The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL) (16 page)

“Who are you?” Bernadette asked again.

The girl smiled.

“We work for Death. We’re called Harvesters and we’ve come to take you away from here.”

Bernadette nodded. It did seem like a logical explanation for what was happening.

“Will I see my parents again?”

The gentle twin squeezed her hand, but didn’t answer, a strange smile twisting her face.

Something about the smile chilled Bernadette to the core. She dropped the girl’s hand and backed away.

“Where are you going?” the girl asked.

But Bernadette didn’t answer her—she just turned and ran. She didn’t stop until she was at the other end of the amusement park, the neon green exit signs illuminating her way out of the park.

She hit the gates, racing through them before any of the attendants could offer her a reentry hand stamp. Not that they would have. She was invisible to them. Still moving swiftly, she happened upon a tram heading to the parking lot and climbed aboard just as it took off.

As the tram rambled up and down the empty rows of parking spaces, Bernadette started to relax, her pulse slowing and her breathing returning to normal. But she still refused to look back to see if the twins had followed her.

She was too scared.

*   *   *

clio had not
taken things well.

As soon as he’d finished his explanation, she’d left the room without a word.

He’d turned to Daniel, but the former Devil’s protégé was already heading to the other end of the kitchen.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, flustered, as he opened the side door and stepped through into the back hallway. “Just gonna use the restroom.”

Jarvis didn’t think now was the most appropriate time to run off to the restroom, but who was he to dictate what Daniel did or didn’t do.

He turned back to Noh, expecting her to try and escape his
presence, too, but instead, she was looking up at him intently, her dark eyes large and curious.

“What can we do to help Callie?”

She leaned back against the kitchen counter, balancing her elbows on its edge, waiting for Jarvis to answer her question. When she realized no answer was forthcoming, she sighed and said:

“She needs our help. And I’m down to do anything but sit here and wait it out.”

Jarvis sighed, too, pulling out one of the stools and sitting down. He was exhausted already and there was still so much left for him to do.

“I promised her I would look after Clio and this Realtor girl. If we leave Sea Verge, I can’t enforce that promise.”

Noh nodded, still leaning back on the counter.

“Okay, I hear you. Your hands are tied.”

She didn’t say it condescendingly, or as if she thought he was being silly. There was no judgment in her tone—and for this, Jarvis was grateful.

“Thank you,” he said, resting his chin in his hands and sighing deeply.

Suddenly, from somewhere at the back of the house there issued a loud
crash
followed by a piercing female scream. Jarvis was immediately on his feet, heading for the kitchen door, Noh hot on his heels.

As he entered the foyer, he could hear raised voices coming from down the hall. Using the voices as his guide, he jogged until he found Jennice blocking the doorway to the study. She looked bewildered, and didn’t move out of the way as he pushed past her and entered the room. Inside, he found one of the bookcases on its side, Clio crouched over it, her hand extended toward a large bear of a man who was sitting on the floor, a dazed expression on his face. A completely nude, blonde woman was sprawled on the floor beside him, a bloody gash etched into the flesh of her right cheekbone.

“Freezay?!” Jarvis cried, shocked to find the ex-detective here at Sea Verge.

“Good to see you, too, Jarvis,” he said, letting Clio help him to his feet. “But I’m afraid we might be bringing a shit storm with us. I was attacked back at my place by a bunch of thugs
and they seemed to think someone other than Calliope was in charge of Death, Inc.”

Jarvis was not surprised by the news. It was only the beginning of the end, as far as he was concerned. Still, he was rather relieved to be able to finally share his predicament with someone he trusted—and out of everyone here at Sea Verge, Freezay was the only one he trusted implicitly.

They’d been close friends for many years, but after Freezay had helped Calliope root out the murderers who’d tried to steal the original copy of
How to Be Death
at the annual Death Dinner, Jarvis had held out hope they would become colleagues, too. In fact, he’d been rather aggressively pushing Calliope to hire Freezay as Chief of Security for Death, Inc.

He knew she’d offered Freezay the job—and that he’d asked for some time to think it over—but now it looked as though he was going to be dragged into their world, whether he liked it or not.

“Sorry about the mess,” Freezay added, running his hands through his blond mop of hair.

“Don’t worry,” Jarvis said, shaking his head. “You’re joining a mess already in progress. The ‘shit storm,’ as they say, has achieved full residence here, my friend.”

Freezay nodded his understanding then turned his attention to the blonde woman at his feet.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Hit my cheek on the bookcase when we wormholed in,” she trilled, her voice light and feminine.

“Sorry about that,” Freezay said, looking contrite.

She waved away his apology as she accepted an egg-yolk-colored handkerchief from Noh. She placed the handkerchief against her cheek, and the yellow cotton fabric slowly turned brown as it soaked up the blood.

“Where’s Callie?” Freezay asked, turning back to Jarvis.

“She’s not here,” he said. “She and the Ender of Death have gone to try and head this thing off.”

“The Ender of Death?” Freezay asked, surprised.

“Uriah Drood has gotten ahold of a way to merge our universe with one in which Calliope doesn’t exist,” Jarvis said. “The Ender of Death has become Death’s champion until we can stop this thing—”

“He’s on our side for
now
,” Daniel said, pushing past Jennice so he could step into the room.

From the look on his face, Jarvis could tell Daniel wasn’t happy about finding Freezay and the strange, naked woman sitting on the floor.

“That does appear to be the case—” Jarvis tried to add, but Daniel ignored him, stepping over his words.

“—but when this purported ‘Golden Age of Death’ Callie’s supposed to usher in is finally over then he gets to murder her without contest. Just a little bargain she, Jarvis, and that crazy old bat, Anjea, made,” Daniel finished, scowling at Jarvis.

Jarvis found himself becoming rather annoyed with Daniel. He hadn’t had
anything
to do with Calliope’s ultimate decision to indebt herself to the Ender of Death.

“We have to get out of here. Something’s coming.”

The voice belonged to the blonde woman on the floor. She was sitting up now, her long legs folded underneath her, hair draped around her shoulders like a cape.

Jarvis found the woman’s words oddly chilling as they echoed through the nearly empty room—but only Freezay seemed to be the one to glean their importance. He tried to usher everyone out of the room, but it was too late. A loud explosion tore through the room, followed by a flash of blinding white light that was eyeball-searing.

Throwing his hands up to cover his eyes, Jarvis took an involuntary step backward, slamming into another solid body and losing his footing. He went down hard, his right elbow caroming off the floor. Waves of pain shot up his forearm and into his wrist. He cried out, reaching for his wounded appendage, but something leapt on top of him, driving him back down to the floor.

“Remove yourself!” he cried, using his good hand to push his assailant away.

Still blinded from the explosion, Jarvis could only make out his attacker’s silhouette, a large shadowy outline looming above him. He heard a low, guttural
snarl
, one that chilled the marrow in his bones, and felt his attacker’s full weight descend on his chest, his senses enveloped by the stench of rank, hot animal breath. It was a meaty and decaying bouquet, and his nostrils fought to keep the smell out of his sinuses, but it was impossible.

Ignoring the pain in his right arm, Jarvis tried to shake off the creature, but it was a losing battle. Whatever had ahold of him was much stronger and more vicious than he was.

As his vision cleared, he was finally able to see his attacker—and he wasn’t surprised to find a male Vargr (a hybrid human/wolf creature) sitting astride him, its long, snapping jaws dripping saliva onto the front of his freshly starched dress shirt. Without missing a beat, Jarvis pulled back his left fist and punched the Vargr in the snout, making the creature shriek in pain.

But he didn’t stop there.

He drew his knees in toward his chest and kicked out, the bottom of his shoes connecting with the beast’s unprotected belly. He felt the soft flesh give way and the creature shrieked again before rolling off of him.

He climbed to his feet and kicked the creature in the head, twice, sending geysers of blood shooting across the floor—then he looked up to find the room in total chaos.

The explosion had heralded the arrival of a massive wormhole, one large enough to transport a whole pack of Vargr into the study. He looked to his right and found Clio and Noh back-to-back, battling three female Vargr. Clio was using a spell to repel two of them, while Noh was using her bare knuckles to punch the third Vargr in the eye.

“Are you all right?”

Jarvis turned around to find Daniel standing behind him, holding a bloodied Vargr head by the snout.

Before Jarvis could answer, Daniel had cocked his arm and thrown the head like a fastball pitch at the back of the skull of one of the Vargr Clio was spelling. The creature fell forward, whimpering as it crumpled to the ground.

“I’m fine,” Jarvis said, instantly forgiving Daniel for being such a prick a few minutes earlier. “And that was a lovely shot.”

“We need to get the hell out of here,” Daniel said, his eyes scanning the room.

Jarvis knew exactly what Daniel was seeing: They were massively outnumbered by the Vargr.

A scream ripped through the chaos, catching their attention, and Jarvis turned to find Jennice standing in the doorway,
hands out in front of her like she was pushing something away—only there was nothing to fend off, just a large, male Vargr lying inert at her feet.

She looked up at the two men, her eyes glistening with tears.

“I killed it,” she moaned, her whole body shaking as she leaned against the doorjamb.

Jarvis nodded at Daniel, letting him know he’d handle it. Daniel took off and Jarvis made a move toward Jennice, stopping along the way to pull the original, Angelic copy of
How to Be Death
from one of the overturned bookcases. He slid the book into his suit coat pocket, then ran across the room, barely evading the clutches of another, smaller male Vargr, as it headed toward Jennice.

But luck was with him.

Freezay was suddenly at his side, grabbing the creature by its hair and swinging it in the air until its neck snapped. As soon as the Vargr went limp, Freezay dropped it on the ground then ripped its head from its shoulders.

Jarvis didn’t stick around to admire the carnage. He took off, reaching Jennice just as she began to lean sideways against the doorframe, eyes rolling up into her head.

“It’s okay,” Jarvis said, pulling the young woman into his arms, as her heart fluttered against his chest like a wounded bird.

“I killed it,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”

Jarvis stroked her hair.

“Shh, you did the right thing.”

She didn’t seem to hear him.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” she moaned. “It was an accident.”

Jarvis knew nothing he said would reach her right now, so he decided the best thing he could do was just get her out of there. He tried to pull her from the room, but she seemed rooted in place, her body rigid.

“We have to go,” Jarvis said calmly, his lips close to her ear.

“Let us help you,” a voice said—and he looked up to find Clio and Noh standing beside him.

He nodded, letting the girls each take an arm while he
pushed from behind. Together, the three of them were able to drag Jennice out of the room, but not before some of the Vargr had noticed their attempt to escape.

“Stay back!” Clio screamed, raising her arms in the air as a spiral of electricity shot out from her hands, engulfing the Vargr that’d moved toward them.

The creatures writhed in the electrical storm, their muscular bodies shuddering as they were whipped into the air and then blasted backward. There was a
crack
as the creatures hit the ceiling, their blood arcing out in waves from the impact point.

Jarvis was impressed by the level of power Clio seemed capable of wielding. But then she’d caught his eye and shaken her head, letting him know she, too, was shocked by the extent of what she’d just done.

“We’ll talk later,” Jarvis said, ushering the three women farther down the hallway.

“Where are we going?” Noh asked—she and Clio each holding on to one of Jennice’s arms.

Jarvis opened his mouth to say, “I don’t know where to go,” but he didn’t get the chance to speak because suddenly Kali, the Hindu Goddess of Death and Destruction, was blocking their path.

“Dipwad told me you wouldn’t need my help,” she said, cocking an eyebrow at them. “That you could ‘handle’ things. All I have to say is:
ha!
”

Then Kali bared her pearly white teeth—in what Jarvis could only term a “horrific grimace”—and raced past them. Her eyes were glued on the husky, male Vargr that’d been slowly sneaking up behind them, its jaws open wide for the kill.

“Die, Vargr, die!” she screamed as she bit into its throat, tearing out its esophagus with her bare teeth.

Jarvis turned away, the sight of so much blood and viscera enough to turn even the strongest of stomachs, then he gave a silent prayer of thanks to whatever turn of fate had brought Kali into their midst.