The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL) (31 page)

Still, if I took the gamble and let Marcel stay down for the count, then I
might
be able to marshal all my strength and wit together to beat Uriah Drood and his minions—but the likelihood of me being erased from the universe before that could happen was very high.

Logic won out over self-preservation.

“Let’s do this thing,” I said, kneeling down in the sand beside Marcel’s inanimate corpse.

I placed my hands on his tortured face, the rigid, dead flesh making me queasy. I’d done this once before, unwittingly. It felt strange to be doing it now, on purpose.

“Live,”
I whispered.

There was a
crack
of rolling thunder above me and then the cloudless blue sky split in two, rain pouring down on us in warm, wet waves. I was soaked instantly and had to push my waterlogged hair out of my face so I could see.

I felt the muscles in Marcel’s face shudder beneath my fingers and then his one good hand shot up and wrapped itself around
my neck, pulling me down toward him. I was too surprised to pull away as his lips brushed mine. Heat and a powerful attraction exploded between us, and then, my body thrumming with power, he released me and tilted my head so he could whisper into my ear:

“You are brave.”

I looked down into his eyes, the whites so bright they resembled bleached eggshells.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

I held out my hand and he took it, letting me help him to his feet as the water continued to beat down on us.

“We’re in Hell?” he asked, looking around.

His experience in Hell had been about as wonderful as mine, so I doubted he was very happy to be here.

“Yup,” I said, using my hands to slick my hair back off my face.

“Great,” he said, arching an eyebrow before turning his attention to his murderer. “And what do we have here?”

He knelt down beside Alternate Frank, who was still lying trussed up in the (now) wet sand, looking as miserable as a drowned rat.

“We have to keep him alive,” I said, shaking my head. “So, if you’re thinking about doing something naughty—not gonna happen.”

Marcel grabbed Alternate Frank by the chin and shoved his head back, then he leaned in close enough to whisper:

“One day I will cut your balls off and feed them to you.”

“You can eat sh—” Alternate Frank started to say, but Marcel sucker punched him in the mouth and blood poured from the wound.

“You don’t have the right to speak to me,” Marcel hissed, the cords standing out on his neck.

He looked like he wanted to say more—a lot more—but I grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him to his feet.

“Do you know Cerberus?” I said, taking Marcel’s good hand and leading him toward Snarly head. I didn’t want him spilling any more of Alternate Frank’s blood.

“We’ve…met,” Marcel said as he and Snarly head eyed each other—but this was all either of them offered on the subject.

“All right, then,” I said, changing the subject—my very obvious way of diffusing the situation. “Now what do we do?”

Marcel blinked at me, while Runt remained silent. Only Cerberus replied, but his words were not intended as an answer to my question.

“You’re Death. It is your time to make the big decisions.”

“Ha,” I laughed, but Cerberus was right. It was time for me to get the show on the road.

I reached up and patted him on the chin, rubbing one of the spots I knew Runt liked. Cerberus closed his eye, leaning his head into my hand and enjoying the impromptu scratching session.

As we stood there, the rain stopped as suddenly as it’d begun. Nature’s response to my powers was always an interesting thing to behold.

“Well, we don’t have Drood,” I said, shaking off some of the rainwater—I knew ten minutes under Hell’s sun would have us all dry as a bone.

“We haven’t even
seen
him,” Marcel said. “But he seems to know what we’re going to do before we do it.”

That
wasn’t exactly true, but we had experienced a lot of bad luck since our arrival in Purgatory.

“I think shithead over there,” I said, pointing to Alternate Frank, “was hiding out in Drood’s compound. Someone brought him over to our world from his alternate universe and now he’s just waiting until the two universes merge so he can take over.”

Alternate Frank snorted.

“Have you got something to say?” I asked, glaring at him.

“Nope, got nothing to say to you, sis,” he replied then spit out a tooth, his mouth still bloody where Marcel punched him.

“Can I kick him?” Marcel asked, glowering at Alternate Frank.

I shook my head.

“You can kick me, little priss,” Alternate Frank said to Marcel. “But that don’t mean I ain’t gonna kick you back.”

“Ignore him,” I said, taking Marcel by the shoulders and forcibly turning him back around to look at me.

Marcel was like a small child with poor impulse control. I
was really gonna have to watch him, or else he was gonna beat Alternate Frank’s face in when I wasn’t looking.

“Drood knew you were coming,” Marcel said, his nostrils flaring. “He’d spelled the house against you.”

“It was a precaution,” I disagreed. “The only person who knew where we were going was Jarvis—and I trust him as much as I trust myself.”

Marcel raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, shut up,” I said, punching him in his good arm. “I’m totally trustworthy.”

Making fun of me seemed to have taken the edge off Marcel’s bad mood. Not that I blamed him; he’d been clinically dead, for God’s sake—and no one felt like doing the hokey pokey after something like that. I was just getting ready to say as much when I felt a concussive
boom
ratchet through my body, so loud I instinctively covered my ears to protect them.

“What the hell?” I said, as I removed my palms from the side of my head, only to discover that a cacophonous ringing in my eardrums was affecting my ability to hear properly.

Marcel, who was still facing me, pointed to something or someone just over my shoulder. I whirled around to discover Daniel walking toward me, the original copy of
How to Be Death
, the one written in Angelic tongue and impossible to read, held out in front of him like an offering.

He said something, but I could only make out a few of the words, the rest were gibberish.

I shook my head.

“I can’t hear anything,” I said. I knew I was speaking too loudly, but that’s what happens when you can’t hear anything. “How did you get the book and how did you get here?”

Once again, Daniel spoke, but all I managed to decipher was: Jarvis and massacre. Neither of those two words left me with a happy feeling in my stomach.

“Just…stop…for a minute,” I said, shaking my head, as if this would somehow restore my hearing. “I can’t hear anything.”

Daniel nodded, letting me know he understood. I turned back to Marcel.

“Can
you
hear anything?”

He shrugged and I took that as a “yes.” I switched my gaze from Marcel to Runt, who also nodded, and then, finally, to Cerberus, who was already talking to Daniel—so obviously his hearing hadn’t been affected, either.

As I watched, Daniel grabbed Snarly head in a headlock and then the two of them, a grown man and a three-headed hellhound, were rolling around in the sand, tussling with each other. I’d seen them get all rowdy together before, and, I had to admit, it was pretty darn adorable.

But back to the problem at hand.

Why was I the only one who couldn’t hear anything?

I leaned my head to the right and smacked the heel of my palm against my temple a couple of times then switched sides, repeating the process. This was something I’d done as a kid when I was trying to get the water out of my ear canal after I’d gone swimming. Needless to say, it didn’t work in this waterless situation.

Daniel, clothes covered in dirt and sand, set his hand on my shoulder and I jumped. Not being able to hear made normal interaction nearly impossible.

Daniel held
How to Be Death
out for me to take, and I extended my palm, letting him slip the tiny tome into my hand. Instantly, my ability to hear returned in a rush and I was able to catch Cerberus saying:

“…if Drood wants a battle, he’s going to get one.”

He was talking to Marcel, who was nodding.

“I can hear again,” I said as I put the book into my back pocket and then grabbed Daniel, pulling him into me so I could squeeze him tight.

He seemed confused at first, but then he grinned and leaned down to kiss me.

“I missed you,” I whispered in his ear, after we’d broken apart and I was carefully ensconced under his arm.

“I missed you, too,” he said, pulling me even closer.

As for my temporary hearing loss, I was pretty sure it was the book’s way of punishing me for not protecting it better. Here it was, down in Hell—which was probably the
worst
place for it—under the former Devil’s protégé’s control, so why wouldn’t it be pissed off at me?

It was amazing how, as I’d learned to embrace my supernatural
existence, I’d also had to accept that, sometimes, books and other curios behaved like human beings instead of inanimate objects.

“And then what happened?” Cereberus was asking Daniel, in what seemed to be a more thorough exploration of the subject they’d been talking about while I’d been partially deaf.

“Freezay and a Siren wormholed directly into Sea Verge, breaking a protection spell Jarvis had placed on the house and giving entrée to a pack of gnarly Vargr.”

“Are they all right?” I asked, terror making me light-headed. If anything had happened to Clio…

“Everyone got away. Kali showed up and took things in hand, giving the rest of us a chance to escape.”

“Where are they now?” Marcel asked—and I could feel Daniel tense.

My boyfriend did
not
enjoy being interrogated. It did nothing but put him on the defensive and make him seem guilty, even when he wasn’t.

“There was…Something happened,” Daniel began, “and the car I was driving exploded—”

“Oh my God,” I said, beginning to freak out again.

“I was able to wormhole everyone away, but then things went funny and we were separated. I called Morrigan to come get your mom—”

I took a step away from him, my thoughts spinning. What was Caoimhe doing at Sea Verge? I’d specifically told Jarvis not to let her know what was going on because I knew she’d be safer this way. And if, God forbid, there were any problems, or if I ceased to exist, I knew Morrigan would protect her. I may not have “loved” my birth mother’s choice of partner, but I knew Morrigan was a gifted warrior, one who’d guard Caoimhe with her life.

“When I found out what was happening, I thought she needed to know,” Daniel said, looking sheepish.

I took another step away from him and Runt padded over, leaning her head against my leg in a show of support.

“I was just doing what I thought was right,” he added. “She’s your mother. She deserves to know when her child is in danger.”

I knew I shouldn’t be angry with Daniel for doing what he
thought was best, but I was annoyed. Still, what was done was done and there was nothing I could do to change it—and knowing Caoimhe had actually come to Sea Verge to protect me did make me feel all warm and mushy on the inside.

It was amazing to realize Caoimhe had done more for me in the last twenty-four hours than my adopted mother had
ever
done. Caoimhe was willing to step up to the plate when the going got rough, while the woman who had raised me had run off to the sea, leaving Clio and me to fend for ourselves after our dad’s death.

As much as I hated to compare the two women, Caoimhe was clearly the winner in my book.

“It’s okay,” I said, giving Runt a pat on the head before walking back over to Daniel. “I know you were just doing what you thought was best.”

He grinned at me.

“Thank you for saying that, Cal. It’s appreciated. I really was trying to help.”

I let him take my hand again and I leaned against him, glad to have the comfort of his nice, warm body.

“So how did you find me?” I asked.

“The book brought me to you,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “I asked it to find you and then I was here—though it wasn’t like any wormhole I’ve ever been through. More like a doorway.”

It sounded like the book had the same magical properties as the hellhound populace—which meant no one could track you when you were traveling by the
How to Be Death
book.

I was really starting to wish Jarvis were here with us. My Executive Assistant had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of magic and the Afterlife. If anyone knew what kind of magic the book and my hellhound friends were using, it would be Jarvis.

“I’m just glad you’re here,” I said, intertwining my fingers in his. “I’m sorry I didn’t come find you. It was all just so crazy. Plus…I wanted to protect you guys, if, you know, I ceased to exist.”

I felt stupid for not just going to him earlier, confiding in him about what was happening to me.

“It doesn’t matter, Cal,” he said, ruffling my hair. “We’re together now.”

I looked up at my big, strong boyfriend, happy to have him here with us on our journey. Cerberus and Runt seemed happy he was here, too—only Marcel was skeptical, continuing to give Daniel strange looks and asking inappropriate questions whenever I let him get a word in edgewise.

Which wasn’t very often.

“So this is the guy who’s going to take over Death, Inc., after Drood erases you from the history books?” Daniel asked, looking over at Alternate Frank.

“Yup,” I said.

“You think you have the right to be here?” Daniel growled at Alternate Frank before giving Runt a quick pat on the head and then leaving me to walk over to the prisoner. “You think what you’re doing is right? Ruining the Golden Age of Death just because you can, you selfish prick.”

Like Marcel before him, I was afraid Daniel was gonna go to town on Alternate Frank, but he restrained himself.

“Calliope won’t let me torture him,” Marcel said to Daniel, in a matter-of-fact tone.

Daniel looked over at me.

“I think it’s worth a try, Cal,” he said.