Serpent's Storm by Amber Benson Page A

seat, feeling lost and terribly alone. Usually in these situations I had Jarvis’s steel trap of a mind to lean on, but now, left to my own devices, I didn’t have a clue as to what was happening around me—or why it was happening. Was what Hyacinth said true? Was there something wrong with my dad, and had the power of Death somehow transferred to me? I thought back to when I’d first entered the bathroom and found Jarvis. I remembered barging into the room, seething with anger, only to find my friend lying on the ground in a half-inch of water. I knew he was immortal, so I hadn’t been concerned about checking to see if he was breathing or if he had a pulse. No, I’d just squatted down beside him and made sure he was all right . . . but had he really been all right? I racked my brains, forcing myself to remember any bits of minutiae I might’ve missed.
    And then it hit me. Something I’d totally forgotten in the heat of the moment: There’d been a piece of blue-gray metal protruding from Jarvis’s head when I’d first gotten there. I hadn’t paid it any attention then, having no idea the stuff might be important, and had just brushed it away with my hand so I could get a better look at the gash on my friend’s head—but I did remember that it was at this very moment that Jarvis had returned to consciousness.
    Only, he hadn’t returned to consciousness, I realized with horror. No, I had roused Jarvis from a sleep much deeper than anything this reality had to offer: I had woken my friend out of Death.
    Whatever that blue-gray metal was, it was Jarvis’s weakness—like Superman, all immortals had one that could kill them. That was the only thing that made any sense. The Ender of Death hadn’t come to my office just to harass me—he’d come to assassinate Jarvis, and like a fool, I’d let it happen. But if that were the case, then if, like Hyacinth surmised, I was now Death, why hadn’t the Ender of Death killed me, too?
    None of it made any sense.
    But I did know that if I’d been smarter, I would’ve protected my friend instead of leaving him alone in the bathroom. I’d let myself get distracted by bodies in the cupboard and illusions of police brutality, condemning Jarvis—who now sat in a pool of goopy skin and muscle because of me—to a new life as a sentient skeleton.
    “We’re here,” Hyacinth said into the headset, interrupting my thoughts, and I felt the helicopter begin its initial descent.
    The storm had moved on, so now only the fingers of gray thunderclouds were visible above us. Hyacinth had done a pretty incredible job of piloting us through the thick of it, and I couldn’t help but feel kind of indebted to her for her quick thinking. If she hadn’t hustled us out of the House and Yard offices when she did, Jarvis and I would’ve been in a wormhole going God knows where when his skin had started to melt, and I just didn’t think I would’ve been able to deal. I had no idea where we were or what plans my former boss had for getting us home, but I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt because of all of the above.
    I gazed down at the landscape taking shape below us and was surprised to find we were in the middle of a large marsh. I could see nothing around us but empty land stretching out as far as the eye could see. It was totally desolate out here, with no signs of human habitation, and I couldn’t quite imagine what’d made Hyacinth choose this isolated place as her landing strip.
    As we touched down, the land gave way beneath us and I could feel the helicopter’s legs sink deep into silt and mud. Hyacinth pressed a series of buttons on the flight control panel, and the whirring blades above us slowed their pace and then came to a gentle stop. The helicopter lurched forward as the mud it was now shackled to settled, sucking the machine farther into the morass.
    “Where are we?” I asked as I pulled my headset off and let it fall to the floor of the cockpit, glad