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

by Amber Benson

  This was where the subterfuge began.

  To further his own agenda, he’d had to play along with Drood, never letting the other man suspect that he meant to use The Pit to destroy humanity—and the easiest way to do this was to distract him, to give him access to the Alternate Frank, the one who was already Death in his own universe. The Man in Gray had used a wormhole—one calibrated to travel throughout space/time—in order to invite this Alternate Frank to return with him to their universe and, as his bribe, he offered this Alternate Frank the ability to rule as Death in two universes instead of just one.

  This had all been easy to set in motion.

  And as The Pit had sucked up more and more souls, the two universes had begun to merge. Because she had no counterpart in the other universe, Calliope Reaper-Jones couldn’t be completely eradicated until the two universes were one—unlike the two Franks, who would slowly become one Frank over the course of the entire merger. The Man in Gray had explained this to Drood, and Drood had decided to give his weasel-faced enforcer and goons the job of chasing down Calliope’s friends and family and destroying them in front of her.

  Drood wanted the little Death to suffer—and suffer she would if the Man in Gray had anything to say about it.

  Amazingly, Drood had never suspected the Man in Gray’s ruse. He’d been pleased as punch, hiding the Alternate Frank in his compound until The Pit could complete the “merger” of the two universes. The cherry on top of all this madness was Drood had even allowed the Man in Gray to “share” his body with him. Little did he know the Man in Gray was terrible at sharing.

  As was evidenced now by the Man in Gray’s inability to share the spotlight with Watatsumi.

  “Go get rid of him, Frank,” the Man in Gray said, pointing a finger at the Japanese God.

  Upon hearing the Man in Gray’s command, Frank leapt at Watatsumi, wrapping his long fingers around the old man’s throat.

  The two men fell into the puddle of water and began to writhe around in it, each one trying to get the upper hand.

  “Drood!?” a man’s voice yelled from the crowd, and the Man in Gray turned around to see who wanted him.

  He was glad of the reminder, actually. He’d almost forgotten he was still in Drood’s body, he’d gotten so used to wearing it. Of course, it was far too big for him—Drood had been a gluttonous piggy—but it had suited his purposes…until now.

  Now he had his eyes set on the body of the man yelling at him. It belonged to the little Death’s boyfriend, the Steward of Hell. It was an attractive enough skin suit, one he could climb into easily enough, and then when the little Death showed up, she would have no idea her boyfriend was no longer inside of it.

  Pleased with his plan, he stepped out of Drood’s body, letting it fall off of him like a cloak, the skin suit turning to dust as soon as it was free of his shade.

  Good riddance, he thought as he floated away from the fence and toward his new body.

  When he arrived at his destination, he was surprised by how little resistance the Steward of Hell put up. With barely a fuss at all, the Man in Gray slipped inside of his new body and took over.

  twenty-nine

  CALLIOPE

  I had just landed on the last outcropping of rock on the far side of the cliff face when there was a tremendous boom and the ground shook so hard I was thrown to my knees. The boom was followed by a series of screams that grew in intensity before finally subsiding into silence. It reminded me of the summer I’d spent in Rome with Noh and her aunt when we were both juniors in high school. Every time there’d been a soccer game, the entire city would be deathly quiet and then suddenly erupt in cheers or screams whenever a goal was scored or lost.

  “What was that?” Runt said, jumping onto the outcropping beside me.

  She was followed by Cerberus and then Marcel, bringing up the rear.

  “Don’t know,” I said. “But I can’t imagine it’s good.”

  I gestured for the others to follow me as I climbed back onto my feet then leapt off the outcropping, landing on the bottom of the valley floor. I hadn’t liked Marcel and Daniel’s plan to begin with, and now I couldn’t help but worry something had gone terribly wrong.

  It was much easier going over the smooth orange rock now that we were on a level plane. We were coming from a less direct route, one I’d hoped would keep us out of sight, and we’d encountered no one on our climb down. Now we came to a corral full of human souls trapped inside a makeshift paddock. They yelled at us to stop and help them, and it broke my heart not to be able to take care of them right then and there, but we needed to get to The Pit and help Judas and Daniel.

  We came to the edge of the first set of cliffs and then had to go around them to finally get our first view of The Pit.

  “Oh, shit,” I said, as we rounded the corner and came face-to-face with a riot of Harvesters and Transporters. They were crying and screaming as they held their hands over their faces.

  “What’s happened?” I whispered to Marcel, as we stood by the sheer cliff wall, staring at the madness that’d been set loose around us.

  He shook his head, as confused by what he was seeing as I was.

  “They’re holding their eyes,” Snarly head said, craning his neck in the direction of two men in rust red suits, their hands pressed into the flesh of their orbital bones.

  “But they don’t have eyes,” I said, surprised because I thought it was a given everyone knew that Harvesters and Transporters only had black holes for eye sockets. That they “saw” via their hearing.

  “My eyes!” sobbed one of the two men as he ran past us, completely unaware we were even there.

  “I’m sure we’ll find out more the closer we get,” Snarly head said.

  We walked through the throng of hysterical Harvesters and Transporters, doing the best we could to avoid accidentally running into them or knocking them over.

  “This is nuts,” I said to Runt, who’d stuck to my side like glue ever since we’d left the—relative—safety of the rock outcroppings.

  “They’ve gone mad,” she agreed, the two of us dodging unwieldy Victorians at every step.

  “Oh, my God,” I hissed, stopping in my tracks as I saw the bodies of Alternate Frank and Watatsumi—what the hell was Watatsumi even doing here?—lying on their sides in the middle of a shallow puddle, their fingers wrapped around each other’s throats.

  I could tell they were both dead by the glassy blue of their skin and the way their eyes were glazed and unblinking. Beside them lay a clay jug, its body broken into a dozen jagged pieces.

  I had no idea what the jar was for, or what had killed Frank and Watatsumi, or why the Harvesters and Transporters were going crazy all around us…but I was about to find out.

  “Callie?”

  Daniel was standing at the entrance to The Pit. He looked a little worse for wear, but he was alive and smiling at me—and that’s all I cared about.

  “Daniel!” I cried and ran to him, letting him pick me up and swing me around.

  “What happened to you?” I said, as he squeezed me tight and then let me go, setting me down on my own feet, but still holding me around the waist.

  “It was crazy,” he said. “I had to break open Pandora’s Box, but it didn’t do what I thought it would do.”

  “What did you think it would do?” I asked, uncertainly—I knew nothing about Pandora, or her box.

  “It didn’t stop the Man in Gray from taking over my body.”

  Daniel’s arms tightened around my waist.

  “I don’t understand?” I said, his words not computing.

  “You don’t need to,” he said then he yanked me off my feet and began to drag me toward the inside of The Pit.

  As soon as Marcel and Cerberus realized what was happening, they took off after us, but it was too late. Daniel had pressed a button on the inside wall and the mechanized door was already shutting tight behind us.

  Outside, I could hear Runt barking, her yips frantic, and
then there was a loud clang as Cerberus rammed his body into the door, trying to force it open.

  Daniel held on to my arm, leading me past the front entrance and into the black velvet interior of The Pit. The first thing I noticed as my eyes adjusted to the darkness was The Pit was jam-packed with souls, all bunched inside, waiting for us. None of them spoke, just stared at us, the stench of their terror, palpable.

  I tried to give them a reassuring smile, but it did nothing to allay their fears.

  “Well…?”

  “It’s very, uhm, spacious,” I said, trying to be agreeable. “Just like I remember from going to the carnival when I was a kid.”

  “Go on,” he said, pleased I was complimenting his creation.

  If I hadn’t realized it before, I was well aware of it now. I wasn’t talking to Daniel anymore. This was the Man in Gray.

  “I love the black wall-to-wall carpeting,” I said. “And those seating/standing cubicles are just like what you’d find in a real Gravitron. You did a great job.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” he purred.

  “You sure did,” I agreed.

  He walked me over to one of the only vacant black velvet cubicles, and settled me inside it.

  “Why don’t you have a seat,” he said. “Maybe we can chat a little before I blow us sky-high.”

  A least now I knew what his intentions were—and I also knew he had no idea I was carrying the original, Angelic copy of How to Be Death in my back pocket.

  “Sure,” I said, making myself sound game. “And I had a question for you, actually, too.”

  He sat down on the floor in front of me, just far enough away I couldn’t reach him with a kick.

  “You want to know why I’m doing all this, don’t you?”

  I shook my head.

  “In time,” I replied, “but tell me something else first—”

  “Anything!”

  I leaned back in my cubicle, my head sinking into the black velvet headrest.

  “Is Daniel still in there with you?”

  The Man in Gray licked his lips and acted as if he were thinking over the question.

  “Mmmh, no,” he said finally. “No, I’m afraid not. That big boom you heard was him going bye-bye.”

  “How?” I found myself saying, but another part of me was disappearing, flying far away from The Pit and from the Man in Gray and even from Hell.

  “He thought he could trick me, get me in his body then push over that stupid jar. But he miscalculated. That wasn’t Pandora’s Box.”

  “What is Pandora’s Box?” I repeated, confused.

  The Man in Gray shook his head as though I’d just said something stupid.

  “Your boyfriend had some deal going with that Japanese God. I believe he’d been told if he helped him, then they could use Pandora’s Box to stop me, save you, save the world…How should I know the details?”

  I didn’t believe him.

  “Daniel would never have anything to do with Watatsumi—”

  “I watched the whole thing go down,” the Man in Gray said. “I didn’t get the details, but your boyfriend definitely thought that clay jar was Pandora’s Box.”

  Oh, Daniel, I thought. What did you get yourself mixed up in?

  “So what was it, then?”

  The Man in Gray shrugged.

  “Whatever it was, it destroyed the spell Uriah Drood and I had crafted to give the Harvesters and Transporters new eyes, and it also killed Frank and his Japanese ‘friend.’ Luckily I’d pushed your boyfriend out of his body just in the nick of time and was able to run in here and save myself.”

  The Man in Gray was an asshole. He’d been buried in the She’ol for far too long and it’d warped him beyond all hope of repair.

  “His shade could still be here,” I said, wanting to hold on to anything that might mean Daniel was out there somewhere, waiting for me to find him.

  “No,” the Man in Gray said. “Whatever was in that jar, it got him. He’s not on this plane anymore. The body would know it.”

  Damn, Daniel, I thought. Damn you and your stupid heroics and your need to fix everything.

  “Don’t be sad he’s gone,” the Man in Gray continued. “We’re all going to be annihilated shortly anyway.”

  “How’s that?” I said.

  He got up and walked back over to the entrance of The Pit, pulling a piece of velvet fabric away from the wall and revealing a tiny keyboard. All around me the souls began to tremble in their seats, dead human beings who just wanted to get through the Afterlife and return to the recycling pool, all so they could take another shot at an Earthly existence.

  “How’s that?” I repeated.

  He pressed a few more keys and then the room began to spin.

  “I’ve already annihilated enough human souls that one more round in The Pit, especially with you in it, should be enough to get the Apocalypse started.”

  Oh, shit. I’d seen the seething orange sky, and now I knew what it meant. This wasn’t just about merging universes; it was about utter annihilation.

  “You’d sacrifice yourself?” I asked, incredulous.

  He nodded, happy to finally be able to tell someone the intricacies of his plan.

  “Yes, of course I would. Because the end is nigh, and there is nothing God can do to stop it once the Apocalypse has been set into motion.”

  “You hate God that much?” I asked, surprised by the vehemence of his words.

  “Even more than you can imagine.”

  As we’d been talking, The Pit had picked up speed, spinning faster and faster and making me dizzy enough I found it hard to breathe.

  “What if I told you I had How to Be Death in here with me right now?” I asked, ready to play my one and only trump card.

  This gave the Man in Gray pause.

  “But you don’t.”

  I reached into my back pocket and pulled the book out for him to see.

  “But I do—and there are enough human souls in here that if you annihilate them, the book is gonna mix with their energy and blow your little machine to smithereens all before you can get your little Apocalypse jump-started. Or finish merging these universes.”

  The Man in Gray reached for the keyboard, but the room was spinning too fast and I could see his fingers jerking over the keyboard. The Pit was coming to the climax of its final ride. Soon it would be over—one way or another.

  Without thinking, I leapt out of my seat and ran across the room, my eyes focused on the keyboard. I could feel The Pit shuddering as it started to rip everyone inside apart, atom by atom.

  “No!” I screamed, my fingers finally finding purchase on the keyboard, hitting all the buttons until I felt the machine begin to decelerate and then come to a complete stop. The dead souls on board, shocked at not being obliterated, started to clap, their relief eliciting thunderous applause.

  I looked over at the Man in Gray, but all I could see was Daniel—even though I knew he wasn’t there anymore.

  “Why?” the Man in Gray asked, looking up at me with wet, puppy-dog eyes.

  I shook my head. A million answers floated through my mind, but I settled on one:

  “Because you don’t get to be the one to end our world.”

  He thought about it for a moment then nodded.

  “Yes, I suppose that was asking for too much.”

  I walked up to Daniel and kissed him softly on the lips. Then I stepped back and to the Man in Gray, who wasn’t immortal, just tired and sad, whispered:

  “I wish you dead.”

  * * *

  caoimhe and freezay found me cradling Daniel’s body by the entrance to The Pit. I knew he wasn’t inside it anymore, but I just couldn’t let go—because letting go meant I had to let him go.

  And I wasn’t ready to do that.

  “Baby, you have to stop,” Caoimhe said, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and rocking me.

  I shook my head.

  “Please? For me?”

  Her words penet
rated, but I found I just didn’t care.

  Runt had crawled up beside me, nuzzling her pink nose into my waist. She didn’t try to talk to me, just pushed herself against my shoulder, letting me know she was there.

  “Baby, please,” Caoimhe whispered—and then Clio was there holding me, too.

  All the women in my life, all the ones I loved more than anything else in the world were trying their damnedest to keep me anchored here, to stop me from floating away.

  But I was too far gone to care.

  I don’t know how they pried my fingers off him, how they pulled me away from the man I loved, and took me back to Sea Verge, but they did.

  They did.

  epilogue

  Kali and Indra had done as Calliope had asked, and now the young man was holding on to Kali’s waist as she drove the hot pink Segway down the long drive leading to Sea Verge. Indra would never have deigned to travel by Segway, so he’d followed behind her in his red mini-convertible with the white racing stripes down its side.

  In retrospect, Kali decided her friend was a genius and this was why she’d created this contingency plan. She’d put Kali in charge of overseeing it, and had hinted it might be nice to include Indra in its execution, too, because he could sweet-talk a lady out of her undergarments—never mind make a kid understand he was one of the three “possible” Deaths-in-Waiting.

  Well, execute it, they had.

  “This place is huge,” the kid said, the wind whipping his long dark hair into his face.

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet, Nature Boy,” Kali said, using her new nickname for the kid.

  They followed the driveway down to the house, sunlight bombarding their eyes and making it hard to see, but once they’d crossed into the shade, Kali saw Clio and Jarvis outside, waiting for them.

  Jennice had come out, too, but she was sitting on the front steps, a little removed from the others. Apparently, Noh’s death had been very hard on her—and then she’d come home to find her beloved mother had passed away, too. Kali thought it was almost too much to bear for someone so young, but Jennice was trying to put a good face on it—though anyone with eyes could see how much she was suffering.