Serpent's Storm Part 30

"Ha!" she said, shaking her weapon at me. "I always smell as fresh as a daisy. That's your your stench overwhelming mine, nimrod." stench overwhelming mine, nimrod."

I decided being called "nimrod" was one of the nicest things anyone had said to me all day.

As I stood there, a disgusting dirty mess of my former self, and surveyed the chaos swirling around me, my soul was full of wonder. Around me, all the minions of Heaven, Purgatory, and h.e.l.l were working together, each doing their part to set the Hall of Death back to rights again. As badly as I stank, I had no intention of going anywhere, not even for a shower. My place was here, among my people; it was where I belonged. My father had known it, he'd seen it was my destiny, and he'd given me just enough rope to hang myself.

No, that wasn't exactly true.

Even though I'd fled from the family business my entire life, my fate had been sealed from the day I was born-I was meant to be Death. It was my calling.

I was my father's daughter.

I was Calliope Reaper-Jones.

I was Death.

epilogue.

I'd spent most of the last forty-eight hours on-site at Death, Inc. The building was a mess, files and works.p.a.ces in disarray, the Hall of Death utterly ransacked, the Executive Offices filled with dead Bugbears and a very p.i.s.sed-off bald woman. The consortium of Death, Inc., employees-Transporters, Harvesters, and other office drones-worked tirelessly to get the place cleaned up and back in semiworking order. I'd done what was needed here and there, ignoring my aches and pains as the Cup of Jams.h.i.+d plied its magic on me. I had no interest in being anywhere but where I was-and no matter what Kali or Jarvis said, they couldn't tear me away from the office.

Finally, once things seemed to be progressing reasonably, Jarvis convinced me to take Clio and my mother back to Sea Verge. I hesitated, not sure it was fair to leave him and Runt in charge of everything after all they'd been through, nor was I sure I could bear returning to the place where my dad had been killed, but I had to do something with my mother, and the mansion seemed like the obvious choice.

We settled her into her suite of rooms, but we all knew there was little hope of recovery. Without my father, she was like a ghost of her former self. She just sat in a white upholstered Chippendale chair, staring out the plate gla.s.s windows overlooking the sea. Clio and I both tried to draw her out, to engage her somehow, but her gaze remained locked on the waves as they crashed into the jagged cliffs below.

Then, the next morning, we woke up to find my mother gone, a note left on the seat of her Chippendale chair written in her spidery cursive. It read: I've gone to the sea. I've gone to the sea.

Thinking of Starr, I explained to Clio about my run-in with the Siren and how I didn't think Mom had committed suicide-her immortal weakness was snoring and I doubted there was much of that going on in the ocean-but instead, I believed that she had returned to her family. Clio had a hard time understanding why our mom felt comfortable leaving us to clean up the mess alone, but I knew better.

My father had been what tied her to this life. With him gone, there was nothing left to hold her to Sea Verge.

I couldn't fault her for grief.

With my parents missing, the house was terribly empty, and I found myself roaming the desolate halls, the scent of Daniel filling my nostrils as I steeped myself in memories of our time together. I kept my wanderings limited to the inside of the house, unwilling to venture outside where my dad had died. I just didn't have the heart to deal with any of that yet.

Neither Clio nor I was inured to the loneliness of Sea Verge, so when she asked if it was all right if she went and stayed with Indra, who was I to say no? She left her room as it was, but stuffed her laptop and enough clothing into her bag to last her more than a few weeks. I wasn't worried about her disappearing like my mom. I just knew she needed to get away from the house in order to heal, that it was the right thing-just like my mother's leaving had been-and that I should be happy she had Indra to help her pick up the pieces.

I sat on the front steps as Indra, in a very mortal move, came to pick Clio up in his red miniconvertible, one that had white racing stripes painted down its sides. As I watched her pile her stuff into the backseat, I realized that while I wasn't looking, my little sister had turned into a beautiful young woman. It made me want to cry, but tears were unbecoming to Death, so I composed myself, and by the time she'd come back up to give me a bone-crunching hug, the tears were nowhere to be found. With the innocence of a child, she asked me if I wanted to go stay with Indra, too, but I a.s.sured her I was fine at Sea Verge. Besides, how would it look if Death went and hid out at Indra's house like a crybaby?

When she was gone, I went back to my old bedroom, where I'd slept the night before, and curled up on the comforter. I thought of my apartment in New York and how it wasn't really mine anymore. That that part of my life was over and a new chapter had already begun.

I lay there for what seemed like hours, thinking about the implications of what all this meant, and then I heard a knock at my door. I'd a.s.sumed it was Jarvis, but when I got up to open it, I found Daniel waiting across the threshold.

"May I come in?" he asked, his dark hair unkempt, a day's worth of stubble on his face.

I gestured for him to enter, not sure I trusted my voice. He sat down on the end of the bed and I curled up by the pillows.

"Can I turn on the lights?" he asked. I nodded, not realizing I'd been sitting in the dark. He got up and turned on the bedside lamp, flooding the room with a pale yellow electric glow. He went back to sit at the end of my bed, the light casting shadows across his face.

"Calliope-" he began, looking down at his hands.

"I know," I said, interrupting. "We need to talk."

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, his ice blue eyes neutral.

"I'm staying in h.e.l.l," he began again. "It's where I'm needed now that the Devil's been deposed."

"Runt said Cerberus had him and the Jackal Brothers guarding the North Gate."

That elicited a hint of a smile from Daniel.

"Yeah, it's kind of an amazing sight."

I smiled.

"Okay, so you're you're staying in h.e.l.l-" staying in h.e.l.l-"

"And you're you're needed in Purgatory and on Earth," he said. "You have some pretty big shoes to fill." needed in Purgatory and on Earth," he said. "You have some pretty big shoes to fill."

I have the Ender of Death to deal with, too, I mused-but I didn't share that thought out loud. I mused-but I didn't share that thought out loud.

"And things haven't really been going that great with us lately. You're not happy, Calliope, and you cheated . . ."

There. He'd said it. The thing I'd been dreading for the past forty-eight hours.

"It wasn't really my fault," I started to say, but he held up his hand for silence.

"Calliope, you've wanted to be a free agent for weeks now," he said, his gaze returning to his hands. "I thought we had something important, something that was worth fighting for, but I was alone in that-and after everything that's happened, I just don't think I trust you anymore."

It was like having a nail driven through my heart. I felt light-headed, and the dark spots that descended on my vision made it hard to see.

"Then I understand," I heard myself saying. "If that's what you really feel."

Inside, I was screaming at myself, begging me to ask for Daniel's forgiveness, to tell him that I loved him more than anything, that I just hadn't understood that until he'd gone away.

But my internal pleas fell on my own deaf ears.

Daniel nodded and stood up.

"Then I guess that's it."

Nausea burbled in my throat and I felt faint. I took a deep breath to stay my racing heart and then I said: "Thank you, Daniel. For everything."

His eyes went dark, but then he shook his head, dispelling whatever emotion he'd been feeling.

"You're welcome, Cal," he said.

We stared at each other, drinking in the last dregs of what could've been, and then he walked to the door. I watched him go, but as the door closed softly behind him, I let the words that had been running through my head silently slip between my lips: I love you, Daniel.