Chapter Forty-One
Forty-One
Never die on a job.
To be fair, I didn’t go into this planning to die, but:
“You knew,” I accuse Dante, his arms still around me. “You knew what we are.”
“I knew what you are,” he corrects.
His sandy blond hair is the way it was before Mom and Dad left, and he’s wearing the T-shirt of the band we’d made up to sell fake tickets for concerts that would never happen. He feels so real, and I feel so real. And we’re both Dead but so alive.
He pulls back and nudges my shoulder. “You got it from Mom. I got out of the whole descendant-of-Persephone thing.”
“Then why did they tell you and not me?”
He scratches the back of his head. “They told me before they left. Mom realized what you were after you brought Crowlene back from the dead. She’d never had magic like that, but Grans did.
She was hoping it would skip you too, but, you know, oh well.
She made me promise not to tell you until absolutely necessary. ”
“Why?” I ask.
“I guess she thought knowing your identity would be a burden.” He rolls his eyes.
“So, you know, some demons show up looking for the lost scion of Persephone. Mom and Dad knew they couldn’t hide you forever, so they took off to draw attention away from you and told me to guard you with my life.
Which I guess, technically, I did. You’re welcome, by the way. ”
I frown. “So Mom told you to protect me at the expense of your own life?”
Dante grimaces but nods.
“I don’t like that,” I say. “That makes me feel like, ugh…like she wasn’t a good person.”
Dante takes me by both shoulders so he can look me in the eye. “Our parents were con artists who took advantage of the Dead and grieving. It’s possible they weren’t perfect people.”
Before I can respond, Poppy appears on the subway steps behind Dante. She’s dragging a beleaguered Vinny with her.
“Found him!” she says cheerfully.
“Hey, Vinny!” I wave.
“Hey,” he says morosely. “I heard you’re going back on our deal.”
“Yeah, sorry. I’m gonna need my tooth back.”
I give Poppy a quick hug. I don’t think she’s fully forgiven me yet, but I’m going to do whatever I can to earn back her trust.
I turn to Vinny and hold my hand out. He reaches deep into his pocket and takes out one of my baby molars. “I had so many plans for this,” he says wistfully.
As soon as the tooth hits my palm, I feel a pull. It’s like what I felt at Credence’s grave, but stronger, more volatile. I’ve been reunited with one of my bones, the first part of the ritual.
Dante frowns at the tooth in my palm. “Wait, what’s happening?”
“You have to hurry,” Poppy says, looking at her watch. “Time’s almost up.”
I grin smugly at Dante. “I’m resurrecting myself. And then I’ll resurrect you. Easy-peasy.” I pause, considering. “I mean, first I have to go banish Hades to hell real quick, but that shouldn’t take long.”
“Whoa,” Vinny says, pushing his way into our circle. “You’re resurrecting yourself?”
“Yeah, and I need to concentrate, so shoo.”
I try to wave him back, but he stands his ground, which, honestly, is kind of odd for Vinny.
“You can’t just resurrect people,” he insists.
I palm the tooth and crack my knuckles, then my neck. “Yeah. I can. I’ve already done it. And I’m about to do it again. So stand back and watch how wrong you are.”
He grabs my wrist. “No, I mean, it’s against the laws of nature.”
I shake him off. “My whole life is against the laws of nature. And now there are literally no consequences for my actions, because anytime one of us dies, I can just”—I snap my fingers—“bring them back.”
Vinny gives me a look I’ve never seen from him before. It’s…pity. I didn’t think he could feel that.
“It doesn’t work like that. There’s a cost. There’s always a cost, and you know what the cost of resurrection is, right?”
The tooth tugs at me.
“Is it a burdened conscience?” I ask. “Because I can live with that.”
Vinny shakes his head, grabbing my shoulders. “Resurrection is how demons are made.”
It takes a moment for that to sink in. But when it does, my stomach drops. “That…that can’t be right.”
Vinny continues to stare at me with an alarming mixture of sincerity and regret.
“Demons are people who were resurrected?” I say slowly.
I think about Hades’s undead army. About how the Cult of Hades are all demons. About how every demon is beholden to a Titan. Maybe the Titan that resurrected them?
Vinny nods. “It’s the cost. You can’t go back as you were. That’s not how it works.”
“How do you know this?” Poppy asks.
Vinny shrugs. “I’ve been around the Afterlife. People talk. This isn’t new information. Well, maybe for you it is.”
I shake my head, biting back the urge to laugh. “But I died. Like really died. And the plan was just to resurrect myself. Like, oops, let’s just shake that Etch A Sketch, pretend it never happened.”
I glance desperately between Poppy and Dante.
My brother’s eyes are wide, and I can see the wheels turning in his head, trying to figure some way out of this, to bring me back to life without consequence, to save the others and banish Hades.
And if we had time, I’m sure he could do it.
But the clock is ticking, and the others are waiting for me.
I lick my lips. “So if I go back, I’m going to be a demon?”
Vinny nods.
I mimic his movement, processing. “Okay, well. At least I’ll have some bitchin’ powers.”
“Yeah, that cost you your soul every time you use them.”
Poppy blinks. “What?”
Vinny huffs in annoyance like we should know this. “Demonic magic, the power from it is taken out of your soul. Basically, the more you use it, the more evil you become. You don’t think all demons started out as assholes. Power corrupts, that whole thing.”
I don’t respond. I’ve wanted magic my whole life. And now I have it. I have a magic so powerful, most people thought it was a myth. And if I go back, I’ll have even more magic. Nearly unlimited magic. But every time I use it, I’ll rot from the inside out.
Well.
I never had much of a moral ethos anyway.
“Yeah, I’m good with that,” I say.
“Elle,” Poppy says, using her I’m disappointed in you voice.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask. “Stay Dead?”
Poppy’s face is stricken. Dante blanches.
“It’s not so bad, being Dead,” Vinny says, shrugging one shoulder.
“No, it’s not,” Dante adds, but it sounds a little like he’s trying to convince himself. “Not now that I have, you know, like, form and consciousness.”
“I can’t,” I say.
Dante nudges my shoulder. “We could be together. Just like old times.”
“No, I really can’t.” I let the obol I had hidden in my sleeve drop into my palm.
I open my hand and reveal the tower. It’s the obol I took from Credence’s grave. The one I was going to plant on Hades before banishing her.
“Any second now, a hellhound”—I shake my head—“a demon is going to show up and cart me away to Tartarus. And even if you got me out again, I’d never be free. They’d never stop hunting me.”
I see the moment Dante realizes that it’s inevitable. He pulls me to him and plants a kiss on the top of my head.
Poppy swallows. “If you’re doing this, you got to do it now. They’re running out of time.”
Tolliver and CJ and Ezra are waiting for me. With a murderous Hades and her army of demons. And Rook, who conned us all.
Rook, a demon, who lives in a nice house. Has passions and hobbies. Collects antiques. Life as a demon might not be too bad. I can probably make this work.
I tuck the obol back into my sleeve and then slowly close my hand around my baby tooth.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to Dante.
He gives me a watery smile. “Well. I always knew my baby sister was a little bit of a demon.”
I smile back. “See you on the other—I mean, see you on this side…again…sometime. Unless you also want to come back as a demon. I just gotta go do a thing first. You don’t have to decide right now. You know, just think about it.”
Whatever. Let’s do this.
I don’t need the grimoire anymore. The words for resurrection live inside of me.
Part of my very bones. I don’t remember them, couldn’t tell them to you if you asked.
But they spring out of me as though all I have to do is open my mouth and let the magic out.
As I near the end of the incantation, the world around me starts to go white.
The last thing I see is Dante’s face smiling back at me.