The Innocence of Death Read online

  “Marketing campaigns are all about the personal touch,” I explained, my smile a touch more forced than it should have been. My cheeks were starting to hurt.

  Mercy choked back a sound and Justice just continued to gape. I was just about to launch into my strategy for marketing, starting with my own experiences and what I had gathered so far, when the world—for lack of a better word—shuddered.

  I clutched the arms of my chair in desperation. There was a noise like fingernails on a chalkboard, or bad violin players. I clapped my hands over my ears and promptly fell out of the chair because of it. A moment later, and everything stopped. Silence fell over the room like a heavy blanket.

  “What,” I panted, clawing my way back into the chair, “was that?”

  Yolanda swallowed audibly. Justice looked like a wolf, baring his fangs just before eating. Mercy’s eyes shone brighter. But both aurai also trembled. Whether in fear, or excitement, I never did find out.

  “We’d better get over to the main house,” Yolanda said, her voice shaking. Her hands trembled and her eyes were wide, flashing fear.

  “Why? What’s going on?” I asked. What I really wanted to know was whether I should be running away.

  “His wife,” Yolanda squeaked.

  Life and Death

  The four of us went to the main house as quickly as possible, not even bothering to lock up after ourselves. Which is to say that Mercy and Justice ran ahead, leaping and running as if they were floating. Yolanda and I took a much slower path, jogging lightly behind them. Or, well, I was jogging lightly. The ground shook beneath Yolanda’s feet, almost like it was as scared as she was.

  I was so shocked by the idea that Death was married that I hardly had time to feel awe over the massive mansion looming in our view. It, like everything else here, was from another time and perfectly preserved. There were carvings and impressive ivy growth and everything that you would expect from an entity as powerful as Death. That wasn’t important.

  What was important was that Yolanda was looking like someone had threatened her. She was obviously terrified. And if someone could scare her, then my own weak, human, killable self should be running away. Fast.

  “You’re a troll,” I said, panting, “shouldn’t you be offering to protect me from this?”

  Yolanda shot me a wide-eyed look, “Trolls may be scary to humans, but in Elsewhere, we’re not the biggest, baddest ones around. I would have thought Justice and Mercy would have clued you in to that.”

  “Yeah, but they’re trained to be super dangerous,” I pointed out. We caught up to the two aurai as they were slowing to the front door. Their steps were calm and collected, as if they hadn’t run here on the back of the wind. “Surely most people here—”

  “You would do well to take heed of the troll’s fears, human,” Mercy said, smoothing the skirt of her dress. She shifted her shoulders to stand impossibly straighter. Justice just grinned wolfishly again and knocked three times on the massive wooden doors.

  I gulped.

  Yolanda patted my shoulder, making my already-trembling legs buckle. “Death will protect you.”

  Yes, because that was a comforting thought.

  The doors swung open with no one to open them and we stepped inside. The interior of Death’s mansion was even more grand than I could have imagined. It was reminiscent of one of the old opera houses or theatres, with marble floors, grand carvings, staircases that spun and twisted magnificently upwards. There were sculptures in many nooks along the wall, some smaller pieces by famous artists. There were paintings on the walls and I was fairly certain that I would never have been able to afford a viewing here, while I was alive and in the mortal realms.

  “This way,” Justice said, turning down a hallway set behind a hidden door. After we had gotten away from the main room, the house became decidedly more ordinary. Well, if by ordinary you meant an English manor house decked out in the finest fashion. The floors were done in hardwood, there were simple paintings on the wall—all done by masters like Rembrandt and Botticelli—and the furniture was well-used and comfortable. The front of the house was a sham. A facade. And whoever was here—wife of Death or not—was familiar enough with my boss to push right past it.

  I definitely felt like I didn’t belong.

  Blind Justice led us through a maze of corridors until we wound up in a simple living room, of sorts. There were couches and club chairs arrayed near the windows, all done in tasteful leather. The floor boasted a well-worn Persian rug before a massive fireplace. Two of the walls had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. This was a room for comfort and privacy and never needing to see people you didn’t want to see. It was not a place for the tension I could feel in the air.

  Death was sitting in one of the club chairs, one long leg crossed over the other. He was being confronted by a woman who put Mercy and Justice’s beauty to shame. She was tall, full-figured and had an aura of vitality that was impossible to miss. I couldn’t tell you what colour her hair was, or whether her skin was light or dark or even a shade of purple. All I knew was that she was stunning and regal. She was the sort of woman you wanted to fight for, to be with, to experience her moods and interests.

  I didn’t know what Yolanda was on about. This woman wasn’t terrifying. She was intoxicating.

  Then, she turned around. Her eyes were bright and flashed with more colours than I could name. I felt my heart beating faster. Sweat broke out on my skin. Then, she smiled, showing predatory fangs and hitting me with a wave of pleasure.

  “Husband,” the woman crooned, glancing over her shoulder at Death, “aren’t you going to introduce us?”

  Death appraised me and I’m sure he saw how I felt about this woman. But he did no more than sigh and nod slowly. “Very well. My dear, this is Cal Thorpe, my new marketing agent. Cal, this is my wife. Life.”

  For a second, I couldn’t quite process the name. I thought he was just being poetic. Then, I realised, he was being literal. Just like Mercy and Justice, this woman embodied her name. I didn’t think she was an aurai or some creature who had adopted the attributes enough to encompass her identity. No, like Death, this woman was Life.

  “A pleasure,” she purred, holding out her hand. I reached for it and, with a blur of motion, found myself being thrown backwards into a chair. Death was on his feet, hands clenched into fists, features twisting into an expression of anger.

  “Do not touch him,” Death hissed. Life laughed, the sound tinkling and beautiful.

  “So possessive,” she said. “There’s no reason to be. After all, you stole him from me, did you not?”

  “Uh, what?” I asked quietly. Yolanda sidled up to me and held a finger to her lips. Got it. Watch, don’t interfere. These were heavyweights and I was about as light as a feather by comparison.

  “How could I have stolen him from you?” Death asked, regaining his calm. “I took him at the Instant of Death, which is my domain. He was no longer yours.”

  “But I can feel it,” Life said, frowning. “You took his life-force from him. He is immortal, now.”

  “He works for me,” Death replied, sitting back in his chair.

  “Oh, please, may I have him?” Life pressed forwards, falling to her knees and draping her hands over Death’s knee. The picture of a docile and submissive wife. “Humans are so vital, so full. And this one can never die.”

  “No,” Death said in a tone that brooked no nonsense. “He is bound to me.”

  Life snarled and flew backwards, curling her fingers into claws. She drew her shoulders up and I could feel the raw power of hers crackling in the air. Involuntarily, I leaned forwards, wanting to reach out and touch her. To feel her. To be with her. Death frowned, the shadows around him writhing. He raised a hand and dispelled the power, leaving an empty feeling in my chest. No matter that I was bound to Death, I really, really wanted to be with Life.

  “Enough of this,” Death said. He gestured to a chair and Life huffed, sitting. “Tell me what it is that brough
t you here. As you can see, I am rather busy.”

  Life glanced casually over Mercy and Justice and ignored Yolanda completely. “Yes,” she snorted, “I can see that. Your hired rabble is here to play.”

  “And your hired rabble,” Justice smiled, bowing at the waist. “After all, dear Life, I work for you a good deal of the time.”

  Life curled her lip and turned her head away. “I suppose. Though you are hardly that helpful. Those pitiful mortals demand justice, demand that I be fair. Foolish, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Justice flushed and said nothing. Mercy, to her credit, reached out and touched him gently on the arm. Her face still betrayed no emotion. I still found the two of them terrifying, but they suddenly didn’t feel like the biggest gun in the room. Whether that was my boss or his wife, though, I didn’t know.

  All I wanted to do was marketing. Couldn’t I just be left alone to do that?

  “My dear, please. Your presence is disruptive to my entire realm,” Death flicked a piece of dust off his knee, the picture of the long-suffering. “What have you come to say?”

  Life huffed, indignant. “Very well,” she said. “I want to know why you killed my warrior.”

  “Your warrior? Another one of your champions?” Death asked.

  “Magnus.” Life let out a little sigh at the end of his name. “I went to spend the day with him and found that he had died. You knew I liked him.”

  “Magnus? That Norwegian chap? Oh, for goodness sakes, I didn’t kill him,” Death said. He held up a hand, “Nor did I contract out with anyone to have him killed. Disease made no motions and I would have known if there had been an accident.”

  Life surged to her feet, seeming to grow taller. Her power crackled around her again, pushing the air out of the room. This time, even Death seemed stunned. Mercy blinked and raised her eyebrows in shock. Justice curled his shoulders forwards. And Yolanda, bless her, stepped slightly in front of me. I just stayed slumped against the couch, deciding that it was probably best I stayed quiet.

  “You LIAR!” Life screamed. Her voice split the air and the ground shook again, just as it had in my office. Death clenched his fist and everything stilled, but there was distinct trembling beneath my feet. “Magnus is dead! His belly cut open as he slept! How can you sit there and say you did not kill him?!”

  “Because I didn’t!” This time Death stood. He faced Life down, his shadows dancing throughout the room. I felt some of the tension disperse and a piece of me relaxed slightly. Death’s power, I realised, was making it easier to breathe. To think. I was bound to him, so I felt it.

  “Don’t think I don’t know why you did it,” Life stepped forwards, baring her teeth.

  “I haven’t done it, so stop saying I have,” Death growled. He didn’t move forwards to counter Life; he just became more solid while everything around him faded slightly. “How can you question this? I am Death. Magnus cannot be dead if I didn’t play a part. And I didn’t play a part!”

  “I know you are lying,” Life snapped. “But of course you would deny it, Husband. Don’t you hate me enough? Do you have to ruin everything I have, too?”

  “I am perfectly happy with our arrangement. You stay away from me and I stay away from you. We only have to meet at official functions. If you thought I hated you that much, then why would I do something that would bring you here?” Death stood taller, but he still looked up to the engorged figure of Life. She snarled a wordless sound and spun around, pacing the room.

  “Because I loved Magnus,” she said, turning violently as she stalked towards the other end of the room. “And you couldn’t possibly stand to see me happy.”

  “That is ridiculous,” Death scoffed. “Why do I care if you loved him? The mortal would have come to me in the end. They all do.”

  Life screamed again, lunging for Death, nails poised for clawing. Death just extended one hand and Life stopped in her tracks, completely immobilised. His mouth tightened into a thin line and the empty holes that were his eyes darkened with shadow. “Do not presume to test me,” he said, his voice low and furious. “I have listened to you ranting about your lost warrior, but no more. I tell you I did not do it.”

  “Bastard,” Life hissed as he released her. She clenched her fists and looked like she was about to burst into flames. Then, her nostrils flared and she turned to me. A cruel, ruthless smile curled up her features. “Fine. If you can prove that you didn’t kill Magnus, then I’ll accept your word. If not, then I will do everything in my power to destabilise your realm.”

  “And how would you suggest I prove this?” Death said softly, incredulously.

  Life jerked her head in my direction, “You hired a marketing agent to protect your image. Use him.”

  Then, she did burst into flames. Actual flames, bright enough that even after I closed my eyes the afterimage burned. When I could open my eyes again and see, the living room was still in one piece. There was a scorch mark in the rug, but it was being slowly repaired by tiny wisps of shadow.

  Death sighed and sat back in his chair. He said nothing for a moment, then, “I really didn’t have anything to do with the death of her warrior.”

  Mercy said nothing. Justice opened his mouth, then changed his mind and shrugged. “How could you not have? You’re Death. Anything that dies or crosses over or whatever is part of your domain,” Justice said.

  “It is not an easy task,” Death said, “but it is possible. It has been done.”

  “Really?” I asked. Everyone turned and looked at me. Okay, not a great time for asking questions. “Sorry,” I muttered.

  “No, you have a right to know,” Death said. “You will be the one responsible for solving this…murder.”

  I blinked. I looked up at Yolanda, who also blinked. I blinked again. “You can’t be serious,” I said.

  “Perfectly serious,” Death replied. “My other employees have a, hmmm, vested interest in my line of work. You are the only one who does not. And, being human, you have a free license to go anywhere and ask questions. No one will think anything of it, given how unusual a human in Elsewhere is.”

  “Like an idiotic foreigner who can’t find his way to the bus stop,” I said. Death smiled, though the smile didn’t quite reach his empty eyes.

  “Precisely,” he said.

  “You do realise I’m not an investigator. I’ve never had training, never worked on anything remotely close to an investigation. I do marketing and publicity, which is completely different. I don’t even like cop shows!” I said.

  “Yolanda will render her assistance,” Death said.

  “I haven’t had training either,” Yolanda said, though the words were hardly more than a whisper.

  Death sighed and leaned back in his club chair. “I would not ask this of you unless I were desperate. My wife cannot actually kill me or do me direct harm, but she can make it very difficult for my subjects and my realm. And if she starts challenging me on every circumstance of a mortal dying, then I will have to take drastic action.”

  “Drastic action?” I asked before I could clamp my mouth shut over the question. I really didn’t want to know, but sometimes my curiosity is a lot faster than my brain.

  Death looked into the fireplace. The flames took on a black tinge and the temperature plummeted. “The last instance resulted in World War II.”

  “Ah,” I said weakly. I looked up at Yolanda. She looked stunned. In fact, she looked so stunned that she stomped over to the other end of the couch and sat down. My end of the couch rose off the ground about a foot or so and I slid into her.

  “I think this is going to be a lot of trouble,” she said frankly.

  “I think you’re probably right,” Death agreed. The both of them looked at me.

  I replied with a half-smile. “I guess your social media pages can wait.”

  Dead Man Walking

  “I have no idea what I’m doing,” I said nearly an hour later. Yolanda was sitting across from me in my office, holding a notebook on her
lap. Mercy and Justice had vanished after our little debacle, going back to wherever it was they went to warn whoever they knew about the conflict between Life and Death. Or so I imagined by the frightened looks they were wearing as they vanished in a burst of wind. Death had ignored Yolanda and I after our unfortunate conscription, instead brooding before the fireplace. I didn’t yet know him well enough to determine if that was normal. He seemed the sort, but after being challenged like that by an equally terrifying and dangerous being, I figured I would be brooding, too.

  I would have much preferred cowering in my bed under the covers until the encounter became a distant memory, but instead I was in my office, trying to figure out how to solve a murder when it couldn’t have been Death.

  “I mean, where do you even start to investigate a murder?”

  Yolanda tapped her mouth with the end of a pen. The writing instrument was dwarfed by her enormous hand and yet her handwriting still managed to be neater and smaller than mine. Some things just aren’t fair. “Well, the people in the television shows usually start with information about the victim.”

  I latched onto her words like a lifeline. “Yes! Yes, we’ll do that. How do we do that? I mean, are we assuming that someone supernatural had something to do with this or that it was someone in my world. I mean, the mortal realm? Wait, he was human, right?”

  “Yes. Life’s champions are usually human. And if Death didn’t know about it, then someone from Elsewhere had to be involved,” Yolanda pointed out. I felt like an idiot. Of course some big baddy had to be involved. My life was never going to be simple again.

  I leaned back in my chair. “You want me to put together a marketing campaign, no problem. Create advertisements that have a great click rate? Give me an hour. Deal with smear tactics against my clients? Sure, easy. But this? I am way, way out of my depth. I hardly even know what’s going on except Life and Death are at each other’s throats and you and I are caught in the middle. Oh, and there are aurai and trolls and the possibility of the next world war is at my feet. My goodness, it’s like a completely foreign language, in the middle of a firefight!”