How to be Death (14 page)

Stop it!
I thought to myself, but the image of Daniel, boffing some nameless girl whose very existence I would detest for all eternity, was burned into my consciousness. No matter what other, happier, thoughts I tried to blot it out with, it just wouldn’t go away.

“What time is it?” I asked Jarvis, barely containing my antsiness.

“Nine fifty-five.”

One hour and twenty minutes of sheer suffering.

“What time is it?”

Jarvis glared at me.

“Nine fifty-six.”

It was going to be a long one hour and nineteen minutes.

At eleven fifteen on the dot, Jarvis, Runt and I took our leave. In the intervening hour and nineteen minutes, the party had really started to heat up, with more couples sexing it down in the darkness than chilling on the dance floor. The band had kicked it up a notch, eschewing the slow songs for the heart rate–accelerating dance hits—probably vibing off the sexually heated atmosphere. Of the caterers, there was no trace, and any alcoholic beverage you might’ve wanted had gone with them.

The masks I’d so envied earlier in the evening had now become only a harsh reminder of the strange new world I’d become embroiled in when I’d taken over my dad’s job—a world where supernatural ritual trumped sexual mores, where children were conceived without the benefit of knowing their parentage. These weren’t the ethics my parents had instilled in me as a child, or the moral lessons I’d learned at boarding school. I mean,
I
was the kind of gal who was horribly tortured by my one “cheating” mishap—and I’m not even talking full-on intercourse—so being thrust into the middle of masked orgy land was way out of my comfort zone.

Judge not, lest you be judged, right? And I didn’t want to be known as a sanctimonious prude. Maybe this wasn’t the lifestyle choice I wanted for myself, but it seemed to work for some people and who was I to condemn them? I mean, I’d
been a party to a cheating episode, so I was guilty of being naughty, too.

“Do we have to do anything? Or can we just go?” I asked Jarvis as he checked his watch for the final time, nodding happily at what he saw.

“Best to go now while they’re otherwise engaged,” he said, ushering Runt and me toward the exit. “They’ll be finished soon enough as it is.”

The loud music pounding in my ears, I gave the crowd a faux military salute.

“Thanks for a great time,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my tongue.

Sick of the dress I was wearing and disappointed in my first All Hallows’ Eve “Eve” Ball experience, I decided this wasn’t an event I looked forward to hosting again in the future. Maybe I could talk Kali into running it for me next year. She was good at getting her hands dirty and a master at carnage, so I knew hosting an orgy would be right up her alley.

Speaking of the Hindu Goddess of Death and Destruction, I realized I hadn’t seen her or any of the other Death, Inc., executives since the ball had begun. They’d been around for the first few minutes of the initial meet and greet, but once that’d petered out, they’d disappeared and I wondered if they, too, had gone off to partake in the “fun.”

As for Daniel, I didn’t even want to think about him anymore. I’d been obsessing about my ex nonstop since I’d realized what was going on around me. I finally decided if he really was out there in the groping throng getting his hands—and other body parts—dirty, then I didn’t want to know about it. The only thing that had saved me from an out-and-out breakdown was the fact that a few of the masked revelers hadn’t joined in when the sex-jinks had started, but instead had remained on the dance floor, drinking and enjoying themselves without disrobing. My hope was that Daniel had been among this levelheaded minority. Of course, with sexpot Coy as his date, I had to admit to myself that this wasn’t a very likely scenario.

“Let’s go, Cal,” Runt said, nuzzling her snout against my hand, silently encouraging me to stop scanning the crowd for Daniel and Coy—not like I’d be able to tell it was them with their masks on, but I just couldn’t help myself.

“Okay,” I said absently, my eyes still locked on the crowd. I knew she was right, that I was torturing myself by remaining in the cave any longer than I needed to, but it was so hard to drag my eyes away.

I scanned the dance floor one more time, just in case, but if I thought I was going to have my jealous feelings resolved one way or the other, well, I was sadly mistaken. Runt pressed her wet, heart-shaped nose against my palm and I patted her head, her soft fur a balm against all the nauseous emotions roiling around my gut.

“Calliope?” Jarvis said, his words breaking through my obsessive thoughts.

I gave him a pleasant smile, one I hoped would mask all the turmoil I was feeling, but Jarvis was a sharp little bastard and knew exactly what was going on.

“Calliope, I think it’s best if we go now. You have a long night ahead of you, and you need to prepare.”

Jarvis and Runt were right. I needed to get my head on straight and stop trying to control something I had no power over. My dad would never have gotten mired down in something as petty as whether or not Daniel was doing the nasty. He would’ve put the job ahead of any romantic notions of love or destiny—and if I was going to be as good a Death as he was, then I was going to have to stop being such a putzhead.

“All right,” I said, shoving any thoughts of Daniel out of my mind as I followed Jarvis and Runt toward the shimmering wormhole.

“Let’s get the hell outta Dodge.”

the trip back
to our room was uneventful. We passed through the wormhole without incident, though I noticed both Jarvis and Runt scoping the scene as they led me out of the cave and into the overcast gloom of the Central California night. There was no one manning the white tent, helping to make sure the partygoers found their way inside. Instead, a tall man in a gray suit and sunglasses, headset plugged into one ear, was waiting for us just beyond the shadow of the tent, his face as hard as granite. He nodded to Jarvis as we passed then fell into step behind us.

It was disconcerting to be dogged by the cold mercenaries Jarvis had hired to guard us and I wondered out loud where he had found them.

“They come highly recommended,” Jarvis whispered as he glanced back anxiously at the man trailing us. “They were in Iraq and Afghanistan. Extremely skilled at the art of warfare—and bloodthirsty.”

“Are you sure these are the kinda guys you want guarding us?” I asked, uncertainty giving buoyancy to my words.

“That’s exactly
why
I wanted them guarding you,” Jarvis replied, his tone brooking no argument.

I sighed. As disturbing as it was to be shepherded along in the darkness by a man wearing sunglasses (this wasn’t a goddamned Corey Hart video, people), I guess it was better than the alternative. I really didn’t want to have to deal with a surprise Ender of Death attack, especially now, when I was in such an emotionally vulnerable state.

Runt stuck to my side the whole way back to the room. I could tell she didn’t like the bodyguard situation, either. She believed she could do a much better job of protecting me than any human could—and she was probably right.

“We’re almost there, Cal,” she said, trotting along beside me, her dark coat causing her to blend in with the night, leaving only the tapetum lucidum of her eyes visible in the darkness.

“Once we get inside, I suggest you put the, uhm, book somewhere safe,” Jarvis whispered as we crossed paths with the bodyguard standing watch over the entrance to our suite. He nodded at Jarvis as we passed, but otherwise he didn’t move a muscle as his compatriot joined him at the door.

I waved at the men just to annoy Jarvis, but I quickly dropped my hand when my Executive Assistant glared at me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, holding the door open so Jarvis and Runt could follow me inside.

“I’m freezing,” I said through chattering teeth as I grabbed the coverlet off my bed and threw it over my shoulders, beginning to warm up immediately. My flimsy dress had left a lot of my skin exposed to the elements, so in just the few minutes it’d taken us to walk back from the tent, I’d started to shiver.

I rubbed my hands together until they’d lost their chill, then
I dropped the coverlet back onto the bed, rooting around inside the bodice of my dress until I found the book where it had settled in beside my right boob. Snagging the small, square object, I brought it out and held it up to the light so I could study it.

“It’s so small,” I said, flipping through the pages. “Why make something so important, so small?”

Jarvis was used to my ignorance—actually, I think he counted on it so he could lecture me without guilt—and was more than prepared to explain the provenance of
How to Be Death: A Fully Annotated Guide
.

“After the fall of Lucifer, God asked the angel Metatron to create a treatise giving implicit instructions on how one might end the reign of humanity on Earth, now and forever,” Jarvis began as I unhooked the bustle of my long skirt and shrugged out of it, letting the heavy material fall to the floor around my feet. With the skirt gone, the bodice was instantly transformed into a cute little minidress version of the gown.
Très chic!

“Metatron created an instruction manual on how to kill humanity?” I asked, confused because I’d always thought God was, like, humanity’s biggest fan.

“There must always be balance in the universe, Calliope,” Jarvis replied, loosening his bow tie as he sat down on the edge of Runt’s bed. “And God has to prepare for every eventuality. At least if this knowledge is contained in one book and that book lies in the possession of a nonbiased party—Death—then there is some modicum of safety.”

“So Death is the only thing keeping humanity from destroying itself?”

Jarvis nodded his head.

“As Minnie said earlier, humanity is incapable of reading or touching the book—”

“The big face melt-off, I remember,” I interjected—and I could tell Jarvis was pleased I’d been paying attention. To show my continued interest, I picked the tiny book up from where I’d set it down on the dresser and flipped it open, the strange Angelic language as indecipherable now as it’d been when I’d first looked at the book.

“But Metatron took pity on humanity,” Jarvis went on. “Wanting to give them some knowledge of the fate awaiting
them, he imparted a generalized version of the book to the human, Enoch, who transcribed Metatron’s words into what would then become the
Book of Enoch
.”

“But the
Book of Enoch
doesn’t have the instruction stuff in it,” I said, starting to catch on. “So it’s kind of a warning without any teeth—but
this
copy of the book, the one Minnie gave me, it’s the real deal. It has all the missing information in it.”

Jarvis nodded.

“Exactly. And the safest place for it is in the Hall of Death.”

Jarvis’s words caused my mind to start whirring, realization dawning inside me.

“Wait a minute,” I said, waving the book in front of me. “This thing is supposed to live in the Hall of Death?”

“Yes—” Jarvis began, but I cut him off.

“
This
is what my sister was looking for, isn’t it?” I said, my throat tight with emotion. “This book was the reason why Suri and all the others in the Hall of Death had to die—so Thalia could find this book and keep control of humanity’s fate for herself.”

Runt had hopped onto my bed when we’d first come inside, curling up in a ball next to my pillow and shutting her eyes, a nod to the fact that it was way past her bedtime—but when she heard the urgency in my words, she instantly opened them again. Assessing the situation and deeming it urgent, she eased herself off the bed and trotted over to me, dragging her side against my leg before settling her butt down on top of my left foot, in a gesture of consolation.

“Yes, I think the book was the reason your sister stormed the Hall of Death while the Devil was countering our attack down in Hell.” Jarvis sighed, his eyes morose.

I saw that Jarvis had come to this conclusion much earlier in the game than I had. Probably because he’d been in possession of all the pertinent information, while I had remained in the dark until now.