The Uncertainty of Death

by Y. K. Greene

  It was probably a testament to how fucking worn down she was that she laughed at that but he joined in anyway. It felt good to laugh and he couldn’t deny the desire to enjoy his last few moments as much as he could, after all if this didn’t work…

  Better not to think about that.

  He wiped the last few tears of laughter from his eyes and got up, unbuckled his belt and pulling it off in one smooth gesture, “are you up to this? It doesn’t strictly have to be quick but, yah know I’d rather not linger too long on the cusp. There’s also a chance that I’ll struggle and hurt you accidently so quicker is better.”

  Jules sobered up quickly, he had to hand it to the woman, she really had an enviable fortitude.

  “I think I can handle it.” He got on his knees while she made a loop out of his belt and slipped it over his head. “Any last words?”

  He swallowed feeling the leather of his belt bob against his Adam’s apple. Not a single thing came to mind, he shook his head sadly. Next time I do this, I really need to have something prepared beforehand, he thought and then there was a ring of fire around his throat and nowhere near enough air getting into his lungs.

  Leo struggled. He fought like his life depended on it and of course it did, but the soft indistinct ground lent him no traction and Jules was as good as her word, her grip was firm and unrelenting. From her vantage point behind him she had no problem at all avoiding his franticly grasping hands and kept the tension on his neck far too tight for him to get a finger in underneath. Spots appeared in his vision and Leo clawed at his face and neck desperate to gain a little slack, a little air but there wasn’t any use, his legs scuttled on the ground trying to gain leverage, trying to get away, he was beyond consciously knowing what his body was doing.

  The spots were fading now. His limbs growing too heavy to flail and he went limp. Jules kept the tension up even as she eased him down, actually pulling him into her lap by the belt around her neck. He could feel her tears on his cheek and was surprised to realize at this point that he could think again and didn’t bear her any grudge. It was a pretty desperate plan any way; people really shouldn’t seek out Death this way – stay in school kids!

  That thought was so absurd he would have died laughing if he had the air left, as it was his chest heaved one last time and the world faded.

  ***

  Walking on the Path like this was, well just short of heaven. Mitei could see where each of her footfalls was going and the indistinct view somehow did not seem as impossible for her mind to grasp with each step. There, a dip in the ground ahead of her a hollow barely distinguishable from the area around it but she could see it or sense it and just knowing that it was there, she avoided it; her next step bringing her foot down on the other side of it. This was not the same as the Path in full functionality but it was getting closer with every step she sensed.

  Poor Aedan was dragged along beside her. He was not used to her mode of traveling and stumbled with almost every step. She gave him time to recover and did not try suggesting that it would be easier to move if they were not clutching each other so tightly. It seemed there was a very real chance that if he let go the Path would eagerly snap her away from him and she would find herself with three missing people on it instead of two.

  “How much farther? Do you even know where we’re going yet?”

  “No clue,” Mitei said and could not contain her glee despite her answer. “The Path knows where I want to go and it will take us there. Right now I think. I think it is getting reacquainted with me.”

  Yes there was an awareness here. A new and different sensation than she had ever gotten from the Path before. It was not and would never be sentient not like that dead space betwixt and between but there was what seemed like a dawning awareness of self and a recognition of something of itself in her. When it was fully ‘awake’ she was sure that she would regain the full benefit of the Path she had always known and perhaps more, after all she had never been within it before only upon it.

  Still, Mitei was worried. Already she was beginning to feel illness. It was distant. Almost as if it had been physically separated from her by a solid wall and was shouting to gain entry, but it was there and getting closer. She feared that by the time the Path was fully awakened to her again she would also be fully connected to the dying and she would have to sort out the List before anything else.

  Even as she thought it, there was a cramping pain in her abdomen and Mitei winced, stumbling forward and dragging Aedan with her.

  There in front of her a dark spot in the distance. Could it be? There was no time to think the cramp worsened and Mitei doubled over, clutching at her abdomen and screamed. Aedan rushed over, hauling her up and frantically asking questions but Mitei did not listen. Leaning heavily on his shoulder and holding on as tightly as she could she took another step forward.

  And nearly stumbled over Leo and Jules.

  ***

  Oh God, she doesn’t look so good, was the first thing to go through Jules’ mind when Mitei appeared out of seemingly nowhere leaning heavily on a shorter man that Jules had never seen before.

  It was uncharitable but true. Mitei wasn’t usually possessed of much color to begin with but the tantalizing pink was gone and her entire figure shone with sweat, her hair hung limp and lank in strings down her back. Mitei could have been a badly made doll of some flavorless and no doubt foul dough, Jules thought, if not for her eyes. Those hazel eyes sparked with a light and a vibrancy that was no doubt alive and full of a power that Jules was only just beginning to understand that Mitei possessed.

  This is actually kind of disturbing, she thought as Mitei knelt in front of her reaching for Leo’s limp body. Jules actually had to stop herself from pulling away and trying to protect Leo from her grasp, for the space of less than a second she really did not want Mitei to touch either of them.

  Thankfully the moment passed, as Leo’s life was passing and Jules actually flung him into Mitei’s arms.

  The indistinct but constant light that she’d grown so used to in the months, days, weeks that she and Leo had been wandering the Path flared and Jules covered her eyes.

  ***

  Leo clawed at his throat, finally managing to grasp the looped leather and pull it away. Gasping. Air rushed into his lungs and he could only think to do it again, one more time.

  Finally the color was returning to the world as he realized he has never closed his eyes at all. Damn, why am I so cold, he thought as a figure resolved itself before his eyes.

  “Oh, hi.” There was absolute silence for a heartbeat and then Jules was screaming and someone was buffeting him on the shoulder. Leo just stared helplessly up at Mitei’s smiling face. “You – don’t look so good this time.”

  “Does that means you were a little less happy to die this time around Mr. Kaylor?”

  Now it was time for Leo to laugh, which he did with surprising ease. Sitting up and hugging his savior fiercely, Mitei was cold in his arms and she actually shivered while he hugged her, though she was fully robbed.

  “Are you ok?”

  “Getting better, I think.” Mitei said, pulling away and actually pulling her robe tighter around herself. “I will get even better when we are out of this place.”

  Leo didn’t try arguing with her, jumping up and nearly being bowled over by a jubilant Jules next. While he was recovering from Jules, exuberance however, he noticed someone else besides Mitei.

  “What the fuck is he doing here?” Leo heard the notes of fear and hatred creeping back into his voice and didn’t like it but weaponless in front of the mad hunting god who had started all his grief, Leo thought he’d be forgiven for being a bit of a testy asshole.

  “Who is he Leo?”

  So Mitei hadn’t explained, if he thought about it that didn’t surprise him. Mitei had probably been too busy saving his life to remember to make polite introductions. Leo made himself take a deep breath before replying, “this is the god that hunted me down in th
e classroom, the reason Mitei flung us both on the Path in the first place.”

  Jules rounded on the stranger, giving him a dubious looking over, “he doesn’t look like much of a threat now.”

  She was right of course, right at this moment the god in question was standing a little behind Mitei, one hand resting on her shoulder and not putting off any of the compulsory sensations Leo remembered having when he first saw him. If he hadn’t seen this guy in the middle of the hunt earlier Leo was almost sworn he was no one special at all.

  “Leo, Jules, this is Aedan.” Mitei said from where she still sat, a hand going up to pat Aedan’s on her shoulder. “He is not currently our enemy. In fact if not for his help, I would not have been able to find you – despite your risky methods of calling me, what happened to your cell phone?”

  It was too much. Leo and Jules were still giddy with relief and they sunk down laughing and rolling helplessly on the ground. Leo really didn’t want to trust Aedan at his back while he was this vulnerable but as he’d just survived dying a second time, he really didn’t think that there was much to fear in the gesture.

  When they could both breath again without getting the giggles Mitei explained as best she could how she and Aedan had found an understanding and managed to find the two of them again.

  ***

  Mitei wanted to spend more time, drinking in the site of the two of them. Jules and Leo finally together, apparently healthy if a little shaken from their ordeals and in high spirits; unfortunately she could feel it. The time passing and the appointments not being met. She was beginning to feel that burn and itch again. But before she got to ill there was something she had to do.

  Mitei reached up and pulled a few hairs from her head, weaving them together carefully, twisting and knotting them and infusing them with a little of her essence almost like casting a Pall. When she was done she held three rings, they shimmered white and seemed to writhe with a life of their own in her hands, “take one, each of you.”

  She waited as they took them from her. Aedan looked at the tiny white ring with a dubious expression while Jules and Leo slipped them easily on their fingers, “what’s this for then, little sister?”

  “So I don’t lose anyone again.” She said getting uncertainly to her feet, surprised at how difficult it was. “They are woven in a similar way to the way I cast a Pall, never mind the details, I do not have much time. There is a little bit of me in each of those rings. They should let me find you, no matter where you are.”

  Aedan nodded, finally putting the ring on his little finger, “what now little sister?”

  “I am no kin to you,” Mitei snapped at him and frowned at herself. “I am sorry Aedan, I do not feel well.” A wave of nausea crumpled her over and she doubled over, retching again. “I do not think I have much time before I cannot think to do this, I will cast a Pall. Here, on the Path, it should find the rest of the names on the List. It is too late for me to send them to the employees and if I move from this spot the Path will take me to the dying.”

  They were silent behind her now, which was good, it was easier to think. Unfortunately the first thing through her mind was that she did not like to be seen this way by those so close to her. Hopefully this will help, Mitei thought as she pulled more hairs from her head and began weaving the Pall.

  It was hard. She could not remember a time when she had been quite this tired. Not even during the early plagues that had driven her to form the company in the first place. Still, somehow Mitei managed to concentrate, managed to weave the hairs into a gleaming net of herself and send it down the Path to find the names on the List and settling upon them, bring them their death on time.

  When it was done and the last shimmering strands had disappeared from her vision Mitei slumped to the floor and let darkness claim her.

  ***

  Mitei gazed into her office’s bathroom mirror and turned slightly to the right, tilting her head and attempting to judge one outfit from another as she held them up to herself.

  Playing with her image was one of the first things Mitei had really learned how to do successfully with humans. In the beginning, of course, there had been some – problems. Unaware of how humans perceived her, she’d simply appeared in a few temples without the spell of disinterest.

  At first, the correlation between these appearances and the sudden influx of deaths at these temples to the various deities of death had been lost upon her. After all, wherever Mitei went – someone died, at the time it was just the way things were. It was only when she had finally appeared in the midst of a large ceremony where many priests had been gathered together that the connections finally clicked into place.

  As she walked through the crowd and approached the target, all eyes turned towards her. For the first time in her living memory all the humans in a room gazed upon her; some with eyes wide and round an expression she later learned was fear and surprise, some with mouths twisted into horrible grimaces, disgust, and some with tears and upraised hands, joy. Long before she moved to the person her path had called her to, that person crumpled to his knees, dead. Another with that wide eyed fear dropped to the floor and another, like dominos they seemed to fall and Mitei, confused, pulled out her list. It grew before her eyes as people dropped like flies and she was left wondering if a sudden plague was going to wipe out the entire population of the death temples before she had an opportunity to recruit some help from among their disciples.

  But before the last body had hit the floor those with tears in their eyes were stepping forward and clamoring for her attention. Some wanted to touch her hand and receive a blessing she could not give, while others wept and laughed and pointed. It wasn’t until one pointed at the statue and named her Pluto that Mitei had understood. These smiling joyous, groveling people saw her as their god! Unfortunately the others, those with twisted mouths who hung back and grumbled at her presence saw her as something altogether different and the dead, probably something else entirely.

  From there she had worked hard to appear to more and more of the priests she encountered as Mors, her Roman equivalent. The going had been slow but she’d had nothing but time and only one project to occupy it outside of work. Right after the great plague and so long as there were no more plagues, it was a time of rest and renewal for her. Mitei played with size and shape and perception until she had mastered it so well that the priests stopped dying, unfortunately she hadn’t mastered her path yet and therefore was left for a decade with no way to return to the temples and actually begin recruitment.

  Mitei slipped a silken dress over her head; it was simple with no buttons, Velcro or zippers to force her to get Jules to help her into it. The hair was another matter entirely, too fine and straight to be easily styled she longed for a graceful pile of cascading curls, so perfect and resplendent they’d invoke a Grecian goddess as well as her vast age and history without her saying a word, but she would have to settle for this flowing maiden’s cloak of spider silk. There were slippers to match the dress and Mitei spent a moment slipping them onto her much maligned feet, they were much more comfortable than the designer heels she had been wearing lately.

  Picking up her robe and throwing it over the whole ensemble seemed a waste, so Mitei threw it over an arm. One of the others could carry it for her; she had plans for quite a grand entrance at the board meeting she was already late to. Leo had a plan and she thought it was a wise one, something she should have done a thousand or so years ago. It was long past time.

  ***

  Leo wasn’t ashamed to admit that when they got to Mitei’s office in Philadelphia he’d been scared shitless. But by the time Mitei was changed and everyone was briefed on their roles, support for Jules and silent menace from Aedan the talking would mostly fall to himself but the real star here was Mitei, and everyone was ready to march into the board room he was oddly calm. He’d never felt quite so cool and level headed as he did when he nodded at Jules to open the doors and followed Mitei inside of that room fille
d with chairs and monitors.

  Mitei had described the room in detail for him. Leo wanted to be prepared. He knew everything about it right down to the placement of the recessed cameras and how many open chairs there should be when they entered. He also knew that it was unlikely they would walk in to find the floor empty, the woman who had wrenched Mitei’s company away, Leslie Roth would likely be holding pride of place there.

  Leo allowed himself a small smile to see that his information was correct and Ms. Roth was standing with the carriage of a conqueror in the middle of the open space that the board room table made in the middle of the floor. The doors closed behind them and Mitei froze, striking a magnificent pose of absolute stillness while Jules strode to her left side, “please clear the floor for the President.”

  This was a sticky point, if Ms. Roth wanted to humiliate Mitei as well as take all of her power, now would be the time. If not, if Roth let them the floor, she would not get another chance but only Leo, Jules, Mitei and Aedan knew that.

  There was tension for the space of two breaths before Roth made a gracious gesture and moved aside, finding a seat. Mitei moved forward, while Jules fell back allowing Aedan and Leo to flank her as she stood in the sweet spot, the perfect angle for the cameras to pick up all three of them, not just Mitei.

  “Good day, gentlemen and ladies of the board,” Leo said calmly it was all going so well to plan he couldn’t resist feeling smug. From here on out there was no stopping it. “I know that is highly irregular for non-board members or executives to speak in such a venerable gathering. However I must speak on behalf of the splendid being you have known previously as Mitei, or as Death.”

  There was noise then. Sputtering and grumbles, it all amounted to nothing and died down in a short while. He had the floor, together with Mitei and they were well trained in the immutability of death.

  “It has come to our attention, that while the founder and head of this company was otherwise occupied, a change was made in governance of Death Inc. and Ms. Roth was instated as CEO. We do not dispute this change in the leadership of Death Inc.”