The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL) (8 page)

Wanna talk about freezing your balls off? Well, this was a place where that phrase actually carried a little weight. The air was calm, but so cold I could totally feel the snot crystallizing on my upper lip. The visibility was amazing; clear enough to see the powdery blanket of white coating every spare inch of the place.

I noticed the ice and snow wasn’t as slick as I’d expected. Of course, the special boots I was wearing added to my stability, but the ice pack would’ve been firm and maybe not too terribly hard to walk on even if I weren’t wearing them.

“I see him,” I said suddenly, pointing ahead of us to where Marcel and his second were standing out in the center of the ice, waiting for us.

Marcel’s second was wearing a parka similar to Jarvis’s so I couldn’t see who or what it was, but Marcel looked chipper, shifting his scythe back and forth between his hands. To my surprise, he was wearing only a leather singlet, which left his arms and legs totally exposed to the elements. I knew he was probably all spelled up to keep himself warm, but still, his lack of clothing was kind of intimidating…and distracting.

If I hadn’t known Marcel, hadn’t experienced his bad behavior personally, hadn’t seen him do terrible things—like behead my father in cold blood—then I might’ve found his slim body
very
attractive. To the uninitiated, he was heartbreakingly beautiful, with blond curly hair and a cherubic face, all angelic and pure looking—but to me he was a lowlife, the skankiest of skanks, and the less I had to interact with him, the better.

It made me ill just to look at his smarmy face.

“You made it,” Marcel purred when we reached the appointed spot and stopped.

“What were you expecting?” I asked. “A no-show?”

Marcel laughed, spinning the handle of his scythe between his fingers.

“Your predecessors have always been so humorless. You, at least are never at a loss for words.”

I decided to take that as a compliment.

“Thank you,” I said, giving a condescending little bow, which only made him laugh again.

“I must say you truly have proven to be more than a worthy opponent. When I first met you all those years ago, I would never have believed it.”

I’d met Marcel—he was calling himself “Monsieur D” back then—when, as a kid playing hide-and-seek at Sea Verge, I’d unwittingly stumbled across a doorway leading into the deserts of Hell. Unbeknownst to me, my father had trapped Marcel there in order to keep me safe—and little did he or I know that my childhood visit would have such serious repercussions, proving to be the catalyst that eventually destroyed my father and sealed my destiny forever.

Very heavy stuff, indeed.

“You were selfish, shallow, self-involved, vain—” Marcel continued. “Yet, you have survived and flourished as the new Death. Even now it amazes me.”

“Oh, shut up and let’s just do this thing,” I snarled, annoyed by Marcel and his condescending, backhanded compliments. “If I’m going to die, then I want to get it over with, okay?”

Marcel grinned, shifting his scythe into his right hand and giving it a playful swing.

“If you insist.”

“I insist.”

Marcel waved his hand at his second and the parka-covered thing backed away. As much as I wanted Jarvis close by in case things got really bad, I knew I had to follow the rules of the duel.

I gave Jarvis a nod and, bowing his head, he did as I asked, falling back just as Marcel’s second had done.

When the two seconds had reached a safe distance, Marcel offered me his bare hand. I took off my right glove and met his bare skin with my own.

“May the best man win,” he purred.

“May the best
person
win,” I corrected.

Marcel released my hand, so I could slide my glove back on.

“Ready?” he asked.

I swallowed hard.

“Ready.”

Marcel was quick as a flash, bringing his scythe down on me like a sword. Instinct took over and I jumped out of the blade’s way.

“Don’t you think using scythes is a little on the nose?” I called out as I sliced at him with my “on the nose” weapon.

Marcel shrugged, easily parrying my attack.

“I thought it was fitting. Death coming to death by his own blade.”

“
Her
own blade,” I corrected again.

I was Death and I was a woman. Marcel needed to get that through his thick head.

“Excusez-moi,”
he shot back at me. “Touchy, touchy, Miss Death.”

Distracted by my anger, I almost opened myself up to a killing blow, but luckily I was able to dodge Marcel’s scythe as it whistled by my head. Still, it was a close call.

Too close.

Wheeling around, I gathered all my anger and used it to launch a frontal assault. Raising my scythe behind me like a hockey stick, I ran at Marcel, catching him off guard. I had just enough of an offensive surprise to be able to shove the butt end of my scythe handle into his stomach, the blow sending him sprawling. He hit the ice hard, but rolled just out of my reach as I struck at him with the pointy end of the blade.

I hit ice instead of the soft flesh I’d expected, and it jarred me, sending a shockwave of pain up my forearms.

“Damn it! Stop being so wily,” I yelled, frustrated by my inability to get him.

“Never!” he shouted, climbing to his feet and charging at me, a bull in a spectatorless arena made of ice and snow.

I wasn’t prepared for his full body blow and I went flying, but was still able to twist in the air so I hit the ice with my side and not my back. I felt more than saw Marcel’s scythe as it plunged toward my head, the cold spray of ice letting me know I’d managed to jerk my face out of the line of fire just in time.

Marcel swung his blade at me again and I borrowed his
trick, rolling away so he couldn’t get at me. I quickly climbed to my feet, using the scythe pole to balance myself, but Marcel kicked it away, sending the weapon flying out of my hands. I didn’t give him time to pounce, but dove for my lost weapon, sliding across the ice on my hands and knees, grasping like a blind man until I felt the scythe’s handle, and yanked it back into my possession.

“You have a terrible job,” I said, as I backed away from Marcel and his advancing blade.

“Why ever do you say that?” he asked, his cheeks red from exertion. It made me happy to think I wasn’t making this easy for him.

“Because you spend your whole existence chasing Death, trying to put a stop to the natural order of things,” I said, jumping back to evade the sweep of his blade.

“It’s not so bad,” he said, swinging at me with the handle of the scythe. “True, it did suck to be trapped in Hell, tied to a fucking palm tree, but who doesn’t have a few shitty decades in their immortal existence?”

Marcel’s immortality was very different from mine. His physical bodies came and went, but his soul, or ego, was always the same.
I
was tied to my corporeal form. When someone used my immortal weakness against me and I died, that was it. No more Calliope Reaper-Jones.

If my arch-nemesis killed me today—aside from my one immortal weakness, the Ender of Death was the only other thing that could destroy me—then all the near-death experiences I’d managed to scrape my way out of these past few months would be for naught.

It was kind of a bummer.

“Whatever you say, Marcel. I’ve never been tied to a palm tree, so I’m just gonna have to believe you on that one.”

I blocked his next attack with my scythe handle, his diamond blade skittering off it—and that’s when I saw my opening: Marcel’s forward momentum had left his lower extremities totally vulnerable. I didn’t hesitate to take my shot. I struck out at him with my left knee, catching him right in the balls. I heard a guttural
croak
come from deep inside of him, and then he dropped to the ground, a look of unimaginable pain washing across his face. I slid the edge of my scythe under his chin,
pressing the sharp part of the diamond blade into his throat, drawing a necklet of blood just above his Adam’s apple.

He stared up at me, eyes bloodshot—and I thought I saw a spark of amusement in his gaze.

“Stop!” I heard someone shout behind me.

I turned in the direction the voice had come from, still careful to keep my blade firmly pressed against Marcel’s throat.

“Do not kill him, Mistress Death!”

It was Marcel’s second, running across the ice toward us. Not one to be left out of the action, Jarvis was jogging back to us from the opposite direction. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he must be worried this was some kind of ploy to distract me and give Marcel the upper hand.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill him,” I yelled back at Marcel’s second, whose identity was still obscured by the parka. “Give me one good reason!”

“Because your very existence might ride on this man’s life,” the second said as she threw back the hood of her parka.

I gasped, shock filling my gut as I realized Marcel’s second was none other than Anjea, the Vice-President in Charge of Death for the Australian Continent—and an employee of Death, Inc.

My
employee.

“Anjea? What is the meaning of this?” Jarvis cried as he reached us, his own shock as palpable as mine. He put a protective hand on my shoulder, but did nothing to encourage me to release Marcel.

“Jarvis De Poupsey,” Anjea said, nodding her head at Jarvis, her long, unkempt hair bouncing in approval. “You have the voice of reason within you. You will understand.”

She was a commanding presence, though her papery mocha complexion and thick Aboriginal features looked bizarre set against the icy backdrop of the Antarctic tundra. The tiny brown owlet on her shoulder, her familiar, I supposed you called it, nuzzled against her neck.

“I shall try to understand,” Jarvis said, but he looked uncertain, confused by this surreal turn of events.

Anjea bowed her head, the soft folds of skin below her eyes and at her neck the only indication of her true age.

“You may release him now,” she said, gesturing I should let Marcel go.

“Why should I do that?” I asked, knowing Marcel wouldn’t have hesitated to take my head off my shoulders, were the situation reversed.

“What does your heart tell you to do?” she asked, looking deep into my eyes, almost as if she were trying to read my mind.

I’d only had limited dealings with the Goddess, but even in the little time I’d spent with her, she’d proved herself to be wise and selfless. I tried to do as she asked, tried to listen to what my heart was telling me, but it was so hard to hear its voice when my brain was screaming at me that this was the man who’d murdered my father.

I drew a shaky breath.

What
did
my heart say?

My heart said I just wanted to be left alone to do my job in peace.

I hesitated a moment longer, feeling the power of the blade as it sang to me, begging me to take Marcel’s lifeblood, but then I did as Anjea asked, lifting the blade from Marcel’s throat.

He scuttled away from me on all fours like a retreating crab. When he was clear of my reach, he lifted his hand to probe his wounded neck, his fingers coming away bloodied. I expected him to shoot me a nasty, hate-filled look, but, instead, I was surprised to find him appraising me, a newfound respect in his eyes.

“You were right, after all,” he said to Anjea, his voice full of wonder. “She is the
balance
.”

“The
balance
?” Jarvis and I both said at the same time.

“It was divined at your birth that your existence would herald the beginning of the next Golden Age,” Anjea said. “This was why your mother was convinced to give you up, though she was despondent over it. It was for your own protection.”

I’d only recently learned the woman who’d raised me wasn’t my real mother. It’d explained a lot about my personality, why I didn’t quite fit in with my family, and why my sisters and I were so different. It was kind of a relief to know I wasn’t the black sheep of the family, that there was someone more like me
out there. Still, it’d been tough to reconcile all the years I’d spent without my real mother in my life.

“She really wanted me?” I asked Anjea, unable to help myself.

Even though Caoimhe, my birth mother, was back in my life now, I still carried some doubts about her feelings for me. I knew I was being childish and insecure, but I found myself needing as much reassurance as I could get that she’d actually wanted me, that giving me up had not been her choice.

“Of course she wanted you,” Anjea said sharply. “You were, and are, a very loved child.”

I hadn’t intended to cry, but Anjea’s words cut me to the quick. To have her confirm I was wanted—by both of my parents—felt like washing away the pus from a festering wound. I guess I hadn’t really understood how disconnected I’d felt from the woman who’d
actually
raised me. I knew she cared for me, but she’d always been so much closer to Thalia and Clio—her daughters by blood. I’d spent my life trying to please her, to make her love me as much as she seemed to love them. I didn’t know this was an impossible task. That I was a constant, living reminder of something terrible from her past: her beloved husband’s infidelity.

“But that is neither here nor there,” Anjea said, yanking me out of my thoughts. “Those who seek to keep the world in decline and humanity trapped in its darkest phase, they want to destroy you, Mistress Death. Because with your destruction comes the blackest time of all.”

This was a lot to take in.

I turned to Jarvis, expecting him to know what Anjea was talking about, but from the look on his face I realized this was news to him, too.

“Did Calliope’s father know about this?” Jarvis asked.

Anjea nodded.

“It was why he fought so fiercely to keep Calliope free of her fate for as long as possible.”

Jarvis nodded, digesting her words.

“And how does Marcel fit into all of this?” I asked, curious as to what her answer would be.

“He is the Ender of Death, true,” she said. “But we have made a bargain, one you have just sealed for us.”

I raised an eyebrow. I didn’t like bargains that concerned me but I had no voice in.