The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL) (39 page)

“I get that you’re pissed, Jarvis,” she said as they carried Frank’s limp body across the lawn, on their way to the burnt-out building where, according to Noh, all the ghosts lived.

Clio had never been to the New Newbridge Academy before—she was a little kid when Callie had started school here, so no one had ever thought to bring her along for a visit. If they had, she knew she would’ve fought to stay because the place was amazing: dark, creepy, and eerie.

Three of her favorite adjectives.

“It was thoughtless, thoughtless,
thoughtless
—”

Jarvis was still muttering about her selfishness, her narcissism, her
whatever
, but he was losing steam. The invective was more benign, his energy spent. Now he just looked worn-out instead of apoplectic.

“I know it seems that way, and I’m sorry to have put you in any danger,” Clio said, interrupting him. “But you’re a big boy who can take care of things. I knew you didn’t need me. And I was right. Because here you are.”

He rolled his eyes, breathing hard as they lugged Frank’s deadweight around the side of the building and then through a door leading into a ramshackle laundry room.

“Why don’t you put him here?” Noh said, her voice carrying through the doorway as she and Jennice followed them inside.

Pushing her way past them, Noh gestured for them to follow her into what had once been a sitting room, but was now just a cobweb-covered space with a fireplace, an overstuffed couch, and two dirty but comfortable-looking tweed armchairs. They waited as Noh cleared the dust from the couch, then she and Jarvis hoisted Frank onto it, sending a cloud of dust into the air that made Jarvis sneeze.

“Damnable dust,” he wheezed, yanking his handkerchief from his pocket and blowing his nose.

When he was done, he re-pocketed the handkerchief and gazed at the women in his care. Clio could see his mind turning, and she assumed he was wondering what horrible thing he’d done in a previous life to get saddled with these three crazy ladies.

“You can’t keep me here!”

Frank was up off the couch and on his feet before any of them realized he was conscious. He went for Clio first because she was closest. She had no time to duck as his fist sailed through the air, slamming into her jaw with enough force to snap her head back.

She’d taken a punch to the face before, but this one was worse. Pain flooded through her jaw like wildfire, its path indiscriminate and devastating. Black spots blossomed in her vision, obscuring her sight. Instinctively, her hands went to her face, her fingers probing for broken bones and for blood. She found the broken bones in short supply, but the blood was free flowing from a gash inside her mouth where her teeth had
cut into the soft, pink flesh of her cheek. The blood was salty and metallic tasting as it filled her mouth, making her gag. She found herself spitting up saliva and blood in such quantity it ran down her chin and onto her shirt.

She was helpless to do anything to stop Frank as he went for Jarvis next, head butting him in the gut while the lanky hipster tried to pummel him with balled fists. The force of the impact sent the two men tumbling over the couch. Frank got up first and drew back his fist, letting it fly. The punch caught Jarvis in the nose—and Clio gasped as blood arced through the air, splattering on the wall.

Weaving on his feet, his eyes rolling back into his head, Jarvis mumbled something unintelligible, then pitched forward onto his face.

Knockout.

Frank had already moved on to Jennice. She was trying to subdue him the way she’d done with the two large men outside, but she was having trouble.

“I saw what you did, girl,” Frank said. “That sure was something. I could use a lady with your talents.”

Jennice’s brow furrowed as she channeled all the power she possessed directly at Frank. But he only laughed, crossing the space between them in two steps and gripping her by the throat with one hand, easily lifting her into the air.

“Leave her alone!” Noh screamed from across the room.

She ran forward, gunning for Frank, but he held out his free hand, and without even swiveling his head to look at her, said:

“I wish you dead.”

As her thick dark hair swished across her face, Noh froze midstride, her long legs folding underneath her as if all the bones had suddenly been yanked from her body. As she crumpled to the ground, her chin slammed into the wooden floor with a heavy
thwack
that made Clio’s blood run cold. Clio stared as Noh just lay there on the floor, unmoving, her long limbs splayed out at awkward angles.

Clio held her breath as she waited for Noh to pop back up and laughingly say: “C’mon, guys, can’t you take a joke?”

But no matter how much she wanted it, Clio knew Noh wasn’t going to get back up again.

“Oh my God!” Jennice screamed. “What have you done!?”

She pounded on Frank’s chest, screaming and crying, as she completely lost her shit. Clio dropped to her knees at Noh’s side, lifting the girl’s wrist—it was
so
cold—and feeling for a pulse, but there was nothing. Not even a flutter.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to her sister’s best friend, patting Noh’s long hair, amazed to discover how soft it was.

“Sonofabitch!” she heard Jennice shriek—and that’s when something snapped inside of Clio.

She climbed to her feet, her body thrumming with rage. It boiled in her veins, driving her to snuff out Frank like a cockroach under her heel. She screamed, the sound primitive and guttural as it tore out of her throat, causing the wound inside her cheek to start bleeding again. But she was incensed and felt not pain, but adrenaline pumping through her body. She grabbed one of the heavy, tweed armchairs and lifted it high over her head, growling as she slammed it into Frank’s back.

The force of the blow caused him to drop Jennice—who fell against the wall, weeping—but it didn’t knock him off his feet as she’d expected. Instead, he whirled around, eyes full of hate as they latched onto Clio. He looked ready to wish them all dead, but she didn’t give him a chance to get the words out. Jumping on top of him, she rammed her fist into his mouth and they fell to the ground, Clio instantly winning the upper hand and clambering on top of Frank to straddle his torso with both legs.

“Fuck you, you bastard,” she breathed, overcome by the need to stop him, no matter what the cost.

With one graceful move, she removed her fist from his mouth and bent down over him, planting her lips over his and sealing his mouth shut with her own.

But this wasn’t a kiss given out of love or passion. It was not something to be savored and cherished. No, this kiss was bestowed with burning hatred.

Frank shrieked, thrashing under Clio’s weight as she sought out his floundering tongue with her teeth and bit the thing clean off at the root. She sat up, her face a bloody mess, and spit the offensive piece of muscle onto the dirty floor. Jennice had the presence of mind to reach out with her foot and kick it away, the tongue skittering across the floor before disappearing underneath the skirt of the couch.

“We need to tie him up,” Jarvis said.

He was standing above her now, lower face covered in blood, nose bent too far to the left.

With their matching beards of blood, she was sure they made quite a disgusting pair.

Clio felt hysteria burbling up inside her, looking for a release. She wanted to laugh, to get all the bad stuff out of her, but she couldn’t do it. She was afraid if she started laughing now…she might never stop.

*   *   *

noh looked down
at her body, sad to see it lying on the floor, devoid of life. Her hair was spread across her face so she couldn’t see her eyes or mouth, but she thought this was probably for the best. She felt bad her passing had made everyone cry—especially Jennice. She’d really grown to like the funny little healer.

As she floated beside them, she so badly wanted to let them know it was okay, that she wasn’t unhappy about her death, and they shouldn’t feel bad about it, either—but she had no way of sharing this important information with them.

While Jarvis and Clio looked for rope to tie up Frank, Noh floated over to Jennice, who sat on the floor by the body, holding Noh’s lifeless hand. She reached out with ghostly fingers and tried to touch Jennice’s hair, but Noh’s arm sailed right through her friend’s head.

“Are you all right?”

It was Trina, floating beside her, except now her body was more solid and full of color than Noh had ever seen it before.

“You look alive,” Noh said.

Nelly popped up beside Trina and giggled.

“You look dead.”

Noh supposed she did. She stared down at her ghostly body and that’s when she realized something amazing: She wasn’t an adult anymore. She was a kid again, practically the same age she’d been when she’d first started at The New Newbridge Academy. She lifted her hands to her hair and found the ponytail she used to wear when she was younger. She even had on her mother’s silver hair clip, a fact that thrilled her.

“I wish I could tell them it’s all right, that I might even be
happier now,” Noh said, brow furrowing. “They’re so sad and it’s not a sad day, at all. It’s actually a happy one.”

The others had no answer for Noh. The realies were her domain, not theirs.

“Where’s Henry?” she asked suddenly.

Trina rolled her eyes.

“He’s upstairs being all moody.”

Noh grinned as the need to find Henry and tell him what had happened to her filled her with unbridled excitement.

“Well, I’d better go up there and show him my new ghost body,” she said—and then she was gone. The empty body on the floor, the one that’d housed her soul for so many “living” years, well, she’d already forgotten about it.

There was something “off” about Daniel.

He was skittish, his gaze sliding away without ever quite looking me in the eye. His thoughts seemed to wander even in the middle of a conversation, so when someone asked him a question, he stared blankly back at them—something I’d never seen him do before. This was the antithesis of the Daniel I knew. My experience was with Mr. Present, Mr. Right There In The Moment, Mr. Sensitive and Thoughtful. This other Daniel was a stranger to me, one I didn’t enjoy—and I worried it was my fault.

I’d been a jerk and hurt his feelings, not just on this one occasion, but here and there for the entirety of our relationship. I’d thought this was how relationships worked, a constant battle for balance, and the understanding that sometimes you hurt the other person’s feelings. I mean, God, Daniel had hurt my feelings so many times I’d stopped counting. But it didn’t mean I loved him any less.

Part of me wondered if the distracted behavior was the product of all the stored-up hurt and anger Daniel had been carrying around because of me and, soon, he’d decide to shut me out entirely and that would be the end of our relationship.

I could take the fighting, the screaming, the anger, but what
really ripped me apart was the distance. For the first time in our relationship, I was beginning to feel as though Daniel had put a wall between us, one I could never hope to surmount.

It was an extremely depressing thought.

I did my best to act natural, but inside I was gutted. I wished Jarvis or Clio was there to talk to. They were both so pragmatic. They’d tell me I was being silly, that there was absolutely nothing to be paranoid about—and I’d believe them.

Kind of.

I stuck close to Daniel as we left the junkyard behind us and traversed even more desert, cooing at him like a lovesick dove while he smiled back at me, his eyes empty. I found I couldn’t stop myself from fawning all over him; the colder he behaved toward me, the more I fought for his attention. Runt had chosen to stay by my side, and I realized she knew something was wrong because she wouldn’t stop whining. She just kept looking back and forth between us, and emitting this weird, incessant doggie whine that drove me bat-shit crazy.

Still, I was ecstatic she’d gotten her voice back, and if it meant I had to endure the doggie whining to have her whole again, then so be it—but it was pretty damn distracting.

“I think we’re almost to the edge,” Judas said, running ahead of the rest of us and pointing to the “edge” of the desert.

I followed his gaze until I saw what he was talking about.

Way ahead of us, just beneath the horizon, the rolling dunes of sand were gradually giving way to flat orange rock.

“That’s the She’ol?” Marcel asked, slowing down so he could walk abreast of Daniel and me.

“No, those are just the Cliffs of Tranquility,” Daniel said, using the tail of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. “The She’ol is at the very bottom.”

“And you knew there was something fishy going on here,” Marcel said, rather pointedly, “but decided not to tell anyone about it.”

“What are you trying to say?” Daniel snarled, stopping in the middle of the sand and staring at the Ender of Death.

Marcel held his ground, not the least bit intimidated by Daniel’s gruff tone. The two of them stood there, facing each other, toe-to-toe, both red-faced and sweaty, but so different looking it was almost comical. Where Marcel was blond and
cherubic, with pre-Raphaelite features, Daniel was all Black Irish and exquisite, ice blue eyes.

“No fighting,” I said, deciding to intervene before someone lost their cool and things got out of control. “Marcel didn’t mean anything. He was just making conversation.”

Marcel raised a pale eyebrow.

“I very much meant something by that, Death. I wanted to know why they’ve left this place to its own devices for so long.”

Runt had taken off to get Cerberus and Judas, and they’d arrived just in time to hear the tail end of the conversation.

“Daniel has not been in charge very long,” Snarly head said, his terse tone a warning to Marcel to tread carefully. “We’ve been cleaning up the Devil’s mess as best we can, but there is much to do and not enough help to do it. Besides, it belongs to the Angels—it’s not officially in Hell’s jurisdiction.”

Marcel considered this for a moment, then nodded for Snarly head to continue.