How to be Death

by Amber Benson

  “Well, you know how the Board of Death likes to be kept in the loop,” Jarvis said, though no one had asked. “And Kali’s gone off, so that puts it all squarely on my shoulders.”

  “Well, have fun with the phone,” I called after him as he took off down the hall—but he ignored me, still peeved about my “art talk” comment.

  Ah, the silent treatment. Jarvis is going to make me pay for that one, I mused.

  Freezay knocked again as we heard someone rustling around inside the room, and then, a moment later, the door opened to reveal Naapi standing in the doorway, eyelids drooping from an interrupted bout of sleep. He was dressed in a red silk robe and matching slippers, the robe’s sash hanging out of one loop and dangling almost to the floor.

  “Please come in,” he said as he ushered us inside, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and pointing to the sole chair in the room: a desk chair he’d dragged into the middle of the floor for the occasion. Freezay inclined his head in my direction, indicating I should take the chair, and he went to stand against the wall, next to a large armoire.

  The room that Naapi and Alameda had been given was in the main house just down the hallway from where I’d de-skunked Kali. Like the skunk bedroom, it was decorated in a Moroccan motif, incorporating a rich color palette of indigo blue, sea green, and gold in the mosaic tile work and textiles. It was larger than the room Runt and I shared, but it wasn’t half as opulent. Of course, our bedroom also boasted a dead body, so the Vice-President in Charge of North America and his lady friend were the clear winners on that front.

  “I can see that we’ve come at a bad time, sir, so I’ll make this short,” Feezay said, pulling off his bowler hat and running its brim through his fingers as he spoke.

  “Thank you,” Naapi said, instantly warming to the deference Freezay was paying him.

  There was a rattling sound behind us, and the door opened to allow Alameda Jones to enter the room. If she seemed surprised to find us there, she didn’t show it.

  “Excuse me,” she said, making a beeline for the bathroom and shutting the door firmly behind her.

  Upon her exit, Freezay returned to his questioning.

  “We just need to account for everyone’s movements last night, so if you can be so kind as to tell me where you were after dinner…”

  Naapi nodded, more than willing to cooperate.

  “I was in the drawing room after dinner,” Naapi said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, legs crossed, his scarlet robe open to show off the red silk pajamas he was wearing. “You can ask Yum Cimil, Jarvis, Morrigan. I never left the room.”

  The bathroom door opened and Alameda came out, her lithe body wrapped in a saffron-colored kimono. Long limbs moving with the easy fluidness of a swimmer or long-distance runner, she crossed to the bed and climbed inside, yawning sleepily.

  Freezay nodded, as if he had no doubts about Naapi’s alibi, then he turned on Alameda, all deference gone now.

  “And where were you, Ms. Jones?” Freezay said as he leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest, nothing casual about his tone.

  Tucking her long legs up to her chest so that her chin balanced neatly on her knees, she shrugged.

  “I was in the drawing room with Naapi and the others,” she said, biting her lower lip. “But my sandal strap snapped and I came back to the room to change my shoes. No one saw me and I saw no one.”

  As she shifted her position on the bed, her kimono fell open, revealing a strappy bruise-purple silken negligee that showed off her mocha skin and taut, muscular body. It was such a blatant show of skin that I was embarrassed for her.

  Sitting up in my chair, I opened my mouth to tell her that actually someone had seen her kissing someone—who obviously wasn’t Naapi—in the sculpture garden, so she was a big fat liar, but Freezay shot me a “shut it” look and I closed my mouth.

  “Thank you, Ms. Jones,” Freezay said, tipping his hat. “Your movements are duly noted. Now—”

  Before Freezay could finish the sentence, there was a frantic knock at the door and then Jarvis burst into the room, eyes wild with uncertainty.

  “Freezay, a word,” he said breathlessly. “In the hallway, please.”

  “One moment.”

  Freezay didn’t bat an eyelash, just followed my Executive Assistant out into the corridor, shutting the door behind them.

  “What was that all about?” Alameda asked, curiosity ablaze in her warm caramel eyes.

  I shrugged, reaching down to stroke the back of Runt’s neck. The pup had staked out a spot next to me, curling up in a large ball beside my seat. But Jarvis’s frenzied interruption had jarred her out of a light doze and now she was up on her haunches, just as curious about what was being discussed out in the hallway as the rest of us were.

  “I don’t know,” I said, but I knew it wasn’t good, whatever it was.

  “So, did you see the body?” Alameda asked, sliding onto her knees to get closer to me. “Was it horrible? Someone said she was eviscerated, her intestines strung out over the Oriental rug.”

  I shook my head.

  “Not eviscerated … decapitated.”

  “That’s horrific!” Naapi said, getting up so he could pace in front of the door. “I don’t understand why someone would do such a thing. It’s so senseless.”

  I could’ve gone into lurid detail about why a person might murder someone in such a fantastical and gory fashion, but I chose to treat Naapi’s question as if it were a rhetorical one.

  “Does the detective have any idea why someone wanted Coy dead?” Alameda asked.

  “He keeps his cards very close to his chest,” I replied, not wanting to share anything with Alameda that might get me in trouble later.

  “But he must’ve said something, had some idea why she was murdered?” Alameda went on, pushing me for more information.

  I shook my head.

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  Alameda wasn’t buying my lack of knowledge.

  “I think we have a right to know what happened here tonight,” she said snidely. “We’re all immortals and that entitles us to a certain level of treatment—”

  “Alameda,” Naapi said, his tone warning her to back off, but she frowned at him, her beautiful face twisting into something less than pleasant to look at.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” she said to him, crawling across the bed to scowl at me like an angry child. “I know you think being Death means you’re better than me, but I’m here to tell you that you’re just a half-breed human, who only got her immortality by the luck of the draw. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  I wasn’t going to argue with her. It was true. I’d had immortality foisted on me by my parents and it was mine only so long as I remained Death—but I didn’t feel like that made me better than anyone else. To me, immortality was a cross to bear; one I would’ve happily given up in favor of a shorter, finite human existence. I hadn’t wanted to be Death. I had fought tooth and nail against it, but I’d been railroaded into the job by fate and my father—and now I was just trying to do the best I could with an unwelcome situation.

  “You speak the truth,” I said earnestly, sitting back in my chair.

  Go chew on that for a while, I thought, pleased by the look of consternation my words had conjured on her face. Most people, when put on the defensive, engaged their attacker with an equally aggressive response, but I hated fighting and I’d learned that doing the unexpected was a great way of shutting an argument down before it started.

  Luckily, the door opened and I was saved from having to deal with her bad attitude any longer.

  “Calliope,” Jarvis said, crooking his finger for me to get up. “Let’s leave Naapi and Alameda to finish their nap.”

  “Well, it was lovely chatting,” I said. “But I’ll have to catch you on the flip side.”

  I gave them a wave as I followed Runt out into the hallway, glad to escape the look of pure poison Alameda was giving me.

  “W
hat’s going on?” I asked as soon as the door closed behind me, but Jarvis was already striding down the hallway, Freezay hot on his heels.

  “No time to explain now,” Freezay shouted back at me. “Just follow us!”

  We caromed down the hallway like silver balls in a pinball machine, retracing our steps until we reached the library.

  “Prepare yourself,” Jarvis said as he threw open the door and we all followed him inside.

  “Holy shit,” I said, my mouth hanging open as I stared at the dead body draped over the couch.

  The flesh was rent in a hundred different places, blood leaking in dark red tributaries from its torso and neck, not even its arms and legs spared from the deep gashes that filleted muscle and skin from bone.

  “She was exactly like this when I found her,” Jarvis said, the only color in his face two blotches of red high on his cheekbones.

  “But we just talked to her,” I whispered, my brain still trying to process what I was seeing.

  “It wouldn’t take long for her to bleed out,” Freezay said, bowler hat in hand. “With the internal jugular severed, exsanguination can occur within two minutes. It’s odd about the shallower cuts, though. They look different, weaker.”

  Connie Silver had not died an easy death. Eyes wide open, gagged mouth fixed in an “oh” of horror, she was the living-dead version of that Norwegian painting The Scream.

  “It must’ve happened right after we spoke to her,” Freezay said, squatting down beside the corpse and squeezing the bowler hat back onto his blond head. “The blood is already starting to congeal and no rigor mortis has set in. This is very, very recent.”

  “Why would someone murder the serving girl?” I asked, wondering what the connection was between Coy and this new, bloodless corpse.

  “Hmm …” Freezay said, but it wasn’t in response to my question. “This is odd.”

  He was standing over the corpse’s head, his eyes fixed on its bloody nose. Suddenly, his hand shot out and plucked the nose right off the dead woman’s face.

  “Interesting,” he said as he squeezed the protuberant rubber nose between his fingers. “A false nose for a false server. I wonder what else isn’t real.”

  He went for the hair next, the short gray wig coming off easily in his hand, revealing a panty hose stocking cap pulled down over the skull. Freezay yanked the stocking cap off and a cloud of blond curls poofed around the dead woman’s face. Jarvis gave a squeak and clamped his hand over his mouth, causing Freezay to look up at him curiously.

  “You know this woman?”

  Jarvis nodded.

  “Who is she, Jarvis?” I asked.

  He dropped his hand to his heart, the shock slowly dissipating from his face.

  “Constance Partridge.”

  “How do you know her?” Freezay asked.

  Jarvis walked over to an armchair and sat down heavily. The light that came in through the library windows illuminated the fear on his face.

  “She worked for me at Death, Inc.,” Jarvis said. “In your father’s office, Calliope. She was a very sweet, but very ineffective young woman, so after a few months, I had her transferred to another department.”

  Freezay walked over to where Jarvis sat, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  “What department? Where did she go after you transferred her?”

  Jarvis swallowed hard. He knew what Freezay was getting at and it frightened him.

  “She worked in the Hall of Death … in the rare items room … where we kept ‘the book.’”

  Freezay jumped up and down in place, gleeful at what he’d just learned.

  “Hazzah! We have a connection!”

  Jarvis took a deep breath and shook his head.

  “Unbelievable,” he murmured. “Is no one an honest employee anymore?”

  I went over and put my hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

  “You are.”

  He gave me a small smile and patted my hand.

  “You’re a role model,” Runt said, trotting over and nuzzling his hand.

  It was cheesy, but it was exactly what Jarvis needed to hear. Runt was the smartest dog in town, hands down.

  “There’s more,” Jarvis said, the color returning to his face as he sat up in his chair. “She left Death, Inc., and you won’t believe where she went next…”

  Freezay grinned down at him.

  “I can’t even imagine, so I hope you’re going to tell us.”

  Jarvis leaned back in his chair, hands folded tightly in his lap.

  “Constance Partridge became Uriah Drood’s Undersecretary at the Harvesters and Transporters Union.”

  we found uriah Drood sitting outside by the pool, enjoying a solo breakfast.

  He’d chosen a garden table, one of the many scattered around the yard, sitting out in the open sunlight rather than hidden within the shadow of the tall Greek sculptures that loomed over the circumference of the Olympic-sized aquamarine swimming pool. He appeared unconcerned by our arrival, not at all put off as the four of us crowded around him like a posse cornering an outlaw.

  “Oh my, you’ve found me,” he said dryly, his great bulk resting in one of the tiniest white wrought iron chairs I’d ever seen.

  It was incongruous, the large man and the miniature outdoor furniture, but Uriah Drood seemed oblivious to the picture he made as he sat underneath the watchful eye of the marble statuary, sipping from a dainty cup of tea and munching on croissants. Even though we had him surrounded, he continued to eat as if we weren’t there, as though he had all the time in the world to sit and enjoy his repast.

  “She’s dead,” Freezay said, throwing Constance’s gray wig down on the wrought iron table like a gauntlet.

  Uriah Drood stopped chewing, the cup of tea halfway to his lips. He stared down at the wig for a moment then set the cup back into its saucer, resting his hands on top of the table and giving the detective his full attention.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, then he reached for his white cloth napkin and dabbed at his lips with it.

  “Constance Partridge,” Jarvis said. “She works for you.”

  “Oh, yes, Constance, of course. You say she’s dead? However did it happen?”

  There was no shock, no recrimination … just calm nonchalance. His reaction would’ve given anyone watching the impression that Constance Partridge was nothing to him but a far removed business associate.

  “She was tortured, you schmuck,” I snarled. “Someone filleted her with a knife and then left her to bleed to death from her wounds. And we have no idea why … not that you give a shit.”

  How could he sit there, basking in the sunlight like an obese version of Uncle Fester from The Addams Family, sipping his tea and munching on croissants when someone he knew had been tortured? I wanted to cross the three feet between us, rip the dainty little cup of tea out of his hands, and dump it on his head.

  “What was she doing here?” Freezay asked. “She was working for you. You should have some idea as to why she was here, pretending to be someone else.”

  The large man shrugged, bending his lips into an apologetic frown.

  “I have no idea why Constance Partridge would be here, pretending to be someone else. I don’t usually get involved in my employees’ personal lives.”

  I was sick of this charade. Uriah Drood was lying through his teeth and I wasn’t gonna let him get away with it. Not giving myself any time to question my decision, I walked right up to the table and grabbed a croissant from the tray, holding it in my hand like a softball. Only I wasn’t about to throw this pastry. No, I had a much better idea where to stick the flaky-crusted beauty I was holding in my hand—and that place was right down Uriah Drood’s throat.

  Smashing the croissant into his face, I pushed the pastry into his open mouth. He gagged, shoving me away with his hands, but I was relentless, forcing the croissant past the barrier of lips and tongue so that the soggy, crumbling pieces slid farther and farther do
wn into his gullet.

  No one moved to stop me, so I took that as a sign to continue what I was doing. I picked up another croissant from the plate and smashed it on his bald pate while still keeping up the full-frontal croissant-mouth assault with my other hand.

  “Listen to me, you jerkoid,” I spat, grinding the greasy croissant into Uriah Drood’s scaly scalp as he squealed like a little piggy and tried to fend off my attack with flailing arms. “I want to know exactly what Constance Partridge was doing here and I want to know NOW!”