How to be Death (10 page)

The octagonal tile we had in our guest room was continued here, but there were no Oriental carpets to up the warmth factor. The room was cold and sterile, like we’d stepped into the confines of a museum, leaving behind any idea that this was just a private house.

“Scholars from all over the world flock to the Haunted Hearts Castle,” I heard someone say behind me, the voice sharp but feminine.

I whirled around in my seat to find a large girl in a shimmering purple gown standing behind me, her auburn hair in a tight chignon at the base of her neck. Her milky skin and translucent green eyes were heavily accented with shimmering bronze makeup, her full lips brushed with a touch of metallic peach.

I knew the girl, but I didn’t know the name.

“Calliope,” Jarvis began, instantly rushing to my side, “you remember God’s assistant, Miss Munificent—”

“Ha!” I barked, then clamped my hand over my mouth when I realized I’d done it out loud. I wasn’t trying to offend, I just knew “munificent” meant “generous,” and that was the last thing I’d ever call
this
girl.

“Sorry about that,” I said, removing my hand. “I’m Callie. Nice to meet you. Again. With names.”

I stuck out my hand and the girl looked at it like it was a dead fish, but then she shrugged and took it anyway.

“Munificent, but you can call me Minnie—and if you say like the mouse, I’ll cut you.”

She delivered this line while giving my right hand, the one I’d proffered in friendship, a serious crushing.

“Ow! I get it,” I yelped. “No mouse jokes.”

She gave me a tight smile, then released my hand. She turned to Jarvis and winked at him.

“I told you, a little physical intimidation and you’d have her eating out of your hand.”

It took me a moment to realize she was talking about me.

“Hey—” I started to interject, but she shot me a look that would’ve sent a zombie horde screaming back to their graves.

“Now, where was I,” she said, returning her attention to Jarvis.

“The book …” Jarvis asked.

“Yes, the book,” she said absentmindedly as she pulled her sparkly purple clutch out from under her arm and set it down on the back edge of the couch.

Runt took the opportunity to come and sit beside me, settling her butt down as close to my legs as she could before dropping her chin onto my lap. This was the universal signal for “pet my head.” I did as I was asked and scratched behind her ears with my noncrushed hand. Runt, her chocolate eyes moving curiously as she watched Minnie undo the clasp of her purple beaded bag, whined into the gauzy fabric of my dress.

“Here you are,” Minnie said, triumphant as she pulled a miniature, calfskin-bound book from within the bag’s guts and handed it to me.

“What is it?” I asked, taking the book from Minnie, but directing my question at Jarvis.

There was a high-pitched, feminine giggle from outside and we all turned to see three women in long evening gowns, their faces masked, trundle across the courtyard, their bodies shaking with laughter. Beyond them, more partygoers emerged from the gardens, scattered buckshots of light marking the comings and goings of a hundred different wormholes.

“The Masquerade Ball is about to begin,” Minnie said. “We better hurry this up.”

“So, what’s the book?” I asked again after realizing the lettering on the cover was in a language I’d never seen before.

“This is the original, fully annotated copy of
How to Be
Death
, written in the tongue of the Angels and untouchable by humanity,” Minnie said tartly.

“It’s all the basics that you’ve read in the translated copy your father keeps in the library, but with an added instruction manual on how to kick-start the End of Days,” Jarvis added. “And it applies to any and all religions, not just Christians.”

“Okay,” I offered, but I was pretty uncertain as to why anyone was putting this kind of powder keg into my notoriously buttery fingers.

“You know that scene in
Raiders of the Lost Ark
when the guy’s face melts off?” Minnie said suddenly.

“Uh-huh.” I nodded, very intimidated by the aggressive lady in purple.

“That’s what happens to human beings who touch this book,” she said. “So don’t let any human beings touch the book, okay?”

I nodded at what was obviously only a rhetorical question.

“She knows this, Minnie. There are many references to it in the translated copy—” Jarvis said then stopped, looking at me through narrowed eyes. “Oh, Lord, you haven’t even read it, have you?”

I swallowed hard, wanting to lie even though I knew honesty was the best policy … maybe not the least confrontational policy but, in the end, always the best.

“No,” I squeaked, cringing.

“I cannot believe you’ve gone this long without reading the book!” Jarvis pouted. “It’s amazing to me how one person can be so incredibly mature one moment and such a child the next.”

I cowered in my gorgeous black gown on the big red sofa, feeling like a total fake. Jarvis was right. I had to suck it up and read the damned book or I was just a poseur.

“I’ll read it! I promise,” I said. “Just stop making me feel like such a shit heel.”

I’d forgotten Runt was there. I looked down at the pup’s wide eyes and apologized.

“Sorry, I meant schmuck, not shit heel.”

Damn, schmuck was, like, Yiddish for penis! That was as bad as shit heel,
I thought miserably.

“Ignore me, Runt. I have a foul mouth and I should be duly punished.”

“It’s okay, Cal,” Runt offered sheepishly. “They say way worse things on cable.”

From the mouths of babes.

“So, now that I have the, uh, book what am I supposed to do with it?” I asked.

Jarvis began to pace in front of the fireplace, looking serious, though I caught him sneaking a few quick glances in Minnie’s direction when he thought no one was watching.

“The book becomes the property of the new Death upon the transfer of the presidency of Death, Inc.,” Minnie intoned. “Your father brought it back to God only hours before he died and now—”

A sharp pain lanced my heart. So my dad had known exactly what he was doing when he’d let Marcel, the Ender of Death, destroy him. He’d even given back the original copy of the Death guide so it wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands after his death. I sat motionless on the couch, my brain awash with questions I knew I’d never, ever have the answers to.

“So you must protect it with your immortal life.”

“What?” I said, looking up. I’d missed Minnie’s explanation entirely.

“You look after the book and keep it safe,” Runt chimed in.

“Thanks, buddy,” I replied, patting her head.

Outside, the courtyard was filling with more revelers wandering around in pairs and small groups. There was an air of restlessness about them and I wondered if they were somehow waiting for me.

“No one knows I’ve transferred the book to you tonight,” Minnie said. “Don’t tell anyone you have it. It’s not common knowledge that Death is its keeper.”

“The Board of Death and a few others know, but otherwise the world believes the original was destroyed when the Romans burned down the library in Alexandria,” Jarvis added. “So this book is more of a legend—”

“Or not such a legend,” I said, looking down at it. “So why here, why now?”

“The book can only be transferred to the new Death on All Hallows’ Eve ‘Eve.’ That’s why it’s been in Heaven until now.”

The Afterlife was riddled with all kinds of stupid stuff like
that—rituals that had no real reason to exist, but existed and were adhered to nonetheless.

“All righty then,” I said, using the arm of the couch to hoist myself back onto my feet. “I guess that’s that. I’ll just put the book away—”

I wedged the tiny book in between my cleavage, where it was perfectly concealed beneath a wad of gauzy fabric.

“And then we’ll get this show on the road.”

Jarvis and Minnie looked at each other. I fully expected one of them to protest the cleavage-book scenario, but they remained silent on the subject.

“I promise I’ll put it in a safe place when we get back to the room,” I added, and this seemed to ease the tension somewhat.

Jarvis nodded, gesturing with a wave of his arm.

“Well then, after you, my dear.”

They waited for me to take the initiative—probably so they could give each other more “knowing looks” behind my back—but I didn’t need to be told twice. With Runt at my side, and doing my best to ignore Jarvis’s and Minnie’s palpable disapproval, I quashed all the nervous thoughts whirling around my brain. Then, with my head held high, I sashayed out the door and into the madness of the All Hallows’ Eve “Eve” Masquerade Ball.

They’d arrived in droves, milling about the Castle’s gardens and courtyards in their black-tie best, giddy at first, but now starting to get restless. I could hear the complaints and rowdy catcalls as I tried my darndest to follow Jarvis’s retreating back. Somehow in the confusion of bodies outside the library, he and Minnie had gotten ahead of us, so that Runt and I were now forced to play catch-up.

Well-dressed men and women—mostly humanoid, but there were other creatures, too—swarmed around us like ants. I felt goose bumps rise on my arms as the night began to cool, making me wish I’d brought a wrap even though once we got where we were going, I knew I wouldn’t be cold anymore. The sounds of the waves below us and the chatter of five hundred impatient revelers waiting to be led to their destination were brighter than anything I could see with my eyes, save the moon, which was a pat of butter high above us, cold and full as it floated in a pitch-black sky.

We were headed for the far end of the property, where there was a large flat piece of land overlooking the sea. It was here that Jarvis and I would meet up with the six Continental Vice-Presidents—one each for Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and one for South America and Antarctica—and together with Kali, the representative from the Board of Death,
we would open a semipermanent wormhole into another historical period in time.

Everyone was forced to meet in one spot, the Haunted Hearts Castle, which was the only access point to the event. Here, all comers with the proper invitation would be marked with a magical sigil that expired at 11:30 p.m. sharp—that’s when the wormhole closed and everyone was magically returned to their own homes. It was done this way so no one got stranded at midnight when all magic ceased for the following twenty-four hours.

The Death Dinner and access point were always at the Haunted Hearts Castle, but every year a new spot was chosen to host the Masquerade Ball itself. Last year, it had been in a tent at the New Orleans, Louisiana, 1884 World’s Fair—I hadn’t gone, but Jarvis said it was eerily beautiful. I couldn’t see anything too weird about New Orleans as a locale, but this year, the Executive Board of Death, Inc., had decided to hold the Masquerade Ball in a place I thought was a very strange choice, indeed. We were going back some 30,000 years in time to Southern France, where in the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave, which was playing host to our Masquerade Ball, some of the earliest known cave paintings ever discovered on Earth had just been freshly painted.

It was a neat idea, but I had my reservations about five hundred plus partygoers being stuffed into one cave like a bunch of sausages. Still, the Masquerade Ball was one of the highlights of the supernatural calendar. A time for all the creatures/beings who’d worked with/for Death, Inc., to come together for an evening of good-hearted debauchery. I’d never been invited before, but my older sister, Thalia, had been a fixture, notorious for her racy costumes and diva behavior. I’d learned this tidbit of gossip from Kali, who’d never cared much for Thalia—though she had admired my sister’s apparent single-mindedness when it came to seducing the opposite sex.

Thalia and I had been as opposite as two human beings could possibly be. She was a vain, type A personality with enough
ambition to take over the Afterlife—something she’d almost succeeded in doing until I’d gotten in her way. While I, on the other hand, was an average-looking, average-achieving, and pretty much average everything else, too, gal with zero ambition to take over the Afterlife. She was blond and beautiful; I was mousy brown. I loved food and she only drank protein shakes. The only thing we actually had a similar interest in was clothing, but we diverged there, as well: I loved window-shopping for designer duds, while she actually had the cash to buy them.