The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL) (40 page)

“The She’ol
is
on our list and it will be dealt with eventually. The general populace of Hell needed our attention first.”

While Snarly head was working hard to defend him, Daniel was busy getting the funny, faraway look in his eyes again. I doubted he’d even heard a word Snarly head had just said. I wanted to punch him in the arm and drag him back to reality, but I didn’t want to give Marcel any ammunition.

“Happy?” I said to Marcel, thinking if I put him on the defensive, then he’d back off.

“For now, Death. For now.”

I tried to catch Snarly head’s eye, but he was staring at Daniel with a worried expression on his face.

Even Judas looked worn-out. The bottom of his blue caftan was filthy and he’d twisted his long hair into a loose topknot to keep himself cool, revealing a swath of patchy red psoriasis scales on his neck and the base of his scalp.

Not that I was judging anyone. I was sure I didn’t look much better myself.

After the “almost” confrontation, we walked the rest of the way in silence, each of us keeping to ourselves. Which turned out to be a good thing because we heard the inhuman wailing long before we reached the edge of the rock cliffs.

Daniel had drifted away as we walked, until he was closer
to Cerberus and Judas than to me. Marcel took up Daniel’s slack, staying back with Runt and me.

“Do you hear that?” Marcel asked, cocking his head to the side.

The wailing was low and indistinct, but I’d heard it, too.

“The She’ol,” I said.

The Ender of Death covered his mouth with his hand, still listening.

“They’re singing.”

I had a hard time believing whoever was down there was singing. It sounded more like moaning to me.

“Are you sure?”

He shrugged and kept walking.

“I think so.”

I didn’t believe it was possible to get any hotter than I already was, but the closer we got to the She’ol, the more I sweated. Every other step, I had to stop and wipe my face with the inside of my shirt.

“It’s hotter, isn’t it?” I asked Marcel. “I’m not making it up, right?”

Earlier, his pale skin had turned light pink then a deeper shade of rose and now his cheeks were fire-engine red.

“You’re not crazy,” he said. “It’s hotter.”

“Like an oven,” I added. “And we’re the rump roast.”

He grinned at me.

“I think you’re the silliest Death of all.”

The Ender of Death had existed from the very beginning of time. He lived from incarnation to incarnation, always in mortal flesh; unlike Death, who was immortal and ruled as long as he or she wanted, or was able, to stay in power. The Ender of Death was the equal and opposite of Death—and, sadly, it seemed they would forever remain in constant battle.

The Ender of Death had murdered my father, and if things worked out, when the Golden Age of Death had passed, he would murder me, too. This was his job, just like it was mine to keep Death running smoothly.

“How many Deaths have there been?” I asked.

I’d never been curious about this stuff before, but for some reason I was enjoying my chat with Marcel and wanted to hear him tell me stories. Besides, he knew more than anyone about
where I’d come from because he’d personally known each and every one of my Death forefathers and mothers.

“Countless,” he replied, but I could tell he was counting them in his head.

I never got to find out the answer to my question because it was at that very moment we reached the edge of the cliff.

Cerberus, Judas, and Daniel were already there, the three of them standing together by the lip of the drop-off, gazing down at what was happening below. Runt raced past me, going to sit by her dad as Marcel and I joined the others.

The noise was louder now, rising up toward the sky. Marcel and I had both been wrong. It wasn’t wailing, exactly, but it wasn’t singing, either.

“What the hell are they doing?” I asked, because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

My Harvesters and Transporters were down by the She’ol, herding souls into a bright orange metal octagon shaped like a starship. No,
not
a starship:
a Gravitron
. Like the carnival kind I’d ridden on a hundred times, or more, as a kid. It even had a flashing neon sign on top of it that read:

“
The Pit
? You gotta be kidding me,” I said, darkly.

“I think the Man in Gray has a sense of humor,” Marcel said, sagely.

“Or else he’s just a big fan of the literal,” I shot back.

That’s when I realized the whining/singing noise we’d heard was actually coming from
The Pit
itself. After a certain number of souls were pushed through its entrance, the mechanized metal door would ease shut and then the thing would slowly burrow down into the ground and spin. It went faster and faster, picking up speed—this was what created the whining/singing noise—until electricity began to crackle around it. As soon as this happened, a neon orange lightning bolt of pure energy would shoot out of the top of the machine and disappear into the sky—and then it would get just a little bit hotter.

I could tell the machine had been going for a while, because it’d already turned much of the sky above it into an angry shade of burnt orange. I wondered if the machine was seeding the
atmosphere of Hell with pure soul energy, something that was, from the looks of things, very unstable.

“Who knew a Gravitron in Hell would signal the end of the universe as we know it,” I said.

“Don’t you mean the collision of two universes into one?” Judas asked. “That’s what you said before.”

I shook my head.

“I don’t think so.”

I tried to catch Daniel’s eye, but he was too entranced by
The Pit
to notice, so I gave up, addressing myself to the others.

“This isn’t about getting rid of me in favor of Alternate Frank,” I continued. “This is about destroying life as we know it, period. You don’t build something like that machine down there, with that kind of energy production, unless you want to cross the streams.”

Snarly head and Judas looked at me, uncomprehending.

“It’s a
Ghostbusters
reference,” Marcel said.

I’d expected Daniel to be the one to get it—we’d watched
Ghostbusters
like a zillion times on my computer while lying on the bed in my old Battery Park City apartment in Manhattan—but he was all checked out.

“So, do we just go down there?” Runt asked.

Whenever Runt spoke, I was reminded of how much television she’d watched with Clio before she’d learned to talk because of how much she sounded like Cate Blanchett in the movie,
Elizabeth
.

“You’re not going down there,” Snarly head said, the tone of his voice brooking no argument.

“Yes, I am,” she said. “You’re not the boss of me.”

I’d never heard Runt talk back to her dad before. Heck, I’d never heard
anyone
talk back to Cerberus before, but it worked. He bowed all three of his heads (Snarly
and
the two dumb ones), letting Runt know he was acquiescing to her demand.

“If that is your wish, Daughter, then I cannot stand in the way of your destiny.”

“Pop, I just want to help Callie,” she said. “She needs me.”

I’d learned early on that trying to talk Runt out of doing something was pointless. The little hellhound was going to do what she wanted whether you liked it or not—just like someone else I knew.

Me.

“That’s all well and good,” Marcel said, “but what’s your plan? You can’t just go down there without an idea of how to disarm the machine.”

Luckily, Daniel chose that moment to finally return to reality.

“I think I should go down there on my own,” he said, eyes feverish. “I’m the Steward of Hell and it’s my job to find out what they’re doing.”

“Those stupid idiots are building their own funeral pyre,” I said. “They don’t know it, but that’s what they’re doing.”

“Yes, Daniel should go down there with Judas,” Marcel said, nodding in agreement. “He should act as though he’s just realized there’s a problem. Tell them he’s interrogated Judas, who’s told him about the extra souls coming in through the East Gate.”

I didn’t like this plan because it put Daniel in unnecessary danger. What was the point of him going down there when they’d immediately sniff him out as an enemy?

“It’s just a distraction,” Daniel added as if he’d read my mind. “It’ll give the rest of you time to get down there and stop the machine.”

This part of the plan seemed amenable to the others, but Snarly head asked the one question we were all thinking.

“How?” he wanted to know. “How do we stop the machine?”

I had the answer to this one in my back pocket, and Daniel had been the one to unwittingly give it to me.

“The book,” I said, pulling the original copy of
How to Be Death
from my pocket. “This is the key to everything.”

“But you can’t even read it,” Daniel said.

He was missing the point.

“I don’t have to read it,” I said. “I just have to throw it in there with all those human souls. It’ll blow
The Pit
sky-high.”

Cerberus got it first.

“The book can’t be touched by human hands, or the human self combusts,” he said, nodding his head. “You believe that goes for human
souls
, too?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I do. I think it’s the magic inside of us that protects us from this book. Not just immortals, but anyone
with supernatural powers. And those are all human souls down there, without any magic. So no protection.”

“I think Cal’s right,” Daniel said—and I wanted to cry, I was so pleased he had my back. “It’s the only chance we have.”

His gaze was on me as he spoke and I felt all the love we’d had and would always have for each other flowing between us—and I knew every fight, every cold shoulder, every stupid misunderstanding was forgiven in that moment.

Thank you, Daniel,
I mouthed.

He smiled at me—and had I known it would be for the last time, I might’ve stopped him, made him kiss me, or stroke my hair, or I don’t know what…but I didn’t know. How could I know?

I couldn’t.

So I let him go.

He gave me a final wave—and then he and Judas took off down the steep mountain path that would lead them from the top of the cliff down to
The Pit
of Hell.

Anjea, in her owlet form, brought them to the edge of the Cliffs of Tranquility. Caoimhe thought she’d never been in a place so hot before in her life. Even breathing the air scorched her lungs. The heat was making her woozy, so she grasped Freezay’s arm. She didn’t know if it was a smart move. She wasn’t trying to encourage him, but maybe—just maybe—she wasn’t trying
not
to encourage him, either.

She was done with Morrigan. She knew this at least.

She’d put up with her partner’s petty jealousies for far too long, and now that they’d extended to her daughter, Calliope, well, Morrigan could just go fuck herself.

It was like a weight being lifted off Caoimhe to finally be done with the relationship—though it was strange to think that until she’d made the decision in her head, she hadn’t known what a relief it would be.

I should’ve been footloose and fancy free years ago,
she thought to herself.

Then she looked over at Freezay, the big lug, and found she was glad to have him there with her.

She’d fancied herself in love with him once. She’d been a kid back then, wet behind the ears with no male or female experience
to speak of, working at the PBI as Manfredo Orwell’s Second Assistant. This entailed picking up his dry cleaning, fetching his coffee…doing whatever Second Assistants did.

He’d taken her with him on a routine recruiting trip to California to see a young man about a position in the company. She’d been tasked with fetching this young man, a Mr. Edgar Freezay, and bringing him back to Manfredo.

From her boss’s description, she’d expected Freezay to be a smarmy, narcissistic boy, but he wasn’t any of those things. He was blond and handsome, but too awkward and tall to be completely comfortable in his own body…and he was earnest.

When she’d introduced herself to him, he’d looked at her with those bedroom eyes, long lashed and seductive, as though he knew her, knew her deep down to the core, and, in that instant, she was hooked. But then he hadn’t asked for her number, or how he might contact her—and that was that.

So time passed, the summer ended, and she’d found she’d almost forgotten him. And then suddenly he was thrust back into her life again.

It was two weeks before the annual Death Dinner and Masquerade Ball and she was sitting at her desk, secretly reading
The Stranger
instead of doing her work, when he’d stumbled into her office. As soon as he saw her, he’d stopped, a deer frozen in the headlights.

“How may I help you?” she’d asked, quietly setting her book down on her lap so she wouldn’t get in trouble.

“I was, uh, wrong office.”

He was gone as quick as a jackrabbit.

She stared after him for a few moments, confused by his odd behavior, then she went back to her book.

“Excuse me?”

She looked up again and he was standing in the doorway, holding a bedraggled-looking daisy in his hand.

“Did you steal that from the receptionist’s desk?” she asked, knowing full well he had.

He looked sheepish, but nodded.

“I wanted to ask you to dinner and I didn’t want to do it empty-handed.”

He offered her the daisy. She thought about refusing it, but decided to take it, instead.

“I’ll pick you up after work,” he said, grinning stupidly down at her. “That okay with you, Caoimhe?”

He’d remembered her name.

“Works for me, Mr. Freezay.”

Now his stupid grin grew even wider: She’d remembered
his
name.

They’d spent the next two weeks together and it was like a dream…then they’d gone to the Death Dinner and Masquerade Ball.

And that one night had torn them apart forever.

She hadn’t thought about those days in a long time, so she was surprised by how fresh the memories seemed, like they’d happened only yesterday.