How to be Death (25 page)

“Runt thinks the murderer might’ve still been in the room and waited for us to leave before grabbing the book.”

This piece of information didn’t make Jarvis feel any better.

“If the two crimes are even connected.” He sighed. “Neither of the bodyguards saw anyone enter or leave your room all night. Which makes me think magic has to be involved—”

“But there’s no magic, Jarvis,” Runt said. “Not since midnight.”

Jarvis sighed, slowing his pace, his body riddled with worry.

“I know that, Runt,” he said sadly. “I just have no other explanation.”

Jarvis was always in possession of a good hypothesis, so the idea that my know-it-all Executive Assistant didn’t have an answer for something was chilling.

“So, what happens now that someone else has it?” I asked, changing the subject. “What damage can they do?”

“It depends on who is in possession of the book,” Jarvis replied. “If it
is
someone truly terrible, they could immediately begin the Apocalypse and thus end this world as we know it. That is the worst-case scenario.”

“I don’t like that one,” Runt said.

I didn’t like it, either, but I decided the other possibility was almost as bad.

“Now, if it fell into the hands of someone interested in controlling Death,” Jarvis continued, “it’s a different matter entirely. The book could ultimately be used to manipulate the Harvesters and Transporters into doing that person’s bidding, which would leave you out in the cold. We must get the book back in your possession by midnight, Calliope, or else it could get bad. Very, very bad indeed.”

“Shit,” I said, starting to understand exactly why Jarvis was so worried.

At that moment we arrived at the entrance to Casa del Amo and Naapi came rushing out to meet us.

“We just heard the news,” he said, grasping Jarvis’s arm and giving it a squeeze. “I’m terribly sorry this has happened tonight of all nights.”

Jarvis started to thank him for his concern, but Naapi wasn’t finished.

“I hope my revelation at dinner didn’t have anything to do with this atrocity.”

“I doubt it,” Jarvis said. “We don’t really know what happened—”

“So, it definitely wasn’t an accident—”

“No one gets beheaded by accident,” I mumbled, but Jarvis shot me a nasty look and I shut up.

“Beheaded?” Naapi cried. “So it was murder.”

Jarvis was still sending me angry looks, so I let him explain.

“We don’t have enough information to say for certain,” he said, moving toward the front door. “But the Psychical Bureau
of Investigations is sending Edgar Freezay. Which makes me feel very comfortable that this will be resolved in a timely fashion.”

“Edgar Freezay,” Naapi repeated thoughtfully. “A truly great man, though I heard he’d retired from the Bureau.”

Jarvis opened the door, the heat from the building snaking out to beckon us inside.

“He did, but he still consults for them from time to time,” Jarvis replied. “Besides, he’s a close, personal friend, so the call was an easy one to make.”

Naapi nodded, looking relieved.

“I’d best go tell the others. They’re in the drawing room.”

He took off down the corridor just as the door closed ominously behind us. Jarvis waited until Naapi was gone, then he took my arm and led Runt and me into a hidden alcove just out of eavesdropping range.

“We’ll be in good hands,” he whispered, giving me a smile for the first time since we’d discovered the body. “Edgar was a great friend of your father’s … and he adores your mother.”

The crackle of logs combusting in the fireplace filled my ears as I sat curled up in front of the roaring blaze, letting the heat defrost my freezing hands. I knew the coverlet had been nowhere near Coy’s body, but for me, it was tainted—and I didn’t want it near me any longer than necessary, so I’d set it down on one of the ottomans, preferring to roast in front of the fire to stay warm.

We’d entered the drawing room to find Morrigan, Caoimhe, and Yum Cimil already inside, waiting for us. Jarvis had stayed on with this core group after dinner, drinking Chambord by the fire and discussing Naapi’s impending resignation, when the bodyguard had swooped in to tell him about the death.

Only Caoimhe seemed upset by the news, her already pale face whitewashed in the firelight. The others were calm, openly discussing what they thought might’ve happened to the young woman they’d just shared dinner with.

One by one, the rest of the guests found their way back to the drawing room, each looking more curious than the next about what had happened, but Jarvis was refusing to divulge any more details until the detective arrived.

Alameda Jones had taken the time to change into a pair of soft brown leather pants and a thick, camel-colored chambray sweater, her wet hair slicked back against her scalp, while
Erlik and Oggie were still in their formal dinner clothes. Uriah Drood ambled in behind Donald Ali, both men in robes and pajamas, but only Donald Ali looked as if he’d been woken from a deep sleep, the whites of his eyes bloodshot and yellow; Uriah Drood’s hooded ones were as fresh and lively as a newborn baby’s.

Anjea never showed up—no one had any idea where she and her owlet had gone—and Kali only popped into the room for a minute to confer with Jarvis before disappearing as mysteriously as she’d come.

Fabian Lazarev was the last to appear. Hair unkempt and shirt half tucked into his pants, he sat down in one of the armchairs and undid his bow tie, letting it hang limply around his neck, his hurt wrist, red and swollen. Dazed, he stared blankly into the distance, elbows on his knees and chin thrust forward from slumped shoulders. He reminded me of a prizefighter who’d just lost his final bout.

With a full house, the chatter in the room was deafening, so I kept my gaze on the fire, tuning out the white noise of their staccato voices in favor of my own thoughts. Beside me, Runt lay stretched out on her back, her belly exposed as she enjoyed the absentminded tummy-scratching session I was treating her to. As I sat there, I found it harder and harder to block the voices out, my annoyance quickly turning into anger as I listened to them bitch about the inconvenience of having to wait for some detective to show up—not even taking two seconds out of their complaining to say a silent prayer in the name of the recently departed. Part of me wanted to stand up and start yelling at them to shut up, but instead of causing a scene and incurring Jarvis’s wrath, I retreated inward, moving closer to the fire and keeping to myself. If being Death meant I was in charge of these assholes, I was going to have to rethink my interest in the job. These were the high-level members of Death, Inc.; they were supposed to give a shit about human life—or any life, for that matter—not act like a bunch of disgruntled barnyard hens, squawking all over the place when something bad happened.

It was a bit sad to think my fervor came from being a convert. Up until recently, I’d been as obnoxious as the rest of them, self-involved and totally unaware of other people’s needs,
but in the past few months I’d learned that the internal struggle for selflessness was the only thing that kept the universe in balance. I’d watched my older sister disappear into her own selfishness, almost taking our world with her in the process. As it was, my dad’s death had been part of the collateral damage from her conniving for power—and it was something I didn’t think I could ever forgive her for. Not that I was going to get the chance. She, too, had become the victim of her own greed—dying at the hands of one of her compatriots in what was truly a horrific finale to any human existence.

The memory of her death made me shudder, but it’d been the ultimate lesson in how
not
to live your life—and I decided the people in this room could learn a lot from her gross, incendiary end.

“Calliope?”

I looked up to find Daniel standing above me, eyes red-rimmed

“I’m really sorry,” I said, my voice breaking as I reached out and patted his shoe, wanting to touch him and finding that his foot was the closest thing.

“Thanks, Cal,” he said, squatting down beside Runt and petting her flank. Her tail started thumping lazily against the carpet.

“It wasn’t pretty,” I said.

He nodded. I guess someone had already filled him in on the details, maybe Kali.

“I’m the reason she was here,” he said, looking into the heart of the fire, where the flames burned the bluest. “It’s my fault.”

I didn’t know what kind of relationship they had. Whether he was in love with her or just “enjoying” her company, but it didn’t really matter anymore. She’d died a horrible death and she deserved my respect.

“It’s not your fault,” I said, taking his hand in mine and marveling at how warm it was. “And we’ll find out who did this. I promise.”

To my surprise, Daniel let me hold his hand and we sat there quietly, two people lost in their own thoughts, waiting for something to happen that would drag them out of their lonely, interior worlds.

There was a knock at the door and the room went still, the myriad of voices silenced by expectation, but when Jarvis turned the knob, it was only the chef, Zinia Monroe, and her two servers, each bearing a tray of coffee and tea.

“Tea?” Erlik said, looking with marked disdain at the silver tea service the mousy woman was carrying. “Don’t you think something stronger would be more appropriate?”

“I have just the thing,” Donald Ali said, getting up from his spot on the couch and, at four in the morning, moving with a halting, exhausted step toward the sideboard that sat in the far corner of the room.

He opened the bottom cabinet door, taking out a squat cylindrical glass bottle of brown liquid stamped with a pale beige label. He opened the bottle and held it up for everyone to see.

“One of Shackleton’s bottles of Mackinlay’s single malt whiskey, left in the ice of Antarctica after the expedition failed,” he said, grabbing a thickly rounded tumbler from the sideboard and pouring himself a shaky finger from the bottle. “It’s over a hundred years old. Cost me a fortune, but I was able to bewitch them out of seven bottles. ’Cause seven is my lucky number.”

He took out more tumblers, setting them up in a horizontal row.

“Anyone else care to try?” he asked, gesturing to the waiting tumblers.

“Please,” Erlik said, joining Donald Ali at the sideboard.

“I’d like a taste as well,” Uriah Drood agreed, but he remained where he was, perched on one of the couches, playing with the sash of his robe, which was belted tightly at the waist.

Yum Cimil motioned to Fabian Lazarev, crooking his finger then pointing in the direction of the whiskey. It took Lazarev a moment to focus, but when his master’s wishes eventually bored through his malaise, he was up like a flash, asking Donald Ali for two glasses of the rare vintage—one each for both him and Yum Cimil.

“Some coffee, miss?”

I looked up to find the male server from earlier standing above me, the coffeepot perfectly balanced on his tray. I hadn’t paid him much mind when he’d originally appeared at dinner, but as he stood above me now, waiting for an answer, I found myself giving him my full attention.

“Yes, I’d love some,” I said, even though I didn’t really want any—there was just something intriguing about the petite, birdlike man. Something mysterious about the way his brown, almond-shaped eyes tilted downward, making him seem perpetually sad.

“Milk and sugar?”

I nodded, watching as he poured coffee into a fragile bone china cup and saucer, my eyes lingering on his dark Mesoamerican features: a high, clear forehead; chiseled cheekbones; and wide, pale peach lips. I had a sense of the familiar, like I’d seen the man somewhere other than the Haunted Hearts Castle, but before I could ask him if we’d ever met, he’d handed me my drink and was on to the next person.

I looked at Daniel, hoping he might have an idea who the man reminded me of, but his gaze was elsewhere, his eyes still lingering on the fire.

Over by the sideboard, Erlik and Donald Ali were engaged in conversation and I frowned, not pleased by the tone of what I was able to catch.