But my grandmother was a Fury, I reminded myself. It wasn’t like she knew what she was talking about. She was pure evil. Or possessed by it, anyway.
“Now I know the truth,” I went on, in a less shaky voice, “which is that it wasn’t me at all … it was her. She’s a monster inside — literally — who’s wanted nothing more than to hurt John — and now me — for years.”
“Pierce,” John said quietly, reaching down to touch my shoulder. I wondered if he could feel it trembling through the denim of my jacket. “You don’t have to say another word to him. We don’t have time for this, anyway. Let’s go —”
“No,” Mr. Smith said, dropping his glasses back into place and speaking in a tired voice. “John, you can’t afford not to make time to listen to what I have to say. And Pierce … I’m ready for that water you offered me. Or make it tea, please. There’s a little kitchen in the back room, right down that hallway over there. You should be able to find everything you need. Would you be a dear?”
I was startled. No one but my mother had ever asked me to make tea for them before. And no one had ever called me a dear. Especially right in the middle of a conversation about relatives of mine who were trying to kill me.
“Now?” I asked.
“Yes,” Mr. Smith said, loosening his tie a little. An older gentleman who dressed with great attention to style, today favoring white linen trousers and a mint-green shirt with a pink knit tie, Mr. Smith did look a little under the weather, I had to admit. “I mentioned to you once that I, too, went through a near-death experience … although like most people, I was not fortunate enough to remember my trip to the Underworld. But that is, of course, what sparked my interest in all things related to the afterlife. Ever since, however, my heart hasn’t been as strong as it used to be. I think some herbal tea would be just the thing….”
“Yes, of course,” I said, and climbed to my feet, meeting John’s gaze. He shook his head sharply, indicating that he didn’t want me to go. He wanted to leave.
What was I supposed to do, though, deny a sickly old man the tea he’d requested? I shrugged helplessly at John, then hurried down the hallway Mr. Smith had indicated.
“She’s not a child,” I heard John say in a razor-edged tone, as soon as I was out of the room. “So you can’t simply send her off to the kitchen because you have something to say that you don’t want her to hear. Whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of her.”
“Oh, I don’t think you want her to hear what I have to say to you,” Mr. Smith snapped … which of course made me pause before I set one foot in the kitchen and hug the shadows along the hallway wall so they couldn’t see me as I eavesdropped. I knew snooping was wrong, but why was Mr. Smith so angry? I had to find out. “I’ve known you for a long time, John, so I’d like to think you won’t strike me dead for saying this, because we’re friends, and friends should be able to speak honestly to one another. But for the love of all that is holy, what could you have been thinking? This is the twenty-first century, and we’re a civilized country. With laws.”
“Fortunately,” John said, in a calm voice, “no one asked you, since it isn’t any of your business.”
“Isn’t any of my business? She’s seventeen years old, and you’re —”
“Nineteen,” John said flatly.
“— one hundred and eighty-four. And you transported her … well, not across state lines, but to the realm of the dead, which I’m quite sure her father would find more objectionable if he knew about it.”
“Would he find it so objectionable if he knew I did it to keep her from being murdered?”
“Why didn’t you come to me about it, John?” Mr. Smith’s tone was pleading. “I might have been able to help.”
“Or you might have ended up dead, like Jade, or Mr. Cabrero, Pierce’s grandfather,” John said shortly. “Or do you think he didn’t find out the truth about his wife, and try to stop what she was doing?”
“What?” Mr. Smith sounded shocked. “Are you saying that old woman killed her husband, too? Act your age, John. Carlos was my friend, I’d have known —”
“Would you?” John asked, his tone icily polite. “You just said you went to church with her, but you had no idea what she really was. Do you truly think if I’d had any other choice, I wouldn’t have taken it?”
“Truly? No. Because I know how you feel about that girl. So when the opportunity presented itself, you were more than happy to take it. I’m sure it hasn’t even been that difficult of an adjustment for her, since she’s journeyed to your world before. But none of that makes what you did right, John, any more than what was done to you. I’m positive there must be a better way. I understand about the Furies. They’re a problem, I grant you —”
“A problem?” John’s voice rose in disbelief.
“Let me do some research. Perhaps there’s something I missed, some way to get rid of them that no one’s thought of. In the meantime, her father’s wealthy, he could send her anywhere to get her away from the grandmother….”
Suddenly I realized why Mr. Smith had sent me out of the room. He wasn’t just angry with John for kidnapping me and taking me to the realm of the dead, like Hades had done to Persephone: He was trying to persuade John to give me up.