How to be Death (46 page)

I started to cry, my heart beating so hard I thought it was going to burst.

“So you just gave me to them?” I almost shouted, anger surging inside me like wildfire.

“I did what I thought was best for you,” she cried.

“Why didn’t you ever contact me?” I asked, pain snaking through my heart.

“I wanted to, but your mother—the woman who raised you—said no. Once you were theirs, there was nothing I could do.”

I suddenly understood so much, why I was so different from my mother and sisters, why I had never really fit into their world. It was like a giant weight had been lifted from my shoulders and I was finally free.

“Please don’t hate me,” Caoimhe said, her whole body trembling as she stood before me, tears coursing down her face. “Please…”

I stood up and ran to her—this alien woman who was my mother—letting her enfold me into her arms. I cried as she held me so tightly I thought I might break, but then she released me and held me back from her chest so she could look into my eyes.

“You are so beautiful,” she whispered, kissing both of my cheeks. “And I am so proud of you.”

She pulled me back into her arms and we stayed like that, holding on to each other like our lives depended on it (and maybe they did), until Jarvis and Runt came into the dining room, ready to take me home.

I stood in my bedroom at the Haunted Hearts Castle, trying to avoid the residual bloodstains left by the night’s murderous activities while I packed my bag for the return trip to Sea Verge. Actually, my bag still had Coy’s head in it, so this was a loner from Jarvis, but I didn’t care. I was just happy to be getting the hell out of California in one piece.

Runt, Jarvis, and Daniel were on their way over, so I was hoping to make quick work of it, but I was finding it hard to concentrate. My brain kept returning to Caoimhe’s face, wanting to decipher all the bits of her that were inside me.

Jarvis hadn’t been surprised when I’d introduced Caoimhe as my mother. He’d known about my parentage, though not who the woman was, and had been sworn to secrecy on the subject of my birth. At first, I’d been angry with him, but then I’d decided that it wasn’t really his place to tell me. In the end, it should’ve been my father. He should’ve told me, not left me to spend my life never knowing the truth.

As it was, I was already trying to make up for lost time. I’d made plans with Caoimhe to have lunch the following week—I wanted to get to know the woman who had borne me—and even if it meant I was going to have to spend time with bitchy old Morrigan, too, I knew it was worth it. Caoimhe obviously loved her—and I had no intention of making my mother choose
between us. If Morrigan wanted to do that, then it was her business, but I was going to try to make the whole thing as painless for Caoimhe and myself as possible.

There was a knock on my door just as I dropped the last item of clothing into my bag, and I sighed, happy to be packed.

“Come in!” I called, zipping up the bag and setting it on the floor just as I heard the door open behind me.

“I wanted to apologize.”

I looked up to find Kali standing in the doorway, looking sheepish.

“Why should you apologize?” I said. “I was the one who was being such a bitch.”

She shrugged, leaning against the doorway.

“I should apologize because it made me happy Daniel might be sleeping with Coy and that I got to tell you so.”

“Kali, I totally knew that’s what you were doing,” I said, shrugging. “But it’s still no excuse for being mean to you. I was just hurt and I lashed out.”

“Well, you were hurt because of me.” She sighed. “I couldn’t wait to share Daniel’s infidelity with you.”

“He wasn’t my boyfriend, so there was no infidelity,” I corrected.

“Yes, theoretically,” Kali agreed. “But still, I knew it would hurt you, and I should have been … more discreet … I suppose.”

She was right. She’d hurt me on purpose … but, you know what, I’d returned the favor. We were both guilty of hurting the other and the greatest thing we could do now was to forgive each other and move on.

I crossed the divide between us and threw my arms around her.

“Friends, please?”

She nodded.

“All right. Friends again, dipwad.”

She kissed me quickly on both cheeks then extricated herself from my embrace.

“I have to go now, white girl,” she said. “Horace is taking me to Mexico for the weekend.”

“You bitch,” I cried, laughing. “You only apologized cause you felt guilty about hooking up with Horace!”

“I’ll never tell,” she said, and grinning widely, she sashayed right out the door, slamming it shut behind her.

Leave it to Kali to get skunked and meet a man all in the same night,
I thought.
Amazing.

There was another knock, and I raced to get the door, thinking that maybe Kali had forgotten to tell me something about her trip, but when I threw it open, I saw one of the bodyguards—Rat Face—in the doorway, eyes blank, the bloodied point of a sword protruding from his chest.

“I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t forgotten about our arrangement,” came a cold voice—and then the bodyguard’s corpse slid off the sword point to reveal: Marcel, the Ender of Death, standing there, grinning at me.

“You!” I said.

Marcel leveled his sword in my direction. “I hope you will expedite the day and time of our duel so that I do not have to come remind you again.”

So the little shit was a sportsman. He wanted to have our duel fair and square; no trickery and no cheating—although he hadn’t been above frightening me into getting the ball rolling.

“’Til we meet again,” he said, giving me a terse bow. “And I hope that it’s soon. So that no more humans have to die.”

“Tomorrow,” I said, tired of all the bullshit and feeling bad about the dead bodyguard. “We meet tomorrow. I’ll have Jarvis send you a location in the morning.”

Marcel’s eyes flared in surprise.

“Of course,” he said, very pleased with the turn of events.

He bowed again, this time with an air of respect he had never shown me before.

“Oh,” I called out after him as he sauntered toward the exit. “Don’t forget to put on a clean pair of underwear.”

He turned around, not sure if he’d heard me correctly.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, you heard me,” I said. “Put on a clean pair of underwear so that you don’t embarrass yourself when they undress you at the morgue.”

Marcel stared at me, confusion rippling across his face—but when he finally understood what I was driving at, he started to laugh.

“
Enchanté
, Death.
Enchanté
,” he murmured.

And then, with a wink, he was gone.

I had one consoling thought as I sat down on the bed, my borrowed bag at my feet, waiting for Jarvis and Runt and Daniel to return and give me hell for what I’d just done: It was nice to know that Marcel enjoyed my peculiar sense of humor—and even nicer still to think that this time …
I wasn’t joking.

I still had a lot to learn about how to be Death—and my next lesson would take place sometime, someplace tomorrow. And it wasn’t going to involve ball gowns and fancy dinners …