by Amber Benson
“Can you slow down?” I moaned, my high heels click-clacking like buckshot on the tile floor as I tried to keep pace. “I’m doing this backwards and in heels.”
Jarvis shook his head, bewildered.
“I don’t know where you come up with these things. Ginger Rogers, you are not.”
“I know,” I said, out of breath as I tried to catch up to him, “but it’s such a good quote I had to use it. Besides, the ‘heels’ part was true.”
Jarvis clucked his tongue, still shaking his head.
“Here we are,” he said, stopping abruptly in front of a doorway half-concealed behind a cornflower blue woven tapestry. If Jarvis hadn’t pointed it out, I would never have noticed it.
“What’s in there?” I asked curiously.
Jarvis grasped the hammered tin knob and turned, pulling the door open to reveal a closet stuffed with maids’ uniforms. I snorted, covering my mouth with my hand, the giggles rolling out of me as I imagined Kali wearing one of these cotton monstrosities to the Death Dinner.
“Uhm, Jarvis,” I said, clearing my throat to stifle my laughter. “You do know who this is for, don’t you? Kali? The Goddess of Death and Destruction who bites men’s heads off with her teeth?”
Jarvis ignored me and began to pick through the clothing, disregarding all the peach pastel and royal blue dresses with their preattached white aprons and lacy collars. I didn’t know what he thought he was going to find by digging around in that closet, but I stood back, letting him do his thing.
“Wait!” I said when he flipped past a mustard yellow one with a black Peter Pan collar and a cute little black tie encircling the waist. “Pull that one.”
I pointed to the yellow dress and Jarvis lifted it off the closet rail, holding it up so I could get a better look at it. I inspected the fabric (polished cotton, not my favorite, but not too terrible), making sure there were no stains or other flaws.
“This is it,” I said, nodding. “It’ll work fine for the dinner and then she can borrow something of mine after.”
Having found a reasonably presentable dress for Kali to wear, we followed the same circuitous path back to the bedroom. When we got there, the door was still open and Runt was pacing back and forth in front of the bathroom door, waiting for Kali to come out.
“She takes forever,” Runt said, padding over to me so I could rub her ears.
“She’s high maintenance,” I commiserated, knocking on the bathroom door to get Kali’s attention. “But she’s worth it.”
The door opened and Kali, her head wrapped in a fluffy white towel and another draped over her body, stepped out of the bathroom. She scowled at me then held out her hand.
“How do I smell?” she asked.
I took one for the team and sniffed at her wrist. To my surprise, it smelled faintly of roses, the skunk stench almost completely gone.
“You smell great,” I said, thrusting the mustard yellow dress at her. “And here’s your dress.”
Kali stared at the dress in my hand, pursing her lips, but wouldn’t take it.
“No way.”
“It’s just temporary,” Jarvis chimed in, but I glared at him, willing him telepathically to shut the hell up and let me handle the situation.
“It’s a new designer, very hot right now in New York City, totally hip—”
Kali wasn’t buying it one bit. She continued to gape at the dress, her nose upturned.
“If it’s so hip, white girl, why don’t you wear it?” she said tartly, raising an eyebrow at me.
“Well—” I started to say, but she just stood there, shaking her head.
“No, no, no, NO!” she shrieked, ripping the dress out of my hands and throwing it on the floor. “I will go nude or will not go at all.”
She dropped her towel, revealing a very toned, very sexy example of the feminine form, her large breasts swinging like pendulums as she huffed and puffed, a close approximation of an angry bull about to go into the ring.
“Okay, stop,” I said, seeing disaster on the horizon and trying to avoid it. “I have an idea.”
Somewhere down the hall the tinkling of the dinner bell filtered back to us and Jarvis tensed, his body going taut with the weight of Executive Assistant–centric responsibility. I could sense him just dying to usher us out of the bedroom and toward the dining room, but the problem of how to clothe Kali so dinner didn’t devolve into a nudist retreat trumped his need for order.
“So,” I began, three sets of eyes staring back at me as the dinner bell tinkled again, a little more urgently this time.
“Here’s what we’re gonna do …”
eleven
And that is how yours truly ended up attending the Death Dinner in a very fetching, mustard yellow maid’s uniform.
I do have to say Kali looked extremely pretty in my Noisette-designed minidress with its tight bodice and tattered fabric, her loose dark hair and tanned skin nicely offset by the delicate black of the material. Her boobs, which were larger than mine, spilled over the edge of the bodice, causing her to resemble, oddly enough, a high-class Ren Fair serving wench, so every time I looked over at her, the phrase “Huzzah to the big tipper!” ran through my head.
It hadn’t taken much persuasion to get Kali into my dress, and after a quick switcheroo, we were ready to go to the dining room. Once more, we trailed through the interlocking corridors of the building, past the winding circular staircase that led to the upstairs master suite, and bisected the library before finding our way into the dining room.
Like the rest of the rooms, the dining room was gaudy and elaborately appointed: African blackwood wainscoting, red-and-gold Oriental carpets lying across the tiled floor, tapestries from medieval France—depicting the progression of a very gory wild boar hunt—hanging from the walls, and a long rectangular table the length and width of two school buses taking up the bulk of the room.
Though it could seat far more, tonight the table was only set for sixteen, but what the dinner party lacked in populousness, it more than made up for in peculiarity. It was a truly unique assemblage of individuals, and I included myself, Runt, Kali, and Jarvis in this observation.
“Where do I sit?” I whispered to Jarvis as the four of us—the last ones to arrive, of course—entered the room, interrupting the dinner conversation already in progress.
“That is your chair, Calliope,” Jarvis said, pointing to the place setting at the head of the table. To my horror, Uriah Drood was on one side and Daniel on the other.
That’s my seat?! I thought miserably. Shit, shit, shit!
“I don’t want to sit there,” I said under my breath, but Jarvis was already shoving me toward the empty chair.
“I’ll be right there with you, Cal,” Runt whispered, sliding underneath the table just as Jarvis set the heel of his hand into the small of my back and pushed me into my seat. As I adjusted myself into my chair, I felt her wet nose press against my calf—her doggy way of reassuring me that everything was going to be okay.
I watched as Kali took a seat between Anjea (the spooky Aboriginal woman) and an old man with full white muttonchops, bushy white eyebrows, and jaundiced-looking skin, while Jarvis was relegated to the end of the table, next to Yum Cimil, the old man who wouldn’t talk to me because I was a female.
“So good of you to finally join us,” Uriah Drood said, his voice rich with sarcasm, his pale hand inching entirely too close to my own for comfort. I instinctively snatched my fingers away, grabbing my napkin and disengaging it from its heavy silver napkin ring so my actions wouldn’t look too suspicious, but I was pretty sure Reptile Man knew exactly what I was doing.
“Anytime,” I replied, flashing him an insincere smile—jeez, the man grossed me out!
As I looked around the room, I realized the only person I didn’t know was the older man in muttonchops next to Jarvis. I assumed he was Donald Ali, the man who owned the Haunted Hearts Castle, but that was only because I’d met everyone else. Though he appeared to be in his
middle seventies, his pale gray eyes emanated a lively intelligence that belied his age. Radiating power, he reminded me of someone who was used to getting whatever he wanted and damn the consequences. I’d experienced this quality before in other grotesquely wealthy men and women, and as enticing as all that power could be, I actually found it to be a very frightening quality.
At the end of the table, half-hidden behind the ostentatious ostrich feather and purple orchid table centerpiece, I saw Jarvis trying to get my attention. I stared, my curiosity piqued, as he mimed looking at his watch then scanning the crowd before nodding his head, twice.
“What?” I mouthed, confused. I had no idea what he was trying to tell me—and the Marcel Marceau act was not helping.
Jarvis took a deep breath, gritting his teeth as he sat there, contemplating other ways of communicating his thoughts to me when suddenly I felt Runt licking my leg. I gently pushed her head away from my calf, but she persisted until I finally had to lean down and put my head under the table, so I could glare at her.
“Knock it off,” I whispered, annoyed at her.
“Speech, Cal,” she said and I covered my mouth with my hand—I’d totally forgotten that since I was the host of the Death Dinner, I was supposed to make some kind of a speech to get the ball rolling. That’s why everyone was sitting around in silence, waiting. I was screwing the whole thing up and Jarvis and Runt were both trying to save my neck.
“Sorry, everyone,” I said as I sat up and pushed back my chair so I could stand.
“I would like to thank you all for joining us here at the Haunted Hearts Castle for the, uhm…”
I paused, my brain spinning as I tried to remember how many years they’d been having the damn thing. I knew Jarvis had told me the answer at some point, but I couldn’t pull it out of my head for anything in the world.
“How many years have you guys been doing this thing?” I asked then waved away my own question. “Uhm, it doesn’t matter. It’s the annual Death Dinner and we’re all here together, so, yay!”
Jarvis sank down in his seat, mortified. Across the table, Kali snickered.
“I’m honored to be your host this evening—even though it’s late and we’re all pretty tired—”
Jarvis cringed. If he could’ve hidden inside the centerpiece, he would have.
“Anyway, I’m glad to be here, though it is a sucky way to get a job. You know, having your dad die—”
Next to me, Daniel bit his lip to stop from laughing.
“Don’t you laugh at me.” I scowled at him, forgetting where I was for a moment, but when I looked up again, all eyes were riveted on me.
“Uhm, I just want to say thank you all for coming tonight,” I said, reverting back to my opening again. “I’m honored to be here, hosting the, you know, Death Dinner tonight ’cause if we don’t stick together, well, then where does that leave Death?”
I was crashing and burning right there in front of all the people I was supposed to impress. Jarvis was going to kill me!
“I’m Calliope Reaper-Jones,” I blurted out. “And though you don’t really know me, I hope to use this opportunity to remedy that.”
“So we can all stick together?” Uriah Drood said just loudly enough for everyone to hear.
If there’s one thing that gets my blood boiling, it’s being mocked in front of other people—especially people I don’t know very well.
“Excuse me?” I said, turning on Uriah, my eyes glowing with unfiltered anger. “Were you just mocking me? ’Cause I think that’s what you were just doing. Was that what you were doing?”
Uriah Drood stared at me, his eyes wide. I guess he’d thought I’d be some kind of shrinking violet.
“I’m not—” he started to say, but I cut him off.
“I didn’t think so, Drood.” Then turning my attention back to the others, I said: “Now, what was I saying?”
“Opportunity to remedy …” Daniel replied without a trace of irony.
“Thank you,” I said, nodding. “Now, as I was saying, let’s take this evening to get to know one another, to find out how we can best fulfill our obligation to the universe and maintain the balance of Good and Evil within the human world.”
I paused, my brain quickly searching every neural pathway for a means of ending my disastrous speech on a high note … but this was all I could come up with:
“So, let’s eat!”
The room was silent as the whole table stared at me, not sure if this was some kind of joke or if I’d actually just done exactly what they thought I’d done. To my surprise, it was Anjea who put her hands together first. I just assumed she was the doing the whole “ironic” clapping thing, but when Caoimhe and Naapi joined in, I realized she wasn’t—and I decided I was more than happy to have a mildly mediocre finish than a complete and utter failure.
Instead of letting the applause fester into awkward silence, Jarvis picked up a miniature crystal bell and rang it twice, ending the speechifying section of the dinner and bringing on the beginning of what promised to be an amazing meal.
“Nice speech,” Daniel said under his breath as the tiny serving woman from the drawing room reappeared, balancing a large tray of Dungeness crab salads on one hand. She seemed unsteady on her feet, the tray almost as big as she was, but she managed to make it to the table without falling over, which was impressive.
“You’re a schmuck,” I said, sitting back so she could put a plate down in front of me.
“So are you,” he replied, picking up his fork and moving the greens around on his plate so he could inspect them.
“What are you? Two?”
“I don’t like hearts of palm,” he said stubbornly. “You know that.”
“Then don’t eat them.”
I watched him pick the small discs out of his salad, setting them to the side then forking some of the remaining Dungeness crab and greens into his mouth. Annoyed, I picked up my own fork and took a bite, enjoying the silence brought on by the arrival of the food.
“How will you handle the upcoming strike Mr. Drood is proposing?”
The masculine voice sliced through the clinking of cutlery and I looked up, not understanding, at first, that the question was directed at me. Erlik, the barrel-chested Vice-President in Charge of Asia, was gazing at me intently, his lips parted in anticipation.
Once again, all eyes were on me, curious to see if I was going to mess up this part of the dinner, too.
“Miss Death?” he said, his hazel eyes dark and unreadable.
I realized he was testing me, that this was some kind of power play and it was up to me whether I passed or failed. I set my salad fork down on my plate and cleared my throat, trying to come up with a succinct, but intelligent answer. I didn’t want to say too much and show my hand, but I also didn’t want to start babbling.
At least I wasn’t in the dark on this subject. Jarvis and Kali had briefed me in a casual, yet intense breakfast meeting, which, when translated, meant they’d basically talked at me while I tried unsuccessfully to eat my eggs Benedict: the thrust of the matter being that the Harvesters and Transporters were talking about striking in protest to the unorthodox actions I’d undertaken during the Devil’s failed attempt to hijack Purgatory and Death, Inc.
Okay, let me explain.
In the middle of all kinds of craziness, when it seemed like the balance between Good and Evil was going to be undermined by personal greed and bitter revenge, I threw what I can only term as a “Hail Mary Pass.” I asked Cerberus and the Harvesters and Transporters to unleash all the damned souls from Hell, thinking this would cause complete and utter chaos down in Hell and force the Devil to abandon his hold on Purgatory and return to his original dominion.
To my utter surprise, my ruse had worked, but unbeknownst to me, asking the Harvesters and Transporters to get involved in the battle had gone firmly against the provisions in their contract. I’d argued with Jarvis, not understanding why the Union had a problem. In my mind, I’d seen a c
risis and had tried to avert it, but in the Union’s eyes—i.e., Uriah Drood’s eyes—I’d violated the terms of a legally binding agreement.
I’ve never been good at politics, I don’t really comprehend the art of corporate management, and I’m not great at chess. All three of these things are strikes against me being able to run a giant company like Death, Inc.—but maybe none of that really mattered. Maybe because I looked at the world through rose-colored spectacles and believed the universe was comprised of an inherent sense of fairness and a clearly defined idea of what was right and wrong—well, just maybe I was the perfect person to turn the engine around and start the train on a whole new course.
You see, over the years, I’d learned the hard way that lying only caused more problems than it solved and I was determined not to play that game anymore. Instead, I was gonna be a transparent leader, probably the first one in the history of Death, which meant I wasn’t just going to sit back and let the shits like Uriah Drood try and manipulate the system; I was gonna force them to work within it.
