How to be Death (19 page)

“Okay, stop,” I said, seeing disaster on the horizon and trying to avoid it. “I have an idea.”

Somewhere down the hall the tinkling of the dinner bell filtered back to us and Jarvis tensed, his body going taut with the weight of Executive Assistant–centric responsibility. I could sense him just dying to usher us out of the bedroom and toward the dining room, but the problem of how to clothe Kali so dinner didn’t devolve into a nudist retreat trumped his need for order.

“So,” I began, three sets of eyes staring back at me as the dinner bell tinkled again, a little more urgently this time.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do …”

And that is how yours truly ended up attending the Death Dinner in a very fetching, mustard yellow maid’s uniform.

I do have to say Kali looked extremely pretty in my Noisette-designed minidress with its tight bodice and tattered fabric, her loose dark hair and tanned skin nicely offset by the delicate black of the material. Her boobs, which were larger than mine, spilled over the edge of the bodice, causing her to resemble, oddly enough, a high-class Ren Fair serving wench, so every time I looked over at her, the phrase
“Huzzah to the big tipper!”
ran through my head.

It hadn’t taken much persuasion to get Kali into my dress, and after a quick switcheroo, we were ready to go to the dining room. Once more, we trailed through the interlocking corridors of the building, past the winding circular staircase that led to the upstairs master suite, and bisected the library before finding our way into the dining room.

Like the rest of the rooms, the dining room was gaudy and elaborately appointed: African blackwood wainscoting, red-and-gold Oriental carpets lying across the tiled floor, tapestries from medieval France—depicting the progression of a very gory wild boar hunt—hanging from the walls, and a long rectangular table the length and width of two school buses taking up the bulk of the room.

Though it could seat far more, tonight the table was only set for sixteen, but what the dinner party lacked in populousness, it more than made up for in peculiarity. It was a truly unique assemblage of individuals, and I included myself, Runt, Kali, and Jarvis in this observation.

“Where do I sit?” I whispered to Jarvis as the four of us—the last ones to arrive, of course—entered the room, interrupting the dinner conversation already in progress.

“That is your chair, Calliope,” Jarvis said, pointing to the place setting at the head of the table. To my horror, Uriah Drood was on one side and Daniel on the other.

That’s
my seat?!
I thought miserably.
Shit, shit, shit!

“I don’t want to sit there,” I said under my breath, but Jarvis was already shoving me toward the empty chair.

“I’ll be right there with you, Cal,” Runt whispered, sliding underneath the table just as Jarvis set the heel of his hand into the small of my back and pushed me into my seat. As I adjusted myself into my chair, I felt her wet nose press against my calf—her doggy way of reassuring me that everything was going to be okay.

I watched as Kali took a seat between Anjea (the spooky Aboriginal woman) and an old man with full white muttonchops, bushy white eyebrows, and jaundiced-looking skin, while Jarvis was relegated to the end of the table, next to Yum Cimil, the old man who wouldn’t talk to me because I was a female.

“So good of you to finally join us,” Uriah Drood said, his voice rich with sarcasm, his pale hand inching entirely too close to my own for comfort. I instinctively snatched my fingers away, grabbing my napkin and disengaging it from its heavy silver napkin ring so my actions wouldn’t look too suspicious, but I was pretty sure Reptile Man knew exactly what I was doing.

“Anytime,” I replied, flashing him an insincere smile—
jeez, the man grossed me
out!

As I looked around the room, I realized the only person I didn’t know was the older man in muttonchops next to Jarvis. I assumed he was Donald Ali, the man who owned the Haunted Hearts Castle, but that was only because I’d met everyone else. Though he appeared to be in his middle seventies, his pale gray
eyes emanated a lively intelligence that belied his age. Radiating power, he reminded me of someone who was used to getting whatever he wanted and damn the consequences. I’d experienced this quality before in other grotesquely wealthy men and women, and as enticing as all that power could be, I actually found it to be a very frightening quality.

At the end of the table, half-hidden behind the ostentatious ostrich feather and purple orchid table centerpiece, I saw Jarvis trying to get my attention. I stared, my curiosity piqued, as he mimed looking at his watch then scanning the crowd before nodding his head, twice.

“What?” I mouthed, confused. I had no idea what he was trying to tell me—and the Marcel Marceau act was not helping.

Jarvis took a deep breath, gritting his teeth as he sat there, contemplating other ways of communicating his thoughts to me when suddenly I felt Runt licking my leg. I gently pushed her head away from my calf, but she persisted until I finally had to lean down and put my head under the table, so I could glare at her.

“Knock it off,” I whispered, annoyed at her.

“Speech, Cal,” she said and I covered my mouth with my hand—I’d totally forgotten that since I was the host of the Death Dinner, I was supposed to make some kind of a speech to get the ball rolling. That’s why everyone was sitting around in silence, waiting. I was screwing the whole thing up and Jarvis and Runt were both trying to save my neck.

“Sorry, everyone,” I said as I sat up and pushed back my chair so I could stand.

“I would like to thank you all for joining us here at the Haunted Hearts Castle for the, uhm…”

I paused, my brain spinning as I tried to remember how many years they’d been having the damn thing. I knew Jarvis had told me the answer at some point, but I couldn’t pull it out of my head for anything in the world.

“How many years have you guys been doing this thing?” I asked then waved away my own question. “Uhm, it doesn’t matter. It’s the annual Death Dinner and we’re all here together, so, yay!”

Jarvis sank down in his seat, mortified. Across the table, Kali snickered.

“I’m honored to be your host this evening—even though it’s late and we’re all pretty tired—”

Jarvis cringed. If he could’ve hidden inside the centerpiece, he would have.

“Anyway, I’m glad to be here, though it is a sucky way to get a job. You know, having your dad die—”

Next to me, Daniel bit his lip to stop from laughing.

“Don’t you laugh at me.” I scowled at him, forgetting where I was for a moment, but when I looked up again, all eyes were riveted on me.

“Uhm, I just want to say thank you all for coming tonight,” I said, reverting back to my opening again. “I’m honored to be here, hosting the, you know, Death Dinner tonight ’cause if we don’t stick together, well, then where does that leave Death?”

I was crashing and burning right there in front of all the people I was supposed to impress. Jarvis was going to kill me!

“I’m Calliope Reaper-Jones,” I blurted out. “And though you don’t really know me, I hope to use this opportunity to remedy that.”

“So we can all stick together?” Uriah Drood said just loudly enough for everyone to hear.

If there’s one thing that gets my blood boiling, it’s being mocked in front of other people—especially people I don’t know very well.

“Excuse me?” I said, turning on Uriah, my eyes glowing with unfiltered anger. “Were you just mocking me? ’Cause I think that’s what you were just doing. Was that what you were doing?”

Uriah Drood stared at me, his eyes wide. I guess he’d thought I’d be some kind of shrinking violet.

“I’m not—” he started to say, but I cut him off.

“I didn’t think so, Drood.” Then turning my attention back to the others, I said: “Now, what was I saying?”

“Opportunity to remedy …” Daniel replied without a trace of irony.

“Thank you,” I said, nodding. “Now, as I was saying, let’s take this evening to get to know one another, to find out how we can best fulfill our obligation to the universe and maintain the balance of Good and Evil within the human world.”

I paused, my brain quickly searching every neural pathway for a means of ending my disastrous speech on a high note … but this was all I could come up with:

“So, let’s eat!”

The room was silent as the whole table stared at me, not sure if this was some kind of joke or if I’d actually just done exactly what they thought I’d done. To my surprise, it was Anjea who put her hands together first. I just assumed she was the doing the whole “ironic” clapping thing, but when Caoimhe and Naapi joined in, I realized she wasn’t—and I decided I was more than happy to have a mildly mediocre finish than a complete and utter failure.

Instead of letting the applause fester into awkward silence, Jarvis picked up a miniature crystal bell and rang it twice, ending the speechifying section of the dinner and bringing on the beginning of what promised to be an amazing meal.

“Nice speech,” Daniel said under his breath as the tiny serving woman from the drawing room reappeared, balancing a large tray of Dungeness crab salads on one hand. She seemed unsteady on her feet, the tray almost as big as she was, but she managed to make it to the table without falling over, which was impressive.

“You’re a schmuck,” I said, sitting back so she could put a plate down in front of me.

“So are you,” he replied, picking up his fork and moving the greens around on his plate so he could inspect them.

“What are you? Two?”

“I don’t like hearts of palm,” he said stubbornly. “You know that.”

“Then don’t eat them.”

I watched him pick the small discs out of his salad, setting them to the side then forking some of the remaining Dungeness crab and greens into his mouth. Annoyed, I picked up my own fork and took a bite, enjoying the silence brought on by the arrival of the food.

“How will you handle the upcoming strike Mr. Drood is proposing?”

The masculine voice sliced through the clinking of cutlery and I looked up, not understanding, at first, that the question was directed at me. Erlik, the barrel-chested Vice-President in
Charge of Asia, was gazing at me intently, his lips parted in anticipation.

Once again, all eyes were on me, curious to see if I was going to mess up this part of the dinner, too.

“Miss Death?” he said, his hazel eyes dark and unreadable.

I realized he was testing me, that this was some kind of power play and it was up to me whether I passed or failed. I set my salad fork down on my plate and cleared my throat, trying to come up with a succinct, but intelligent answer. I didn’t want to say too much and show my hand, but I also didn’t want to start babbling.

At least I wasn’t in the dark on this subject. Jarvis and Kali had briefed me in a casual, yet intense breakfast meeting, which, when translated, meant they’d basically talked
at
me while I tried unsuccessfully to eat my eggs Benedict: the thrust of the matter being that the Harvesters and Transporters were talking about striking in protest to the unorthodox actions I’d undertaken during the Devil’s failed attempt to hijack Purgatory and Death, Inc.

Okay, let me explain.

In the middle of all kinds of craziness, when it seemed like the balance between Good and Evil was going to be undermined by personal greed and bitter revenge, I threw what I can only term as a “Hail Mary Pass.” I asked Cerberus and the Harvesters and Transporters to unleash all the damned souls from Hell, thinking this would cause complete and utter chaos down in Hell and force the Devil to abandon his hold on Purgatory and return to his original dominion.

To my utter surprise, my ruse had worked, but unbeknownst to me, asking the Harvesters and Transporters to get involved in the battle had gone firmly against the provisions in their contract. I’d argued with Jarvis, not understanding why the Union had a problem. In my mind, I’d seen a crisis and had tried to avert it, but in the Union’s eyes—i.e., Uriah Drood’s eyes—I’d violated the terms of a legally binding agreement.