The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL) (44 page)

“Even more than you can imagine.”

As we’d been talking,
The Pit
had picked up speed, spinning faster and faster and making me dizzy enough I found it hard to breathe.

“What if I told you I had
How to Be Death
in here with me right now?” I asked, ready to play my one and only trump card.

This gave the Man in Gray pause.

“But you don’t.”

I reached into my back pocket and pulled the book out for him to see.

“But I do—and there are enough human souls in here that if you annihilate them, the book is gonna mix with their energy and blow your little machine to smithereens all before you can get your little Apocalypse jump-started. Or finish merging these universes.”

The Man in Gray reached for the keyboard, but the room was spinning too fast and I could see his fingers jerking over the keyboard.
The Pit
was coming to the climax of its final ride. Soon it would be over—one way or another.

Without thinking, I leapt out of my seat and ran across the
room, my eyes focused on the keyboard. I could feel
The Pit
shuddering as it started to rip everyone inside apart, atom by atom.

“No!” I screamed, my fingers finally finding purchase on the keyboard, hitting all the buttons until I felt the machine begin to decelerate and then come to a complete stop. The dead souls on board, shocked at not being obliterated, started to clap, their relief eliciting thunderous applause.

I looked over at the Man in Gray, but all I could see was Daniel—even though I knew he wasn’t there anymore.

“Why?” the Man in Gray asked, looking up at me with wet, puppy-dog eyes.

I shook my head. A million answers floated through my mind, but I settled on one:

“Because you don’t get to be the one to end our world.”

He thought about it for a moment then nodded.

“Yes, I suppose that was asking for too much.”

I walked up to Daniel and kissed him softly on the lips. Then I stepped back and to the Man in Gray, who wasn’t immortal, just tired and sad, whispered:

“I wish you dead.”

*   *   *

caoimhe and freezay
found me cradling Daniel’s body by the entrance to
The Pit
. I knew he wasn’t inside it anymore, but I just couldn’t let go—because letting go meant I had to let
him
go.

And I wasn’t ready to do that.

“Baby, you have to stop,” Caoimhe said, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and rocking me.

I shook my head.

“Please? For me?”

Her words penetrated, but I found I just didn’t care.

Runt had crawled up beside me, nuzzling her pink nose into my waist. She didn’t try to talk to me, just pushed herself against my shoulder, letting me know she was there.

“Baby, please,” Caoimhe whispered—and then Clio was there holding me, too.

All the women in my life, all the ones I loved more than
anything else in the world were trying their damnedest to keep me anchored here, to stop me from floating away.

But I was too far gone to care.

I don’t know how they pried my fingers off him, how they pulled me away from the man I loved, and took me back to Sea Verge, but they did.

They did.

Kali and Indra had done as Calliope had asked, and now the young man was holding on to Kali’s waist as she drove the hot pink Segway down the long drive leading to Sea Verge. Indra would never have deigned to travel by Segway, so he’d followed behind her in his red mini-convertible with the white racing stripes down its side.

In retrospect, Kali decided her friend was a genius and this was why she’d created this contingency plan. She’d put Kali in charge of overseeing it, and had hinted it might be nice to include Indra in its execution, too, because he could sweet-talk a lady out of her undergarments—never mind make a kid understand he was one of the three “possible” Deaths-in-Waiting.

Well, execute it, they had.

“This place is huge,” the kid said, the wind whipping his long dark hair into his face.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet, Nature Boy,” Kali said, using her new nickname for the kid.

They followed the driveway down to the house, sunlight bombarding their eyes and making it hard to see, but once they’d crossed into the shade, Kali saw Clio and Jarvis outside, waiting for them.

Jennice had come out, too, but she was sitting on the front
steps, a little removed from the others. Apparently, Noh’s death had been very hard on her—and then she’d come home to find her beloved mother had passed away, too. Kali thought it was almost too much to bear for someone so young, but Jennice was trying to put a good face on it—though anyone with eyes could see how much she was suffering.

And Kali hated suffering—unless she was the one causing it.

“Get off me, Nature Boy,” Kali said as she brought the Segway to a stop and she and the kid hopped off.

His name was Geir. He was nineteen and from Iceland, but going to school in Boston. He was skinny, wore a kilt, and kept his hair in long waves down his back, but Kali had caught him staring at her chest. So she figured it meant he liked women despite appearances to the contrary.

“Hi, Geir. I’m Clio.”

He dropped his backpack and took Clio’s hand, grinning at her. They both had sharp, chiseled features, dark hair and eyes, and very long, feminine lashes—which made Kali decide they looked more like siblings than complete strangers to one another.

One did have to take into account the supernatural world was very incestuous, so the two of them may have had common ancestors somewhere in their lineage.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Geir,” Jarvis said, also extending his hand for the boy to take.

It was an awkward handshake, but since they were both awkward men—neither of whom seemed at home in his own skin—it was fine.

Jennice was the last one to meet the Icelander, and while they were being introduced, Clio ran to Indra, letting him enfold her in his strong arms.

Kali had known Indra for a long time, and she’d never seen him act so silly headed around a woman before. He got this goofy look on his face whenever Clio’s name came up in conversation, and the way he was cuddling her, well, Kali saw babies in the future.

Cute, little, annoying Eurasian babies. Yuck, it disgusted her just thinking about all that cuteness.

“Shall we go in, then?” Jarvis said, interrupting Indra and
Clio’s public display of affection—something Kali would have to thank him for later.

“Yes, let’s go see dipwad,” Kali agreed.

Then the six of them went inside.

*   *   *

callie was in
her dad’s study, going through his books, deciding which ones she would keep and which ones she would donate to the Hall of Death’s reading room. The place had been a mess when she’d gotten back. Two Vargr attacks had not been good for the old house, but it’d forced Callie to start to think about redecorating. If she was going to live here, she might as well make it look the way she wanted, instead of the way her parents had kept it.

“They’re here,” Runt said, trotting into the room, a pretty pink bow tied around her neck.

“What’s with the bow?” Callie asked, admiring the hellhound’s new accoutrement. “Did Caoimhe give it to you before she left?”

Caoimhe and Freezay had left for California that morning. They were going to close up Freezay’s bungalow and pack up the odds and ends he wanted to bring back with him to Newport. For now, he and Caoimhe were going to stay with Callie at Sea Verge. That way Freezay could work for Death, Inc., as Callie’s new Head of Death Security—and Caoimhe, well, she could work on being a mom.

“Jennice,” Runt said, flopping on the floor at Callie’s feet. “She thinks it makes me look more like a girl.”

Callie snorted.

“I think you’re pretty darn girly as you are,” Callie said, kneeling down to pat the pup’s head.

There was a flutter of wings at the window and Callie stood up.

“I’d better let Anjea in.”

“She eats mice,” Runt said, matter-of-factly.

“Yes, she does,” Callie said, opening the window so the owlet could come inside.

She flew around the room once, as if she were checking the lay of the land, then she landed on Callie’s shoulder. The owlet
didn’t talk very much, and when she did, it was usually only to Callie. Today was no exception.

“Come to check out the new recruit, have you?” Callie asked the owlet, who merely began to groom her wings, ignoring the question.

“I think he’s cute for a human kind of a person,” Runt said, padding over to the window so she could try and catch another glimpse of Geir.

“No way, no how,” Callie said, picking up another book while Anjea continued to groom herself. “You are not old enough to like boys.”

“That’s what you think,” Runt said, hightailing it out of the room just as Jarvis led the crowd in from the outside.

“This is Geir, Calliope,” Jarvis said, pushing the young man toward Callie.

He blushed as he held out his hand, and Callie bypassed it in favor of a hug.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Geir,” she said, pulling him to her.

“It is my pleasure,” he replied, blushing even more as she released him from the embrace.

“Why doesn’t everyone sit down,” Kali said, winking at Callie. “Dipwad wants to talk now.”

Callie and Jarvis had brought in some folding chairs, arranging them so there were seats for everyone.

“Yep, you guys have a seat so old dipwad here,” Callie said, “can talk.”

The others did as she requested, and once they were settled in, she began.

“My name is Calliope Reaper-Jones, and I am the Grim Reaper. I run Death like my father before me did, as a corporate entity called Death, Inc. I am its President and CEO, and I make all the big decisions”—she winked at Jarvis here—“but not without the help of my friends.”

She sat down on the edge of the desk, facing her audience, and ran her fingers along the old desk set that had once belonged to her dad.

“Clio, Geir, and Jennice, whether you know this, or have only guessed at it, you are the next three ‘possible’ Deaths.”

Only Geir seemed a little bewildered by everything he was
hearing. Clio wore a serious expression and Jennice just looked sad.

“I want the three of you to work for me. To learn how Death, Inc., works so if something happens to me, whoever takes my place will be prepared.”

Outside a seabird screeched and everyone looked to the window, expecting something supernatural to happen—but sometimes a seabird was just a seabird, and so they all settled back to let Callie finish her pitch.

“I wasn’t prepared. I was thrust into something overwhelming and I caused more trouble than good,” she said. “My dad was trying to protect me, but, instead, he just made my life harder. I don’t want that for you. I want you to step into your destiny with your eyes wide open, to choose your fate so it doesn’t choose you.”

She clapped her hands together and stood up.

“That’s it. That’s the spiel. Do you want to come live with me at Sea Verge and learn to make the Afterlife a better place?”

No one clapped.

But no one said
no
, either.

*   *   *

kali found her
friend sitting on an old bench out by the cliffs, looking out at the water and listening to the waves. She sat down beside her, but didn’t speak. Finally, after a few minutes she grew impatient and punched Callie in the arm.

“Hey!” Callie said, rubbing the spot where Kali had hit her—she already knew from experience she was going to have a bruise there the next day.

“I need to tell you some stuff, white girl.”

“Okay,” Callie said, still rubbing her arm. “Tell me.”

“It’s about Daniel,” Kali sighed.

Callie had been waiting for this, expecting it, so she just nodded.

“Once upon a time, when you weren’t even embryonic, dipwad, there was a guy.”

“This sounds like one of those alternative fairytales,” Callie said, but shut up when Kali threatened to punch her again.

“As I was saying,” Kali continued. “He was a guy. Just a guy. No one famous or special, but he wanted to be, so he made
a deal with the Devil and, for his immortality, he agreed to do terrible things.”

Callie turned her gaze back to the sea now, letting Kali talk.

“We’re talking bad shit, white girl, the worst stuff in the Devil’s arsenal. He lived like this for a long time and then one day something happened and he changed. He didn’t want to do the bad stuff anymore, but he was stuck. And then you”—here, she poked Callie in the ribs—“you set him free. And he fell in love with you. But he was still always fighting the bad stuff, and it was still always threatening to win.”

Callie shook her head, her eyes filling with tears.

“He was so much better than me. He wanted only good things for everyone—”

Kali reached down and took Callie’s hand.

“But he thought bad things first, just chose not to act on them. He wanted to do the opposite of what was inside of him.”

Callie nodded.

“Okay, sure, whatever—”

“No,” Kali said, squeezing her hand. “Not
whatever
. This is hard for you to understand because even though you make mistakes, you see the good things first. That’s you’re nature, dipwad. It’s what makes you a dipwad, for God’s sake.”

“I do bad stuff,” Callie said. “All the time.”

Kali laughed at her.

“
I
do bad stuff, white girl. My nature is to rip heads off and drink blood. I see Daniel for what he was because we were the same.”

Callie started crying then, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hands.

“Oh, God…”

“Stop,” Kali said, taking her hand. “Now listen to me. You made Daniel a better person. And you have to know that he was trying to protect you by accepting Watatsumi’s help—but being back in a mindset where he had to lie to you messed him up. He thought the end justified the means, white girl. Only he couldn’t handle it. He was like an addict getting back on the drugs—and that’s what killed him, in the end.”

Callie took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.