Meg Cabot - Awaken

Kayla stared at him. “We just killed a man with my car,” she said.

Frank quickly put his arm around her. “Please excuse my girlfriend,” he said to Mr. Smith. “She’s had a bit of a shock. May we use your water closet?”

Mr. Smith’s eyes widened to their limits behind his gold-rimmed spectacles.

“You mean my bathroom? Yes, of course, come in,” he said. “Where are my manners? I’m so sorry. Patrick?”

As he called for his partner, we filed, dripping, into Mr. Smith’s foyer, which was painted a tasteful pale blue with white trim. There was a wooden staircase, also trimmed in white, leading to a second floor, a doorway to a manly looking study walled with ceiling-to-floor bookcases, and, not surprisingly, an old-fashioned hat rack, covered with Mr. Smith’s many straw hats and fedoras. On the wall were framed vintage art posters of the Jazz Age burlesque dancer Josephine Baker.

This was not the kind of art I’d expected to see in Mr. Smith’s house.

“More refugees from the storm?” A man carrying a red drink cup and dressed in a white shirt and khaki shorts came strolling down the hallway along the side of the stairs. “The more, the merrier —”

He dropped the cup when he saw us. Red liquid spilled onto the expensive Persian hallway runner. Neither man seemed to notice.

“Patrick,” Mr. Smith said. “You remember Pierce, don’t you? You met her at Coffin Fest the other night.”

“Oh, my God, of course!” Patrick cried, rushing over to give me a big hug.

Patrick had been a self-proclaimed fan of mine since the media firestorm over my alleged kidnapping had catapulted the photo of John snatching me — and the reward my father had offered for my safe return — into the media. Patrick was a sucker for stories about thwarted young love. He thought my parents didn’t approve of John because he was older and lived out of town.

Patrick didn’t know how much older than me John was, and how far out of town John lived.

Correction: had lived.

“What are you doing here?” Patrick asked, his face wreathed in smiles. “Rich, why didn’t you tell me they were coming? It’s all right. There’s plenty of lobster tacos.”

I couldn’t bring myself to hug him back. I was in too much shock over everything that had happened, in addition to having heard Patrick call Mr. Smith Rich . I couldn’t think of Mr. Smith as anything but Mr. Smith.

“I didn’t know they were coming, Patrick,” Mr. Smith said in a voice that suggested he didn’t approve of his partner’s effusiveness. “Could you please get them some towels and maybe some warm drinks? As you can see, they ran into a bit of trouble on the way over.”

“Car trouble?” Patrick asked sympathetically, finally letting me go. “Did you have trouble finding a parking place? I know there aren’t many left; everyone from down island comes up here to park during storms so their engines won’t flood. There’s still room in the aboveground parking garage behind our building if you want to move your car. That’s where we keep ours —”

“Patrick,” Mr. Smith said, taking me by the arm. “The drinks and towels?”

“Oh, right,” Patrick said, laughing at himself. “Sorry. I just get so excited during storms! I love how everyone comes together to help everyone else out. I wish there could be that feeling of community every day. Anyway, drinks and towels — not to mention tacos — are back here in the kitchen. Follow me, everyone.” He seemed to notice what we were wearing for the first time and looked us up and down with delight. “Oh, my gosh, costumes! Is someone throwing a fancy-dress hurricane party? Why didn’t we think of that, Rich?” To me, he asked, with a grin, “Where’s that hot boyfriend of yours? Oh, my gosh, I love your belt.”

Tears filled my eyes, but not because his question had reminded me that John was gone. It was because, in the background, the song had ended, and I could hear the laughter of Mr. Smith’s neighbors as they shared their food and his lovely home. I realized we’d entered a true shelter from the storm, filled with life and love. There was no sign of the death and pestilence we’d been dealing with for so many hours.

The tears were because I felt horrible for spoiling this little oasis, for bringing that death and pestilence along with us. That’s what I was now, I supposed: a harbinger of doom, queen of the Underworld.

I saw Frank closing Mr. Smith’s front door and locking it, after first having peered outside to make sure we hadn’t been followed. I knew both from his relieved expression and the pale gray my diamond pendant had turned that we’d brought with us no Furies. We were safe … for the moment.

I managed to control my tears and didn’t think anyone had noticed them until I felt an arm around my shoulders. Startled, I looked up and saw my cousin standing beside me.

“John’s gonna meet up with us later,” Alex said to Patrick. “He’s got some stuff to do now. I’m Alex, by the way, Pierce’s cousin.”

“Oh,” Patrick said, shaking the hand Alex had extended. “Nice to meet you. I’ve got a shirt that would probably fit you if you want to change out of that wet one.” He eyed Frank, who stood a head and a half taller than everyone else in the room. “You, we probably can’t accommodate. What are you supposed to be, anyway, a Hell’s Angel?”

Frank shrugged his enormous shoulders. “Yes,” he said simply.

As Patrick led the others down the hall towards the laughter and music, Mr. Smith steered me by the arm into the book-filled library, closing the white-paneled French doors behind him.

“What in heaven’s name is going on?” he asked, thrusting a fluffy blue-and-white towel at me from a basket that sat on the floor by another set of French doors. I supposed they led out to a pool area, which would explain the towels, but since they were covered by storm shutters, it was impossible for me to tell. “What was that girl talking about? Did you really kill a man? And where is John?”

I sank down into a brown leather armchair and pressed the towel against my damp hair.

“Yes, we did kill someone,” I said, the words coming almost robotically from my lips. It was surprising — but then again, not surprising at all — how little I cared about having killed Mr. Mueller. Maybe emotion would come later. Or maybe not. “He tried to kill us first, though.”

“Good God,” Mr. Smith said. He sank into the mate of the leather chair in which I sat, his brown skin suddenly looking almost as gray as his short-cropped hair. “Who was he?”

“A teacher from my old school in Connecticut.”

“What on earth was he doing here ?” Mr. Smith asked, slipping off his spectacles in order to polish them, something he often did in times of great distress.

“I was hoping you’d be able to tell me. Did we awaken the ancients, or create an imbalance, or some mumbo jumbo like that? That’s what Mr. Graves thinks.”

Mr. Smith shook his head before slipping his glasses back on. “I don’t know who Mr. Graves is, nor did I understand a single word you just said. Go back to where your teacher tried to kill you.”

“He was pretty specific that if I didn’t get out of the car, he’d kill everyone else inside it to get at me,” I said. “So we ran him over. Then lightning hit a tree, and it fell on him.”

Mr. Smith stared at me.

“Oh, dear,” he said. “John still hasn’t learned to control his temper, I see.”

I stared back, confused. “Why would you say that?”

He blinked at me through his spectacles. “Didn’t you tell me that when John gets angry, he causes it to thunder and lightning?”

“Yes,” I said. “He does. I mean, he did. But John wasn’t there.”