The Uncertainty of Death

by Y. K. Greene

  Hot on her trail now, feeling his prey just beyond his grasp, Aedan strode towards the nearest doorway – and popped out in a small dark room. It was sparsely furnished but it was easy for him to identify as someone’s residence. He held still a moment, fighting the feral urge as the scent teased his senses, and expanded his talents beyond his nose. Testing the house, listening for the faintest sign of any of its inhabitants and finding none Aedan let the scent captivate him again. It was thick here, as if he had found his prey’s den. Yes, oh yes, he thought as he leaned in over the low sofa and drew in deep. Does the reaper live here? To his talented nostrils the scent drew a beautiful multifaceted picture. It was easy for him to see her sitting in the kitchen as well as here, walking up these steps as well but there was a confusing puzzle. There was no connecting spore between each resting place, at least not of the reaper’s.

  Another dwells here, yes now that he thought on it and wasn’t allowing himself to be distracted by the quarry he could smell the much heavier overlay of a male scent. Where the reaper’s scent was missing in places, this man’s scent was thickly laid, and on more places besides. His finger prints where thick on the surfaces of this and every room and though Mitei’s could be found here and there, they were nothing compared to the other. The picture was coming clearer, not the reaper’s home then but this man’s perhaps?

  Aedan climbed the stairs and found a sparsely furnished bedroom, if there was an answer to this puzzle it would be here. Out of all the places that he’d been dragged too on the trail of this particular prey, he’d never once come to a single residence where the occupants had not recently died. Never once had any of those dwellings ever had as strong a trace of his quarry in them as this one did. No, it was far more likely that his prey lived her or…

  The bed was thick with the mingled smells of the two.

  Her lover then, he thought as he sunk down onto the tousled sheets unable or unwilling to control the urge he rolled, bathing in the rich smell of their warm bodies. Taking in the notes and subtleties of the new scent and then just wallowing as a dog will in a pile of questionable origins. Oh it was a very interesting scent, in a very interesting house. For instance this man’s scent, full of testosterone and vigorous energy, was also completely and utterly human – very interesting indeed.

  Finally Aedan sat up and faced the room, if I can’t move quickly enough to track down this preternatural being, perhaps her lover will be more accommodating. He was up in an instant and heading for the doorway, sometimes you can’t stalk your prey to the very end; sometimes it’s better to set a trap.

  Aedan found himself walking out of the shadows of an alleyway. Across the street a large stone and mortar building surrounded by a twenty foot fence, topped with barbed wire. The street before him was deserted and there was a desolate air to the surrounding neighborhood, heaps of trash crowded into every conceivable nook. Aedan circled the building carefully, keeping an eye on the dark and barred windows, the area was thick with smells but the air was even thicker with pollutants. Aedan could make out the mingled scents of many entering and exiting the building, so he could rule out the probability of it being a prison but that was all he was able to glean from the outside.

  Unsure what kind of prey he’d now chosen, whether or not this human would prove an accommodating piece of bait, Aedan easily leaped the locked gate and approached the fortress. This will be so much more entertaining if he puts up a good fight; he thought and reached for the doors.

  ***

  Mitei had expected to be able to sweep out of her private bathroom and through the outer office on silent slippered feet and head straight for the board meeting on a lower floor. Unfortunately she did not get the chance as she found Leslie Roth perched comfortably on the huge wooden desk under the window, even with her back towards the bathroom the woman’s transgression into her personal space was not something that Mitei could allow though the urge to continue on her previous path right out of the doors tugged at her fiercely, she felt the sleeves of the robe creeping slowly down her wrists and over her hands, a cool and soothing touch, as the hood slid over her face and hair obscuring her vision somewhat and casting her face into deep shadows.

  “Why are you here Ms. Roth?”

  Leslie turned slightly, gazing over her shoulder the picture of absolute calm despite seeing Mitei garbed in hood and robe, no vestiges of false humanity showing. “Your secretary let me in; didn’t she tell you I wanted to see you D.?”

  Conversing with Roth seemed to make it easier for Mitei to recall her previous detachment from her form; she felt not a muscle twitch or a warm rush even though she could feel her ire rising at the mortal before her. “I was resting, Ms. Roth, they have strict orders to not disturb me while I am taking my ease.”

  “Oh? Well she let me right in, I hope that’s not a problem.”

  Of course it was a problem but one that Mitei would have to deal with later, “there is a meeting scheduled Ms. Roth, please come with me.”

  “Actually, D dear I was hoping to talk to you about something on the way,” she slithered off the desk and landed daintily on her expensive stiletto heels. Taking tiny and precisely balanced steps that forced Mitei to shorten her stride to match or speed quickly in front of the other woman. “You see I heard that you had finally been convinced to get a cell phone and I’m sure you haven’t yet had a chance to program it properly with all the company contacts.”

  Yes, the cell phone. Currently it was nestled deep within the folds of the robe but it came to hand at her thought. “I have the main numbers of all the corporate offices and have already learned how to take pictures with it.”

  “Really, well I don’t know why I was worried then. May I see?”

  Mitei handed the phone over, letting it fall into Roth’s hands without touching the woman’s fingers. That seemed to shut her up as for several minutes, throughout the entirety of the maze, Roth fondled the small device. When they finally reached the elevators it was handed back.

  “So you decided to go with an iphone? A blackberry would have been more professional but I do admit these are the more fun phones.” She chatted as the doors closed and the elevator began its decent to the conference room floor. “I took the liberty of adding my number to your list of contacts, please feel free to call me personally if you need anything special taken care of at the office while you’re out.

  So that was the woman’s angle, more access and more privilege that her peers had not yet had the opportunity to claw over? Suddenly there was a feeling in Mitei’s stomach even more unpleasant than hunger but much more faint. The doors opened and Mitei found herself lengthening her stride away from Leslie Roth as if distancing herself from the woman could allow her to distance herself from the feeling in her innards, she would have to remember to ask Leo about the sensation next time she saw him.

  ***

  Leo was knee deep in writing out a complex equation on the chalk board when an announcement came over the loud speakers. A code “C” was being called and the revelation made his mouth run dry, stopping him mid figure. Code “C” had been invented by his school district many years ago after the Columbine shooting specifically to address the problem of a child who was in the school with a vendetta and a weapon. Since then security had been tightened to the max, guards were armed with tasers and there were metal detectors at the main entrances. Of course, since Columbine there had been many more shootings at institutions and now the code “C” simply meant that there was a suspicious person in the building probably armed and definitely dangerous. With the announcement made, the office was probably even now calling the police for immediate assistance and all Leo was supposed to do was lock the classroom doors and wait for the police to arrive and give an ‘all clear’ signal.

  But Leo didn’t think things were going according to plan. First, the code was given in an unfamiliar female voice, not the slightly nasal tones of the male principle. The plan was always to have the principal make the announcemen
t, for authenticity and complete control over a code word that was the equivalent of calling down defcon 1 rather than a false fire drill. There couldn’t be any mistakes with a code “C,” no rehearsals. Which meant, someone had either already gotten the principle or this was some kind of horribly unfunny joke. Either way, Leo couldn’t follow the original plan and wait quietly in his room for rescue.

  The question was: what to do with his students while he went to check out the situation? Normally once class was in session you didn’t dare leave the room. Disorder tended to quickly break out once the teacher was absent the scene things got quickly to unbelievable levels. Once a colleague had been forced to leave mid class while suffering through a case of explosive diarrhea, when he returned to he’d found the doors locked from the inside and the students gathered around the center of the room, beating a weaker student senseless. By the time he had managed to unlock the door the poor child was a mass of blood and broken bones. His pants, some designer label, had been stolen, slurs racial and otherwise had been scrawled on his face and legs with a pens, markers and his own blood. Both teacher and student had transferred out of that school shortly thereafter.

  Leo didn’t want to leave his students in danger while trying to protect them. He erased a section of the board, writing out five complex equations, some from trigonometry and some calculus, even a little geometry. Faced with a class of seniors but not his advanced placement students it was a good bet that these problems were only vaguely familiar to them at best. It would take them all day to have any hope of actually solving any of them.

  “Take out a fresh sheet of paper and a pencil – this is a pop quiz,” groans and protests stained the air behind him as he scrawled the last few numbers. “This will count as a full quarter of your grade this semester; it can sink you or pass some of those who weren’t passing. Show your work. You’ll have until I return to complete the answers on the board.”

  While they were occupied peering at the board, Leo slipped out of the class room and headed for the one of the back stairwells, it was often unused by students and faculty alike. Not exactly the route that a murderous maniac was likely to take with a high death count as his main goal. At the head of the stairs, he slipped out of his shoes. The last thing he wanted was the sound of his running feet to alert the potential threat that he was coming down the back way either. His class room was on the third of five floors, the basement was completely inaccessible to everyone but the head custodian who had the proper keys. As Leo crept down the stairway he was obliged to stop and check as far as he could on the second floor. With a code “C” declared the hallway should have been empty and it was blissfully silent, not a hint of movement from anything but the various classrooms. The first floor was a different matter entirely.

  It seemed quiet enough at a glance but there was an, expectancy, about the silence that weighed heavy on him. As he eased to the doorway he realized that there was a gaping hole in his previous plan. Besides the small possibility of coming across the threat alone, unprotected and shoeless in the stairwell, but because of the building’s design – in a “U” shape around the gym – he could only see the right hand section of each floor at a time without actually exiting the stairwell.

  Leo had deliberately picked the stairwell that let out behind the principal’s office for just that reason, instead of the one that lead to the gym. But now crouched at the exit, he had to wonder about who might be lurking just out of site around the bend, the principal’s office was on this side of the building but it was directly at the corner of the front section which would mean Leo would not only have to make it down the hall unnoticed but into the office as well when there might already be someone lurking on the other hallway.

  There was a flutter of fear in his gut as Leo peaked out of the stairwell and around the corner. Nothing moving but the hallway wasn’t empty, there was someone standing at the very end of the hall.

  They stood with their hands on their hips; shoulders relaxed and carefree, head tossed back and still as Leo had only seen Mitei be still before. From this distance, he could tell that the figure at the end of the hall wasn’t of an age with anything that could be called a student here; the other man looked shorter than Leo himself, stockier with more muscle than fat, longish brown hair. The other man, the probable threat, didn’t appear to have any weapons on him.

  Regardless of outward appearances, Leo felt that flutter of fear turning into a flood of outright panic. Something about that man’s confident back struck spirals of fear and awe into the very core of his being and suddenly Leo found himself fighting the urge to curl up in a corner of the stairwell, pissing his pants with his hands over his eyes and praying, though he’d known no religion before, praying that that man would pass him by.

  Leo found himself in a nightmare battle with his own emotions, desperate to keep them under control and fight back the fear or at least arrest it and hold it in check - because from here he could see that other man way too clearly and he wasn’t just standing at the end of the corridor, he was scenting the air; rolling the scents over his palate and attempting to sort and digest every single one. In a building crowded to bursting with human bodies, daily, and in a section of the building that was nearly constantly bathed with new scents, this man was unlikely to uncover just one – his. But with him on the same level, all Leo needed to do was emit a stronger, fresher scent to gain his attention.

  All of this went through Leo’s mind in a flash and he didn’t waste any of his energy trying to dissuade himself from this assessment of the threat before him. Didn’t bother questioning why he was so sure that the other man was scenting the air like a bloodhound on a trail and knew far better than to wonder why he thought that a perfectly normal looking human being could possibly hunt by scent at all. Something in him just knew these things, deep in the fiber of each and every muscle there was a memory that seemed to recognize this man and these fibers were working overtime telling him to flee or cower. This bone deep muscle memory told Leo that there was no hope, no way to oppose the force in front of him, told him there was no hope whatsoever if he was that man's prey or even accidentally attracted unwanted attention. It was that memory that Leo was really fighting a memory deeper than the span of his entire life, a memory that was instinct, self-preservation and reverence.

  Part of him wanted to walk out into the hall, approach the figure and bare his throat in supplication. Leo fought that part as well, fought it almost as hard as he was fighting his very skin, begging it to stay cool, not bead up with sweat. Calm was his only hope here and somehow, Leo knew that too. Because what was standing at the end of that corridor matched Mitei’s description to beyond anything he had ever imagined. That thing was not human, that thing was not a man – that was a god, a hunter and possibly, probably Leo’s doom if he were to fall under his gaze.

  ***

  Hands on hips, Aedan took a moment and just stood at the end of the corridor. There were steps in front of him, leading up to other floors and down towards the doors he had entered, to his right there was an empty corridor and behind him the same. He’d already investigated the room to his left, there had been only a faint hint of his prey inside but the flutter of activity had drawn his attention. Beneath him in the stair well before the open outside doors, a tumble of inelegant bodies waited. There was more of the same inside the doors to his left.

  He hadn’t killed anyone but their infernal buzzing was distracting while he was on the trail. Plus the ones at the door had attempted to injure him. Just because he couldn’t die on his own didn’t mean that he couldn’t be hurt. Aedan still recalled the horrors of hunts gone by when worthy prey had managed to rip him open from throat to asshole, slicing cleanly through his intestines and vital organs. The pain had been intense, maddeningly so. On those occasions he’d lost thought of his purpose and was unable to make it home when called. He’d stayed on the hunt for untold years while the lands died and the people languished tormented by famine, disease and th
e sight of his mutilated and insane ride.

  Eventually she had come for him, or to put it properly, she had let him come to her. Flooding the worn trails with her scent, thick and tantalizing like nothing else he was capable of remembering. When he’d finally come to find her, the source of that scent, she’d embraced him almost tenderly while he’d done his best to rip her apart. It had been futile on his part, she was stronger than he was and always would be, so while he struggled she simply held him tight to her bosom. Tight and tighter still, the air couldn’t get to his lungs but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough to kill Aedan in that state. So she’d pressed harder, crushing him until he was nothing but a red paste smeared over her body.

  Those had been horrible hunts, though he had felled the beast and it had been a truly worthy foe, his wounds had been sustained more out of his own hubris than anything else. The mad rides that followed was a penance Aedan never wanted to pay again, certainly not now when there was no hint or scent of his goddess through any of the hills, halls or passages. Not a taste of her to be found. No safe end waiting for him in the case that he went mad again. No, there was only Mitei and she’d already refused to help him, fleeing through the woods instead of granting him the death he desired.

  Aedan didn’t think the people in this building would be capable of dealing him that kind of damage but he wasn’t about to find out by experimenting with his body. Besides, there was no need; he could easily take down these. Not a one of them had been fit enough to hope to match his speed in a foot race let alone open combat. Not a single one of the mortals had even seemed properly trained with the weapons they did have, so clumsy he’d danced around them easily, putting them to sleep with a nearly gentle flurry of taps. None of them would suffer any permanent damage from the encounter but more importantly, neither would Aedan.