Death Calls

by Al K. Line

  Me, I'd had enough of it all. I wanted some happiness, to be married and maybe even have a honeymoon. Ah, a honeymoon, how awesome would that be? Relax, no wizardly mayhem, just us, lots of sex, plenty of exotic drinks, sightseeing, sleeping, and food cooked in somebody else's kitchen, in no particular order once the sex was had, of course.

  Ha, fat chance of that happening now. Jake was a concern. He had to be put somewhere safe yet kept close too, because this wasn't over and he was part of it now. The taint of the Death Book was on him, same as Vicky and me, so until it was gone we had to stay close. I could sense the hunters roaming the city searching for us and it, and they'd find us soon enough.

  As I made coffee, I tried to plan, to consider my options and come up with a satisfactory solution. It wouldn't be easy, and there was no simple answer to this complex problem. The book needed to return, I had to find a replacement, or convince Gavin to go back, which he wouldn't, and it had to happen soon before the fabric of reality crumpled in on itself and the bombs began to drop and nuclear armageddon, or maybe something worse, wiped humankind from the planet and the world slowly got itself back together without us messing things up.

  To say I felt overwhelmed and somewhat guilty is an understatement, but if there was a way out of this I would find it and take it. I needed peace, quiet time to consider the options and uncover that elusive answer currently hiding in a damp cave under a boulder too heavy for me to shift.

  The kettle clicked off so I did the necessaries and traipsed wearily back into the living room to be bombarded by the noise of my "guests" whether I wanted to be or not.

  "I've been thinking," said Vicky as she took her coffee and nodded thanks.

  "Oh no, I warned you about that," I said as I gave Jake his drink and he nodded thanks too.

  "Shut up, Arthur, don't be so mean. I've come to help, so be nice."

  "Oh, my apologies, because I honestly don't know what I'd have done without you there to help me sort this mess out. Well, thank you for your time, but now you've solved the problem I guess we may as well all go home."

  "Is he being sarcastic?" asked Jake, slurping his coffee noisily.

  "It's the only way he talks," said Vicky.

  "Okay, what's your idea?" I asked, knowing she'd tell me regardless.

  "Can I say it in front of him?" Vicky scowled at Jake.

  "I don't know. Depends what you're going to say. He knows a little, about the book at least, which is his own fault." I glared at Jake who was oblivious, lost to dreams of awesome highs and less sickness.

  "He's not part of the team though, and he shouldn't know too much. Just in case he tells," said Vicky.

  "Fine. Jake, would you please go and wait in the hallway just for a moment?" I asked. "Don't wander, do not go into other rooms, just wait outside the door. There are lots of dangerous wizard things in the house that will get you killed, so do not go snooping."

  "Fine. Jeez, you guys are something else. But like I said, I want in on this. You owe me." Jake stood and squared off to me.

  "Owe you? Owe you how? You stole from me and that's why you're here. Not because I want you to be."

  "You let my girl go. You owe me." Jake slurped while he walked, which was more annoying than I can describe, or want to.

  When he closed the door, I asked, "Well?"

  "Arthur, I don't like that man," Vicky whispered whilst looking at the door.

  "Neither do I, but he got caught in it because he's a muppet, so we'll have to let him tag along until this gets sorted. What's your plan?" I asked, not wanting to leave Jake out there. "Hold on." I couldn't focus with him in the hallway. He was too strung-out, too unpredictable, to have him anywhere but where I could see him. Vicky would have to tell me with him in the room.

  I opened the door, saw zero sign of him, then heard a noise in the kitchen.

  "Oh shit," I shouted, as I ran down the hallway, despairing as the air became charged as the gate readied to turn Jake into millions of tiny Jake parts that would not reassemble at the other gate without me holding on to him.

  Man, Penelope would be pissed.

  Despairing

  Vicky came up fast behind me, quick on her feet and unwilling to miss out on anything exciting. With no time to lose, I hurled myself into the kitchen in time to see Jake reach a hand out toward the faint shimmering that signified the gate was ready to take him places he really didn't want to go.

  I shouted, "No," and as he turned, eyes wide with shock, he stumbled forward and went headfirst through the portal. I lunged for him and grabbed hold of his trailing left hand just as I felt Vicky grab hold of my ankle. Goddamn but this woman was persistent.

  A millisecond of overwhelming, unbearable pain enveloped me in its familiar and somehow comforting embrace and then we were through, landing in a heap on the floor in the small back room of the barn. I sprang up, worried Jake's idiocy would have caused him to be a mound of messy goop and I might be next, but no, he was there, splayed out on the flagstones, looking all kinds of freaked out.

  "Let go of my bloody leg," I hissed at Vicky who was on her knees but clutching my ankle tightly.

  "Sorry," she said sheepishly then got up and brushed herself down.

  We stared at the pathetic sight of a man called Jake who'd fallen about as low as a guy could fall and I felt nothing but annoyed.

  "Why don't you take some fucking responsibility for yourself?" I snarled, a sudden anger almost overwhelming me.

  "What the fuck? What's your problem? What was that thing? What happened?" Jake clambered unsteadily to his feet and then let his arms hang limp by his sides.

  "Look at you. You are pathetic. A mess. You stink, your clothes are filthy, you haven't even washed after being kidnapped. You're half high but your skin's crawling for another fix, your hair is disgusting, you don't have your own place to live, your girl left because you would sell her out for a hit, and the one person who still cares for you, Penelope, well, you'd have let her get beaten or raped to save your own hide. You're a sorry excuse for a man. Get a grip."

  "Arthur, that's going too far," warned Vicky.

  "No, it's not," I snapped. "He needs to grow up. Let me tell you something, Jake." I got right up in his face, unable to stop the angry words spewing forth. "The world doesn't owe you anything. The world doesn't give a shit about you. You feel sorry for yourself, you cheat others, you take, take, take and never give back. You ruin people's lives, then wonder why you can't hold on to your girlfriend or a job or find a way out of this mess when you've been offered help repeatedly."

  "It's the drugs, man, I can't get out from under them."

  "Bollocks. You can if you want to. You just have to do it. Not try, but do it. Give up, or get it under control. People take heroin and hold down jobs. And do you know how? No, of course you don't. It's because they get a grip and decide what's most important. People are alcoholics and still manage to function, have regular lives until the curtains are drawn at night and they sink into a misery of their own choosing, but they get on with it. And what they don't do is drag everyone else down. You can give up, you can get a handle on it, whatever, but do something."

  "That's enough," Vicky warned again. "Where did all that come from?"

  "It annoys me is all. Look at him. Look at yourself, Jake." Jake frowned and stared down at his skinny, sick frame. "A mess, right?" Jake nodded. "So get it together. I know that means nothing, hollow words. Do it for yourself, nobody else. There's more to life and you're wasting it. You'll be dead soon, trust me on that. Everyone dies, and now you know about the book you know what happens. Do you really want to stand on the shores of the lake and when your life is weighed up all that Death says is, 'Was that it? You didn't actually do anything?' And you'll mumble and nod and then, game over."

  "You're right, I know. I'm useless."

  "Only because you want to be. Do something. Make it not a total waste of skin and bone."

  I'd had enough so I wandered out into the main barn and wonder
ed why I'd bothered saying anything. I didn't like the guy and got the impression that even underneath the drug hold he wasn't any better, but it made me so damn angry.

  Why?

  Because he reminded me of myself. That I was once in a mess like him, and I got out. Why couldn't he? Because we were all different, nobody had the same life, and I shouldn't expect him to be like me. Still, it rankled, and I guess maybe I wanted to save him. Why? Just because. There doesn't always have to be a deep meaning to everything, although there probably is if I cared to delve deep enough to discover it.

  Jake and Vicky came through a few minutes later and for a while there was silence, just us standing in a barn in the middle of the Cornish countryside, none of us knowing what to say or do.

  Eventually I said, "Sorry. It's your life, you do what you want. I shouldn't have said what I did and it isn't my place to interfere. You'll do what you want, same as always."

  "No, you're right. I needed that, man, a kick up the arse. I'm a mess, always have been. I don't even think I'm a nice guy, but I'm gonna try to be. Get cleaned up, sort myself out."

  "Good for you," said Vicky, voice sincere.

  I grunted. I'd heard it, and seen it, all a million times before. Time would tell, not words spoken by a stoned waster.

  Back and Forth

  "Okay, enough of this nonsense. We have things to do and we need to do them now."

  "You have a plan?" Vicky rubbed her hands together and got that glint in her eye.

  "I have the rudimentary beginnings of a thought that may or may not ever become a plan, but it's all we have. And it begins with getting out of here."

  "Where to?" asked Jake. "And where is here and where's the fucking kitchen?"

  "I'll show you." With that, I took Vicky's hand gently, Jake's not as gently, and walked them back to the gate. Before Jake could back away as his eyes widened in fear, I stepped through dragging them both with me.

  We emerged in the kitchen. Everything looked the same; everything was the same. But I wasn't the same.

  I released them both and sat on a chair at the small, Formica-topped table in the cramped space.

  "Wow, that was like, utterly awesome. Is it a portal, like from The Fly? Hey, I haven't got a bug stuck inside me that'll turn me into a weird creature, have I?"

  "Probably," I mumbled, not even enjoying winding him up.

  "What!? Haha, seriously. Um, I haven't, have I?"

  "No. Chill out."

  "Arthur?" Vicky sat beside me and our eyes met.

  "What?"

  "This plan? It isn't you giving up is it?"

  "There's no other choice. I have to go back, do my duty. I can't let everyone down, all those people. I have to do this. Don't worry, I'll be gone one minute, back the next. You won't even know I've been away. Um, not for long anyway. Do me a favor, don't tell George and Penelope, they'll only worry. You did it for me yesterday. Wow, was that really only yesterday? Do it again. Keep quiet and I'll be back in a jiffy."

  "You can't," she wailed, grabbing my hands and holding them tight, not that I'd made a move yet. "What if something goes wrong? What if you can't make it back? What if... Oh, I don't know, anything could happen."

  "I have to. Gavin will catch up with me soon. The dark wizards will find us and the book, and they mustn't get it, and everyone's stuck in limbo. I have to do this. I sure as shit don't want to, but I have to.

  "No, you don't," said Jake. "I wasn't joking when I said I'd do it. This is my chance at redemption, of a sort anyway. Look, guys, this is all way over my head and I'm not even sure if I'm tripping, but I'll do it. I can help, be of use, like I said, so I'll do it."

  "Jake, it's nice of you to offer, and part of me is tempted, it really is, but like you said, you don't even know if you're tripping. You don't know what you're agreeing to and you don't know what will happen. Much as I'm loath to say this, but I don't want to inflict this on you. It'll drive you nuts, I mean literally, and then you'll return and never be the same again."

  "And the downside is what?" Jake spread his hands wide, as if to show himself to us. We all knew how crap he looked, that he was near to skeletal and his body was sick. "I don't want to be the same ever again. I can do this. I want to do this. I need this."

  "No, you don't. You need to take care of yourself, get well, not lose your mind to the truth behind this facade we call reality. You aren't stable enough to handle it, it will destroy you. Time is screwed there, it'll be millennia but no time at all. You will deal with dead children and dead old people, see the true horror of the human heart."

  "And the beauty of it too," said Vicky. "All the good people do, all the kind things they are capable of. See that most people are nice."

  "Yeah, that too," I muttered, wondering if my coffee was still warm. Buoyed by the thought, I shuffled off into the living room, feeling beaten down and defeated by the sheer magnitude of it all. I picked up my mug and drank. Still warm. Maybe the gods liked me after all.

  Then the house began to fall apart around me, or at least felt like it as windows rattled, walls vibrated, and plaster fell from cracks in the ceiling as a darkness spread and my mind was clouded with visions of otherworldly nastiness.

  I screamed, clutched at my temples, and prayed it would be quick.

  I yanked the book out of the bag, a strange comforter, and found it vibrating madly in my hands. It grew fat then thin, as heavy as a truck then light as a feather. The leather shone then was as dark as my soul, and then it was ethereal, and so was I. My body attuned to the book's vibrations and we became nothing but spectral energy.

  Ah well, it was a good life, I had no regrets. Okay, I had about a zillion, but what's life without regret? Proves you've done stuff, right?

  I readied to shake off this mortal coil and go be the man on the other side for a few thousand years.

  Shame I didn't get to kiss Penelope one more time. That was the only true regret I had.

  Two's Company

  I backed up to the wall, then sank in a little as I lost solidity. I froze, unsure what to do, what was happening, knowing my time had come and one way or another the universe was putting right this wrong.

  The book and I vibrated in unison now, one and the same, linked by time and space, life and death, want and need, and the anguish of a million desperate souls.

  The windows blew out, which was weird, and I watched, hardly surprised, as the exterior wall went the same way. Where once was the front of my house, now was a pile of bricks in the tiny garden. A cool breeze ruffled my hair where it hung loose under Grace, and I smiled at the tickle of it dancing across my face before it kicked up a storm and brick and mortar dust made me squint and my eyes water.

  "Arthur, what's happening?" shouted Vicky as her and Jake came barging into the room only to pull up short when they saw the state of the house and probably the state of me too.

  "It's time. No going back now, no time to do anything."

  "No, you can't. Don't do it."

  "No choice."

  "Um, look after yourself, and see you soon?"

  "I hope so."

  "No way. I'm doing it," said Jake, and he ran forward then grabbed my arm, trying to prize the book from my fingers.

  I gripped tighter, but I needn't have bothered because he hardly touched me and his fingers sank halfway though muscle and bone as if it were water.

  Was this the right thing to do? Should I fight this? What if it all went wrong? What if there was another way? What if I stuck to my guns? Maybe a real figure of Death would materialize if humans didn't assume the role.

  Yeah, they might. They might not.

  I readied as I became little more than light, felt the chill emptiness of the other side grip hold and drag me and the book through the gap between realities. Already life felt more empty, less emotional, and I found that I no longer cared or worried about my fate, merely accepted it with an empty acknowledgment, resigned and bored already with the endless repetition of dealing with the dead.<
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  And then some dude wearing black came marching through the dust, right though my front wall. His cape billowed out dramatically behind him, the red silk lining a lovely contrast to the dark material. His cowl was thrown back revealing a shaved head covered in intricate tattoos and his eyes were pure black, no whites at all.

  Joy. A new kid on the block to screw with things.

  Black tendrils of malevolent magic spread out from his outstretched fingers as he wiggled them in what I assumed he considered a menacing and intimidating manner—I thought it made him look like he was playing invisible keyboards. He grinned evilly as he spied me and the book.

  "At last," he said with a throaty sigh, almost drooling.

  "Sorry, dude, I'm not accepting visitors today. Got things on."

  "Ah, the wizard," he said, grinning even wider, like he was looking forward to a confrontation as much as getting his hands on the most valuable book in existence.

  "Yes, the wizard. I'm busy, bugger off."

  The man glanced at Vicky and Jake then dismissed them as no threat. He advanced cautiously though, his magic preceding him, the wispy black fingers stretching forward to touch the book tentatively. I had nowhere to go, not in this world anyway, and merely prayed it would happen fast. That I'd be gone before he could get his real hands on the book. I wasn't worried about Vicky, he'd leave once he didn't get what he came for. If not, she'd talk him close to death, then he'd leave gratefully.

  And as for Jake, well, I didn't like him that much.

  The other side called to me, dragged me away whether I was certain of this or not. Hell, I hadn't been certain of much in my life, definitely not this. But now there was another reason to be gone and quickly. This damn dark arts practitioner wanted the book and he would do what he could to wrestle it away before I vanished with it. But my magical defenses were down, unable to conjure up so much as a spark. Wand was now a useless stick taking space in my pocket, and I felt as wooden.