The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL) (20 page)

Orwell nodded.

“Indeed, you are entirely sane.”

“So this Psychical Bureau of Investigations, what kind of work would I be doing there for you?”

Orwell gave him a slow nod.

“No other questions, then? Nothing about the nature of the business or of the supernatural world, in general?”

Freezay shook his head. He’d always known this day would come, when he’d find out the truth about himself and about the strange things he knew existed outside the realm of normal human perception.

“It’s just nice to know all those years of psychotherapy were utterly useless.”

Orwell laughed.

“You’ll find the world is much larger than the human mind can grasp.”

“But I’m not really human, am I?” Freezay asked, his body tensing as he waited for the answer.

“No, you’re not,” Orwell acknowledged. “Your parentage makes you a far more valuable specimen.”

Freezay’s mother was a normal human—it was why she’d been so quick to throw him into therapy when he’d begun talking about the monsters he saw walking down the streets of their suburban neighborhood. He was four years old, he just assumed what he saw was what everyone else saw. He didn’t know it was an overlay, one superimposed over what normal human beings could perceive.

Of his father, he knew next to nothing. Only that his mother had met him in a bar one lonely night and nine months later, Freezay had been born. So when Orwell referred to his parentage, Freezay knew he was speaking of his unknown father.

“What was my father?” Freezay asked.

“He was and still is the Norse God, Wodin.”

Freezay thought he was prepared to believe anything, but the idea his father was some kind of Norse God just seemed ridiculous.

“It seems improbable, but believe me when I tell you it’s the truth,” Orwell went on. “Your father is well-known for his predilection for mortal women. He has half-human bastards strewn around the world.”

It was only later, during his time with the PBI, that he was able to confirm this fact for himself. His father was, indeed, Wodin, and Freezay truly did have half siblings scattered across the globe.

“But this is neither here nor there,” Orwell amended, returning to the matter at hand. “You’ve lived in the human world, your knowledge and skill, coupled with the fact you are derived partly from immortal stock, make you an invaluable asset—so much so, we would like you to head up our new division. We’re calling it: Crimes Against Humanity.”

“I’m in.”

He hadn’t needed to hear more. He was willing to chuck his human future without further thought, this new fate impossible to ignore, now he knew it existed.

“I had a feeling you’d see things our way,” Orwell said, looking pleased. “Welcome aboard.”

They’d shaken on it—and this had marked the beginning of a long and enduring friendship.

As the years had worn on, the Crimes Against Humanity division had become legendary. They were brought in whenever there was an unusual crime, one that stumped the other departments—and their solve rate was through the roof; something attributed almost singly to Edgar Freezay and his uncanny knack for discovering the truth, no matter where it lay hidden.

And so the years had melted away almost without notice…but his feelings for the mysterious woman he’d met that day had never gone away.

Even now as she climbed to her feet later, her features distorted in anger, he couldn’t stop staring at her, she was so breathtaking.

“Well, don’t just stand there staring at me, Freezay,” she chided him. “Let’s rip this Siren’s heart out.”

It took everything inside of him not to oblige her.

*   *   *

even though this
was the first time Noh had seen a Vargr, she wasn’t in the least bit afraid of them. The rational part of her brain knew she should be terrified of the slavering beasts that could destroy her with one chomp of their jaws. They weren’t just plain old bad guys, but competent killing machines taking infinite pleasure in the violence they wreaked.

But her animal side, the one that’d taken control of her body now, wasn’t at all scared. It was fearless. It wanted to wipe the floor with the Vargr’s brains, then eat their guts on toast points for breakfast. She wasn’t usually so gory in her revenge plots, but she was worried about Callie, about what the shitheads were trying to do to her friend, and anger brought out the nasty in Noh.

As they reached the front door, she heard Clio say:

“We have to keep moving.”

Noh looked over at Jennice, not sure the other girl was going to be doing much “moving” once they got outside. From her glassy-eyed stare and inability to connect to what was happening around her, it seemed like she’d gotten more information than she could handle and had blown a brain fuse trying to
process it all. From the car ride up to Sea Verge, Noh had gathered Jennice possessed no knowledge of the Afterlife—which meant she must’ve been hella surprised when creatures like the Vargr showed up and started trying to eat her.

“Outside,” Clio said, pointing to the front door.

Noh wrapped her fingers around the doorknob and felt a strange prickling sensation flow up her arm. She shivered and almost didn’t open the door, but then Clio was shoving Jennice into her back and it was impossible for her not to open it.

Jennice screamed, and Noh saw what had caught the girl’s attention: A pack of Vargr were waiting for them on the front stoop. Noh’s survival instincts prevailed and she quickly slammed the door shut in the Vargr’s faces. Then she turned back to Clio, waiting for her to issue another set of instructions, but the girl looked stumped.

“What should we do now?” Noh asked encouragingly.

Obviously they couldn’t go back the way they’d come, and the front was just as dangerous. Her question went unanswered as a Vargr claw slammed into the front door, cracking the heavy wood separating them from the monsters outside.

Jennice screamed and cowered against Noh as another concussive
crack
splintered the wooden door even more.

“I guess there’s no time like the present to open that door and beat the shit out of those disgusting mongrels,” Clio said, swallowing hard.

Noh liked Clio’s plan very much. If she had to choose between fight or flight, she’d go with fight every time.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” she said, grasping the doorknob.

Then she let the front door fly.

Daniel watched Kali make short work of the remaining Vargr. He and Jarvis had tried to help, but she’d yelled at them to back off. Apparently, she enjoyed a bloody fight way too much to share it. He didn’t know if Freezay had caught up with Starr, but God he hoped so. He was pretty damn sure she was the reason the Vargr had shown up at Sea Verge. It was why he’d stayed away from the wormhole system to begin with. It was just another way to track someone or
be
tracked by someone else—and it was something he’d wanted to avoid until he’d found Callie and was assured of her safety.

The minute he’d set foot in Sea Verge, he’d sensed there was magic at work. At first, he’d hoped this meant Jarvis was cloaking Sea Verge to protect Callie’s location, but when he realized she was gone, he knew the magic was being used for other purposes. Put two and two together—and it meant Jarvis had placed a spell on Sea Verge to keep unwanted guests from finding and accessing the mansion.

So, why had it been so easy for him and the girls to breach the spell?

The only answer he could come up with was they’d been wanted; left exempt from the spell so they’d be able to find the house without any trouble. Freezay must’ve been on the exemption
list, too, but wormholing in with Starr (who wasn’t) had probably been what destroyed the spell.

He was going to have to quiz Jarvis about this if they ever got out of Sea Verge alive. Not that he was worried about himself, or Clio and Jarvis. They were immortal and could withstand a vicious Vargr attack—but he seriously doubted Jennice and Noh (who were mortal) could. As for Freezay, he figured the man had to have some supernatural blood in his veins or else he wouldn’t have worked at the PBI, but this was just an educated guess.

He felt a light touch on his shoulder and turned to find Jarvis standing beside him.

“I think Kali has this well in hand,” Jarvis said, eyeing the Hindu Goddess of Death and Destruction as she plucked one of the dead Vargr’s eyeballs from its head and popped it into her mouth.

While the two men watched, she chewed and then swallowed the gelatinous mass. Jarvis seemed amused by the strangely sensual act, and Daniel had to agree there was something compelling about what they’d just witnessed.

Though he’d never personally been attracted to the woman, when he was working as the Devil’s protégé the Devil had liked to take on Daniel’s appearance in order to seduce and torment women—especially the Goddesses he deemed to be “goody-two-shoes.” Kali had been on the Devil’s hit list, and now it made interacting with the high-strung, and rather violent, Goddess kind of awkward.

Kali, and the many other victims of the Devil’s seductions, had been made aware of the truth, that Daniel wasn’t the one to pin their anger on. And though they intellectually knew he wasn’t the responsible party, he still couldn’t help but feel weird whenever he walked into a room and they looked at him sideways.

The Devil had not made Daniel’s post-protégé life very easy.

“Yeah, I think you’re right. Kali has things well in hand,” Daniel agreed. “Let’s go find the girls.”

He’d barely gotten the words out of his mouth when there was a loud scream from the other end of the hallway.

“Shit,” Daniel said, and the two men took off at a run.

At first he let Jarvis lead the way, but when they got to the front door—and he saw the splintered wood—Daniel pushed past the lankier man and sprinted down the front steps.

But he needn’t have run. He found the girls had things well in hand. Even Jennice had snapped out of her fugue and gotten into the act, both arms raised in the air as if she were casting a spell—and who’s to say she wasn’t. If the three Vargr skipping in a circle in front of her were any indication, then she was a very powerful lady, indeed.

A few feet away from Jennice, Clio and Noh were taking turns beating a large Vargr over the head with a rake and a shovel, respectively.

“She just made them start dancing,” Clio called over to Jarvis and Daniel, as she took her turn with the rake. “It was amazing.”

Kali appeared in the doorway behind Jarvis, and when she saw the Vargr at play, she began to laugh.

“Oh my God, those Vargr look like trained seals! What will white girl’s friends think of next?”

She was out of the doorway in three steps and, in two more, was happily ripping the spinal columns out of each of the dancing Vargr. As Kali felled the third Vargr, Jennice’s body began to twitch and then she collapsed onto the stairway, her face covered in sweat.

Jarvis knelt down beside her, taking her hand and holding it in between his own.

“Are you all right?” Jarvis asked.

“Just…exhausted.”

She closed her eyes, letting herself lean against Jarvis for support. Whatever she’d been doing to keep the Vargr incapacitated had expended a lot of her energy.

Clio and Noh moved out of the way so Kali could have a go at their Vargr, but the Goddess ignored the rake and shovel, taking pity on the mongrel by smashing its head in with her foot, blood and brains spilling into the grass.

“Don’t play with your food,” she admonished Clio and Noh as she plucked another eyeball from the mess of brain and skull in the grass and ate it.

“That’s pretty disgusting,” Noh said, but there was no judgment in her voice.

“Eyeballs are a delicacy, ghost watcher,” Kali said with disdain. “I can’t help it if you white girls are squeamish.”

Daniel had never heard the term “ghost watcher” before and that was probably because he knew Kali had made it up. But the sentiment was correct. Callie had told him stories about her time at the New Newbridge Academy, and all the odd things she and Noh had experienced together there. He knew Noh could see ghosts, or
detached souls
, as she liked to call them, and he knew this was why she’d been able to tell Jarvis was in the wrong body.

“Can you see the Vargr’s souls when they die?” he asked her.

Noh shook her head.

“Over the years I’ve learned to tune my radar way down around Death,” she said. “I feel them leaving their bodies, but unless I want to make a connection with them, I don’t see them.”

“I bet that took you a long time,” Daniel said, and Noh nodded.

“You have no idea.”

Over Noh’s shoulder, Daniel could see Freezay—aided by a strange woman—dragging an unconscious Starr toward them.

“Caoimhe!” Jarvis shouted, getting up from his perch on the stairs.

There was no point in running to help them. They seemed to have Starr incapacitated. As they got closer, Daniel could see Caoimhe was not happy, her lips set in a firm line, dark eyes livid. From the flare of her nostrils, he intuited she’d rather be slamming Starr’s face into the ground than gently carrying her back to Sea Verge for questioning.

“Would you care for any assistance?” Jarvis asked, trotting over to Freezay, but the taller man waved him away.

“I see you’ve been busy,” Caoimhe said, surveying the multitude of mutilated Vargr corpses.

She dropped Starr’s arm and Freezay did the same, letting the Siren’s unconscious body flop onto the grass at their feet.

“Thank you for letting me know what’s been happening, Daniel,” Caoimhe added, looking pointedly at Jarvis.

“I—” Jarvis said, but she shook her head.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m sure you were only doing what Callie asked of you.”

Worried Callie had kept her birth mother in the dark about her situation, Daniel had decided to call Caoimhe from the road to let her know what was happening. He wasn’t surprised to learn she hadn’t heard a peep from her daughter. She’d listened silently as Daniel had spoken, then, when he was done, she’d told him thank you for the information and hung up on him. He knew Callie was just trying to protect them all with her information blackout, but, well-intentioned as it was, he did not appreciate being left out of the loop—and he’d gotten the impression Caoimhe would feel the same way.