Free How to be Death by Amber Benson Page B

convince me I could be good at the job, while, at the same time, kind of carrying me because I didn’t
want
to be good at it, that now that the time had come to take the training wheels off, he was having a hard time letting go.
     
    “Jarvis,” I said, taking hold of both his upper arms and squeezing them gently. “Look at me.”
     
    He did. I gave him a reassuring grin. Screw the nasty little voice inside my head—I could
do
this.
     
    “I can do this,” I said.
     
    Jarvis nodded, then repeated my words, but without as much conviction as I’d have liked.
     
    “You can do this.”
     
    My grin got even wider.
     
    “You say it like it’s a bad thing. Be straight with me and I promise I won’t let you down.”
     
    Jarvis swallowed.
     
    “Your friend, Marcel, aka the Ender of Death, is back. I don’t want to worry you, but you’ll be very vulnerable tonight.”
     
    I looked down at Runt, who whined.
     
    “You knew about this, too, huh?”
     
    She nodded.
     
    “Jarvis told me to be on the alert.”
     
    “And the bodyguards will be here to look after you, too,” Jarvis added.
     
    “All right,” I said, shivering despite the not so chilly temperature outside. “Good to know.”
     
    Suddenly I was much more aware of my surroundings, my eyes scanning the darkness for bodyguards and/or enemies—though frankly, I wasn’t sure which made me more nervous. A thousand feet below us, I could hear the crash of the surf against the cliffs, but the isolation, the idea of being so far removed from the rest of society, made me feel less secure, not more.
     
    “I can’t put him off forever, Jarvis,” I said, my nerves not happy about this complication.
     
    Jarvis ran his fingers through his dark hair and sighed.
     
    “I know.”
     
    I’d made a promise to the Ender of Death—one I knew might not end well for me, but I’d had no choice. I’d been in the middle of trying to prevent my sister and the Devil from co-opting Purgatory and Death, Inc., for their own nefarious purposes, and in the spirit of good sportsmanship, I’d given the Ender of Death my word that I’d fight him mano a mano once I’d dealt with the situation. He’d been gracious enough to give me a respite and, until now, had been waiting patiently, biding his time and giving me the room I needed to sort out all the ancillary stuff I’d had to handle since I’d taken over the day-to-day running of Death, Inc.
     
    But it seemed like my time-out was over. Marcel had reared his ugly head again and I was going to have to deal with him definitively, whether I was prepared to or not.
     
    “I think we’d be smart to set a time and place rather than leaving that to Marcel,” Jarvis said finally, and I could see he’d given the matter a lot of thought, but hadn’t come up with a way of dealing with the problem that was satisfactory to him.
     
    “Okay. Why don’t you issue him a formal challenge then?” I offered. “As soon as we’re done with the Death Dinner, I can start preparing.”
     
    Jarvis nodded, worry lines etching themselves deeply into his forehead and around his eyes. He knew this was the best—and only—option we had, but he didn’t have to like it.
     
    “Now that that’s settled, shall we continue on with the evening?” Jarvis said, taking my arm again. “We have one stop to make before the ball.”
     
    the library at Casa del Amo made my dad’s library at Sea Verge look like a closet. This was one large room and about ten thousand books.
    “I can’t believe this place,” I said as I stood in the middle of the room, goggling at the humungous fireplace that took up the whole of the back wall. It was so big you could’ve roasted a whole pig in it and still had room to spit a couple of turkeys on either side.
     
    “Agreed,” Jarvis said as he ran his finger across the unprotected book spines, his eyes devouring each title he passed. “I believe it’s the most comprehensive collection of