How to be Death

by Amber Benson

  At Freezay’s nod, Daniel and Erlik released Lazarev, who instantly shoved them away before striding across the room so he could get in Freezay’s face.

  “You just let him go?” Fabian Lazarev screamed, cradling his wrist against his chest. “Are you insane?!”

  Not needing an answer, he took off after the Aztec god.

  It was a fruitless endeavor; he was never going to get his hands on Horace, but Lazarev was so full of rage he was incapable of listening to reason. From what I’d just experienced, Horace was a force to be reckoned with—and I had serious doubts that Kali would’ve been able to capture him if he hadn’t wanted all of us to see the burnt heart in the fireplace. Horace intended Freezay to know that someone else was responsible for his sister’s murder. I had no doubts he would’ve slain Coy without hesitation had he been given the chance—it just appeared that he wasn’t the kind of man to take credit for a thing he hadn’t done himself.

  “Now what are you going to do?” Erlik asked, speaking for the room. “You’ve let a prime suspect go free, which seems rather foolish, if you ask me—”

  “There is a method to my madness, sir,” Freezay said, interrupting him, a sly look playing across his rakish face. “I promise that all will be revealed in due time.”

  Erlik opened his mouth to say more, but Freezay cut him off:

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have a freezer to inspect. Come along, Calliope, Runt.”

  “Coming,” I said as I grabbed Kali’s limp hand. I could tell she was peeved at me for letting Freezay release Horace without a fight, but after two tugs on her arm, she finally let me pull her along behind me.

  “Damn, white girl,” she said. “Don’t yank my arm out of its socket.”

  We stopped in the doorway long enough to see Yum Cimil and Naapi descending on Jarvis and Daniel—and I felt bad leaving my poor Executive Assistant and my ex-boyfriend to deal with all the fallout.

  “Let’s just sit down and discuss this calmly,” I could hear Jarvis saying as we stepped out into the hallway just in time to catch Freezay disappearing down the hallway.

  “I know how you got skunked,” I said as Kali and I fast-walked toward the kitchen.

  Someone, probably Freezay, had been kind enough to hit the lights so that we weren’t walking in total darkness, but the iridescent lighting gave the portraits on the walls a pretty eerie vibe.

  “Oh, do you now, dipwad?” she said, narrowing her eyes and daring me to answer.

  “Yup. You were spying on Horace. You recognized both him and Coy, so you were sneaking all over the Castle trying to see what they were up to.”

  “You think you’re so smart, don’t you, white girl?” She scowled at me.

  “Uh-huh,” I said, my voice a stage whisper. “I do think I am so smart. So, what did you see?”

  “What makes you think I’m gonna tell you anything?”

  “Fine,” I replied. “Don’t tell me. See if I care.”

  We reached the end of the twisting hallway, the bright lights from the kitchen beckoning us forward, but Kali suddenly grabbed my arm, stopping me in my tracks.

  “Wait,” she said, adjusting the folds of her sari where it tucked in at her hip—she’d obviously had time to change in between spying sessions, I noticed.

  For the first time since the craziness had started, I found myself wondering what Kali had done with my dress. It was an odd thought to have right at that moment, but once it was in my head, I couldn’t help but be curious if she’d hung the dress up so it wouldn’t get too wrinkled.

  “Uhm, you didn’t happen to hang my dress up, did you?” I asked, unable to help myself.

  Kali gave me a long, incredulous look.

  “Think back to the Death Dinner, white girl,” she said, deciding to just avoid my question. “You remember when Coy freaked out, yes?”

  I nodded.

  “She was upset—”

  “Yes, she was upset,” Kali said, interrupting me. “Because she saw her brother. It was the first time she realized he was here and on to her plan.”

  “Okay,” I said, “but that doesn’t tell us who killed her.”

  Kali pursed her luscious lips together and nodded.

  “No, that doesn’t explain anything,” she agreed. “But the fight I saw her having with Fabian Lazarev does.”

  Now she had me. This was new information.

  “C’mon, spill it. The suspense is killing me here.”

  “Let’s go to the kitchen, so I don’t have to repeat myself,” she said—and I sighed, letting her pull me along in her slipstream.

  When we entered the kitchen, we found Freezay and Runt standing by the stockpot. Freezay had the lid off and was sniffing the pot’s contents. As we entered, he cocked his head thoughtfully.

  “Did you eat any of this?” Freezay asked, Kali’s information forgotten as soon as I heard the intensity in his voice.

  “No, I only held the lid,” I said, my stomach getting all jumpy as I tried to figure out why Freezay was freaking out.

  “Thank God,” he said, dropping the lid back on the pot so that its clatter echoed around the room.

  “Freezay thinks this is what poisoned Zinia,” Runt squeaked unhappily.

  “Zinia was poisoned?” Kali and I both said at the same time. But then Kali added: “Zinia’s dead?”

  “She touched the book,” I said, trying not to think about Zinia’s last few minutes of life … and how terribly she’d suffered.

  “And Freezay thinks she was poisoned, too,” Runt added.

  Kali looked bewildered.

  “How many people are dead, white girl?” she said, looking at me.

  “Three,” Freezay called out from where he was rummaging around inside a cabinet. “But it would’ve been four if Callie had tasted the chicken and dumplings.”

  He suddenly slammed the cabinet door shut, holding up a small plastic bottle.

  “Ah-ha! Here’s the culprit.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s gun bluing,” he replied. “Full of selenium dioxide, which, when ingested, proves miraculously fatal.”

  I didn’t think the word “miraculously” was really appropriate, given the situation, but Freezay was oblivious, as usual.

  “Well, you should know that Fabian Lazarev and Coy had a huge fight out by the pool last night,” Kali said, resting a hand on an outthrust hip and looking pleased with herself. “They were fighting over you and your lover boy, dipwad.”

  She directed this last sentence at me.

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  She leaned back against the counter, arms crossed over her ample chest.

  “Lazarev was yelling all over the place about how Coy was cozying up to Daniel more than she was supposed to … and by cozying up, I mean doing the nasty and all kinds of bad business.”

  My gut clenched, the air in the room becoming unbreathable. I must’ve looked shell-shocked because Runt came over and licked my hand.

  “Are you okay, Cal?” she said.

  “Oh, I’m … that is … okay. I mean, we’re not … uhm, you know … oh …” I trailed off, my dry mouth no good at forming words.

  Kali and Freezay were unconvinced by my show of nonchalance.

  “Don’t cry, dipwad,” Kali said. “It’s just a penis.”

  But it was my penis! I thought miserably.

  So, it seemed I had a double standard when it came to the men in my life: I could make a misstep with Frank, but if Daniel had sex with someone other than me, even if we weren’t together, it was gonna make me totally freak out.

  Damn, I’d really messed my life up. Daniel had been my best friend and my partner … and I’d thrown it all away because I was scared of being committed to him. Sure, I could date other men, but no one was ever going to “get me” the way that he did; that kind of relationship was very rare—and then to be sexually compatible at the same time? Well, it was a bloody miracle.

  Jeez, just think
ing the words “sexually compatible” started my brain reeling down the garden path. In my mind’s eye, I couldn’t help but imagine Daniel thrusting his cock in and out of Coy’s tight little body, his face awash in ecstasy as he made her cum in long, drawn-out moans.

  Uck! The images were so heinous I wanted to vomit—and they just kept coming, getting naughtier and more intense the harder I tried to shoo them out of my head. I kept freeze-framing on Technicolor pictures of Daniel and Coy locked in athletic poses right out of the Kama Sutra; Coy’s breasts jiggling in Daniel’s face, their bodies pressed tightly together as they rocked back and forth—

  “Grrr!” I snarled, wanting to punch myself in the face so I’d have something else to focus on instead of the imagined slap, slap of flesh pounding away at flesh.

  “Cal,” Runt said, genuine concern in her voice, “you don’t look so hot.”

  I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to close my eyes and then wake up to discover that someone had taken pity on me and put me out of my misery. For half a second, I was even tempted to down the whole pot of chicken and dumplings, so I wouldn’t have those terrible images burning inside me anymore—because you’d have poison burning inside you instead, the nasty little voice in the back of my head said—and that’s when I stopped wanting out of my life and started wanting to pummel Daniel silly with my bare fists.

  “How could he do this?” I growled. “And with her!? And he lied about it—”

  “He didn’t outright lie,” Freezay interjected. “If it’s true, and that’s a big if, then it’s a lie of omission.”

  “It’s the same damn thing!” I shot back at him, anger cresting over me like a wave. “And I can’t believe you’re sticking up for him!?”

  Freezay held up his hands in submission.

  “I’m not sticking up for anyone—”

  “Yes, you are,” Kali said.

  I glared at her.

  “And you. You’re glad about all this,” I yelled at her. “You want me to be miserable for the rest of my immortal existence just like you!”

  “Callie—” Runt said, but I shot her a “shut it” look and she sat back on her haunches, forlorn.

  “God, this sucks so bad,” I said under my breath as I fought back the hot tears threatening to spill over onto my cheeks.

  “It’s not so bad being a miserable mess like me,” Kali said softly, and I was so surprised she wasn’t screaming at me for my rudeness that I almost forgot to be upset.

  “I have a pretty great existence, actually, Callie,” she sniffed. “It may not look like much to you, but I have a very fulfilling life.”

  If Kali had gotten mad at me, calling me every name in the book at the top of her lungs and swearing in Hindi, then maybe I could’ve held on to my righteous anger—but when she started getting all sniffy and hurt sounding, well, I felt like a total shit heel.

  “I’m sorry, Kali, I didn’t mean to—” I started to say, but she waved my apology away.

  “Your apology is not accepted,” she said, swiping at her eyes with the end of her sari.

  “C’mon, please don’t do this,” I tried again, but she was having none of it.

  “I’ll be in my room enjoying my miserable life if anyone needs me,” she said, blatantly ignoring me as she stalked over to the exit. “Happy All Hallows’ Eve, everyone but Calliope Reaper-Jones.”

  There was a blast of cold air as she opened the kitchen door, the autumnal chill of October hitting me full force, and then she was gone, slamming the door with a bone-vibrating bang.

  “Great,” I said, leaning back against the counter. “Well, I really screwed that up, didn’t I?”

  It was a rhetorical question, but Freezay missed the memo.

  “Yeah, you’re a terrible friend,” he said, then pirouetted on his heel and strode over to the freezer.

  “Shall we?”

  When neither Runt nor I responded, he turned the handle and opened the freezer anyway.

  “Well, I don’t know about you, ladies, but I’m curious to see where this thing leads.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he stepped inside, leaving us alone in the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry, Runt,” I offered, but she kept her head down and her tail as still as a corpse in a grave. “C’mon, please…”

  No matter what I said, she still wouldn’t look at me—and I thought she was going to give me the cold shoulder like Kali had—but then she raised her head and said:

  “Sometimes you’re really mean.”

  Those words broke my heart. Not because they were harsh, but because they were true.

  She got up and padded over to the gently humming freezer, her black coat making her seem to disappear in the darkness of the freezer’s interior.

  “Runt!” I called after her, but she ignored me.

  I stood there for a moment, unable to move, and then I followed her inside.

  twenty-four

  “Wait.”

  It was a woman’s voice, quiet and hesitant. I turned around to find Caoimhe standing in the corridor, her hand clutching at the doorframe. Her dark hair was ruffled, her eyes red-rimmed from crying.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked, surprised by how worried I was about a woman I barely knew.

  She nodded, her chin quivering as she tried to smile.

  “I know you’re in the middle of things … Edgar, the murders—”

  The way she called Freezay “Edgar” made me very curious. It was intimate, spoken as if she knew him well.

  “—but after. When everything is settled. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

  She paused, waiting for me to reply.

  “Uhm, sure,” I said, not really understanding what she wanted of me.

  “Good, that’s great.” She smiled, looking pleased and much less harried than she had two seconds earlier. “Okay, well, that’s all I wanted to say. I’ll leave you to it then.”

  She flashed me another brief smile then backed away, hurrying down the hall.

  Well, that was bizarre, I thought as I walked back to the freezer, wondering how much of a head start Freezay and Runt had on me after my talk with Caoimhe.

  Apparently, a big one—because when I entered the freezer, the back wall was wide open, revealing a darkened access point into the guts of Casa del Amo.

  Freezay and Runt hadn’t waited for me, but I noticed Runt’s paw prints embedded in a thin layer of frost on the floor near the passage’s entrance. Avoiding the hanging sides of meat—the gelatinous half-pig faces, one eye and part of each snout still intact—I kept as close to the boxes of frozen vegetables as I could.

  “Guys?” I called out, getting zero response in return.

  There were no lights inside the passageway proper, but the fluorescent bulbs in the freezer kind of illuminated its entrance. From what I could see, the passage had been erected out of the same local tuff stone as the rest of the building, so I assumed it had been built into the original architectural plans. Which meant there were a lot of people, including the construction workers who’d built the compound, that knew of its existence—and if the secret compartment in my bathroom at Casa de la Luna was any indication, there were probably more of these secret spaces than just the one I was standing in front of.

  “Hello?” I called out again, the thrum of the refrigeration fan sucking up my words.

  I stepped into the secret passageway, leaving the smoothness of the freezer floor behind me, the soles of my sneakers squeaking as they tread down a tuff stone stairway leading even deeper into the darkness. It wasn’t as cold here as it’d been in the freezer, but it was still chilly enough that I wished I’d brought a sweater to put on over my pajamas. I also wished I wasn’t wearing pajamas.

  “Runt?” I called as I stepped off the last stair—losing any of the remaining light from the freezer—then using my hands to feel my way in the blackness.

  Figuring they were out of hearing range since I still hadn’t gotten a response
, I soldiered on, trying not to think about what kind of creepy crawly things lived in lightless secret passageways.

  “What the hell!” I yelped as I tripped on a groove in the stone floor, my right foot twisting painfully underneath me. I fell forward, throwing my hands out in front of me and willing them to take the brunt of the fall—but I never hit the ground. Two strong arms wrapped around my waist, pulling tight as they lifted me back up.