Free The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL) by Amber Benson

duel.
    I gave Jarvis a nod and, bowing his head, he did as I asked, falling back just as Marcel’s second had done.
    When the two seconds had reached a safe distance, Marcel offered me his bare hand. I took off my right glove and met his bare skin with my own.
    “May the best man win,” he purred.
    “May the best
person
win,” I corrected.
    Marcel released my hand, so I could slide my glove back on.
    “Ready?” he asked.
    I swallowed hard.
    “Ready.”
    Marcel was quick as a flash, bringing his scythe down on me like a sword. Instinct took over and I jumped out of the blade’s way.
    “Don’t you think using scythes is a little on the nose?” I called out as I sliced at him with my “on the nose” weapon.
    Marcel shrugged, easily parrying my attack.
    “I thought it was fitting. Death coming to death by his own blade.”
    “
Her
own blade,” I corrected again.
    I was Death and I was a woman. Marcel needed to get that through his thick head.
    “Excusez-moi,”
he shot back at me. “Touchy, touchy, Miss Death.”
    Distracted by my anger, I almost opened myself up to a killing blow, but luckily I was able to dodge Marcel’s scythe as it whistled by my head. Still, it was a close call.
    Too close.
    Wheeling around, I gathered all my anger and used it to launch a frontal assault. Raising my scythe behind me like a hockey stick, I ran at Marcel, catching him off guard. I had just enough of an offensive surprise to be able to shove the butt end of my scythe handle into his stomach, the blow sending him sprawling. He hit the ice hard, but rolled just out of my reach as I struck at him with the pointy end of the blade.
    I hit ice instead of the soft flesh I’d expected, and it jarred me, sending a shockwave of pain up my forearms.
    “Damn it! Stop being so wily,” I yelled, frustrated by my inability to get him.
    “Never!” he shouted, climbing to his feet and charging at me, a bull in a spectatorless arena made of ice and snow.
    I wasn’t prepared for his full body blow and I went flying, but was still able to twist in the air so I hit the ice with my side and not my back. I felt more than saw Marcel’s scythe as it plunged toward my head, the cold spray of ice letting me know I’d managed to jerk my face out of the line of fire just in time.
    Marcel swung his blade at me again and I borrowed histrick, rolling away so he couldn’t get at me. I quickly climbed to my feet, using the scythe pole to balance myself, but Marcel kicked it away, sending the weapon flying out of my hands. I didn’t give him time to pounce, but dove for my lost weapon, sliding across the ice on my hands and knees, grasping like a blind man until I felt the scythe’s handle, and yanked it back into my possession.
    “You have a terrible job,” I said, as I backed away from Marcel and his advancing blade.
    “Why ever do you say that?” he asked, his cheeks red from exertion. It made me happy to think I wasn’t making this easy for him.
    “Because you spend your whole existence chasing Death, trying to put a stop to the natural order of things,” I said, jumping back to evade the sweep of his blade.
    “It’s not so bad,” he said, swinging at me with the handle of the scythe. “True, it did suck to be trapped in Hell, tied to a fucking palm tree, but who doesn’t have a few shitty decades in their immortal existence?”
    Marcel’s immortality was very different from mine. His physical bodies came and went, but his soul, or ego, was always the same.
I
was tied to my corporeal form. When someone used my immortal weakness against me and I died, that was it. No more Calliope Reaper-Jones.
    If my arch-nemesis killed me today—aside from my one immortal weakness, the Ender of Death was the only other thing that could destroy me—then all the near-death experiences I’d managed to scrape my way out of these past few months would be for naught.
    It was kind of a bummer.
    “Whatever you say, Marcel. I’ve never been tied to a