The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL) (19 page)

The guilt of what she’d done was so overwhelming she wished she’d never returned to her body. She realized she must be in shock. She felt like she wanted to cry, but there was nothing to draw from, no tears, no well of emotion to tap into.

She sensed other bodies surrounding her and she looked up to find that Clio and Noh had joined them. She blinked and the three of them were guiding her out of the room, taking her down the hall. She wanted to help them, but it was all she could do to keep her body upright.

She saw the Indian woman before the others did, but they all stopped short once they realized she was there. There was something frightening about the regal way she held herself—the lion’s mane of curly black hair, the fierce stare, and the shiny silver sari only adding to her mystique.

Jennice wanted to ask Clio who the woman was, but then everyone was talking and the fierce lady was gone.

“We have to leave Sea Verge,” she heard Jarvis say.

Jennice tried to focus on the conversation, but her eyes kept straying over Jarvis’s shoulder to where the dark-haired woman in the silver sari was now ripping the heads off the werewolves as they came through the door, their muscular bodies hell-bent on destruction.

She’s amazing,
Jennice thought, watching the woman as she laid waste to the beasts, dispatching them one by one with her bare hands. Then suddenly Jennice was being dragged down the hall again, away from the fascinating woman.

She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay there, watching the Indian lady work. She’d never in her life seen a woman do the kind of things this one was doing. It was like getting ringside seats to a bout of Wonder Woman vs. The Beasts.

“We have to keep moving,” Clio hissed in her ear, the intensity of her words jump-starting Jennice’s feet.

She liked Clio and didn’t want to upset her, so she let the two girls lead her down the hallway.

“Outside,” she heard Clio say to Noh as they pushed her through the foyer and toward the door.

She started to float again, the world blurring as Noh grabbed the doorknob and turned it, slowly easing the front door open—but something outside the door caught Jennice’s attention, forcing her back into reality.

And that’s when she screamed.

*   *   *

the little turncoat
was getting away. He could see her through the busted window, running across the back lawn toward the edge of the property and the cliff overlooking the sea. From there, all she needed to do was jump and then she’d be in the water, totally untouchable. He didn’t want to leave Daniel and Jarvis in charge of the Vargr while he took off after
the Siren, but if he didn’t catch her, he might well be squandering a very important lead.

He’d seen the girls hustling a shell-shocked Jennice out of the room, so at least they weren’t in the thick of it anymore, but still he had a hard time making the decision—and with every second he delayed, Starr was getting farther out of his reach.

“Are you gonna stand there all day, Copper, or are you gonna go kick that bitch’s ass?”

He released the limp body of the Vargr he’d just strangled to death, letting it fall to the floor before turning to find Kali, dark hair slick with blood, standing behind him, holding two Vargr by the scruffs of their neck. As he watched, she slammed their heads together, both skulls imploding with the force of the blow.

“I got this,” she added, winking at him with a gleeful face, her once-silver sari drenched in dead Vargr’s blood.

He took her arrival as a sign to get his ass in gear. Stepping over a headless Vargr body and avoiding the shards of glass still stuck in the frame, he vaulted himself through the window and out into the yard. He landed in a large shrub, its prickly branches cushioning his fall, but he was out of its embrace in two seconds, his feet plowing through the grass. He could see Starr ahead of him, her long hair flapping behind her as she limped toward the cliff’s edge.

He willed his body to move faster. If she got to the water before he got to her, he’d lose his chance. Because there was no way he could catch her once she’d morphed back into her Siren form, which included a very powerful fish tail and the ability to breathe underwater. In no time flat, she’d easily outpace his puny landlubbing body and leave him drowning in her wake.

He wasn’t going to make it. He pushed himself even harder, but it just wasn’t going to be enough. She was inches from the edge and he was still fifteen feet away; his hesitation had cost him.

The Siren took one step off the cliff—

Freezay was going so fast he had to swerve to the left in order to avoid the wormhole as it disgorged a frantic woman from its belly, one whose arms were stretched out like pincers. The wormhole had ejected the woman far enough ahead of him she actually had a chance at catching the Siren. She hit the
ground running and didn’t stop, reaching the cliff just as Starr began her swan dive into the sea. The woman grasped at the tiny, naked body, her hands encircling the Siren’s slim waist. With all her strength, she yanked Starr away from the abyss, putting an end to the chase mere seconds before the Siren would’ve escaped forever.

Freezay caught up with them to find the woman holding on to the squirming Siren as though Starr were a flailing fish.

“Get off me!” Starr wailed.

The other woman ignored the Siren’s pleas, throwing Starr to the ground then setting upon her with her fists. She was able to get in a few good punches, mostly to Starr’s exposed belly, before Freezay lifted her off the sobbing Siren.

“Freezay, help me!” Starr cried, reaching her arms up toward him for help.

“Stop it,” the woman hissed, jabbing the business end of her elbow into Freezay’s ribs, and forcing him to let her go.

She was back on Starr in an instant, pummeling the Siren’s face with her balled fists. Gasping at the pain in his ribs from the elbow jab, Freezay took a step forward, insinuating himself in between the two women.

“Enough!” he yelled, separating them with his body.

The mystery woman still wanted a piece of the Siren and Freezay had to shove her away to keep her from finishing what she’d started. She stumbled, falling backward onto the grass—and it was only then he recognized her, his heart giving a slight stutter.

“Caoimhe…?” he said.

Her name felt slippery in his mouth.

She glared up at him, her dark eyes flashing—and Freezay thought she’d never looked more beautiful. Just like his brain always did whenever he saw Caoimhe, it flashed back to the first time he’d met her:

The memory was as vivid in his mind’s eye as if it’d happened yesterday. But this might’ve been because Freezay revisited this slice of his past more often than he did any of the other memories he possessed. He would never have told anyone this because they’d have thought he was obsessed with something that could never be—and they were right. It was his most beloved
remembrance, though it had happened at the beginning of the time in his life he regretted most.

Since he was a small child, Edgar Freezay had known he was different. He’d learned to keep these differences hidden, but they’d still been there, always on the periphery of his life, haunting him. At twenty-two, he’d been a cocky little shit newly appointed to the Homicide division, working cases with a partner double his age who treated Freezay with a snotty disdain that made the younger man wish he’d been assigned to the drug detail instead.

Not that he didn’t enjoy the work.

The work was the thing that made life worth living—and, thank God, he was good at it, too. From what he could see, his future was set. He’d spend the next thirty, thirty-five years working murder cases in Detroit, then maybe accept early retirement, move to California where the weather was nice, and take up fishing. It sounded like both an uneventful and uniquely satisfying life, and he was looking forward to enjoying every minute of it.

Then one afternoon his world changed, his future becoming anything but certain.

He was sitting at his desk waiting for Farley, his overweight and self-satisfied partner, to come back from a doctor’s appointment. They were slated to do a follow-up interview with a witness and, though he’d have liked to do the interview without Farley, he didn’t want to incur his partner’s wrath.

“There’s someone here to see you.”

He looked up to find an attractive female officer he’d never noticed before leaning against the front of his desk. Her long brown hair was twisted up in a chignon at the back of her neck and she was wearing a white button-down shirt and khaki pants seemingly better suited for a safari than a day at the police station.

She gave him a sly wink, as if she knew what he’d been thinking, then beckoned for him to get up and follow her.

He should’ve asked her for the visitor’s name, or
her
name, or why she wanted him to follow her, but, instead, he’d stood up and tucked his chair behind his desk, letting her lead him down the hall. Neither of them spoke as they walked through
the station. He was just happy to be in the strange woman’s company. They left the bull pen, Freezay eager as a puppy to follow her as she made a right, taking them down a long hallway he’d never seen before. Still, he didn’t ask her where they were going, just followed her gently swaying hips.

There was something magical about her, about the way she moved and smelled. Her perfume, a seductive mix of cinnamon and vanilla, enveloped him as they walked, bewitching all five of his senses.

“He’s waiting for you in the interrogation cell,” she said as she stopped in the middle of the hall, indicating the open doorway in front of them, letting Freezay know he should enter.

“What’s your name?” Freezay asked, overwhelmed by the urge to find out more about the mysterious young woman standing before him.

She grinned up at him, her dark eyes fringed with thick black lashes. There was something mischievous about her gaze, about the way she was sizing him up. He wondered if she found him wanting, or if he was as attractive to her as she was to him.

“I’m just Caoimhe.”

“Just Caoimhe,” he repeated, liking the feel of her name on his tongue, though he wanted to feel more of her than that.

He reached out and took her hand, kissing the delicate skin of her wrist. Her smell was so enticing he was having a hard time thinking straight. Looking back, he knew he should’ve just ravished her right then and there, but he hesitated, letting the moment slip away.

“I think you should go in now,” she said, leaning toward him, her voice a low purr.

He was mesmerized by her nearness, by her scent, by the glint of amusement in her eyes—but he didn’t tell her any of this, just let her go, as if he had all the time in the world to see her again. It would take years of hindsight for him to finally realize he’d dropped the ball, his chance to possess her gone with his reluctance to speak. He had no way of knowing she would soon be pregnant by another man and all hope of making her his own would be gone forever.

That one meeting’s hesitation would cost him so dearly.

Though he wasn’t quite ready to leave her company, Freezay
did as she asked, passing through the doorway (so close to Caoimhe he could almost taste her) and into the cold, gray room. The room’s sole occupant was a compact man with a silver buzz cut and a set of piercing green eyes, wearing a tailored black suit that fit him like a glove. He stood up as Freezay entered, extending his hand.

“So good of you to meet me.”

Freezay nodded, not sure who the man was, or why he’d chosen to have their meeting in an interrogation cell.

“I’m Manfredo Orwell,” the man said, giving Freezay’s hand a firm shake.

The man exuded an air of importance and it permeated the air like scent. He smiled at Freezay and indicated he should take a seat. Freezay pulled out the cold metal chair and sat down across the interrogation table from Orwell. He heard the door shut behind him and his heart clenched when he realized he might never see Caoimhe again.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here, why I wanted to speak to you?” Orwell said.

He was watching Freezay with a quiet intensity that did nothing to hide the curiosity in his eyes. It was a look Freezay knew well. It lived on the faces of the men and women he worked with: hyperfocus coupled with an instinctual inquisitiveness about the world. This was the quality which drew Freezay to police work; it was the defining characteristic of who he was.

“I can’t even imagine what you want with me,” Freezay heard himself saying.

Orwell nodded, as if in Freezay’s position, he would’ve said the same thing.

“I run an agency very similar to your Central Intelligence Agency or your Federal Bureau of Investigation”—Freezay could detect a slight, lisping accent as Orwell spoke—“and we would like to offer you a position.”

“And what’s the name of this agency?” Freezay asked.

But he didn’t get the answer he was expecting; namely, the kind of faceless governmental entity or cold war double agent, spy-busting operation that filled the pages of paperback pulp thrillers the world over.

“It’s called the Psychical Bureau of Investigations. I doubt you’ve ever heard of us,” Orwell said, his smile revealing a row
of blocky white teeth. “You might say we work for a higher power then your United States Government. We police the Afterlife.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind Freezay heard the proverbial “other shoe” drop—and he realized he’d been waiting for a meeting like this his entire life.

“Before you go any further, I want to ask you something,” Freezay said, leaning forward in his chair so his elbows rested on the interrogation table.

“Of course,” Orwell said, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest—and Freezay couldn’t tell if the move was a power play or not.

“This isn’t a joke, or someone trying to screw with my head, is it?”

Orwell laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“It does seem as if that would be the logical answer, doesn’t it?” he grinned, amusement dancing in his eyes. “But no, this is not a joke, I promise you that.”

“I’ve spent my life hiding from something like this,” Freezay said. “When I was a kid they sent me to a psychiatrist because my mother and my teachers thought I was crazy. So I learned to stop talking about the odd things I saw, and it kept the doctors away—and now here you are, finally, after all these years. Telling me what I’ve always known: I’m not nuts.”