The Uncertainty of Death

by Y. K. Greene

  So he stood, hands on hips, head lifted in the air feeling just a tiny bit smug as he scented the corridor. There was a furious jumble of scent on the stairs in front of him that clearly indicated it was the major thoroughfare of the building. Down the hall to his right the scents were faint and mostly old, as if it was rarely used in the numbers that the stairway was though more rarely traversed by one or two – teenagers. Aedan frowned; he could smell that particular stew of chemical reactions and hormones far too clearly. The building was over flowing with hormones and the fresh red scent of mingled menses. He tried to filter out the stench, it was distracting, thick and more than a little stomach churning. The last thing he wanted was to do a disservice to the deer whose heart he’d eaten this morning by vomiting it up here in this fetid corridor.

  There were so many pressed so tightly on top of each other and each on the cusp of this tumultuous phase of their growth. As Aedan filtered the stench out as best he could and got his gorge under control he was left wondering how the mortals could put up with being crammed so tightly together in such numbers, to his preternatural abilities the stench was unbelievable. It had hung heavy and ever present in the thick toxic air outside but here in this building it was overwhelming. Why live stuffed together so closely? It wasn’t a question he should have been concerning himself with in the middle of hunt and all, but focusing on something else helped him draw his mind from the overwhelming and distracting plethora of scents and after a moment or two of contemplation he was ready to move.

  Right, down the rarely used corridor; Aedan was already pretty sure his prey would not be found here it but it did afford him a chance to rest and refocus his senses. He didn’t need to have this level of skill to track one mortal in a den of mortals and keeping his skill trained up high enough to find Mitei would only put him at a disadvantage in their fetid mess, overwhelming and confusing him. Let alone the disastrous consequences if he was closer to a feral state and caught the scent of a particularly healthy young female moving into her most fertile period. Aedan had to fight his gorge again. Though he’d taken more than a few human lovers in the past the thought of doing so as predator rather than god was revolting to his senses. On the other hand it was a good sign that at least he hadn’t progressed as far to madness as he feared he might.

  Not mad then, at least not yet. All the more reason to find this mortal he was after sooner rather than later. Aedan reached the end of the corridor and turned left heading for the stairs upwards instead of checking the right hand corridor as it turned away from the stairs. Down that way he could scent a hell of sweat and effort, without a single hint of his prey. So he simply spared himself the trouble and moved to the next level. Moving down the hallway quickly, now not even attempting to filter all the different scents that assailed his senses just searching for the one scent that mattered. Not here. Not on this floor, probably, though as he walked down the corridor he did catch a whiff of the scent he was searching for. It was nearly buried under other, fresher tracks, but it was there faint and fading but there and leading upwards.

  ***

  Leo wasted several seconds after it left, just breathing. All the strength seemed to go out of his legs and he fell to the floor, panting as silently as he could. For what seemed like forever he was unable to sit up, let alone stand but he knew that he had to pull himself together and do it quickly because if what Mitei had said was true then this dangerous beast that had been unleashed upon his school was indeed a god. It didn’t take much of a leap for him to surmise that the thing had been hunting Mitei by scent since their meeting; it had probably had no luck in finding her by playing catch up on her path but lucked upon Leo’s own scent and followed him here. If that was the case, the students were likely safe but he was in serious shit.

  Worse, he wouldn’t be able to go home as that was likely where this god had picked up the scent. If it failed to find Leo here it would probably return there and wait - after all, the city was a veritable stew of scents and it was the easier course. There was only one thing to do, he had to get back to the classroom and unlock the door. That would potentially leave the students open to attack but he was relatively sure that his opponent would pass them by altogether. More importantly that would mean that the students could continue on with their classes for the day, proceeding to their next class without him present, he hoped, but there was also the little matter of his cell phone – he’d left it in the classroom.

  He pulled himself off the floor and found himself slipping resolutely back up the stairs, his body still a jangle of nerves but the fear under control. Taking the stairs slowly, trying not to raise his temperature or sweat proved the hardest part of the sortie as he made his way back to the classroom and hurriedly unlocked the door. There had been no sign of his opponent on the way, that probably only meant that he was going down each corridor one at a time, looking for a stronger scent and stopping on each floor. That meant that Leo had time to go to his classroom and grab his briefcase, cellphone and anything else he thought he’d need.

  Once inside the classroom Leo tried to put on a calm face. The children were pretending to be studiously working out the problems, the classroom didn’t appear any worse for wear, and in fact it seemed exactly the way he’d left it. Everything here seemed so normal and mundane that it was almost hard to remember that there was a deranged god bent on his own death hunting Leo a floor or so below. Hard to believe that lingering here could lead to certain injury or even death. I wonder if this is what shock feels like? Or am I just going insane in the most pathetic way possible? He thought as he gathered his things together.

  Something was missing. He couldn’t find his phone. A frantic search of the desk didn’t reveal his tiny black Nokia cell. It wasn’t in his coat pocket and sure as hell wasn’t in his pants. One of the angelically studying students must have taken it. He felt himself sinking into his chair. Without that phone he wouldn’t be able to contact the only thing on this planet that might save him from the stalking death that was awaiting him in this very building.

  For the first time, Leo seriously wanted to hurt his students. If he died here, it would be because one of these little thieves had tried to rip him off. Or maybe it was one of the clowns, trying to get a few laughs out of the others and not caring that he was getting his ass into hot water at the same time. All of the reason he could think of suddenly seemed far too petty and exhausting to contemplate, so he let the contemplation go.

  “Alright, who has my phone?” A pause and some of the students continued to ignore him, pretending they were really engrossed in the papers before them. Some snickered and a few gave him blank looks. “Alicia, please hand over your cell phone.”

  A brunette in the front row looked up from her paper and bit her lip. Alicia was a relatively good student and knew that bringing cell phones to class was prohibited but of course leaving them in the lockers was an even worse idea. After a hesitation she finally reached in her pocket and handed it to Leo.

  “It was switched off the entire time I swear.”

  “I know, you’re not in trouble here.” Leo said and started dialing. “I’m guessing that the yahoo who stole my phone didn’t think to turn it off as well.”

  A moment later and he could hear his ring tone emanating from a shelf at the back of the room. So it had been a clown and not an actual thief then. Well that’s a small relief, Leo thought as he retrieved the tiny black device. It would have taken him all day to find, if he’d found it at all before it really had been stolen, stuffed in a dark corner like that.

  With the phone safely in hand he had an idea and settled himself comfortably behind the desk again, calmly dialing Mitei’s number. If he was right and the students weren’t in any danger, he himself might be in less danger by staying near them. Perhaps this god wanted few witnesses to his actions, as Mitei seemed to prefer. So he’d settle in to wait. Mitei would hopefully come at the call and meet the guy in the hall or at the least draw him away with a fresh s
cent trail and Leo and his students would be safe until the school day ended and they were free to head home. After that he’d need a new plan and possibly a new place to stay while Mitei sorted out whatever needed to be sorted. One thing was certain, faced with an enemy of superior fighting ability and strengths unknown Leo couldn’t win, unless he called in an ally of equal measure.

  The phone rang in his hand and he thought, time to bring in the Calvary.

  ***

  It was high time she headed home. Jules sat with her feet dangling in the pool the warm, bright, probably cancer inducing lights beating down on her giving her a more and more noticeable tan while she slowly worked out a plan. She’d have to go home, not to school but all the way back to the farm and talk with her father. On the one hand he’d be pleased about the well paid position that she’d managed to bag herself with an international corporation and on the other, well her father was no louse, he’d be wondering exactly how she’d managed to land such a lucrative position without finishing the degree he was working himself to death in order to afford for her.

  She stood up, dusting sand off of her bottom and heading into the cool depths of her temporary bedroom. She’d already asked to be moved, that bathroom was a bit too disconcerting and she was concerned about what those tanning lamps outside were doing to her skin. As she packed up, amazing how much she’d managed to accumulate while staying here, Mitei had given her an allowance to buy some essentials for herself while she was out with the secretaries picking up things for Mitei’s suddenly growing wardrobe. It had started with the absolutely necessary, a tooth brush some toothpaste a comb, and then gotten a tad bit out of hand one day when she walked into a designer boutique and instantly fell in love with this unbelievable little red dress. The dress had demanded shoes and a new coat and a few accessories and while she was at it she realized she really didn’t have any clothes at all to wear with her so she’d gone out and bought a few more less than essential essentials.

  Jules resolved to pack them all up, on the off chance that her living arrangements had changed by the time she returned to the corporate office – if she returned. Jules couldn’t help but bite her lip in an old gesture. There was a good chance that if she couldn’t explain things well enough to her daddy, he would forbid her to return. Worse, there was a chance that he’d sit her down and remind her just how hard he’d been working since her mother had died so he could fulfill his promise to her to make sure that she went to a good school and never had to consider working on a farm. Defying him if he was bull headed enough to try and forbid her was one thing but Jules wasn’t at all sure she’d be able to withstand the look of hurt in his eyes if he took the other route.

  Maybe she could keep going to school and work out a part time schedule with Mitei? Nights might not be great for her but she could certainly do weekends until graduation. If Mitei was good with that, she could always cut back her course work at school too just aim for a general B.A. instead of a degree in agricultural sciences. That would make some night work a lot easier to contemplate, Jules thought as she heaved her heavy bag into the elevator and pushed the button for the bottom floor.

  She didn’t realize she was holding her breath till she was below Leslie Roth’s floor and let it out in a relieved rush. There was something about that woman that disturbed her deep down at the pit of her stomach. Something about the way she’d smiled when she was graciously taking care of Jules that first night that had made the young woman feel like she’d stumbled right into the gaping jaws of a shark. Of course, none of that was charitable to think of the woman who’d been nothing but friendly to Jules from the very start but even so, Jules couldn’t shake off the feeling that Ms. Roth was a woman to be avoided if at all possible.

  Thankfully that had proved absurdly simple to do. As Roth never seemed to wander the maze and when not out with the other secretaries waiting to be added to the rotation or out shopping for Mitei, Jules had stayed in her suite of rooms mostly. The elevator doors opened on the ground level silent and smooth and Jules was surprised to notice that the sun was already low outside. Another reason she was hoping for a different suite of rooms, it was almost impossible to tell the time and passage of the days. It had taken her a full week to realize that the lighting in the bathroom cycled through daylight and moonlight in a regular cycle that seemed to vaguely approximate day and night outside the building but it was an imperfect clock and with the constant sunny day outside the bathroom and no clock in the bedroom she’d quickly gone off her table.

  It was a lot later than she had hoped it would be, and it would be full dark and pretty late by the time she reached the farm. That might work in her favor if she could sneak in without her father noticing and then be up before him with a big breakfast spread out. That seemed like a fine plan, at least in theory but as she started trying to retrace her first few confused steps back to her car she threw out that idea. She still wasn’t that familiar with the city and it had been forever since she’d tried to get back to her car since she’d parked it here in the first place. It was going to take her a good while to find it again and when she finally did, well she’d forgotten to print out some directions back out of the city so she’d be forced to try and wing it again. Hopefully she wouldn’t get too terribly lost, Philadelphia wasn’t that big or confusing after all.

  ***

  A half hour later and Jules was finally unlocking her trunk and tossing her heavy bag into it. The light was fast disappearing from the sky now and she’d be in trouble if she ended up having to try and navigate the darkened city after the daylight faded. She slipped behind the wheel, pulled on her seat belt and checked her mirrors while she slipped the key into the ignition. Glancing out of the window to check for traffic she turned the key –

  There was an ear piercing noise and an excruciating pain in her chest as the steering wheel was snapped off of the column and thwacked into her, all six of the windows shattered, blown outward as the car exploded around her. After that, the whole world was flames and pain.

  ***

  The path brought Mitei abruptly to some street in some city. That was all Mitei had time to notice because there was a car burning furiously in front of her. The street was empty and deserted, filled with the shocked hush of a city unused to this kind of scene - in a moment it would be flooded with onlookers, people with cell phones, either calling for police or excitedly snapping picture and video ready in an instant to upload to the internet. For right now it was just the burning vehicle, the dying victim inside it and their death.

  She could smell them now, the crisp tasty scent of meat cooking, high and sweet enough to overpower the chemical smell of gasoline, though even as Mitei noticed it the scent changed, notes of burnt meat seeping into that mouthwatering smell. Striding towards the car, weaving a cloak of disinterest around her so that the early arrivals would not notice and remark upon her presence, Mitei heard the first sizzle as the flesh of the person inside split and clear juices that were once bodily fluids seeped out to splash on the overheated seat around them. Her hood rose around Mitei, protecting her from the flames she was currently too preoccupied to remember might harm her. Whatever had caused the fire had not blown the door off the hinges but it had twisted it terribly out of true making it difficult to open so that Mitei's questing fingers could reach the poor person trapped inside, roasting and screaming.

  Oh how they screamed and screamed.

  Flailing about, blind by now, the fire had surely already taken the delicate lids of their eyes, boiled the eyeballs in the socket leaving them with nothing left to see except perhaps for the bright afterimage stuck in their mind from the first fireball.

  The door was twisted out of true, a human would have required the Jaws of Life to wrench if free but even in her altered state Mitei was no human and lacked knowledge on the minutia of human strength anyway. She did not hesitate, simply placed one hand on the roof of the car in front of her while the other grasped the door and - pulled. The whole car
groaned as the already twisted and belligerent metal was forced into new shapes yet again by her hands. The flesh of her own hands began to singe and blacken, ugly blisters popping out on the delicate white skin that Leo had given her but the door - moved. Parting almost easily with the frame, Mitei threw it carelessly over her shoulder and with an unobstructed path could finally reach for the poor victim trapped inside. In moments like these, Death needed no list to direct her.

  The empty eyes turned toward Mitei the wide and screaming mouth, this close Mitei could see the tongue actually on fire, saved to scream thanks to the dripping juices from the poor things head. Mitei did not have any time to offer words of consolation, just reaching for them offering the gift that was uniquely her own to give.

  There was a violent cracking sound and a burst of cold energy that shocked her system, surprising her and forcing Mitei to take a step back.

  ***

  Mitei nearly lost her footing on the path as it shifted violently beneath her, not just taking her to a new location but violently wrenching her around. She blinked, puzzled, in the glare of florescent light bulbs and late afternoon sunshine. It had been dark on the street with the burning car and it took her new eyes a moment to adjust. In fact, everything was taking a while to adjust, her balance was still off and she was only now taking in parts of the room (there are many desks lined up in a row in the front but scattered further back and teenagers huddled against the back wall) a school then. Somewhere to the west of where she had just been for the light to still shine so brightly.

  "Mitei, watch out!" Someone said from beside her. Leo? Was that Leo? Mitei turned her head to look at him quizzically. Oh no! Did I just appear in front of his entire class? He is going to be really furious with me for that, I just know - but she did not have time to brood on that thought because the person she had glimpsed briefly in the doorway finally registered on her mind. Aedan.