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

by Amber Benson

  He tried to imagine her reaction in his mind, but couldn’t. Maybe he was drawing a blank because he was afraid of what his mind might conjure. That it might not be the reaction he wanted.

  “Nearly there,” Judas Iscariot called, from behind him.

  Yes, I’m not blind, Daniel thought. I can see we’re almost there.

  But where was “there” really? He saw the odd Harvester and Transporter scurrying around, but they hardly seemed to notice Daniel and Judas Iscariot. Beyond them stood a silent herd of souls, their eyes dripping with fear after watching their compatriots go into The Pit and get annihilated.

  He didn’t blame them for being scared.

  The Pit was scary.

  He searched the area, looking for Uriah Drood, or this elusive Man in Gray, but he saw no one who fit either description. He stopped by a low concrete block fence and waited for Judas Iscariot to catch up. It took the slight man a few seconds, but he finally saw Daniel and jogged over to him.

  “Thought I’d lost you,” Judas Iscariot said, looking sheepish.

  Daniel didn’t feel like making small talk, but he supposed he had to.

  “So, you see your friend in gray anywhere?” Daniel asked, but Judas Iscariot shook his head.

  “He’s not really my friend.”

  Daniel didn’t give two shits if he was Judas Iscariot’s friend or not.

  “I don’t see Drood here, either,” Daniel said, changing the subject.

  “You think they’re in it together?” Judas Iscariot asked.

  “Yes,” Daniel said.

  “Me, too,” Judas Iscariot agreed.

  Daniel was getting impatient. He wanted Watatsumi to come now. He pulled the orange wish-fulfillment jewel from his pocket, letting it sit in his palm.

  “What’s that?” Judas Iscariot asked.

  “Nothing.”

  But Daniel sounded like a liar, and he knew it.

  “It’s a wish-fulfillment jewel,” he added, finally, feeling bad about being such a jerk to the other man.

  Judas Iscariot stared at it, then he held out his hand, palm up.

  “Can I touch it?”

  Daniel raised an eyebrow.

  “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  They were pressed up against the fence now, another crush of dead souls having been brought in just as the last group was forced inside The Pit.

  “Please,” Judas Iscariot asked.

  “I don’t know—”

  “I promise I won’t bother you again.”

  The man looked so pathetic Daniel felt sorry for him. Against his better judgment, he lifted his arm and let the jewel drop into Judas Iscariot’s upturned palm. They just stood like that, both of them staring at the jewel in Judas Iscariot’s hand almost as if it held the answers to the universe inside of it—and maybe it did.

  “So, this jewel will give me whatever I wish for?” Judas Iscariot asked.

  Daniel nodded.

  “Within reason.”

  Judas Iscariot looked up, eyes begging Daniel to understand.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered then he gazed down at the jewel:

  “I wish to not exist anymore.”

  What happened next was over so quickly Daniel didn’t have time to process it.

  First, the jewel in Judas Iscariot’s hand began to glow like a hot coal, cooking the soft flesh of his palm. Instinctively, he yanked his hand back, trying to dislodge the jewel from his skin, but no matter how hard he shook his hand, the jewel wouldn’t budge, preferring to stay affixed to Judas Iscariot’s palm.

  He whimpered as the overheated jewel bit into his skin, melting the top layer of dermis so it could burrow deeper inside his flesh. He screamed, terrified as the jewel disappeared inside his hand, the tissue around the wound turning red and inflamed looking—but it didn’t stop there. The redness began to take over his hand, streaks of orange shooting up his forearm. He grabbed his wrist, trying to stop the orange from spreading.

  It was a moot point. Daniel could already see the orange traveling up the man’s neck, sending tendrils of color up into his cheeks. It was like watching a time-lapse video of someone’s entire body being overtaken by blood poisoning.

  “Help me,” Judas Iscariot cried, eyes beseeching Daniel to do something—but there was nothing to be done, the jewel was almost finished.

  Judas Iscariot lifted his hands, the sleeves of his pale blue caftan falling back so he could stare in horror at the reddish-orange flesh of his arms. When he looked up at Daniel again, even the whites of his eyes were orange.

  He began to cry, tears the color of tangerine Kool-Aid sliding down his cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out, just a slow and steady hiss, like the sound of someone letting the air out of a balloon. Daniel watched in dismay as Judas Iscariot began to deflate. His skin lost its elasticity, shrinking down and flattening out, until, finally, there was nothing left of him, but a paper doll made of skin. Even his head had collapsed in on itself.

  The Judas Iscariot paper doll bowed, so light now, it just floated to the ground. It lay against the orange rock, which it was almost the same color as, and then it began to melt away until there was only a puddle of orange water on the ground at Daniel’s feet.

  Daniel stared in disbelief at the spot where Judas Iscariot had been standing only seconds before. Suddenly the puddle changed from orange to indigo and began to expand, taking over a larger and larger space until Daniel had to climb on top of the concrete block fence to escape it. The growing puddle caught the attention of the Harvesters and Transporters, and they began to descend on it in droves. Even the souls were curious, crowding around the other side of the fence to see what was happening.

  A form began to take shape in the water. At first it was just a dark and wavering presence, but then it coalesced into something more solid as it ascended from the depths of the water and broke through the surface. It rose above the indigo water like an avenging angel, a dark cloak hiding its identity from the spectators—and then it dropped the cloak and Daniel gasped.

  Watatsumi hung in the air, glowering down at everyone. He’d replaced his uniform of black kimono and grass skirt with an eggshell-colored caftan that fell to his ankles. He held out his arms, waggling his fingers, and the surface of the puddle began to bubble. As he raised his arms, a barnacle-encrusted clay jar rose from the depths of the water, dripping seaweed as it floated in the air in front of him.

  Watatsumi turned to Daniel and grinned like a crocodile, his teeth long and razor-sharp. Daniel understood, then, what his fate would’ve been had he tried to use the wish-fulfillment jewel for anything other than what Watatsumi had intended: He would’ve been the puddle on the ground, not poor, tortured Judas Iscariot—a man whose guilt had been his final undoing, though in a way he got what he’d asked for.

  “You should know better than to double-cross a double-crosser,” Watatsumi said, losing the grin as he snapped his fingers and the water in the still-growing puddle began to boil, steam pouring from its surface.

  Another figure emerged from the depths, but this one was not shrouded like Watatsumi had been. He was tall and lanky with light blond hair and a bedraggled orange jumpsuit. He lifted his head, eyes wild as two spitting cats, and Daniel saw the dried blood caking the lower half of his face…and the way his hands were bound together by lengths of sheer white fabric.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Daniel murmured under his breath.

  It was Alternate Frank.

  * * *

  jarvis watched as Clio yanked a set of sheers from one of the windows and tore them lengthwise, using the fabric to make jerry-rigged coils of rope. She bound Frank’s wrists and feet with the fabric, then turned him on his stomach so she and Jennice wouldn’t have to look at his face. Jarvis was still in shock, so he didn’t care which way they placed Frank on the ground.

  That Noh was dead seemed impossible—it all had to be some terrible mistake. Jarvis’s eyes kept sliding back to the spot wher
e her body lay, Jennice beside her, holding on to one of Noh’s lifeless hands. He’d tried to get Jennice to move away from the corpse, but she’d yelled at him, telling him to mind his own business—then gone back to stroking Noh’s hair with her free hand.

  From the way she was concentrating, Jarvis thought she might be trying to heal Noh. He didn’t have the heart to tell her it was useless. When Death decreed you dead, well, you were dead—at least to that body. He’d gone through the experience not very long ago, which was why he was in an ill-fitting body instead of the one he’d been born into. He’d loved his faun’s body, the beautiful cloven hooves and thick Tom Selleck mustache he’d worked for years to cultivate.

  All of it was gone now because of a bizarre twist of fate.

  “He really had me going,” Clio said.

  She was perched on the couch, staring into the empty fire grate. She was covered in blood, but she wouldn’t let Jarvis go find anything to wash her with. She seemed to think the blood was a badge of courage.

  Jarvis thought it was unhygienic.

  “Whom?” Jarvis asked.

  “Frank,” she said, still staring at the grate.

  “How so?” he asked.

  He’d taken up residence in the remaining armchair and was holding a handkerchief to his own bloody nose.

  “When he found me at Death, Inc., I thought he was dying. His body was so gaunt, even his face. It was awful.”

  Jarvis looked over at Frank, who hadn’t moved since they’d bound him.

  “He doesn’t look too bad,” Jarvis said. “Except for his face.”

  “I know,” Clio agreed. “It’s so weird. He looks fine now, but before…he was different. Sickly, delirious. He had a seizure right in front of me. Then we got here. He was still all messed up and then bam he was suddenly okay again. I don’t know how he did it.”

  Jarvis didn’t like what Clio was saying. Not at all.

  “He didn’t seem angry before?” Jarvis asked.

  Clio shook her head then looked up, making eye contact with Jarvis for the first time since she’d ripped a man’s tongue out of his mouth with her bare teeth.

  “No, the opposite. He was sad, kept apologizing to me, confusing me with Callie.”

  Jarvis pocketed his bloody handkerchief and stood up. He circumvented the broken armchair resting in the middle of the floor and walked over to where Frank was lying. He knelt down beside him, gazing at Frank’s face intently.

  “I wish he could speak,” Jarvis said, sighing. “Then maybe we would have an idea what’s been happening.”

  He’d decided to keep the three of them (four, if you included Frank) here at the New Newbridge Academy until he had some idea of the lay of the land. Clio had argued against this, but Noh’s death had taken the fire out of her, and she’d given in. Jarvis didn’t like being cooped up here any more than she did, but they had Jennice to think of. She wasn’t immortal and it would be hard to defend her if there were any more attacks.

  “You don’t think…” Clio said, but she didn’t finish her thought.

  “I don’t think what?” Jarvis asked, standing back up.

  Clio was looking at him, her expression uncertain.

  “That this isn’t Frank.”

  Jarvis didn’t know what she was talking about. She could see his confusion, so she explained:

  “It’s not the Frank from our universe.”

  Jarvis instantly understood.

  “This is the Alternate Frank.”

  Clio nodded.

  “Yes. It appears the two universes are almost one now. Meaning the Alternate Frank and the Frank from our universe have merged.”

  Below him, Frank snickered. The man may have been outwardly ignoring them, but he was obviously paying close attention to their every word.

  “You think this is funny,” Clio snarled, jumping up off the couch and crossing the room in two long strides, squatting down beside him and grabbing a handful of hair so she could yank his head off the ground.

  He gave an involuntary groan, but didn’t cry out.

  “It’s not funny, you sonofabitch,” she said, almost spitting as she leaned down to stick her face in his. “So don’t you dare laugh.”

  Suddenly, she sat back, unclenching her fingers from his hair like she’d been burned.

  “What the—” she said, but the words ceased in her throat as Frank’s body flickered once, twice, and then disappeared, leaving nothing behind but the empty floor.

  * * *

  the man in Gray knew the time to show himself had arrived. He was tired of waiting, and, besides, he’d let the others play without him long enough.

  He’d been watching the drama unfold from the lip of his secret cave, a place he’d discovered by accident while building The Pit. He had no idea what purpose the cave had been created for, but long ago someone had seen fit to cut it into the side of the cliff face—and for that, he was grateful.

  Drood had tried to make him stay in Purgatory at his compound, but the Man in Gray had hated it there. Eventually he’d won out and been allowed to stay where he’d wanted, but not before poor Uriah Drood had realized he’d gotten way more than he’d bargained for when he’d released the Man in Gray from his prison.

  Drood hadn’t wanted him to build the new Pit on top of the old She’ol, but the Man in Gray had liked the irony. His idea of crafting a machine of destruction on top of a hole that’d been his home for so many centuries, and then christening it The Pit in honor of this former prison, had been a stroke of sheer genius.

  He still couldn’t believe how smoothly it’d all gone after that. He’d bent Drood to his will and then bribed the Harvesters and Transporters with shiny new eyeballs in order to entice them to work around the clock, getting the machine built in almost no time at all. Of course, he’d actually had to produce the shiny new eyeballs to secure their cooperation, but all the magical effort he’d spent had been more than worth it.

  Funny how vain the creatures were, with their boring Victoriana obsession and compulsion to buy sunglasses to hide empty eye sockets. He’d never have guessed something as simple as an eyeball would buy him such goodwill—but once he and Drood had crafted the spell, they’d been willing to do whatever he asked of them.

  Watching from his cave, he found himself bored by the little Japanese God’s grandstanding. It was annoying to think someone could actually come along, believing they were in charge of the show, when he, the Man in Gray, was so obviously the ringmaster.

  Hopping off the lip of his cave, he dropped five feet down to another outcropping of orange rock, then followed the cliff face down, jumping from outcropping to outcropping, until he’d reached the bottom.

  He was curious to finally see the little Death up close and personal. She, the Ender of Death, and their hellhounds had taken the long way down the cliffs. They thought they were being sly, that they could surprise him, but he’d been watching them all day. No one could hide from the Man in Gray. Not when they were on his turf.

  Because he was coming from the opposite cliff face, his path was shielded from view by The Pit itself. So he took his time, strolling leisurely across the orange rock floor, passing the fenced-off area where the Harvesters and Transporters kept the souls—or the “fuel,” as he’d coined them. He ignored their anguished cries for help as he walked by them, his eyes on the prize just on the far side of The Pit.

  He came to the low, concrete block fence and leapt on top of it, walking its length like a tightrope. He waved to the “fuel” then followed the curve of the fence around to the other side. Spread out before him stood all the Harvesters and Transporters, their new eyes fixed on the floating Japanese man and the creature he’d just called forth from the depths of his magical, indigo puddle.

  The Man in Gray wanted to laugh. That anyone would choose to show up for their big coup via puddle was just ludicrous.

  “And whatever do you think you’re doing?” the Man in Gray called out in a loud voice, skipping along the
curve of the low, concrete fence.

  His entrance scored a loud cheer from the assemblage and he raised his hands above his head, fingers spread in double victory.

  “What are you doing here?” growled the Japanese God as he turned to see what all the fuss behind him was about.

  The Man in Gray could tell the God was not pleased to see him there, that he resented anyone trying to steal his little Water God thunder.

  Now you know how it feels, the Man in Gray mused.

  “I’m the Man in Gray and this is my party. So, the real question is, what are you doing here?”

  The Japanese God stared at him. He seemed confused by the turn of events.

  “You are the Man in Gray?” he asked.

  The Man in Gray nodded.

  “That’s me. The Man in Gray, at your service.”

  The Japanese God snickered, something about the situation having amused him. Now if there was one thing the Man in Gray hated, it was someone laughing at him. It made him very mad, indeed.

  The Japanese God pointed his finger at the blond man in the orange jumpsuit.

  “Get rid of him, Frank.”

  The man called Frank held up his wrists.

  “But I’m all tied up.”

  This seemed to annoy the Japanese God, but he lifted a hand, waving it around, and instantly Frank was free of his bindings.

  “Thank you,” Frank said, giving his liberator a small bow—but if the Japanese God thought this Frank—this Alternate Frank—was going to do his bidding, well, he was sadly mistaken.

  This Alternate Frank came from another universe and he belonged to the Man in Gray.

  It was funny how mistaken Uriah Drood had been about his own plan. He’d wanted the Man in Gray to use his Angelic knowledge of the book How to Be Death to create The Pit and generate enough energy to merge their universe and another—where an alternate Death was in charge—so he could get rid of the little Death, Calliope Reaper-Jones. The Man in Gray had known Drood’s plan was only the beginning of what The Pit could do. The original Angelic copy of How to Be Death, the book he’d been banished to She’ol for memorizing, had instructions on how to jump-start the Apocalypse. The Pit would and could do that, and the merging of these two universes would be the first act.