Read The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL) for Free Online

shocking. He’d expected as much, in point of fact.
    But what
had
surprised him were the left behinds. How they were suddenly covered in those god-awful white sheets, as if by magic. Well, it was a magic of sorts, actually, but that was neither here nor there. What bothered Jarvis enormously was that there was nothing he could do about it. The place was becoming a veritable ghost town and he was helpless to stop it.
    It also meant
things
were still up in the air, and Calliope might not be able to stop them as they’d hoped—but he banished the thought immediately from his mind.
    He focused on Sea Verge instead. On the young woman Realtor Calliope had forced him to invite over to see the house, and, ostensibly put it on the market. But that wasn’t the real reason Calliope had wanted Jennice McMartin to come to Sea Verge. Not by a long shot—
    He was interrupted midthought by a sneeze, his entire body rattled by the size and sweep of the thing. He knew the dust that’d settled over the rooms since Calliope had decamped from Sea Verge the previous night only exacerbated his allergies, but the knowledge didn’t make the sneezing any more manageable.
    He was well into sneeze number two when the doorbell rang.
    “Oh, blast,” Jarvis sighed unhappily as he pulled a monogrammed handkerchief from his breast coat pocket and blew his hawkish nose. “One moment!”
    He knew whoever had rung the bell couldn’t possibly hear him—the study where he’d been working was far removed from the front entrance—but he still felt compelled to offer up the placating words. He tucked the used handkerchief into his coat pocket and set the petite book he’d been dusting back on its shelf, sliding it in with the other tomes, where it sat, looking innocuous—though it was anything but.
    This was the original copy of
How to Be Death: A Fully Annotated Guide
, written in the tongue of the Angels. It was a death sentence to any mortal who dared touch it, and it’d almostfallen into the wrong hands five times over when Jarvis had attended the annual Death Dinner at the Haunted Hearts Castle with his boss, Calliope Reaper-Jones.
    It gave him the willies to think of anyone other than the rightful Death (that being his boss) having the book in their possession. But if Edgar Freezay, the ex-detective for the Psychical Bureau of Investigations, hadn’t stepped in and helped Calliope solve the mystery of the book’s disappearance, well, that would’ve most likely been the outcome.
    A book that could jump-start the End of Days lost to the hands of someone who would use it for their own gain. Jarvis shuddered at the thought.
    Though it’d only been hours, it felt like forever since Calliope had gone, leaving the tiny book in his possession. He didn’t like being the keeper of the book, but he would do it until Calliope came back to collect it, or—
    The doorbell rang for a second time, interrupting his thoughts.
    Jarvis made sure to drape the white sheet back over the bookcase that held the original
How to Be Death
before leaving the confines of the study behind him.
    “That should do it,” he said as he studied his handiwork, satisfied no one would realize the book was hidden in plain sight.
    He wiped his hands on his pants then turned and left the room, the doorbell ringing again, more insistently now, as he traversed the empty hallway, the loud chimes cutting through the hollow echo his wingtips made on the polished surface of the floor.
    “I’m moving as fast as I can,” Jarvis murmured under his breath, though he did pick up his pace a little.
    He was sure the Realtor was the culprit. All the obsessive bell ringing stunk of over-excitement. He looked down at his watch—yes, just as he’d expected, the woman was fifteen minutes early. She must’ve already tallied the commission check she would receive if she successfully sold Sea Verge, and the ridiculously large number had her chomping at the bit to get the show on the road.
    The