Dead Reign

by T. A. Pratt

  Pelham was behind Booth, though, and he didn’t hesitate, just grabbed the man’s gun arm and kicked the back of his knee. Booth dropped, and Marla crowed, but of course Booth didn’t feel pain, so he turned his fall into a spin, pointed the gun up at Pelham, and fired. The angle of the shot was steep, and for a moment Marla thought the bullet had missed, or maybe just grazed Pelham, but then he widened his eyes. “Ms. Mason,” he said. “Marla. I’m shot.” Then he sagged against the wall and slumped down.

  Marla started forward, ready to stomp Booth’s face in with her boot, but the dead assassin raised his gun again, muttering something about Rathbone, about people getting in the way of noble acts. As if killing Pelham was noble. Ah, fuck, Pelham. Such a good guy. He’d tried so hard. And she couldn’t even avenge him.

  Booth didn’t fire. He sort of twitched, and then the gun fell from his fingers, and though his lips moved, no sound emerged.

  Marla didn’t bother to question why her attacker had stopped. She rushed to Pelham, thinking, This is Ted all over again, that being in her employ was a good way to get murdered; she was poison, wasn’t she, she was cursed.

  But Pelham was alive. She checked him for wounds, and found a bullet entry on his thigh and an exit wound higher up, but it looked like the slug had missed the femoral artery. Really just a flesh wound, and though she hated to imagine what kind of bacteria lived in the underworld, he would probably be okay. Thank the gods. Pelham’s eyes fluttered. “Am I killed?”

  “No.” Ayres emerged from one of the side rooms. “I am the master of the dead, and you are not dead.”

  Marla picked up Booth’s gun. She wasn’t fond of guns, but in this case, she was prepared to make an exception.

  Ayres prodded Booth with his walking stick. “Are you real, Marla, or another vision sent to torment me? Booth is real—he is dead, and so falls under my sway, and I can confirm his reality, I can—but you, you I can’t tell.”

  “Ayres. What are you doing in Hell?”

  Ayres frowned. “Don’t torment me, demoness. I know this isn’t Hell. I am not dead. Though I smell my own rot, though I look into myself and see no spark of life, I know it is only a delusion, a sickness, and I have learned to overcome the lies my senses tell me. I live. Death has betrayed me, thrown me from his circle, cast this illusion of the underworld around me, but I do not believe I am dead. I sensed Booth, doubtless sent to torment me, and I made my way to him, through many dark corridors, and I ripped his spirit out.” Ayres tapped his walking stick on the stone floor. “I sent his soul back to its torments, and left this empty husk of a body. Can you believe he tried to kill me? I am the greatest necromancer who ever lived.” Ayres walked a few paces down the corridor, toward the throne room, revealing the horrible wound in the back of his head, caked with dry blood, revealing shattered bone and ravaged brain.

  “Ayres,” Marla said. “Ayres, you’re dead this time, you’re really dead.” He still had his powers over the dead, it seemed, though he was one of them now himself.

  “Nonsense,” Ayres said. “I was cured.”

  Marla decided trying to reason with the dead was a lost cause—and why wasn’t Ayres freaking out at the sight of her? Probably because he didn’t think he was dead, so had no jealousy, or resentment, or rage, just his perpetual annoyance. “Can you get up, Pelly, if you lean on me?”

  “I will try, Ms. Mason.”

  As she helped Pelham to his feet, she said, “Ayres, if Death is torturing you, do you want to help me get back at him?”

  Ayres shrugged. “I suppose deposing him might break the spell of this cursed illusion.”

  “Can you lead me to the throne room?”

  “It’s there. Just there.” He gestured down the hall. “But none of this is real.”

  “That’s fine,” Marla said. “Can I borrow your stick? Pelham could use a crutch.”

  The three of them set off down the corridor, into the flickering torchlit splendor of the throne room. It was a cavern of sorts, the walls seeming to shift from stone to smoke and back again, and torches burned at intervals with pulsing white and yellow light. Vaguely human shapes shimmered in the corners of Marla’s eyes, flitting forms that fluttered like moth wings as they moved. Shades, she thought. Servants of Death.

  There were two thrones: one small, and one large. The larger throne was huge, carved from a single gemstone that seemed to sparkle emerald, ruby, sapphire, and onyx in the firelight. But the throne was not empty. A man sat there, pale as ice, with a neat black beard and eyes like the blue part of a flame. He leaned forward, smiling, nodding. “Welcome, visitors to my realm,” he said. “I am the Sitting Death.”

  Back in his old familiar Hell, John Wilkes Booth leapt from the balcony of Ford’s Theatre, landing on the stage awkwardly, but in the thrill of the moment, he barely felt the impact. Sometimes when he jumped he broke his leg, and had to make his escape in agony. Other times, like this time, he was unharmed by the leap, but would later claim in his diary that he’d broken his leg, because it made a better story. He shouted “Sic semper tyrannis!” this time—other times he shouted “The South is avenged!”—and set off through the backstage area of the theater he knew so well, pursued by Major Henry Rathbone and others. Booth wanted desperately to turn and face his attackers, to make a last stand, to avoid the scenario he’d endured so many times, but he could not; he had to play the part, of course, to the bitter end. In his real life, his original life, Booth had not been cornered in a barn, had not been surrounded and burned out—oh, no, he’d faked his death, escaped to the West, lived many years. Though, he’d been forced to keep his identity a secret, telling only one man the truth—a lawyer who later had him mummified, and took his body on the sideshow circuit as a traveling curiosity.

  But here, in Hell, Booth took part in a sort of fictionalized historical drama, living over and over the fate the history books said he had endured. He was pursued. On the run. Treated discourteously. Always hungry, sleeping rough, living in the woods for days on end. Finally cornered in a barn in Virginia, where he was sometimes shot by a man named Boston Corbett, and where he sometimes shot himself. Sometimes his last words were “Useless, useless.” Sometimes he had no last words at all. For twelve miserable days he would be hunted, and in the end, he would die, spinal cord severed by a bullet.

  And then it would start again, with the leap onto the stage. Not even the thrilling moment of shooting Lincoln in the back of the head, of striking a blow for higher ideals and home and God—no, that was denied him. Each time his torment repeated, it was with the leap, falling through space, landing on the stage, never knowing if this time his leg would snap in agony or if he would be all right. At this point, Booth couldn’t even remember whether he’d really broken his leg or not, the first time. Still, he’d almost grown used to it, bored rather than tortured by his fate, until this last reprieve, this brief return to the world, to life, to new and unpredictable events. Now that he was back in the old familiar pattern, it was as if his suffering had begun anew, and he would have wept, and screamed, and cursed Ayres and the Walking Death and even God if he could have, but he could only say his same old lines, with their same old variations.

  Booth leapt. He ran. He died. He leapt.

  Thus, always.

  “Okay,” Marla said. “I’m not too proud to admit when I’m out of my depth. You say you’re the Sitting Death?”

  “I do,” the man—or whatever—on the throne agreed. “I am.” Then he tittered, a high-pitched sound that made Marla’s skin crawl. He was certainly regal in his way, but one of his eyes was drooping, as if he’d had a stroke, and his mouth twitched as he smiled. He gripped the arms of his throne as if he thought he was in danger of falling off, and Marla could see the places where his clenched fingers had actually cracked the precious stone. There was something wrong with him. The room smelled not of dust, as the hallway had, but faintly of sewage, corpse flowers, drying blood.

  “Don’t believe him, Marla,” Ayres said.
“He looks like the old Death, but he is dead and gone, replaced by the Walking Death, and this is all mere illusion.”

  The Sitting Death squinted at Ayres for a moment. A little trickle of blood ran from the Sitting Death’s right ear and dripped, adding to a crusted stain on his shoulder. “I know you, shade. I knew you when you were alive, I think. And…you have power over the dead? I did not grant you that power. It is too much for a mortal.” He gestured, and Ayres staggered and almost fell. Could dead people break their hips? Probably not.

  Ayres sat down on the stone floor and began to weep into his hands, and Pelham started toward him, perhaps to comfort him, then stopped. Marla was glad. Ayres might have helped her out a tiny bit in the past few minutes, but he still didn’t deserve any comfort.

  “He is dead, but you are alive,” the Sitting Death said. “Living people almost never reach my throne room.” He leaned forward and sniffed, loudly, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. “I smell deaths on you. You’ve sent men and women to my realm. Well, well. Well done, very well done.” He opened his eyes. “I will hear your petition.”

  “My petition?” Marla stepped around Ayres, a little closer to the being on the throne. His skin was pale, like stone, and now that she looked, there were tiny cracks in his face, as if he were a statue that was starting to crumble. “Look, a guy calling himself the Walking Death came to my city. He banished me and took over. I came here to give him a taste of his own medicine, to usurp his throne. But now you’re sitting in the chair I came to take.” She drew her knife. “Maybe you’d better think about getting up.”

  The Sitting Death squinted. The cavern walls shifted and groaned, and stone dust sifted down from the ceiling. “That knife,” he said after a moment. “I lost it, to a sorcerer, in a game, long ago. Hmm. The Walking Death, you say? I wondered what he’d gotten up to since I sent him away. My son, I suppose, or close enough. I’m sorry if he’s caused you inconvenience. That sort of behavior is just the reason I can’t, in good conscience, retire and let him take over.” He tittered again.

  Marla sheathed her knife. “So that’s it. You’re supposed to move on, and make way for the new blood, but you refuse to give up your seat, because…what?”

  The Sitting Death smiled. His teeth had fine cracks, too. “I don’t answer to mortals, but you made it all the way here, you impress me—yes, you do, no one’s made it this far in ages—and tradition says if you make it here I should extend every courtesy, so…yes. There are seasons in Hell, and my season is, technically, at an end. But you’ve met the Walking Death, as he styles himself. He is vain, egotistical, irrational, impulsive….” He shrugged, and the throne room groaned again. “Not fit to rule this realm. And when the time came for me to shuffle away into whatever waits beyond this world for my kind, I resisted. I refused to give up my chair. I clung. The Walking Death attempted to oust me, but he couldn’t hurt me—I’m too old, I’m too smart, and I’m sitting in the seat of power. You rule a city, Marla Mason, don’t you? Would you give up your position to some intemperate upstart?” Now his droopy eye was twitching, in counterpoint to his mouth.

  “I didn’t realize this was optional for you. I thought it was like gravity, or inertia, a law of nature. A rule. I thought you guys had to follow rules?” Breaking the rules seemed to be taking a terrible toll on the Sitting Death. He was going crazy, falling apart, and his realm was showing wear, too. What happened if Death went totally mad? Would things stop dying? Or would everything die at once? Would Hell disgorge the dead onto Earth again? Or something even stranger?

  “If I rise from this chair, I abdicate, yes,” the Sitting Death said. “But I have not moved from my throne. Nor will I. And I won’t be forced. The Walking Death can’t make me. He has some support in the outer fringes of my realm, perhaps a few informants scattered here and there, and he’s created some creatures to follow him, but without possession of the throne, he can’t really challenge me.”

  Pelham came up beside her, leaned close, and whispered in her ear, “The dagger, Ms. Mason.”

  Exactly. “Your boy, Death Junior, he didn’t pick my city at random. He came because he wanted my knife, and he’s holding my city hostage until I give it to him. I didn’t understand why before. But now I think maybe I do. So what do you think, Sitting Death? Should I go give my blade to him? Take my city back, and let him do…whatever he needs to?”

  The Sitting Death was very still. The flittering shades stopped flittering, and Marla got her first good look at them, alabaster women in white garments, very clichéd. Or maybe that was just the way she perceived them.

  Then the Sitting Death sighed, and glanced to his right, where the smaller throne, carved of turquoise, sat dusty and empty. “The king of death traditionally has a queen, did you know that? She has certain token responsibilities, having to do with the seasons, mostly. They’re ceremonial—the queen doesn’t have to do anything, she just has to exist. Each new incarnation of Death goes walking in the world until he finds a mortal woman to take as a bride. She gets immortality, of a sort, and other powers.” He got a faraway look in his eyes, and the shades all withdrew, as if his expression heralded some disaster.

  “Sexist bullshit,” Marla said. “There’s never a Lady Death?”

  “You might be surprised,” the Sitting Death said, and Marla supposed that was possible. “But my bride chose to go on to the next world, when our son…emerged. She didn’t agree with my decision to retain control. She called me a number of cruel names, actually. Told me I was mad. And why? For wanting to preserve what I’ve built? But I didn’t start to fall apart until she left.” He shivered, and gripped the throne, and it cracked a little more. He was squeezing hard enough to splinter diamond. “I miss her. But Marla, my bride was wrong. I am a good leader. I am wise. I am not cruel. I believe in balance. I do not torment the dead beyond whatever torments they devise for themselves. Do you understand? The Walking Death delights in cruelty. He is vile. He is like I was when I first awoke from the dark and took my place on this throne. I remember the depths of my own viciousness. I won’t let such dark days come again.”

  The rebel becomes the establishment, always, inevitably. People in power come to believe their power is deserved, and not just a quirk of luck, and they convince themselves that power equals wisdom. This guy was violating the laws of the universe because he thought he knew better, and who knew what the ultimate consequences would be? The scary thing was, Marla could see where he was coming from. She didn’t think there was anybody more qualified to run Felport than herself. But as nasty as the Walking Death was, this was supposed to be his throne, his realm, and if he were here, he wouldn’t be aboveground, fucking with her city. “Listen, this is nice, but I’m going to take off. I’ll miss the knife, but at least now I know what the fuck is going on. He’s not messing with Felport just because he’s bored, or because he’s pissed that some mortal has his family heirloom. It’s about his life and his future and his place in the world. I can respect that. If the Walking Death gets this dagger, he can come back here and kill you, can’t he? It will transform into a sword in his hand, a terrible sword, and I’ve heard about that sword. It can slice out hope. Carve up dreams. Even kill Death. It won’t work in my hands—I’m only human—but if I give the dagger to the Walking Death, you’re lunch meat, am I right?”

  “Don’t threaten me.” His voice was a cold wind.

  “You’re supposed to extend me every courtesy, right? Then give me the courtesy of an elevator back to the world of the living.”

  The Sitting Death laughed—not a creepy titter, just a laugh. “Oh, you’re wonderful, Marla Mason. I wish you’d been alive when I first went looking for a wife. You’re as sharp as my bride was. I didn’t go looking for her, you know. In all my travels, I never found a suitable wife, but my bride fought her way down through the underworld to ask for a boon, and I fell in love with her straightaway.”

  “What boon did your wife ask for?” Marla asked, genuinely curious.


  The Sitting Death’s face changed. All the liveliness and vigor he’d just shown drained away, and his expression was like the abyss staring back, all emptiness and void. “I don’t remember,” he almost whispered. “When she left, when she moved on, I lost so much, so much of her…I only remember that I miss her.” He shook his head, looked at Marla, and began to nod. “Perhaps we can make an arrangement. I think we can each provide something the other needs.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Good. Good. Marla Mason, will you consent to be my bride?”

  Marla blinked. “Why the hell would I want to marry you? So I can be first lady of Dustville here?”

  “Because if you marry me, you would heal me, I think, and help stabilize things. I might be able to stand up from this chair again in a few years, if you were seated in your throne beside me.”

  “Bully for you. What’s in it for me?”

  “If you became my bride, you would be something like a god,” he said, sounding saner than he had before. “And your dagger of office would transform into the terrible sword of Death in your hand, and you could use it to return home and slay the Walking Death.”

  After Marla’s initial shock, and her understanding of what he was really offering, and why, they negotiated. It took hours, but they finally agreed to terms.

  Two pale shades of women emerged and erected a screen of some dark substance that looked like woven smoke, and—though she was no more modest than an alley cat—Marla went behind it. The shades presented her with a pale gray wedding dress and tried to strip her, but she shooed them away and said Pelham would help her dress.

  Pelham assisted her with the spiderwebs and moonbeams and dust—it itched, of course it fucking itched—and murmured congratulations. “It’s not how I imagined ever being proposed to,” she said. “Back when I was, oh, ten years old, and occasionally imagined such things.”