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

by Amber Benson

  Weaving on his feet, his eyes rolling back into his head, Jarvis mumbled something unintelligible, then pitched forward onto his face.

  Knockout.

  Frank had already moved on to Jennice. She was trying to subdue him the way she’d done with the two large men outside, but she was having trouble.

  “I saw what you did, girl,” Frank said. “That sure was something. I could use a lady with your talents.”

  Jennice’s brow furrowed as she channeled all the power she possessed directly at Frank. But he only laughed, crossing the space between them in two steps and gripping her by the throat with one hand, easily lifting her into the air.

  “Leave her alone!” Noh screamed from across the room.

  She ran forward, gunning for Frank, but he held out his free hand, and without even swiveling his head to look at her, said:

  “I wish you dead.”

  As her thick dark hair swished across her face, Noh froze midstride, her long legs folding underneath her as if all the bones had suddenly been yanked from her body. As she crumpled to the ground, her chin slammed into the wooden floor with a heavy thwack that made Clio’s blood run cold. Clio stared as Noh just lay there on the floor, unmoving, her long limbs splayed out at awkward angles.

  Clio held her breath as she waited for Noh to pop back up and laughingly say: “C’mon, guys, can’t you take a joke?”

  But no matter how much she wanted it, Clio knew Noh wasn’t going to get back up again.

  “Oh my God!” Jennice screamed. “What have you done!?”

  She pounded on Frank’s chest, screaming and crying, as she completely lost her shit. Clio dropped to her knees at Noh’s side, lifting the girl’s wrist—it was so cold—and feeling for a pulse, but there was nothing. Not even a flutter.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered to her sister’s best friend, patting Noh’s long hair, amazed to discover how soft it was.

  “Sonofabitch!” she heard Jennice shriek—and that’s when something snapped inside of Clio.

  She climbed to her feet, her body thrumming with rage. It boiled in her veins, driving her to snuff out Frank like a cockroach under her heel. She screamed, the sound primitive and guttural as it tore out of her throat, causing the wound inside her cheek to start bleeding again. But she was incensed and felt not pain, but adrenaline pumping through her body. She grabbed one of the heavy, tweed armchairs and lifted it high over her head, growling as she slammed it into Frank’s back.

  The force of the blow caused him to drop Jennice—who fell against the wall, weeping—but it didn’t knock him off his feet as she’d expected. Instead, he whirled around, eyes full of hate as they latched onto Clio. He looked ready to wish them all dead, but she didn’t give him a chance to get the words out. Jumping on top of him, she rammed her fist into his mouth and they fell to the ground, Clio instantly winning the upper hand and clambering on top of Frank to straddle his torso with both legs.

  “Fuck you, you bastard,” she breathed, overcome by the need to stop him, no matter what the cost.

  With one graceful move, she removed her fist from his mouth and bent down over him, planting her lips over his and sealing his mouth shut with her own.

  But this wasn’t a kiss given out of love or passion. It was not something to be savored and cherished. No, this kiss was bestowed with burning hatred.

  Frank shrieked, thrashing under Clio’s weight as she sought out his floundering tongue with her teeth and bit the thing clean off at the root. She sat up, her face a bloody mess, and spit the offensive piece of muscle onto the dirty floor. Jennice had the presence of mind to reach out with her foot and kick it away, the tongue skittering across the floor before disappearing underneath the skirt of the couch.

  “We need to tie him up,” Jarvis said.

  He was standing above her now, lower face covered in blood, nose bent too far to the left.

  With their matching beards of blood, she was sure they made quite a disgusting pair.

  Clio felt hysteria burbling up inside her, looking for a release. She wanted to laugh, to get all the bad stuff out of her, but she couldn’t do it. She was afraid if she started laughing now…she might never stop.

  * * *

  noh looked down at her body, sad to see it lying on the floor, devoid of life. Her hair was spread across her face so she couldn’t see her eyes or mouth, but she thought this was probably for the best. She felt bad her passing had made everyone cry—especially Jennice. She’d really grown to like the funny little healer.

  As she floated beside them, she so badly wanted to let them know it was okay, that she wasn’t unhappy about her death, and they shouldn’t feel bad about it, either—but she had no way of sharing this important information with them.

  While Jarvis and Clio looked for rope to tie up Frank, Noh floated over to Jennice, who sat on the floor by the body, holding Noh’s lifeless hand. She reached out with ghostly fingers and tried to touch Jennice’s hair, but Noh’s arm sailed right through her friend’s head.

  “Are you all right?”

  It was Trina, floating beside her, except now her body was more solid and full of color than Noh had ever seen it before.

  “You look alive,” Noh said.

  Nelly popped up beside Trina and giggled.

  “You look dead.”

  Noh supposed she did. She stared down at her ghostly body and that’s when she realized something amazing: She wasn’t an adult anymore. She was a kid again, practically the same age she’d been when she’d first started at The New Newbridge Academy. She lifted her hands to her hair and found the ponytail she used to wear when she was younger. She even had on her mother’s silver hair clip, a fact that thrilled her.

  “I wish I could tell them it’s all right, that I might even be happier now,” Noh said, brow furrowing. “They’re so sad and it’s not a sad day, at all. It’s actually a happy one.”

  The others had no answer for Noh. The realies were her domain, not theirs.

  “Where’s Henry?” she asked suddenly.

  Trina rolled her eyes.

  “He’s upstairs being all moody.”

  Noh grinned as the need to find Henry and tell him what had happened to her filled her with unbridled excitement.

  “Well, I’d better go up there and show him my new ghost body,” she said—and then she was gone. The empty body on the floor, the one that’d housed her soul for so many “living” years, well, she’d already forgotten about it.

  twenty-six

  CALLIOPE

  There was something “off” about Daniel.

  He was skittish, his gaze sliding away without ever quite looking me in the eye. His thoughts seemed to wander even in the middle of a conversation, so when someone asked him a question, he stared blankly back at them—something I’d never seen him do before. This was the antithesis of the Daniel I knew. My experience was with Mr. Present, Mr. Right There In The Moment, Mr. Sensitive and Thoughtful. This other Daniel was a stranger to me, one I didn’t enjoy—and I worried it was my fault.

  I’d been a jerk and hurt his feelings, not just on this one occasion, but here and there for the entirety of our relationship. I’d thought this was how relationships worked, a constant battle for balance, and the understanding that sometimes you hurt the other person’s feelings. I mean, God, Daniel had hurt my feelings so many times I’d stopped counting. But it didn’t mean I loved him any less.

  Part of me wondered if the distracted behavior was the product of all the stored-up hurt and anger Daniel had been carrying around because of me and, soon, he’d decide to shut me out entirely and that would be the end of our relationship.

  I could take the fighting, the screaming, the anger, but what really ripped me apart was the distance. For the first time in our relationship, I was beginning to feel as though Daniel had put a wall between us, one I could never hope to surmount.

  It was an extremely depressing thought.

  I did my best to act natural, but insi
de I was gutted. I wished Jarvis or Clio was there to talk to. They were both so pragmatic. They’d tell me I was being silly, that there was absolutely nothing to be paranoid about—and I’d believe them.

  Kind of.

  I stuck close to Daniel as we left the junkyard behind us and traversed even more desert, cooing at him like a lovesick dove while he smiled back at me, his eyes empty. I found I couldn’t stop myself from fawning all over him; the colder he behaved toward me, the more I fought for his attention. Runt had chosen to stay by my side, and I realized she knew something was wrong because she wouldn’t stop whining. She just kept looking back and forth between us, and emitting this weird, incessant doggie whine that drove me bat-shit crazy.

  Still, I was ecstatic she’d gotten her voice back, and if it meant I had to endure the doggie whining to have her whole again, then so be it—but it was pretty damn distracting.

  “I think we’re almost to the edge,” Judas said, running ahead of the rest of us and pointing to the “edge” of the desert.

  I followed his gaze until I saw what he was talking about.

  Way ahead of us, just beneath the horizon, the rolling dunes of sand were gradually giving way to flat orange rock.

  “That’s the She’ol?” Marcel asked, slowing down so he could walk abreast of Daniel and me.

  “No, those are just the Cliffs of Tranquility,” Daniel said, using the tail of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. “The She’ol is at the very bottom.”

  “And you knew there was something fishy going on here,” Marcel said, rather pointedly, “but decided not to tell anyone about it.”

  “What are you trying to say?” Daniel snarled, stopping in the middle of the sand and staring at the Ender of Death.

  Marcel held his ground, not the least bit intimidated by Daniel’s gruff tone. The two of them stood there, facing each other, toe-to-toe, both red-faced and sweaty, but so different looking it was almost comical. Where Marcel was blond and cherubic, with pre-Raphaelite features, Daniel was all Black Irish and exquisite, ice blue eyes.

  “No fighting,” I said, deciding to intervene before someone lost their cool and things got out of control. “Marcel didn’t mean anything. He was just making conversation.”

  Marcel raised a pale eyebrow.

  “I very much meant something by that, Death. I wanted to know why they’ve left this place to its own devices for so long.”

  Runt had taken off to get Cerberus and Judas, and they’d arrived just in time to hear the tail end of the conversation.

  “Daniel has not been in charge very long,” Snarly head said, his terse tone a warning to Marcel to tread carefully. “We’ve been cleaning up the Devil’s mess as best we can, but there is much to do and not enough help to do it. Besides, it belongs to the Angels—it’s not officially in Hell’s jurisdiction.”

  Marcel considered this for a moment, then nodded for Snarly head to continue.

  “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

  “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 en
ergy 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.”