The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL) (27 page)

I felt a stitch forming in my side, the pain lancing up my torso, and my body immediately started to slow down. It wanted me to know it was not built for such hard-core physical exertion and was much happier at rest, at sleep, or at dinner—basically, any activity that didn’t require too much physical activity. I was fast losing steam and I knew I needed to be proactive and come up with a plan, or Alternate Frank was going to catch me and then the ball was going to be in his court, not mine.

Stop, drop, and roll.

The words appeared in my mind like manna from Heaven and without any conscious thought, I did exactly as they demanded. I went down hard, using my velocity to roll to the left as dirt and sand flew into my face. I shut my eyes, but some of the debris made its way into my mouth and I found myself spitting out bits of sandy dirt.

I was still holding the palette knife in my hand as I crawled to my feet, so I brandished it in front of me, letting Alternate Frank see I had a weapon. He’d stopped a few feet away from me, and now stood watching, head cocked, as he tried to figure out what the hell I was doing. I guess it did look pretty odd, my whole stop, drop, and roll strategy, but I wasn’t about to second-guess my intuition.

“Whatcha think you’re gonna do with that stubby old thing?” he said.

I wasn’t surprised to hear he and my Frank both shared a slow-as-molasses Southern drawl.

“I dunno,” I said, shrugging as I looked down at the knife.

“It’s not a real looker now, is it, sister?”

I had to agree. The palette knife was nothing to write home about, but I felt way more secure with it in my hand than I did without it. Still, I knew there was room to up my game. I reached down, extracting the wire cutters from my tool belt and holding them in my left hand.

Now I could defend myself with two weapons instead of one.

“I know I’m running the risk of sounding real corny here, but whatever,” I said. “I don’t think it’s the size of your weapon, but how you stick it in that counts.”

With that said, I didn’t hesitate in my next action. I ran straight for Alternate Frank, my palette knife extended out in front of me like a sword aimed right for his chest. It was time to show Alternate Frank what I meant about “sticking it in.” I jammed the knife’s triangular head into his breast, the metal sliding through his shirt and flesh like they were made of butter.

He cried out, eyes wide with shock. He hadn’t expected me to act so boldly, and now he was paying for having underestimated me. I pushed the palette knife in deeper, and I knew I’d hit my mark: The blade had pierced his heart. Even with my
knife inside of it, it continued to beat, the knife’s wooden handle reverberating with each contraction of the heart muscle.

I wasn’t stupid enough to think I’d killed him. I knew better than that. I raised my wire cutters and punched them, pointed tip first, into the soft flesh of his temple. I yanked them out, releasing a flood of blood that poured down his face and onto his shirt, then I stabbed him again in the exact same place. The first hit dazed him, but it was the second one that dropped him to his knees. I kicked him in the gut and he flew backward, landing on his side, blood dripping into the sandy dirt. I squatted down beside him and quickly rolled him onto his back before pulling the rope off my tool belt so I could tie him up.

Halfway through binding him, he started to regain consciousness. I needed more time to secure him, so I slammed the wire cutters into his forehead and this seemed to knock him out again. I felt a little guilty about beating the shit out of him, but then I remembered how he’d kicked Runt and I didn’t feel so bad anymore.

Tying his wrists as tightly as I could manage, I lassoed the other end of the rope around his ankles, pulling it taut and knotting it in place. It was a modified version of the hogtie, and I hoped it would keep Alternate Frank immobile and under my control.

“Take…it…out,” Alternate Frank murmured.

“What?” I said, leaning close to his face.

“Take the little stubby thing out,” he coughed.

I shook my head.

“Not gonna happen. You’re just gonna have to suck it up for now.”

Apparently, Alternate Frank didn’t like being told
no
, and to show his displeasure, he coughed up a disgusting ball of saliva and snot and spat it at me. It hit me in the neck and I immediately stood up, wiping it away with the back of my hand.

“You’re disgusting,” I said.

He only laughed at me.

“And you’re a pathetic attempt at Death, Calliope Reaper-Jones.”

He could say whatever the hell he wanted because he was the one who was hog-tied in the dirt, not me.

“I think it’s time to get out of here,” I said, as I stepped over
him and grabbed the taut part of the rope linking his ankles and wrists together, dragging him behind me as I walked.

I could hear him coughing, but I didn’t give a shit if dirt and debris were flying in his face.

“Where the hell are you taking me, sis?” he yelped.

I didn’t answer his question. I just kept walking.

“Where are we going?!” he yelled, trying to intimidate me with anger.

But I remained silent.

“Bitch,” he grumbled.

I purposely veered toward a stretch of ground littered with small stones. It was fun to rake Alternate Frank over them, his yips of pain making me smile. I had no intention of telling my captive where I was taking him. He was the wily type, and I didn’t want to give him any advantage over me.

The very idea of me being able to subdue Alternate Frank without any help was absolutely ludicrous—the man healed in seconds, for God’s sake, and he was huge. Yet, here we were: me pulling him behind me like he was a little red human wagon.

It blew the mind.

I shook my head, happy to know I wasn’t a total putz at being Death.

We hadn’t gone very far when a cool wind kissed my face and I lifted my eyes from the ground, wondering where the hell the welcome breeze had come from in the emptiness of Purgatory. But my breath caught in my throat when I saw, like a much-wished-for mirage, a shimmering golden doorway standing open in the middle of the wasted Purgatorial landscape. I blinked just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. And then I saw who was waiting for me on the other side of the doorway: Runt and her father, Cerberus, the three-headed former Guardian of The North Gate of Hell.

With a squeal of joy, I began to run toward them, Alternate Frank bumping along behind me.

Jennice had never heard of a “wormhole” before, but this didn’t stop her from going through one.

After it was all over, and she’d made sure her limbs were still in the right places, she suddenly realized she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. She was glad her stomach had been empty, or otherwise she might’ve thrown up all over the backseat of the car.

Even when she tried to think back to the moment when reality had done a flip-flop and everything she’d known about the world had changed, she still couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it. It seemed like one minute Noh was speeding down the highway with Jarvis yelling at her, and then the next minute a huge swirling storm cloud was touching down on the road in front of them.

When Jennice saw the dark gray funnel ahead of them, she closed her eyes and began to pray—as if this would save her and everyone in the car from imminent death. She prayed Noh would turn the wheel, the car would miss the eye of the storm, and certain disaster would be averted. She knew this was just wishful thinking. They were going far too fast for the car to do anything but sail into the middle of the melee, but still she held out hope something or someone would save them.

Then everything went all wonky and her sense of reality shifted. Her body was tossed upside down and her stomach lurched, bile rising in her throat as she felt like a lone tennis shoe rotating around inside an industrial-sized dryer.

Ignoring the rising nausea, she opened her eyes and was shocked to find the car no longer speeding down a Rhode Island highway about to be sucked into a humongous storm cloud, but coasting, instead, down a tree-lined stretch of road toward a massive wrought iron gate towering above them.

The gate was closed, a thick chain and padlock wrapped around the latch in an attempt to keep out unwanted guests. Noh drove the car right up to the gates, easing down on the brake as she did. She threw the car in park and opened her door, climbing out and jogging over to the padlock. She grasped the lock, lifting it up in the air, then jiggled it a little bit before letting it go. She came back to the driver’s seat and crawled inside, turning off the ignition.

“Well?” Jarvis asked.

He didn’t sound too optimistic.

“It’s spelled. But I know another way in.”

“I hope so, or we’ll be at their mercy again,” Jarvis said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“It’s pretty,” Jennice said, studying the large, Gothic building standing just beyond the gate.

It was the first real, coherent thing she’d said in a while—and both Noh and Jarvis turned in their seats to look at her.

“I don’t care where we are,” she added, leaning into the seatback. “I’m just glad we got away from the werewolves.”

It was true. She would’ve been happy in a maximum security prison, provided the guards could keep those hairy beasts away from her.

“They’re not werewolves,” Jarvis said.

“What are they, then?” Noh asked, as she got out of the car and slammed the door, leaving Jennice and Jarvis no choice but to climb out after her.

It took Jennice a moment to unbuckle her seat belt, so Jarvis and Noh were already ahead of her before she’d even managed to crawl out of the backseat. She had to scamper to catch up to them.

“They’re called Vargr,” Jarvis was saying as Jennice joined
them. “I can understand why you would call them ‘werewolves,’ but I assure you, they’re not.”

“I think they wanted to eat us,” Jennice said, shuddering at the thought.

While she’d tried to erase the last few hellish hours from her memory, flashes of Sea Verge and killing the Vargr, of the car blowing up and Clio disappearing…all the detritus of the terrifying day kept repeating on a loop inside her brain, the images making her stomach clench.

“Yes,” Jarvis agreed, “they would’ve eaten you and Noh—and taken Clio and myself hostage.”

Jennice hadn’t really wanted her fears confirmed. She didn’t like knowing there was something higher up the food chain than human beings.

“That would’ve sucked,” Noh said, but Jennice could tell she wasn’t really listening to their conversation, too busy tromping through the woods and looking for a way to bypass the all-encompassing wrought iron fence to really pay attention.

Every now and then Noh would stop and cock her head as though she were listening to someone—and then she’d continue on.

The fence stretched on ahead of them, the wrought iron supplemented now by the addition of large stretches of smooth stone walls, making the thing impossible to scale.

“What is this place?” Jennice asked, less curious and more worried it was getting dark and they were still outside, totally helpless if the Vargr decided to show up again.

“It’s called the New Newbridge Academy. It’s where Noh and Calliope attended boarding school. I chose it as our meeting place because it has magical wards protecting it—at least, if we can get inside the grounds.”

Jennice was sufficiently impressed by the fact Noh and her friend Calliope had attended boarding school. Having gone to a traditional public school, she was in awe of a place like the New Newbridge Academy with its Gothic buildings, lush grounds, and all-over “spooky” vibe.

Suddenly Noh stopped beside the stone wall, gesturing for them to do the same.

“Yeah, that’s the closest way in?” Noh asked—and, at first,
Jennice thought she was talking to Jarvis, but then realized this wasn’t the case.

“Noh, who are you talking to?” Jennice asked, getting more spooked by the minute.

Noh held up a hand for Jennice to wait a moment, and then she said: “Thanks for that, Henry.”

She blew a kiss into the air.

“That was Henry,” she added, smiling. “He’s one of my oldest friends. Callie knows him, too.”

“Is he invisible?” Jennice asked, wondering if there were an army of invisible people surrounding them she couldn’t see.

Noh shrugged.

“Kind of,” she said, running her hands through her dark hair, then wrapping it in a knot at the nape of her neck. “He’s a ghost.”

“Oh,” Jennice said—realizing she’d missed something important.

“You look so shocked,” Noh laughed. “You just traveled through a wormhole without a whimper, but it’s the dead people who freak you out?”

Jennice had to admit Noh was right. No point in getting worked up about someone seeing dead people when there were things like Vargr out there, trying to eat you.

“If her friend Henry has found a way into New Newbridge, then by all means we should follow,” Jarvis said, holding out his arm for Jennice to take.

She accepted his assistance, glad for the arm to lean on. The floor of the woods was littered with stones and hidden tree roots—and it was getting darker, which made it hard to see where you were going or what you were stepping on.

Noh didn’t wait for them to follow her, but took off, jogging ahead of them before disappearing behind a thicket of brambles growing against the stone wall.

“We’re in!” Noh called, her disembodied voice echoing back to them.

Jarvis raised an eyebrow, but didn’t hurry his pace.

“My life is full of impetuous women,” he said, his tone wistful.

“I’m gonna try to keep it together from now on,” Jennice
said, making up her mind to actually do what she was saying. “My mom calls me her rock, and usually I am. But then those Vargr…”

She didn’t want to think about that stuff anymore. It was just too overwhelming. Thankfully, Jarvis sensed her hesitation and changed the subject.

“Looks as though we’re here,” he said, as they came to the spot where Noh had disappeared through the thicket of greenery.

Hidden behind the brambles was a small, arched doorway cut into the stone wall. The door was standing open and they could see Noh leaning against the doorframe, impatiently waiting for them.