The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL) Read online

  Clio was at Sea Verge, playing in the back garden by the creepy bench overlooking the cliffs and the sea. She knew Callie didn’t like the place, that someone had died there and the bench was a memorial to this person, but none of that bothered her. Then she’d noticed how freaked-out Callie got every time they played there, and so she’d fibbed and told her older sister the bench scared her, too, (though it really didn’t) and this had seemed to make Callie feel better.

  When Callie was at school during the fall and winter, Clio would go talk to the bench. She would apologize for not visiting during the summer and she’d explain why (that Callie was scared of it), and this seemed to make things okay between them (her and the bench) until the next summer when she’d ignore it all over again. The bench always listened, but never commented, so Clio felt it was safe to share her secrets with the cold, marble creature.

  She told the bench about accidentally changing her toothbrush into a mouse, and how then, not knowing how to turn it back, she’d caught it and put it outside to live its new life without fear of being killed by any mousetraps.

  The bench never judged, but sometimes when the wind was up and the water was crashing down below, Clio thought she heard the bench sighing. She could never say if what she heard was real or not, but, either way, it was a very sad sort of sound.

  The morning Thalia had almost caught her, she’d been telling the bench about Callie’s best friend, Noh, who’d come to visit the week before school started. Clio had found Noh fascinating. She was certain the older girl could see ghosts, but she hadn’t been able to get a full confirmation, which was annoying.

  After a while, her butt cold and wet from sitting in the dewy grass at the base of the bench, she’d had an epiphany. She would do a spell to make herself see ghosts just like Noh did. Then the next time Noh came to stay, Clio could impress her with her own abilities.

  She’d decided to make up a spell right then and there.

  Because she was a magician in hiding, she could only practice with spell books she’d snuck out of her dad’s study. She was what one would call a self-taught magic practitioner. She had no idea she was following in the footsteps of many of history’s most famous magic handlers, who eschewed books in favor of making up their own spells, which they then sold to spell-book writers, this trade ballooning the magic handlers’ fortunes.

  She’d learned all this later when she was old enough to study magical history, but at that point in time, she was just a ten-year-old girl who happened to be unwittingly following a long and powerful tradition she knew nothing about.

  To make her spell, she’d call three magical symbols into her mind: the unicorn, the Christian cross, and an image of her father, who was Death, personified. She’d woven these three things together, tying them into a neat little bow she kept in her mind’s eye. Next, she whispered a line she’d read in a book by Ray Bradbury—“…by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes…”—then she’d closed her eyes and untied her mind bow, clapping her hands together once to give the spell power.

  When she looked up again there was a shadow sitting on the bench in front of her. He looked at her with sad eyes, but didn’t speak.

  “Are you a ghost?” she’d asked, but he hadn’t replied, just turned his gaze back to the sea, ignoring her.

  That’s when Thalia had spoken.

  “What’re you doing?”

  Because she’d had her eyes closed, Clio didn’t know how long her sister had been standing there watching her. Maybe ten seconds, maybe longer—but Thalia had a funny look in her eye.

  “Nothing,” Clio had said.

  She could tell Thalia didn’t believe her.

  “It’d better be nothing.”

  And then her much older sister had turned and walked away.

  The spell had seemed to dissipate under Thalia’s watchful gaze, and when Clio looked back at the bench, the ghost man was gone.

  As Clio stood in the stinky gas station bathroom, her laser-like mind in the process of calling up a wormhole, she realized she hadn’t thought about that day in a very long time. For a moment, she wondered why this was—but then the lights began to dim and a swirling hole of darkness opened up in the fabric of time and space.

  It beckoned Clio to climb inside of it.

  And she did.

  * * *

  the sky above the gas station changed from blue to gray so quickly, Noh thought it was a hallucination. She climbed out of the car with a speed she didn’t know she possessed and ran toward the convenience store. Something terrible was about to happen and she needed to get to Clio before it was too late.

  She didn’t know time was not on her side.

  As she yanked the glass convenience store door open, she caught sight of the blood and screamed. Her mind yelled at her to ignore what she was seeing and get out—and she’d been in enough bad situations to know when it was best to listen to your gut—so she backed onto the asphalt, pulling the door shut in front of her. She didn’t need to be told twice to get out of there. She whirled on her heel, running as fast as she could toward the car.

  She yanked the driver’s-side door open and gave silent thanks Clio had at least left the keys in the ignition.

  “What in the—” Jarvis said, as she turned the key and the car roared to life under them.

  She didn’t answer him, just put the car in gear and floored it, the Honda taking off like a shot and tearing the flexible hose arm right off the gas pump.

  The cloud over the gas station was larger and fiercer looking than it’d been before she’d gone into the store. She knew this did not bode well for them. She wasn’t immortal like Callie and Clio—and probably Jarvis, too—and if the forces that be were able to catch them, then she and Jennice would be killed.

  No, not killed…murdered.

  Never in a million years did she think her friendship with Callie would put her in this kind of mortal danger. Sure, she might’ve been arrested by the fashion police—Cal was a fashion-obsessed clothes whore—but attacked by scary werewolves who ate convenience store clerk’s brains out of their skulls?

  No how, no way.

  “Where is Clio?!” Jarvis was shrieking in her ear, his eyes searching the skyline for a break in the gray cloud cover.

  “She did that wormhole thing!” Noh shouted back at him. “The dead clerk, his ghost kept pointing at the bathroom and yelling the word worms over and over again.”

  It was the ghost she’d seen first, even before the blood. He was wild-eyed and terrified, fear making his form fade in and out of invisibility. When he’d heard the door chime at her entrance, he’d flared to life again, and started screaming at her, all the while pointing at the women’s restroom, whose door was hanging off its hinges. That’s when she’d noticed the six giant werewolf creatures eating the dead clerk’s brains.

  “Worms! Worms!!!” the ghost was screaming at her, gesticulating madly toward the exposed women’s restroom.

  This was when her survival instinct had kicked in and she’d gotten the hell out of there, leaving the poor convenience store clerk alone to observe his own, messy end—but thank God he’d been there. Because without him, she would’ve stumbled right into a werewolf ambush and that would’ve been the end of her.

  “What are you saying? She called a wormhole?!”

  There was real anguish in Jarvis’s voice. Noh could see he was blaming himself for Clio’s foolishness.

  “She should never have…she let them pinpoint our location…my God, did she make it out?” Jarvis’s words came in a jumble, his long face ashen.

  “I think she made it out,” Noh said, her eyes on the road while her foot kept the gas pedal pressed down to the floor. “I didn’t see anything bad where she was concerned. Only the dead clerk.”

  “She as good as killed him,” Jarvis whispered, his jaw taut as a piano wire. “She almost killed you, too.”

  Noh shook her head.

  “It was an accident. She couldn’t h
ave known.”

  Jarvis wasn’t listening. He was staring out the windshield, up at the pitch-black sky enveloping them.

  “They have us in their sights,” he said, more to himself than to Noh or Jennice. “We have to get away or they’ll wash us off the road.”

  Jennice had been quiet until now, but at this, she leaned forward, resting both elbows on the passenger seat.

  “What does that mean: ‘wash us off the road’?”

  Noh had an inkling about what Jarvis was going to say, but she let him explain.

  “The weather. They’re going to create a flash flood, or send a tornado, or who knows what else they’re scheming…the fact is, they’re going to kill us.”

  “Fuck that!” Noh said, slamming her foot on the gas and sending the car speeding ahead.

  Jennice pitched forward and Jarvis threw out his arms to block her from coming into the front seat.

  “What’re you doing?” Jarvis cried, shooting Noh a scathing look as she pushed the accelerator even harder.

  “I’m saving our skin, that’s what,” she said—and, boy, did she hope she was right. “Call up a stupid wormhole right now.”

  “And go where?!” Jarvis snarled at her.

  She took a deep breath, let it out, and then smiled up at him.

  “To where we’re headed, anyway: the New Newbridge Academy.”

  sixteen

  Freezay opened his lips to scream and seawater filled his mouth. It sluiced down his throat and into his lungs, where it burned like fire. He began to choke, seawater pressing down on him from all sides, wrapping him in its briny embrace. He opened his eyes—and got more burning for his trouble—but managed to keep them open through sheer force of will.

  There was just enough light for Freezay to be able to make out where he was, even though this information would prove to be extremely unhelpful. It was as his lungs had suspected: He was underwater and—if the coral reef in front of him was any indication—in the ocean.

  He began to flounder from lack of oxygen, pushing with his arms and legs to escape the hostile and airless environment he was trapped in. He was using up a lot of energy, yet he was getting nowhere. No matter how much he paddled, he just kept getting yanked back into place. Frustrated, he looked down at his feet and saw the reason for his lack of upward momentum.

  A thin cord of filament had been tied around his ankle and then knotted to an arm of the coral reef. The filament had a little bit of give, but that was it.

  He was stuck.

  He felt something cold and gelatinous brush against the back of his neck and he whirled around to see who was touching him, but there was no one there. His lungs were bursting from lack of air, and this was making his head hurt. Or maybe it was the pressure from being so far underwater that was making his head hurt…he just didn’t know. Everything was so fuzzy it was hard to…stay…functioning…stay…awake.

  Someone, or something, stabbed him before he could fully pass out. He screeched in pain, eyes opening, eyes burning again. He was still underwater, but the panic at being unable to breathe was abating. He realized this was because his lungs weren’t screaming for air anymore. He opened his mouth, but instead of choking on the salt water, he let it fill his lungs—and it didn’t hurt.

  Whatever concoction he’d been stabbed with, it was allowing him to get oxygen directly from the seawater. He reached back with his hand, his fingers plumbing his skin for the injection/stab site, but all he found was a round lump, about the size of a hazelnut, protruding from his lower back. He pressed the bump, but nothing happened. No pain, no itching, no burning; he felt like a child who’d been inoculated from smallpox.

  He felt better, being able to breathe, but there was still the small matter of being tied to an outcropping of coral. He bent in half, reaching down with both hands to get a grip on his ankle, but being weightless made this harder than it should’ve been. He kept reaching out, missing, reaching out again, still missing…finally, after four tries, he was able to grasp his knees in a bear hug and then grab his pant leg with his right hand. He felt around for the filament, found it nestled against his skin and his waterlogged sock then followed the curve of his ankle until he came to the knot that stood between him and his freedom.

  His fingers were stiff. They wouldn’t bend the way he wanted them to, so there was no point in trying to coax the knot out. Instead, he decided to slide three fingers between the filament and his skin, give it a good, hard yank, and snap it.

  Things did not go as planned.

  The filament was thinner and sharper than he’d anticipated—and it had no intention of snapping. It wanted to stick around for the long haul, so it showed him who was boss by cutting into the softness of his ankle like a razor blade. He stared at the thin trickle of blood as it left the wound and floated toward the surface like an elongated, red tapeworm.

  He dragged his hand away from the filament then swore when he realized he hadn’t just cut his leg, but had sliced the pads of his fingers, too. Only unlike his ankle, they didn’t start hurting until he’d noticed them. He stuck the offending fingers in his mouth and sucked on them, trying to stanch the flow of blood.

  Another brush from the cold, gelatinous thing made him gasp and the blood from his fingers shot out of his mouth in a plume of red. He spun around, and this time he got a good look at the creature harassing him: a yellowfin tuna the size and shape of a small torpedo.

  As he watched, it circled back around and returned to him, nuzzling against his chin like a warm-blooded puppy dog instead of a cold-blooded fish.

  We’re not cold-blooded.

  Freezay shook his head. He’d heard something, a voice.

  I said that we’re not cold-blooded.

  The tuna was still up against his neck, pressing itself into his flesh.

  Yes, I’m the one talking…telepathically…to you.

  The tuna backed away so that they were no longer touching, and its voice faded.

  Freezay stared at the fish.

  The fish stared at Freezay.

  Freezay raised his hand and beckoned the tuna to come close again. The tuna swam forward, pressing its side into Freezay’s cheek.

  There. Now we can talk again.

  Freezay didn’t know what to say to the tuna.

  There’s no need to be nervous.

  The tuna’s telepathic voice was very warm and feminine.

  Oh, that’s very sweet of you to say.

  He decided he was being rude not to ask the tuna’s name—

  It’s Skye. Like the Isle of.

  The tuna’s ability to predict his thoughts—

  Just call me Skye. Calling me “the tuna” is so impersonal.

  Freezay knew there was only one thing he needed to do. He needed—

  To ask for my help? Yes, that’s why I’m here.

  He needed the tuna to untie him.

  Your wish is my command.

  The tuna swam away from his cheek then dove downward, toward the coral. Fascinated by the tuna’s—Skye’s—dexterity, Freezay stared as she bit into the filament until, suddenly, he was free, and his body began to ascend slowly up to the surface.

  Skye swam after him, catching up to his floating form with zero exertion of effort. She slid her body against him so he could grab ahold of her long flank with both hands, reconnecting them.

  There you go.

  Freezay wanted Skye to know he would be eternally—

  No need to be grateful. It was my pleasure.

  With a smile and nod to the bizarreness of his situation, Freezay gave up on communication altogether and decided just to enjoy the ride—

  Splendid idea, Skye, the tuna, replied telepathically.

  * * *

  it felt very strange to have one’s whole body compressed into something the size and shape of a walnut. Thank God, it hadn’t hurt—and boy had Bernadette expected it to hurt—so, at least there was that. She did have to admit not having a body made life a lot easier. For one thing,
you didn’t get cold. You didn’t get hungry and tired either, which was nice. Your joints didn’t ache like they normally did—she’d only recently been diagnosed with arthritis and hadn’t been looking forward to taking all the toxic medicines she’d been prescribed, and that still didn’t completely stop your immune system from destroying your joints from the inside out.

  Of course, there were downsides to not having a body, too. Like being dead. This was a downside Bernadette could not get behind. Still, she would never have been able to squeeze her old body into a container as small as the one she was in right now. Heck, who was she kidding? She hadn’t been able to get her bottom into a size-sixteen pant in years, and now, here she was, all nested up in a tiny green-glass perfume bottle.

  After she’d agreed to do what they asked, the twins had been as sweet as pie—and they weren’t half as scary once their friends were gone. They’d described what they wanted her to do (fold herself up into a tiny ball) and then they’d explained how she could then will her new, smaller self into the green-glass bottle they were holding between them.

  She’d cottoned on pretty quickly, easily manipulating her essence into whatever shape she wanted. Getting into the bottle had been harder. Her soul hadn’t wanted to go, had fought her efforts to force it inside. Finally, the gentle twin had removed an oval-shaped silver bell from her hair, ringing it three times in quick succession. The trilling sound had an immediate effect on Bernadette. She was at once totally free and, at the same time, totally enmeshed in the sound. It filled every ounce of her spirit and made her want to laugh and cry at the same time. It was orgasmic, as powerful as a religious epiphany, and she was afraid it might make her lose her mind if it’d gone on too long.

  Not that she had a physical mind to lose. It was whatever made her her—her soul, maybe?—she was terrified of misplacing.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the ringing stopped. Though the bell had only rung three times, it had felt like hours to Bernadette. That was when she’d had to remind herself she was on Afterlife time. Things worked differently in death than they did in life. Bells rang for hours instead of seconds, Victorian zombie twins came to collect you for nefarious purposes…and God was missing in action.