Evangeline had goaded the Bugbears forward with an insistent snarl. I knew I was supposed to do something, to make some kind of calculated offense so we could both escape the quickly escalating situation, but my mind was not built for military strategy. And the Bugbears weren’t your run-of-the-mill enemy. You couldn’t just fell them with traditional weapons.
“Daniel, we could just wish them dead—” I started to say, but he shook his head aggressively.
“No, that’s not how we play this, Cal,” he said. “You and I aren’t the Devil and your sister. We don’t kill indiscriminately.”
“Because we’re the good guys,” I said, nodding.
“Exactly,” he said, his eyes smiling at me. “Now whatever happens, just run as fast as you can.”
Then, before I understood what was happening, Daniel had shoved me backward and I was flying. The mace dropped from between my fingers as I sailed through the air. I felt untethered, like I was floating outside of my body, watching the situation from above as everything took on a bizarre surreality. Airborne, my body was propelled in a graceless arc toward the phalanx of Bugbears, the power of Daniel’s push hurtling me through their unsuspecting ranks like a bowling ball taking out a row of tenpins—which was kind of cool until the weight of my armor dragged me back to earth. I landed hard on my side, my helmeted head smacking into the marble floor of the pavilion with a gut-churning crunch. I couldn’t catch my breath, I couldn’t think; the impact had knocked the air out of my lungs and the sense out of my head. Behind my helmet, my head pounded with the beginnings of a violence-induced headache.
“Run, Callie!” Daniel screamed as he raised his sword from his hip, pointing it at one of the Bugbears.
Daniel was once again sacrificing himself in order to save me—and if I didn’t get my ass out of Atlantis pronto, it was all going to be for nothing. I drew a ragged breath and rolled away from the shining daylight of Atlantis, rattling like a tin can as I went, until I felt the cooler, damper New York night waiting at my back.
I picked myself up and took off, the heavy armor slowing me down and making it harder to run. As I stepped out of Atlantis and back into reality—or what I hoped was reality—I judged the line of the sea to be only a few yards away. Headache thrumming in time with my carotid artery, I forced myself forward, hoping when I hit the water the armor would magically disappear—or else I’d sink down to the bottom of the sea like a stone and wouldn’t be able to help anyone. Behind me, I heard the whoosh of Daniel’s sword and I could only hope he was holding his own. Since he was the Devil and Thalia’s champion, I didn’t think Evangeline would allow the Bugbears to hurt him, but still I prayed he’d be able to escape.
Almost there, I thought, relief flooding my body. I was so close to the water’s edge now that I could taste the salt in the air. I reached out, using every ounce of energy I possessed to drive myself toward the sea—and freedom—but before I could make good my escape, my body was engulfed in a searing violet light so hot I thought my skin was going to melt off right there on the beach. Shock at the pain I was feeling echoed through my body and I pitched forward, my knees jackhammering into the ground with enough force to crack my jaw together, embedding my teeth into the meaty pulp of my tongue. Blood pooled in my mouth, salty and viscous like molasses, but I was already in so much pain, it barely registered.
The pain gradually lessened as I lay there panting in the sand, but now I found myself trapped like a bug in amber, the violet light pinning me into place where I lay. I had hoped that the armor would afford me some protection from the Bugbears’ wrath, but as soon as the violet light had tractor-beamed me, the armor had disappeared as unobtrusively as it had come.
Great. Just great, I thought as I found myself back in my ratty old clothes.
As much as I’d disliked being encased in a golden exoskeleton, not having the armor for protection left me extremely vulnerable. Panicked, my hands shot out of their own accord, fingers clawing the wet dirt and sand as I tried to breach the last few remaining inches that separated me from the cool seawater. Yet no matter what I did, the violet light prevented me from reaching my goal.<
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I heard Daniel scream in agony somewhere behind me, and another wave of violet light shot through the air, joining the first one and pinning me even more firmly to the ground. The pain was once again ratcheted up to the highest level, and dark splotches appeared in my peripheral vision, condensing my vision down to a tiny pinprick, then blinding me entirely, my singed eyeballs broiling away inside my eye sockets like eyeball filet mignon. I screamed, my lungs exploding as fire coursed through every cell of my body, cooking me from the inside out. My brain was having trouble cognizing, but with what little clarity I had left, my mind begged me to escape.
Then, as abruptly as the pain had begun, it stopped. I let out a ragged breath and opened my eyelids. I expected my eyeballs to gush out into a puddle in the sand, but instead, they stayed where they belonged, in their sockets completely unscathed.
“I told you releasing me from Frank’s spell was a good idea.”
I lifted my head in response to the tinkling voice in my ear. Starr, her human upper body wreathed in seaweed and half-beached in the sand, grinned at me like a lunatic, her left hand held aloft while she crafted a water-based protection spell that spun around us like salty cotton candy, deflecting the violet light that was being emitted from the two Bugbears on the beach behind us.
“Yes,” I said, bone-tired from the Bugbear attack. “You have every right to say: ‘I told you so.’”
“Ha, ha, ha!” she laughed, enjoying the irony of our reversed roles. I had saved her and now she was returning the favor.
“Let’s am-scray!” she trilled suddenly, throwing her head back and cooing like a bird. She slid her right arm around my tender rib cage and, with the strength of a baby sumo wrestler, dragged me into the frothing sea.
The water was like a balm on my still sizzling skin, glorious and soothing as silk, and I luxuriated in the feel of it, my limbs enjoying the weightlessness of the saltwater.
I could loll around in the water all night, I decided, giddy with my newfound freedom.
Sure, I was being dragged farther into the deep by a Siren I barely knew and I was “Death challenger incommunicado” back up on land, but screw it, I didn’t want to die and I didn’t want Daniel to die, either. So the safest place for me, at least for the moment, was down here with Starr, the nutty Siren. Besides, I was fast becoming an ocean junkie. I’d never known how great the sea was before I’d been forced into making nice with it. Now, if I managed to get out of this fiasco with my body intact, I was gonna get friendly with the water and spend a lot more time swimming around in sea serpent mode.
The minute I’d thought the words “sea serpent” my body stretched to attention and I began to change. The process was hyper-sped up this time, and before I knew it, my skin was crackling as it transmogrified from pale peach flesh into sparkling, molten orange scales. The water wrapped around my new body like a baby’s blanket, keeping me warm and cozy as I finished the transformation. My cells sang in happiness as the damage that had been inflicted by the Bugbears was repaired by the change.
I’d seen the Bugbears in action down at the North Gate of Hell, using their violet light to subdue demons and other creatures who tried to escape the bounds of Hell—and their own fates. I knew how powerful the creatures were, and I knew that allowing the Devil to keep them under his control during the battle between Hell and Purgatory was a serious mistake. I needed to get to Heaven, talk to God, and put a stop to the Devil and my sister’s machinations, ASAP.
As much as I would’ve loved to stay in the water and ignore all the craziness swirling around me, it was time to go back to the real world.
“Starr,” I said in a booming sea serpent voice I hardly recognized as my own. “I need to go to the city. Can you take me back?”
I was intrigued by the way sound traveled in the water, the milliseconds of time delay between the eliciting of words and the arrival of these same words to the listener’s ear. It was a very different way of hearing, one that took me a few sentences’ worth of talking to get used to.
The Siren, still easily matching my speed even though I was much bigger than her now, nodded then shot ahead of me like a bullet in the water, her billowing green fish tail giving her the edge over any human feet.
“Where are you going?” she asked, swimming around me like a giddy puppy dog. “Can I go, too?”
I’d spent enough time in Starr’s company to know it was easier to placate her than to tell her a truth that would only incense her.
“Sure,” I said, in what I hoped was a casual manner, “you can come with. That’s, uh, fine by me.”
Starr giggled, blowing air bubbles out into the water as she clapped her hands together happily.
“You’re the best!” she said, tickling the side of my massive sea serpent head. “I knew Hyacinth and Sumi were wrong to doubt you.”
I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I didn’t like the implications.
“Doubt me?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
Starr shrugged, continuing to loop around me like a high-strung mutt.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” I said. “Explain.”
“I don’t want to,” she said, and then she suddenly stopped swimming, instantly falling behind me. I slowed my forward progression, hoping she’d catch back up with me, but of course, she wasn’t at all interested in making anything easy, so after a few seconds of floating and waiting, I turned my whole bulk around and swam back to where she was treading water.
When I finally reached her, I found her howling like a waterborne hyena, her head thrown back in the current’s wake, blond hair swirling around her head like a halo. The laughter ceased with a calculated abruptness as soon as she saw me, and she pursed her lips.
“What’s so funny?” I said, working hard not to show any annoyance. I wanted her to talk to me, not clam up and refuse to volunteer information that might prove to be important.
“You!” she cried, pointing at me and repeating the whole laughter/howling thing all over again. “You really think anyone but me is gonna help you?!”
Apparently my situation was knee-slappingly funny to the Siren.
“And why are you helping me?” I asked.
She snorted, blowing air bubbles all around her face.
“Because I have to. It’s the law.”
She tossed her hair so that it rippled behind her.
“I don’t understand,” I said, and it was the truth. I had no idea what she was talking about.
“It’s the law of the sea.” She sighed. “I have to help you because you released me from the spell and because you’re part Siren and—”
“Back at the house you said I was Anglo-Saxon trash on two legs.”
“Oh, please, Little Death, grow a set.” She yawned, her usually twinkling voice flat with derision. “I lied to you. Big whoop.”
I decided silence was the appropriate response.
“Actually,” she continued when I didn’t rise to take the bait. “Frank did leave me in the house on purpose, so he was either trying to ditch me . . . or maybe he was just giving you a little under-the-table help.”
“Because he knew that by the law of the sea you would be forced to help me?” I asked.
Starr nodded.
“Who is Frank?” I asked, realizing the only things I knew about the guy were that he worked for Sumi and he didn’t mind eating jellied sardines—not much info on a guy who might or might not be trying to help me survive.
“Oh silly, Little Death,” Starr burbled, putting a shapely hand on my scaled flank. “They give you a wish-fulfilling jewel and all you wanna do is swim around like a big baby and ask ridiculous questions, when you should be asking smart questions.”
Who did this Siren think she was? I made twenty of her and I had no qualms about giving her the boot with my tail if she didn’t learn some manners.
“I don’t want to swim around in the water all day getting my jollies off,” I said. “And what ‘smar
t’ questions are you talking about?”
“Don’t be mad,” Starr said abruptly, giving my taut flank a wallop with her palm. “I like you anyway.”
I could handle a goddess like Kali who lived in a perpetual state of PMS, but Starr was giving me emotional whiplash. She was the most mercurial creature I’d ever encountered. One minute, she was tittering, helpful mermaid girl; the next, she was an annoyingly smug Siren who enjoyed making me feel small and stupid. I hated women who behaved like that, who always prefaced their digs by announcing, “I don’t mean to be rude, but . . .” and then saying the rudest thing humanly possible.
“We were discussing Frank,” I said, soldiering on. I decided that ignoring her ruder comments was the easiest course of action.
“He’s nobody,” she giggled. “Not royalty like Watatsumi or your Valkyrie friend. Just a guy with lots of magical ability, that’s all—now no more information for you, Little Death.”
I had my suspicions that there was more to the story than Starr was letting on, but I didn’t press her. The Siren was like an oyster, taking a piece of sand—or in her case, information—then layering a whole lot of nacre over it until you didn’t know what was real and what was just expensive crap.
“Look,” I said. “I appreciate your help, but I think I can find my way back to Manhattan without you. So you’re free to go on your way now. I discharge you from service. Go be free and multiply.”
“But we were having fun,” she said, narrowing her eyes at me. “I don’t want to be ‘discharged.’ I wanna stay and play with you! Besides, you said I could go with you, and if you do a takeback now, well, then you’re nothing but a big fat liar, Little Death.”
To my surprise, she began beating on my elongated neck with her girlish fists, almost like a small child having a temper tantrum. In the back of my head, I remembered someone saying if I freed Starr, it would be at my own peril; that I’d be responsible for her until I could return her to where she belonged—but they couldn’t have meant I was supposed to babysit her, could they? The dull thumping I felt on my scaled body said otherwise. It looked like I might be stuck with the Siren for the time being.