by Amber Benson
The croissant I’d stuffed into his mouth made it hard for him to speak, and I could see he was ready to talk, so I released him. Tears streaming down his pudgy face, he began to retch chunks of pastry onto the table, some of them finding their way into his teacup. I watched, gleeful, as the croissant I’d ground into his skull slid down his forehead and landed in his lap, where he quickly swatted it onto the ground.
“I … I … you’re a terrible creature,” he sobbed, pointing a thick finger in my direction. “How dare you?!”
Trying to look as menacing as possible, I made a grab for the last croissant on the tray and he shuddered, shrinking away from me.
“Don’t make me use this,” I said as I held the croissant aloft, letting the weight of my implied threat settle over him.
“Fine!” he shrieked. “You want to know what Connie was doing here at the Haunted Hearts Castle? Will that ease your mind, Ms. Death?”
“Yes, it will,” I yelled back at him. “It would ease my mind greatly!”
Uriah Drood sat very still, eyes unblinking as his gaze bored into mine. There was something dark and frightening about the man, a hidden malevolence only hinted at by the calm superciliousness of his stare.
“She came here under my orders,” he whispered, then paused for effect.
“She came here to steal your precious book.”
nineteen
In a surge of anger, I lobbed the last croissant at his face. It barely made a sound as it hit his chin and fell to the ground, unblemished.
“Where is it? What’d you do with the book?” I said, but I’d just thrown my last weapon away without a thought as to how I was going to intimidate Uriah Drood empty-handed.
“I don’t know,” he replied, picking up his napkin. It was soiled by orangy-brown retch residue, but he didn’t seem to notice this as he wiped his mouth with it. “Constance wouldn’t give it to me.”
Freezay rested a hand on my shoulder.
“Calliope, why don’t you sit down.”
It wasn’t a question.
He led me over to a wrought iron patio chair—a twin of the one Uriah Drood was sitting in—and pushed me down into it, leaving the heels of his hands pressed into my shoulders as he stood behind me. I didn’t know if he was punishing me for the croissant incident or if he was trying to calm me down, but I let him hold me in place even though I felt like a bug, pinned and wriggling, on the wall.
The sunlight reflected off the white of the tabletop and I closed my eyes, letting the meager warmth and my exhaustion overwhelm me.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” I heard Freezay say, the pressure from his palms remaining steady against my shoulders. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, my whole body relaxing under the powerful sway of those large, sensitive hands.
Things weren’t supposed to go down this way. The Death Dinner was supposed to be a relatively enjoyable, easy introduction to some of the men and women who worked with and/or for me at Death, Inc. Instead, it had morphed into some Mephistophelian murder mystery extravaganza—all because of some stupid book.
Freezay released my shoulders and I opened my eyes, looking up to find him smiling down at me. I hadn’t really noticed how handsome he was before. He had a rugged Nordic sensibility and the white-blond hair and unsettling green eyes to go with it. He was definitely what you would call eccentric, with his bowler hat and odd ensemble and totally not the type of man I usually thought of as attractive—and he was quite a bit older than me, for sure—but I had to admit there was something very intriguing about Edgar Freezay. And I got the sense from the way he was looking down at me that he found me just as fascinating.
Who knew my dexterity with croissants could be such a turn-on? I thought.
My juvenile, boy-crush musings were interrupted by Uriah Drood, who sniffled once before spilling the details of the plot he’d conjured up with Constance.
“We all know that Naapi has been circling retirement,” he said from his tiny wrought iron perch, eyes lingering on the cool blue of the swimming pool as he spoke. “And Death—your father, that is—was well aware of my interest in the soon-to-be-vacated position.”
Runt chose that moment to leave Jarvis’s side and cross over to where I was sitting, putting her dark head in my lap. I reached down and began to stroke her neck, the warmth of doggie breath hot on my pajama leg.
“Constance was the one who told me about the book and she was the one who set this whole miserable affair into motion.”
“I can’t believe you’re blaming the dead person for this,” I said, and Runt snorted her agreement.
“I’m not blaming anyone for anything,” Uriah Drood said. “I’m just explaining myself. From the beginning. As the detective asked me to.”
“Calliope,” Jarvis said, warning me to keep my mouth shut. “Go on, Mr. Drood.”
I noticed the back of Jarvis’s neck starting to turn pink from the sunlight, but I didn’t call attention to it, not wanting to get sniped at for opening my mouth.
“Constance decided to get a job serving at the dinner. She would use her time to watch you, new Death,” he said, glowering at me. “And then when she was sure you had the book, she would steal it from you. She’d placed tiny wireless cameras in your room, so we could monitor your every move. Needless to say, we thought we’d missed the whole thing when you made the swap in the library and not in your suite. But then we caught you hiding the book in the bathroom and we were back in business—”
“If by ‘business’ you mean blackmailing Calliope into giving you the Vice-Presidency of North America,” Freezay finished for him.
Uriah Drood started to protest, but then he stopped and nodded.
“Yes,” he said, resigned to the truth. “Only once Constance had the book, she decided to double-cross me, that bitch—”
“So you killed her,” I blurted out.
Uriah Drood giggled, girlish snorts of laughter issuing through his fingers as he covered his pink lips with his hand.
“Why would I do that? I didn’t have the book yet,” he giggled.
I looked over at Jarvis, who shrugged. I didn’t want to admit that Uriah Drood’s logic made sense, but it did.
“So who killed her then?” I asked, but Uriah Drood had no answer for me.
“Sorry, I don’t know who killed Constance … Oh, and if you’re thinking we caught that other woman’s murder on tape, think again. Once we got the book, we turned the recording devices off, so you’re out of luck there,” he said snidely as he stood up and brushed croissant crumbs off his gray suit coat. “And now that you’ve ruined my brunch, I’d like to go back to my room and freshen up.”
Freezay let him go without another word. When we’d seen the last of his lumbering gait, Freezay sat down in Drood’s chair and picked up the undamaged croissant from the ground, examining it for a moment before setting it back on the tray.
“Well, we know two things now that we didn’t before: Connie Silver, aka Constance Partridge, was murdered for the book, and Calliope Reaper-Jones is a damn fine shot with a piece of pastry.”
I couldn’t help but smile at Freezay, pleased, at last, to have someone acknowledge my acumen with pastry products. Jarvis’s reaction, on the other hand, I was not looking forward to. I took a deep breath, totally preparing myself to get blasted for my unladylike behavior.
“That was a very pleasurable experience,” Jarvis said, surprising me. “I almost clapped when you greased his scalp. Just lovely stuff, Calliope.”
That was very high praise, indeed, coming from Jarvis.
“I couldn’t take the hedging,” I said. “I knew he was lying about Constance and it made me so mad I just had to do something.”
“It was amazing, Cal,” Runt agreed.
As much as I was enjoying the adulation, I was also exhausted. I’d been going since early the day before, and the lack of sleep was finally catching up with me. Even poor Runt could barely keep her eyes open.
&nbs
p; “What’s my problem? I’m so tired, I could fall asleep right here at this table,” I said, yawning. “This never happens to me.”
Jarvis offered me his hand and I stood up, yawning again.
“All the supernatural qualities you possess are hindered now by the lack of magic in the world—and it will be like that until All Saints’ Day,” Jarvis said.
“Well, that’s a bummer,” I said, leaving the site of my first ever pastry attack behind me.
Jarvis sighed, scratching the back of his neck—which had turned from a reasonable shade of light pink to a bright burnt red.
“Yes, a bummer,” he agreed. “Is my neck burnt?”
I nodded.
“To a crisp.”
“Damn.” He sighed.
“So this book is pretty popular,” I said—wanting to know exactly what I was going to be dealing with if I didn’t get it back. “Constance and Drood were after it, and maybe Coy, too.”
“Whoever controls the book controls the Harvesters and Transporters,” Jarvis said quietly. “It’s why Uriah Drood was so intent on getting a hold of it. He could easily have blackmailed you into naming him Naapi’s successor in exchange for its safe return, and the world would’ve been none the wiser.”
“And if I hadn’t given in to his blackmail plot? What then?” I asked as I felt time slipping away from me. Above us, the sun, having already reached its zenith for the day, began its slide toward the horizon.
“If someone else possesses the book at the stroke of midnight, then it will be another three hundred and sixty-five days before Death can collect it again. During that time, Death will have no dominion over the Harvesters and Transporters—”
“But what happens to all the souls if no one comes to collect them?”
“During the Middle Ages, the year 1347 to be precise,” he said—and I could feel the beginnings of a lecture coming on. “The book was stolen by the angel Azazel, who used it to bring about the beginning of a plague called the Black Death—”
“I’m not an idiot,” I said, stopping to turn up the cuffs of my pajama pants so I wouldn’t keep stepping on them as I walked. “I have heard of the Black Death, thankyouverymuch. I mean I did see that Bergman film The Seventh Seal like twice.”
What I didn’t add was that I’d slept through the movie the first time I saw it and made out with a really cute guy all the way through my second viewing.
“Well, what you don’t know,” Jarvis said, continuing, “is that for the next ten years, Azazel was in charge. Basically blackmailing Death into doing whatever he wanted in exchange for making the Harvesters and Transporters do their jobs. This injustice continued until the next Grim Reaper took office and recovered the book from Azazel.”
“Okay, so not interested in that scenario,” I said, fuming at the injustice of it all. “We gotta find the book because I don’t want to be bossed all over Heaven and Hell by the likes of Uriah Drood.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Jarvis agreed.
Our conversation was abruptly cut short by the sudden appearance of Erlik striding aggressively down the path toward us.
“What’s happened in the library?!” he bellowed as soon as he was in shouting distance. “First Coy and now this? You’re supposed to stop the murderer, not encourage him!”
But verbal antagonism wasn’t enough for the likes of Erlik. He was a big hotheaded asshole who wanted to be taken seriously—and that meant physical intimidation.
“I want an answer from you!” he growled, his face turning scarlet as he jammed a finger into Freezay’s chest.
It was a mild October day, not superhot, but warm enough to work up a sweat if you exerted yourself. The look Freezay gave the enraged man made me shiver.
“Your tone is unacceptable,” Freezay said, his muddy green eyes flashing with barely concealed anger. “You either calm down and we can have a reasonable conversation, or you can incur my wrath. Something I would encourage you to avoid.”
Erlik stared at him, weighing his options. The men were an even match when it came to physical size, both tall and solidly built, but where Erlik was all cultivated muscle, his biceps the size of Easter hams, Freezay was rangy and lighter on his feet. I’d watched Erlik get his ass handed to him by Morrigan the night before and I was pretty sure he didn’t want to find himself in a similar situation with Freezay.
“Fine,” Erlik said, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his blue jeans and turning his anger down a couple of notches.
“Now what can I do for you?” Freezay said.
Erlik nervously shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet, all the energy he’d just tamped back down inside himself having nowhere else to go.
“I want to know what you’re doing to find Coy’s murderer.”
I wanted to know what we were doing to find Coy’s murderer, too, so I listened intently to Freezay’s answer.
“Can I ask you one question first?” Freezay asked, his tone light. “And then I promise to tell you what you want to know.”
Erlik considered the question, trying to figure out if this was just a dodge or an actual legitimate request.
“Go ahead.” He sighed, finally deciding he had nothing to lose by answering the detective’s question. “Ask your question and we’ll see.”
“I’d like to know exactly how long you were involved with Coy.”
Well, that came out of left field, I thought.
Erlik bowed his head, the muscles in his neck straining.
“How did you guess?” he asked, looking up again, his lips trembling.
“No man rages like a bull over the death of a woman he doesn’t know.”
Erlik nodded, realizing he’d given himself away by his own aggressive behavior.
“What can you tell me about her? Something I wouldn’t be able to guess, but that a lover would know implicitly,” Freezay asked, patting the large man’s arm, a show of sympathy for the bereaved.
Erlik took a moment to collect his thoughts, probably sifting through all the things he knew about his ex and separating out what was fit to tell a detective from what was too intimate to divulge.
“She’s a Goddess. From the Aztec Pantheon,” he said. “Her given name is Coyolxauhqui and she’s estranged from her family, so I never met any of them.”
I noticed Erlik used the present tense when he spoke of Coy. Freezay seemed aware of this, too, and even though he was simmering with questions—I could see the anticipation in his eyes—he tempered his interrogation with kindness.
“You should know that she died quickly,” he said simply—though I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or just trying to spare Erlik’s feelings. “And that any mutilation to the body was done postmortem.”
Eyes welling with unshed tears, Erlik was unable to speak, merely nodding that he’d understood.
“Is there anything else we should know?” Freezay asked, more gently now.
It was strange to watch a muscle-y macho man cry. It felt like we were intruding on something we had no business seeing, but before I could suggest that Jarvis, Runt, and I give them some privacy, Erlik had gotten control of himself again, swiping at his eyes with the sleeve of his yellow Oxford shirt.
“There’s someone here who could easily have done her in,” Erlik said, his brow ridged with tension. “He leaves a trail of devastation wherever he goes, a real womanizer who got his hooks into Coy and never let her go again. And when he’s done with them, his women have a strange way of disappearing.”
“And who might that be?” Freezay asked, curiosity alive on his face.
As if Erlik had prearranged it with fate, a cloud passed over the glaring sun, cloaking his face in shadow.
“Fabian Lazarev, of course.”
Freezay raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. Instead, he asked Erlik where he had gone after dinner.
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” Erlik asked, less than thrilled with Freezay’s reaction.
“I heard you,”
Freezay said. “And I will look into it.”
Erlik shook his head, miffed by Freezay’s apparent lack of interest in Lazarev, but he didn’t push it.
“I left the dining room with everyone else,” he said sullenly, “but I went outside, stood in one of those sculpture gardens, and had a cigarette. So if you’re fishing for an alibi, I don’t have one.”
Ah, the beauty of immortality, I thought. You could smoke all the cigarettes you liked and never get lung cancer.
Freezay seemed satisfied with Erlik’s answer.
“I think that’s all I need from you right now. But I might have to speak with you later in case I need anything confirmed,” Freezay said. “Be around.”
