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

by Amber Benson

  Finally, Freezay turned his head—and if he recognized his guest, he gave no indication.

  “So you slept in my bed last night, didn’t you,” Freezay began. It wasn’t a question.

  The kid—Freezay amended his description because he could hardly call the thick-necked teenager a man—nodded, deciding to play the honesty card.

  “Why?”

  The teenager shrugged, the stink of English Leather pervasive. Freezay realized someone had used the English Leather to hide the rancid stink of dead body lying just below the musky tones of the aftershave. Probably not the kid. Probably someone who’d left the kid here for Freezay to find.

  “Do you know what you’re doing here?” Freezay asked, careful to keep his voice casual. He didn’t want to freak the kid out.

  The kid looked down at his hands. They rested in his lap like two limp, flesh-colored fish. Freezay sighed and sat back against the couch cushion, rubbing his left temple with his free hand. The other hand just held the nearly empty highball glass more firmly.

  “I can’t help you if you don’t talk.”

  “Who says I need your help—” the kid spat back, his voice raw.

  Freezay shrugged, getting up to refill his glass.

  “Then no help it is.”

  The kid’s brow furrowed, and Freezay could see the kid hadn’t meant to get so testy. He was probably freaked-out and that was fueling the bad attitude. Freezay could empathize. His stomach growled angrily in his gut, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since the plate of greasy ham and eggs he’d shoveled down back at the Downtowner’s grimy café. Barring the bags of peanuts and pretzels he liked to munch while he drank, Freezay never kept any food in his place, enjoying all of his meals out—and since he didn’t own a television it was the only entertainment he got.

  “Well, I’m hungry,” Freezay said, leaning against the mini wet bar and sipping his drink.

  The kid rubbed his belly.

  “Me, too.”

  Freezay knew this was just a residual feeling. The kid was never going to be eating anything again.

  “We should maybe do something about it, then,” Freezay said, scratching the bristly goatee covering his chin. It matched the white-blond hair on his head perfectly.

  “I’m a vegetarian,” the kid added. “Nothing with a face.”

  “Well, I’m partial to a wet meal, so there’s that.”

  “Like cat food?” the kid asked, confused.

  Freezay supposed what he said could be misconstrued, if taken literally.

  “Like alcohol.”

  “Oh,” the kid said, nodding. “That’s not like cat food at all.”

  Freezay took the half-finished drink to the kitchen and deposited it in the otherwise empty sink. He picked up his keys and gestured for the kid to get up.

  “Let’s get out of here. Get ourselves something to eat.”

  The kid got up, a look of mild excitement on his face. Though he knew better, Freezay decided not to shatter the kid’s illusions of hunger.

  The dead don’t eat. It was a fact—and Freezay reckoned (correctly) the kid’s body was back in the bedroom, silently decomposing, so food was the least of their worries. But the idea of food seemed to calm the kid so he humored him, thinking it would keep his charge occupied until someone came to collect him.

  And Freezay could get something to eat for himself, too.

  “Hey, I never got your name?” Freezay said, not that it really mattered, but it was a good way to establish a rapport with the kid.

  “Gerald,” the kid said.

  “Freezay.”

  “That’s a weird name.”

  “No weirder than Gerald,” Freezay replied.

  They left through the front door, Freezay locking it securely behind him—but he seriously doubted this would keep out the Harvesters and Transporters who, by now, had to be on their way to pick up the dead kid’s soul.

  * * *

  while freezay dealt with the dead, Clio Reaper-Jones was up to her neck in the living.

  “Can you hand me the panko?”

  Why she’d agreed to host Indra’s dinner party was beyond her. If she thought back to the moment she’d said yes—no, she’d been so busy the past few days she didn’t even remember saying yes to him, but apparently she had.

  Twenty people. She was cooking for twenty people! This was insanity.

  “Which cabinet is it in?” Noh asked, pushing her long brown hair out of her face, her nose twitching.

  “Behind you, two cabinets over,” Clio said absently as she measured five cups of flour into a red ceramic bowl and began to look around for the eggs.

  She was glad to have an extra set of hands tonight, but she felt bad about dragging her sister’s best friend into her dinner party preparations—especially since Noh had barely stepped off a transatlantic flight two hours earlier. But she was desperate and if Noh was going to be taking up space in the kitchen anyway…?

  Over by the sink she found the eggs she and Noh had purchased at the grocery store on the way back from the airport, still in their gray crate. She moved the carton to the island and lifted the lid, studying the rounded, brown bodies before selecting ten of the dozen to crack into another, smaller, red ceramic bowl.

  “Here ya go.”

  Noh set the box of panko on the butcher-block island, pushing it forward with her fingers so Clio could reach it. Dripping egg goo everywhere, Clio grabbed the box and dumped its contents into another bowl along with two cups of crushed pistachios she’d ground to a pulp earlier in the afternoon.

  “Thanks.”

  “Any word from Callie?” Noh asked. “She knows I’m here, right?”

  “I would assume so,” Clio said, reaching toward what appeared to be a mountain, but what was really a pile of boneless, skinless chicken breasts resting on a piece of parchment paper in front of her. “Jarvis called me this morning and specifically asked me to pick you up at the airport then bring you to Sea Verge. I didn’t tell him we were going to stop by Indra’s place first, though, so I’m surprised no one’s calling to bug me about where we are.”

  “That’s odd.”

  Clio had always thought Noh was a bit odd, if they were going to talk about levels of oddness. The girl was bone thin and paler than any living person had a right to be. With her long brown hair, pixie face, and the odd moon-shaped scar that ran from the right corner of her mouth to just below her chin, she looked like a broken porcelain doll someone had tried to put back together with super glue—but there was nothing in the least bit delicate about the girl. She was as strong as an ox and whip smart, the best friend Callie had made while she was away at boarding school.

  “Well, there was the Death Dinner and then she had this, uh, thing with Marcel, the Ender of Death, so, you know, she’s been busy…” Clio trailed off as she dipped a raw chicken breast into each of the bowls—egg, flour, then the breadcrumb and pistachio mixture—before placing it on one of the two aluminum-foil-lined baking sheets that sat, empty, on the counter next to the stove.

  “The last time we talked,” Noh said, her eyebrows scrunched up in concern, “she seemed really distracted. Like she was only half listening to what I was saying.”

  That sounds exactly like Cal, Clio thought, amused. She loved her older sister dearly, but Callie was not known for her ability to focus—something Noh knew well from experience.

  As if she’d read Clio’s mind, Noh added:

  “I know she can be a flake-in-the-butt sometimes, but Callie’s way more attentive on the phone than she is in person. The fact she was so distracted was odd.”

  A flake-in-the-butt? Clio thought as she picked up another chicken breast, the raw meat almost slimy in her hand. There was a reason Noh and Callie were best friends: They both liked to make up weird combinations of words and then pretend like their made-up phrases were part of the everyday vernacular.

  “Sure…” Clio replied, letting the word hang between them.

  Noh continued
to look at her expectantly, waiting for Clio to elaborate. She sighed, realizing her silence came from the fact she didn’t have an answer for her sister’s friend. Callie had been acting strangely and Clio was just so busy she’d ignored her sister’s flakey behavior.

  “I think she’s overwhelmed,” Clio said after a protracted pause in the conversation, where the only sound was the slap of raw meat on wood. “She’s got her hands full running Death and doing all of Dad’s Grim Reaper duties…”

  She paused again, the grief she felt at her father’s loss still so raw it made her catch her breath.

  “I hear that,” Noh agreed. “She’s in intense-land, but still…”

  Noh was right. Clio hadn’t actually seen her older sister in the flesh, or even talked to her on the phone except once or twice. Everything had been via e-mail or text. The most impersonal way of communicating that existed.

  “You know,” Clio began, resting her elbows on the butcher-block island, her gaze thoughtful. “I feel like I haven’t talked to Cal in ages. When did you talk to her last?”

  Noh’s lips thinned as she scrolled through the past few weeks, trying to remember when she’d last spoken to her best friend.

  “Was that the last time?” she murmured under her breath, shaking her head as if to jog some memory loose. “Nope, that’s not it either…we spoke right before the Death Dinner and she was trying to decide if she should take this swimsuit—a bikini, actually—or if it was too slutty to wear to an official Death thingamabob—”

  “And that’s the last time you talked to her?” Clio interrupted, unconsciously smearing a streak of flour across her cheek as she reached up to scratch the tip of her nose with a magenta fingernail.

  “Yes…no! No, it was after that. I called to tell her I was coming to town to visit, gave her the flight info and that was that. She seemed happy I was coming.”

  “That must’ve been before Marcel,” Clio murmured, her brain spinning.

  “Oh,” Noh said thoughtfully, then added, in what was a total non sequitur: “I told her to take the bikini. That slutty wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for a business trip.”

  And I wonder if she took your advice, Clio mused, but instead of exploring this sidebar, she returned to the matter at hand.

  “I think we should go over there now. Check in.”

  Noh nodded, thoughtfully.

  “I’m game. I don’t think it’s a bad idea. It’s almost like we’re supposed to, actually.”

  Clio couldn’t have agreed more.

  “Then let’s go,” she said, plunking the last of the chicken breasts on the aluminum-covered baking sheet before shoving it into the refrigerator.

  Wiping the excess flour and egg on her apron, Clio ran the tap and washed her hands, the last vestiges of the raw chicken circling down the drain.

  It was time to pay Sea Verge a visit—dinner party be damned.

  three

  Bernadette hated roller coasters.

  Hated them with a passion. In the entirety of her life she’d only ever ridden on one of the horrid things and the experience had been painful enough to make her swear off the hulking machines for the rest of her days. But now the promise she’d made to herself never to climb aboard another rickety, wooden roller coaster had been rescinded, all self-imposed restrictions lifted because the person she loved more than anyone else in the world had asked the impossible of her.

  Bart, her nine-year-old grandson, wanted his maw-maw to ride on the Big Bellower with him.

  Bernadette knew impossible was a big word, probably best not used by a doting grandmother from Ohio who was no more than a malleable hunk of clay where her grandson was concerned, but if anyone other than her grandson had asked her to ride on a roller coaster, “impossible” would’ve been the answer she’d have given.

  Anyone else would’ve known better than to ask her.

  But Bart was all wide-eyed wonder and excitement, his childish curiosity so catching, Bernadette could only grin like an idiot whenever she was in his company—and because of this she’d found herself agreeing to the impossible. Against her better judgment.

  She wasn’t a small woman. Getting on the darned ride had not been easy. Thank God Bart was no bigger than a cattail, so they’d been able to squeeze in together, her much larger bulk taking up the vast majority of the cold fiberglass seat. She knew she was in trouble when she heard the quiet swoosh of the protective bar sliding over their heads, and she felt her whole body begin to sweat.

  Bart was immune to her fear. His light mocha face was full of excitement, the black of his pupils so wide they overtook the brown irises. He was giddy, his tiny body shivering with anticipation.

  “Maw-Maw, Maw-Maw, look!”

  Bernadette’s gaze followed the crook of Bart’s finger. He was pointing upward, toward the cloud-filled sky where a murder of crows, like a synchronized swim team, flew above them, their black bodies in silhouette against the blinding light of the sun. Bernadette welcomed the distraction, perfectly timed to match the lurch of their roller-coaster car as it shot forward.

  Bart let out an excited squeak as the Big Bellower creaked underneath the weight of the cars and the ride began. It was all Bernadette could do not to shriek as fear lanced through her soft, pink body and her face broke out in foul smelling perspiration. She felt very much like a pig headed to slaughter.

  As the car began its long, slow climb up the first steep hill, Bernadette let her eyes return to the crows, hoping their perfectly synchronized flight would help calm her. She was surprised to see two of the crows break away from formation, dropping down and away from their brothers as she watched them.

  “Maw-Maw, this is fun!” Bart screamed in her ear over the clickity-clack of the roller coaster’s hydraulics. But Bernadette wasn’t paying attention to him. She was too transfixed by the sight of the crows falling steadily earthward—their bodies like large black stones—to process what he was saying.

  She opened her mouth to say something to Bart about the crows just as they sailed over the crest of the first hill and her words melted into a hysterical scream, gravity sending her stomach flying into her esophagus, choking her. Beside her, Bart shrieked with delight, a thrill junkie in the making.

  The car began to build up speed again as it soared toward the next obstacle: a giant, round loop that would turn them upside down in their seats. Bernadette saw the loop looming ahead of them and terror tore at her heart. She looked around wildly, trying to find an escape, but there was no exit—she was trapped.

  Her bowels turned to jelly as their car sailed onward, hurtling them inextricably toward the loop. Whistling currents slammed against her upper body as she flew through empty air, eyes stinging in the wind. She let her gaze rise, her thin gray hair plastered against her cheeks and mouth, and then she gasped.

  The two crows were flying straight toward them.

  Ice-water shock filled her veins as she realized what was about to happen. With a silent prayer to God, she threw her arms around Bart, covering the tiny boy with her considerable girth just as the missile-like crows dove into them, the impact taking her head clean off her shoulders.

  Later, one of the detectives at the scene of the accident would marvel out loud at the old woman’s quick thinking. She was a real hero, saving her grandson’s life like that.

  Sitting on a nearby bench, Bernadette’s ghost shook her head. She wasn’t a hero. She’d just done what she’d needed to do to protect Bart—and she’d have done it all over again without batting an eyelash.

  She continued to watch the police and emergency crews swarm along the base of the now silent Big Bellower like busy worker ants, but they didn’t notice her.

  Stupid roller coaster, she thought, shaking her head again. Stupid, stupid roller coaster.

  * * *

  sea verge was empty.

  Well, not exactly empty, Jarvis corrected himself.

  There was still some furniture, but what was left of the beautiful, old pieces—
antiques lovingly accumulated over decades of habitation by the Reaper-Jones family—were now draped like ghosts in protective swathes of white sheeting, left to molder in abandonment. As things had progressed, he’d been forced to watch the pieces begin to disappear around him. This wasn’t shocking. He’d expected as much, in point of fact.

  But what had surprised him were the left behinds. How they were suddenly covered in those god-awful white sheets, as if by magic. Well, it was a magic of sorts, actually, but that was neither here nor there. What bothered Jarvis enormously was that there was nothing he could do about it. The place was becoming a veritable ghost town and he was helpless to stop it.

  It also meant things were still up in the air, and Calliope might not be able to stop them as they’d hoped—but he banished the thought immediately from his mind.

  He focused on Sea Verge instead. On the young woman Realtor Calliope had forced him to invite over to see the house, and, ostensibly put it on the market. But that wasn’t the real reason Calliope had wanted Jennice McMartin to come to Sea Verge. Not by a long shot—

  He was interrupted midthought by a sneeze, his entire body rattled by the size and sweep of the thing. He knew the dust that’d settled over the rooms since Calliope had decamped from Sea Verge the previous night only exacerbated his allergies, but the knowledge didn’t make the sneezing any more manageable.

  He was well into sneeze number two when the doorbell rang.

  “Oh, blast,” Jarvis sighed unhappily as he pulled a monogrammed handkerchief from his breast coat pocket and blew his hawkish nose. “One moment!”

  He knew whoever had rung the bell couldn’t possibly hear him—the study where he’d been working was far removed from the front entrance—but he still felt compelled to offer up the placating words. He tucked the used handkerchief into his coat pocket and set the petite book he’d been dusting back on its shelf, sliding it in with the other tomes, where it sat, looking innocuous—though it was anything but.