When Death's Away Read online

  "As you know, Life and I are often at odds. Some many centuries ago, we both wished to… take a holiday as it were, at the same time. It did not end well. The town of Pompeii was never quite the same."

  Right, because accidentally setting off a volcano was something to discuss, as though it were a perfectly ordinary event on a holiday. I continued to stay silent. Death watched me, as if waiting for a response, as if expecting some sort of indignant shock or horror at the fact that he and Life were powerful enough to cause such immense destruction. This was not new information.

  "We had to come to an agreement never to take our holiday at the same time. This year is my turn. I have precisely ten days on a beach in the Virgin Islands and I intend to enjoy them. However, it also means I must appoint a proxy in my absence. As a human with a soul would be too incompatible, I usually look to one of the beings of Elsewhere. However, they are also too distantly connected, too keenly aware of the power that being my proxy holds. I much prefer to appoint someone whom I can trust."

  "Such a statement indicates that you, therefore, trust me." That made logical sense, but there were still pieces of this situation I did not fully understand. Such as what it was exactly I was meant to do for Death. Was I meant to kill people? That did not seem like something I would be terribly good at, even if I were ruled purely by logic rather than emotion. I was, after all, still human, and many of the human instincts and logic told us that the greatest number of people surviving was best for the species. I could perhaps override such evolutionary notions if I took into account the fact that I was employed by Death and therefore had an obligation to him to do what was demanded of me, but I was not entirely sure that such thinking would prevail for long.

  There was the fact that I was simply not as powerful as Death. Surely many hundreds of thousands of people were dying every moment of every day, and that was simply in the mortal realms. I did not know what would happen in Elsewhere, how many of the magical beings were mortal or whether their mortal lives were ended. I could not physically be in all of those places at once. Not to mention I didn't actually know how Death went about doing whatever it was he did. Did he kill people? Did he sever their souls? He had once told me he was a facilitator rather than a murderer, closer to a ferryman than a killer. But he had also said that his business was not involved in whatever came after. I had only witnessed Death act in his official capacity on one occasion, when he had to kill Justice, the aurai who went mad with love for Life. And even then, I hadn't fully understood what was going on.

  "Perhaps you had better say something before your expression fractures, Cal," Death said, reaching out and patting me on the shoulder as if I were choking. The act did manage to break me out of my particular meditative state. I heaved a deep breath, my lungs feeling starved for oxygen. I wasn't sure if that was part of this phantom soul business or if I had actually held my breath.

  "I think you're going to have to leave detailed instructions for me," was all that I managed to say. All of my questions would take hours to go through, and I very much doubted that Death wanted to delay his holiday to get into a potentially philosophical discussion with an emotional robot. An emotionally unstable robot. Besides, I doubted Death wanted to reveal all of his secrets to me anyways. Even if I was going to be acting as his proxy.

  "I will. I can perhaps anticipate some of your more immediate question and answer them now, but I will be certain to leave detailed instructions on what you are to do tomorrow. The first: I do not have a book or a ledger with people's names in it, telling me when their time is up, nor do I keep a room of hour glasses stretching to infinity. It is all instinct and feeling, a cry let out by the soul as its body fails. I am called to the time when the physical and the metaphysical no longer exist within the same space. I will not be able to transfer all of that feeling, that instinct to you, but I can provide you with a similar spell so that you know where to go. And as for what you will be doing, many of the finer aspects of my role in the universe cannot be understood by you. People will be terrified of you. Or they will be pleased to see you. Some will greet you, and some will never even know that you were there. Your job is not to comfort, nor to explain, not to converse or defend, yours is simply to remove them, to separate the ties that bind. What comes after that, I cannot say, but you will not be able to take them to the point where they go beyond. For now, you will merely sever the soul from the body and collect them in an orb. I will deal with it once I return."

  Collect the souls that I was to sever in and orb based on a feeling given to me by a magical spell. It seemed simple enough. At this point, the rest of Death's explanation had made things more confusing than otherwise. I decided to ignore it completely and instead focus on the tangible things that I could do. It was at this point in my logical analysis of the facts that my emotions began to rear their ugly head.

  The first thing I felt: panic. How was I to sever a being’s soul? Use a scythe? Was I about to touch them as Death did? How would I go to every single one who needed it when I was still one person who could only be in one place at one time? I started breathing heavily, feeling as I had the first time I met Death, when he found me in a park told me that everything I thought was real was not, and what I thought was not real was, when he offered me a job to work for him. I took my head and placed it between my knees, trying to get control of my breathing.

  Death patted my shoulder awkwardly. I took a few seconds to get my breathing under control and after that, the panic that I felt simply fell away. I straightened in the chair and looked at Death.

  "I wouldn't worry too much about the details. You will figure this out, I am sure. Instinct will take you far. And as for the rest, it is perhaps better that they should remain mysteries." The last was said with a slight smirk, a knowledge that he held that no one else ever would, done with a twinkle in his void eyes. Had I been feeling things at that very moment instead of feeling nothing, I would've perhaps been worried at such an obvious display of power. As it was, I took Death at his word.

  "A brief question, to perhaps assuage my curiosity?" I folded my hands neatly together and tilted my head at Death. He nodded imperiously. "What do you do on holiday? On holiday? Surely you don't just sit around drinking martinis or whatever while reading a book? Or take a tour bus to volcanoes. It seems rather unusual things for a truly immortal being such as yourself."

  Death chuckled, standing and re-buttoning his suit jacket. He brushed his hands over the fabric, smoothing the lines, and then turned back to me with a nod. "At precisely seven in the morning tomorrow, be at my offices so that the transfer of power can take place. I trust you will do nothing that I would not do while I am away. Try to keep the place in one piece."

  I nodded. I was meant to go out collecting souls. Then it shouldn't have been that much of a worry to keep Death’s manor house in one piece. Logically speaking, I would probably not be spending much of my time here. Ten days. Let my instinct guide me. Collect souls into an orb. I should be able to manage that. After all, I had travelled through time, dealt with a semi-reincarnated American gangster, even solved the murder that hadn't been committed by Death. Truly, I could handle such a relatively simple task. Something in the back of my mind told me, though, that it would indeed be a simple task, but not an easy one.

  Death didn't offer any more words, either of advice or warning. He simply strode to the door, graceful as ever and as powerful as, well, Death. No one would ever mistake him for a tourist on holiday, no matter where he went.

  With Death gone, my date night with Neja turned into who knows what, and Yolanda likely down of the offices catching up on some Netflix, my living quarters seemed very empty. This was not a logical emotion, nor was it one that brought about a surge of feeling. It was simply an assertion made by my mind. It did not make sense. And yet it was.

  As it did not seem to be related to my strange bouts of unstable emotion, I put it from my mind by doing the dishes. Logically, they needed to be done. If I did not do the
m now, then any food particles left on them would harden overnight and cleaning them the next day would be far more difficult. Also, the rhythmic motions of rinsing the dishes and putting them into the dishwasher, of putting leftovers into the fridge—though I knew Agravane and Yolanda would manage to sneak in here and steal them at some point—all of these things calmed my mind. Huh. I had not known that it needed to be calmed.

  Death’s assignment must have shocked me more thoroughly than any of the events preceding had done. This emotional disturbance had lasted longer than any of the others I had experienced thus far, excepting one incident where Agravane and Yolanda accidentally let me ramble on about coffee for nearly an hour simply because they didn't know what was wrong with me. But this was different. It endured. Even as I went and prepared for bed, brushing my teeth and cleaning my glasses as I placed them on the bedside table, it persisted. I turned off the light and closed my eyes, fully expecting to drop off to sleep as logically as I knew I should.

  I did not sleep at all.

  Morning found me feeling nothing, as was normal. I was, however, physically experiencing the effects of having little sleep and several unusual emotional experiences the evening before. Breakfast was a simple affair, me running through the motions of eating toast and eggs and ignoring a cup of coffee since I knew, logically that I did not have time for expounding on its virtues and savouring its magnificent flavours, as I had to meet Death in his office. At 6:50, I gathered my strength and walked over to Death’s office, feeling more tired than I would care to admit, despite the influx of energy from my food.

  When I stepped into Death’s study, the old style club chairs and walls of books surrounding the fireplace a familiar sight, Death was standing there in the most unusual set of clothing. He wore a linen suit reminiscent of English tourists to Egypt in the 1920s and 30s, his necktie a flowered affair in a red silk. He had a straw hat on his head and light brown leather shoes on his feet, completely different from the standard black that I had seen him wear for so long. There were two leather suitcases near the door, fairly beat-up and obviously well used. Death greeted me with a smile, the lightness of his clothes contrasting greatly with the utter blackness that was the rest of him, shadows still reeling about him as though his magic were just too powerful to contain. For all I knew, it was.

  "Good morning, Cal," Death greeted, sounding unusually cheerful. "You look as though you haven't slept."

  I rubbed my eyes, feeling as though I had some grit left over from my sleepless nights stuck there. I yawned and replaced my glasses a moment later. "I didn't."

  "Interesting. I would have thought that your natural tendency towards true apathy would've allowed you to sleep as normal. I wonder if there isn't something more going on than this phantom soul syndrome. Alas, I haven't the time to look into it now. I am meant to be leaving shortly." Death glanced at his watch on his wrist, something I had never before seen him wear. A pocket watch, perhaps. But not her wristwatch, like any other garish tourist wanted to know when their flight was. This was bizarre, and even more so that I noted it in my current hyperrational state of mind.

  Death took a few steps towards me, holding out both his hands. I looked at them, wondering if I was meant to do something. "Take my hands, Cal. The transfer of power will begin," Death said, shaking his hands as though reminding me that they were there.

  I reached out, my skin an inch away from his, before I felt compelled to speak. "I should perhaps remind you that the previous occasions on which you have made contact with me via skin to skin touch has not always ended well. I am fully aware that I cannot physically die, but are you quite certain that thi—"

  "I am creating a conduit through which my power will flow. It is not a full transference of my power, nor am I going to affect your being as I have done before. This is… well, to be frank, it is something that is far too complicated for your limited mind to grasp. Trust me simply that it will work."

  I studied Death’s expression for a moment, wondering if it were somewhere between solemn and amused or if that was simply my imagination. In my current state, identifying other people's emotions was a skill at which I was not particularly adept. Still, even if I couldn't identify what Death was thinking or feeling, I did have to acknowledge that he was my boss and that I was meant to be obeying his orders. I reached out my hands, grasped his from above, and prepared to do my duty for the next ten days.

  On three previous occasions, I have come into contact with Death’s skin. The first was when he hired me and we shook hands. This replaced my life force, the thing that was keeping me mortal with my soul, which could not be killed. The second time was when we shook hands again, reversing that effect and instead replacing my life force with that of an immortal being. The third time, Death touched me on the forehead and accidentally severed my soul, which was already separate from my body. Since I could not die, my soul disappeared and I was left in my current state. All three of those instances had been accompanied by bone shattering pain that left my veins on fire and my mind screaming in agony.

  This was not like that at all.

  For one, there was no pain. I felt power surging through me, testing the boundaries of my body as though a new person moving into an old house, seeing what was possible and what wasn't. It did not hurt, but did feel a bit as though my insides were being rearranged. Then, the flow of power increased, gathering together like a gravity well in the centre of my being, pulling in everything to me, as if the knowledge that all would come my way eventually was enough to sustain me, to make it as though I was the centring point in the universe and all else existed around me, inevitably drawn towards me. I was not the centre of the universe, I was not its purpose, I was simply its truth.

  I felt the power reading around my skin and when I looked down, the shadows that had followed Death since the beginning of time were now writhing around me, their touch featherlight on my skin, an extension of my power.

  And yet, it was not complete. This new magnificence that flowed through me, this power that soon became my very definition of being, it was not whole, not as it should be. The pieces that were missing were still contained in the being across from me, our hands touching. I knew, fully logically and without any emotion at all, that this impossible strength and power that was now mine was simply the lesser part of a greater whole. I was the truth of the universe, its full inevitability, and yet Death, standing before me, was more than that.

  He released my hands a moment later and I let them fall to my sides, the shadows following them. "What an unusual sensation," I said, my voice strangely flat when all my logic told me that I should have been experiencing emotional instability just then.

  "Indeed. I have left instructions on the desk. I shall see you in ten days’ time." Death adjusted his hat and his necktie, strode over to where his suitcases waited, and then left his office as though he had never been there.

  I lifted a hand and stared at it, my pale skin followed by a mist of living shadow. It was interesting to see the patterns that they followed, something close to Brownian chaos and yet not quite. The tugging at the centre of my being told me that I should go read the instructions before whatever this power was reared its head made me obey it unquestioningly.

  A single sheet of paper was held down by an orb on a stand. These, I assumed, were my instructions and the vessel into which I was to collect souls. I picked up the orb, grabbed the sheet of paper, and was about to start reading when the door burst open and Life swanned in.

  Something in the power within me was drawn to her just as everything was drawn to me. The urge was so strong that I was standing before I even had time to blink. Life paused across the desk, looking at me with wide eyes of a colour that I never could quite pin down, her whole image one of ever-changing temptation and loveliness.

  "Well, piffle," Life said, fisting a hand on her hip. "He's gone on holiday, hasn't he? I do wish he would tell me when these things are going to happen. It's not like I remember. Oh, well, s
o be it. Cal Thorpe, I require your assistance."

  Learning How to Die

  I didn't really have any prior knowledge to know how to deal with Life demanding my assistance, so I simply did what I thought Death would do in a similar circumstance. I waved her to the chair in front of the desk, leaned back and steepled my fingers, waiting. Life rolled her eyes and sank into the chair.

  Life was, generally speaking, the sort of person who immediately livened a room, drawing your attention, demanding that you do so much more than notice her. She was a being whose appearance I could not accurately describe except to say that she was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen, intrinsically appealing in a way that no one else ever had been. I couldn't tell you the colour of her hair, the shade of her eyes, the clothing that she wore, only that she was designed to stimulate certain neurons and chemicals in my brain to elicit a pleasurable response. She was also, objectively speaking, terrifying. In my current logical state, I was perhaps less tempted by her than usual, but I did still find it vaguely unsettling. This was probably due to the influx of chemicals that my brain was producing without any related emotional response.

  Or, I was experiencing emotion and just didn't know how to define it.

  "Trying to emulate Death, I see?" Life picked up a paperweight that was sitting on death's desk and rolled it around her hands.

  "In point of fact, no. I simply have no logical basis for how to interact with you at the current time, so I drew on my experience with Death and applied his actions, as I am meant to be his proxy. I am not trying to emulate him, I am simply using a logical model for the current situation." I folded my hands in front of me on the desk, deciding that steepling them was perhaps too close to emulation.