“Hello to you too,” I say, grunting as she helps me sit up.
Between our shared memories, the living room looks just like it did right before Dante’s death. The claw-foot love seat is back. A hammock chair hangs from the ceiling. The plants I let die are verdant and thriving.
If Poppy is feeling nostalgic, she doesn’t show it.
“Come here often?” I ask.
She doesn’t smile, just fiddles with her watch. “Ready to go?”
I sigh. “Yeah. We just need to check our stories.”
She taps her foot. “I told them the Cult of Hades killed you. That I knew where you’d enter the Afterlife and I’d bring you to them for a price. Don’t worry, I got half up front. They gave me the address for the nearest portal to Tartarus.”
My eyebrows raise on their own accord. “There’s portals?”
She shrugs. “It’s some kind of subdimension, I guess. They have entrances all over the Afterlife.”
Poppy stands and smooths out her clothing. She’s vaguely translucent, wearing pleated slacks and a flowy blouse under a blazer with enormous shoulder pads. Her braids are pulled back into a high ponytail, and her makeup is muted but elegant.
It’s a stark contrast with my look: Striped joggers, tennis shoes, and an oversize hoodie. Messy bun. No makeup. For this to work,Poppy needs to look as put-together as possible, and I need to look like I wasn’t expecting to die today.
“You look like the no-nonsense businesswoman in an eighties film,” I say.
That almost cracks a smile. “Well, I do mean business.”
Twenty-Nine
Poppy and I stare up at the towering skyscraper before us.
Glass and steel loom against a sky slowly fluctuating between dawn and dusk. Dead commuters drift through the revolving doors at the base, bracing themselves against the wind whipping down Boylston, as the hum of psychically constructed traffic drones behind us.
“There’s a portal to hell in the Pru Center?” I ask.
Poppy hums. “Of course. And apparently in its counterpart in the Afterlife too.”
I make abadum-tssnoise.
Look at us, bantering as though we’re not in the middle of a fight. That’s professionalism right there.
The ride on the T to Back Bay was awkward but much shorter than it would have been in the Beforedeath. Humans have difficulty imagining time passing, so all the newly Dead in the car with us thought we’d reached the stop sooner than is actually possible.
Time is of the essence, of course. But now that I’m here, this is all feeling a little too fast.
“Ready?” Poppy asks.
I gulp and nod. “Freddy,” I say, the word no more than a whisper.
She takes a deep breath, then grabs me roughly, binding my arms behind me with rope. From this point onward, Poppy is a Phantoms contractor who is bringing a Dead heaven hopper to her bosses. And like any good lie,wehave to believe it before we can expect anyone else to.
She drags me through the Pru Center’s revolving doors, her nailsbiting into my left bicep. I stagger as she pulls me past shops and mall directories and one of those coin-operated kiddie carousels. The animals come to life and run away. Dead stare as we pass, mostly because Poppy is a bit see-through, but also because I trip and land face-first on the tile floor. Unable to show any mercy, Poppy hauls me not too gently to my feet. I let myself get irritated to really sell it. After our fight, she’s probably enjoying this a bit too much. I go from irritation to resentment.
She keeps up the act even in the elevator. I’ve never once seen security cameras in the Afterlife—I don’t even think that’s possible—but it’s hard to go in and out of character. Hard to believe the lie, if you let yourself get distracted. Just like the subway ride, the elevator reaches its destination sooner than it should. Poppy drags me along a windowless corridor, handling me more roughly than she needs to.
I sink even further into the lie as we near a metal door at the end of the hallway. Maybe she’s not faking. Maybe she really is taking me to be confined to hell.
By the time we reach the door, I’m well and truly frightened.
I brace myself as Poppy twists the handle and pushes me through.
