by KJ Harlow
Death was sitting in his tall arm chair, fidgeting with his fountain pen distractedly. He looked at me and waved, forcing a smile. Agatha was sitting in the other armchair, her scowl indicating that there was no love lost between us despite her earlier care for me. Walter was staring into the fireplace, slightly stooped over with his hands meeting in the small of his back.
I looked down and shifted the weight between my feet uncomfortably. Looks like I hadn’t chosen the best time to make myself known.
Walter abruptly turned on his heel and walked towards me. He looked down at me, his face dark and unreadable. It seemed like he wanted to tell me something but didn’t know how to phrase it. Finally, it appeared he made up his mind.
“Good to have you back,” he said, his eyes crinkling with warmth. With that, he excused himself and exited through the door which I came, closing it louder than anyone in the room would have liked.
“Sorry you had to witness that, Rose.” Death exhaled. He put his pen down and stood up, moving around his table to stand in front of me. I looked up at him. The fire caught highlighted his bronze-flecked eyes. He looked tired, or at least, as tired as an angel could look. I guess being Death was a pretty exhausting job.
“Is there a connection between Walter and Mortimer?” I asked Death.
“It’s of no concern to you,” Agatha snapped from behind the arm chair, her words razor sharp.
“You don’t have to worry about Walter,” Death said gently. “What’s more important is how you are.” Death wasn’t very subtle about his change in topic, but I wasn’t in the mood to take on Agatha now.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “The mission is complete,” I said stiffly. The fire crackled merrily, unaware of the tension that was in the room.
“Yes, you did well. I did see when you rid your first Conflicted. It’s funny how easy it becomes after that,” Death said, smiling fondly. I remembered seeing his Lucent Gun on his desk when I first met him. I wondered how often he would have to use that as the Angel of Death.
“How is everyone? How is Tracy? Tor? Greg and Silas?” I demanded, the names of my comrades spilling out of my mouth.
“Silas was a bit shaken up by his experience, but he has already recovered,” Agatha said without a hint of warmth. “The other three are also well. They are all resting now.”
It wasn’t really the answer I wanted to hear, but it would have to do for now. Knowing that they were all safe was all that mattered. My eyes glazed over as now I looked into the fireplace. My mind was replaying the confrontation in the operating room. I could see – feel – my gun discharge as Dante pulled the trigger on himself, his hands on mine and on my Lucent gun. My confusion surged up anew as I remembered Stan’s despairing face from the viewing room.
“Dante…” I said, letting the leader of the Tormented’s name hang ominously in the air. I didn’t know what I wanted to ask. Death visibly stiffened. Agatha rose from the arm chair and glided over to stand next to Death. She had a displeased expression on her face as if I had just cursed in front of her.
“Yes, that’s who you saw,” Agatha said in a clipped tone. “What were you thinking raising your gun at him?” I knew that I would be asked about this eventually. My mind tried to come up with an adequate excuse, but I felt compelled to tell the truth.
“I had to rescue Stan,” I said turning Agatha, eyes blazing defiantly.
“You jeopardized the mission,” Agatha retorted sharply, “not to mention the lives of your fellow Deliverers. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I would do it again,” I yelled without thinking.
“Stan will become a Tormented and there’s nothing you can do about it!” Agatha screeched.
I was shaking with anger. Before I could even think, my Lucent Gun in hand and pointed straight at Agatha’s head. Lightning flashed behind her eyes as we stared each other down.
“Enough!” Death roared. My finger hovered over the trigger, trembling with rage. Agatha looked at me with disdain. I had to get back to the Overworld and rescue Stan. I couldn’t do that if I Ceased a Deliverer. Not taking my eyes off my target, I slowly holstered my Lucent Gun. Her lips curled up victoriously.
“People who are power hungry can’t be stopped. It will consume them,” Agatha scorned.
“Sister Burnside, you are dismissed!” Death barked, looking sharply at Agatha. That wiped the smile off her face. She challenged Death’s steady gaze for a few moments before turning on her heel and leaving the room. Death’s eyes followed her until she disappeared. As soon as the door closed Death scowled at me, his anger simmering.
“What did you think you were doing, pointing your weapon at Agatha like that?” Death seethed. His auburn hair seemed to almost glow red in the light of the fireplace.
“Did you know about Stan? Did you know that he was being targeted by the Tormented?” I said, confronting the angel. Death straightened, considering me with a raised eyebrow. He held my gaze as he formulated his answer.
“He was a person of interest, definitely. We didn’t anticipate the Tormented would move so quickly,” he said, finally looking away. “I never lied to you. We thought that Riggs was the main target – and so did they.” He explained. I looked up at Death’s face, searching for the truth. I could see my angry, hurt reflection in his bronze eyes. I relaxed my shoulders and exhaled slowly.
“Mortimer said that his Torment was like ‘a beacon’,” I recalled, looking back into the fireplace.
“Tormented have the ability to detect torment signatures in a particular radius. It’s something that they’ve got on us and allows them to get to potential hostages first,” Death explained, shadows licking his face as he stared into the flames. There was a loud pop from the fireplace. Embers rose and fluttered up, disintegrating in front of us.
“Death,” I asked hesitatingly. “I know that the plan has changed since I became a Deliverer. Do you think that Stan can be rescued?” I said, trying to mask the hopeful tone in my voice. Death turned to me and put his hands on my shoulders. His hands were powerful and comforting.
“I’m not going to lie to you Rose, it’s not going to be easy,” Death sighed. “As much as we can see, there are some things we can’t. Stan getting involved in all of this is one of those things.” He took his hands off my shoulders and started walking back towards his arm chair. “We are now tracking the whereabouts of Mortimer, Dante and Stan. We’ll let you know when we find a location.” There was a knock at the door.
“Come in.” Death said, while still looking at me. A familiar face tentatively poked their bespectacled face through the door.
“Silas!” I exclaimed. Silas turned to me and gave me half a smile. “Death, may I borrow Rose for a moment?” Silas said, swiveling his head back at our boss.
“You may,” Death said, concentrating on some papers on his desk and waving at me dismissively. I started walking towards the door separating Death’s office from the control room. I stopped as I remembered the message I was told to pass on.
“Death,” he looked up from his work, eyebrow raised again. “Dante says ‘hi’,” I said, a hint of a smile appearing as I saw the grip tighten on his fountain pen.
“Before you say anything, it’s OK,” Silas said, catching me just as I was about to ask about the extent of his injuries.
My eyes traveled down to his leg where he had been stabbed by the Conflicted. “When you get injured in the Overworld, what happens to it when you go back to the Underworld?” I asked curiously.
“The soul feels pain the same whether it be down here or up there,” Silas explained. He was trying to hide it, but I could see him wincing slightly. “There are advantages though. We don’t bleed when we come back down here and we heal relatively quickly,” my mind leaped back to Agatha leading me to her chamber and applying the healing balm on my forehead. I felt a sudden pang of guilt for pointing the gun at her before.
We were weaving through the workers, who were moving out of the way to let us p
ass. It seemed like we were making a beeline towards the meeting room.
“How did the Conflicted know that we were watching them from the apartment?” I asked Silas.
He cast his gaze up to the big screen to our left. I could see security footage reflecting in his glasses.
“We still don’t know,” Silas said, shrugging his shoulders. “They seemed to be pretty prepared for us this time around.”
“Do we have a mole?” I whispered conspiratorially. “You know, someone who’s leaking information to the Tormented?” Silas smiled at me the same way that someone would smile at a dog chasing its tail for the first time.
“I doubt it,” he said blandly. We had arrived at the meeting room. Silas placed his open hand on the glass door.
“So what are we doing now?” I asked Silas as the glass started to disappear.
“We’re having our Regroup.” I was just about to ask him what a Regroup was when I found myself standing toe to toe with Agatha. She looked at me in distaste before turning her attention to Silas. I took my place next to Tracy who smiled dimly at me. I hooked my right arm around hers and lay my head on her shoulder affectionately. Greg and Walter were pointing at a map and talking animatedly while Tor looked on solemnly.
As Silas and Agatha took their seats and Walter commenced the Regroup, I thought of Stan. Was he seriously Tormented material? What if he was turned? Would I be strong enough to Cease him? No. It wasn’t going to happen. We would go back and save him. No one would stop me. Agatha’s cold eyes met mine across the table.
No one.
Fifteen
“Deliverers welcome. Following on from the failure of our last mission, we were immediately given a new mission: rescue a couple of our own.” Walter announced, sweeping his gaze to Tor and Greg’s direction. “I am pleased to say that our mission was a success even if there were… complications along the way,” he said, avoiding looking in my direction.
“I have called this Regroup so that as a team we can look at what we did well, what we can improve on, as well as important information to help us in our future fights against the Tormented. We have three items on the agenda today: the sighting of the young, female Tormented in the hospital and the revelation that Stan Butcher is currently being held captive by the Tormented with the intention to turn him. Finally, we are going to examine our information sharing protocol for any potential leaks that may be happening. Are there any questions?”
An uncomfortable silence hung in the air at the mention of this last point. It was the elephant in the room: was there a traitor from within the Deliverers supplying information to the Tormented?
“Then let’s just straight into it. Rose and Tracy were moving through the hospital when they came upon a previously unsighted Tormented. I’ll let the girls take it from here,” Walter sat down and gestured to us to stand. Tracy and I exchanged looks and both stood up. I noticed that even without a heart down in the Underworld, I still felt nervous speaking in front of groups. Thankfully Tracy began.
“We were first alerted to the presence of a young girl from the sound of her laughter,” Tracy said steadily. “It came from the cafeteria, so went there to investigate.” She paused here, frowning as she tried to remember what happened next. I piped up the courage to talk.
“She said that we were wrong about who came through the last room. We thought it was Riggs,” I blanched when I connected two and two together; the Tormented must have pulled Stan through the last room to the operating theaters.
“Rose, are you OK?” Walter prompted gently. I recovered and continued.
“Tracy kept talking to her so that we could ascertain her location from within the cafeteria. It was there that she fired at us.”
“I shoved Rose out of the way and made myself the target. She was walking on some beams close to the ceiling, shooting down at us. I would know an Ombre Gun from anywhere,” Tracy said, a shadow crossing over her pretty face momentarily before she smiled at me. “Rose decided that was the right time to start using her gun and distracted the little girl so that I could disable her.”
Everyone was watching the two of us except Tor, who stared blankly at the table. He knew what was coming.
“She fell about 25 feet and very quickly was on her feet again – further proof that she was a Tormented.” Tracy said solemnly.
“Were you able to get any information as to the identity of this new Tormented?” Walter said urgently.
Tracy and I both looked in Tor’s direction. His eyes were still fixed on an invisible spot on the table, doing his best to ignore us.
“She said to ask Tor,” Tracy said quietly.
Four more pairs of Deliverer’s eyes turned to Tor.
As I waited for Tor to respond, I remembered what the Tormented had asked me.
What is he to you?
Tor was a colleague. He was a bit of an asshole sure, but every organization has their assholes. But if he was just a colleague, why did I care what she was to him? Why did I feel anxious for him now? I bit my tongue in self-admonishment.
Slowly Tor stood up. He straightened his back and exhaled slowly. He kept his eyes focused on a distant spot, now on the wall behind me.
“Her name is Matylda,” he said monotonously. The room was quiet. Was he going to say anything else? “She was… we grew up together,” he said. “I thought she had died.”
“Well, she is… but she’s a Tormented now.” Walter said, looking carefully at Tor. Hearing those words seemed to break something inside him.
“I surrendered our weapons to her,” Tor confessed without a hint of remorse. Greg fidgeted nervously. What position must he have been in if Tor had just done that in front of him? The room seemed to freeze over. It looked like everyone had the wind knocked out of them.
“You did what?” Walter said in astonishment. My eyes darted between Tor and Walter. I guess it was a big deal to surrender not only our weapon but our escape route back to the Underworld to the Tormented, but did it really warrant this response? I looked at Tracy, who opened her hand under the table, spreading her fingers.
“Five.” she mouthed. Five? Was this Rule Number Five?
“I am going to train,” Tor said abruptly. Before anyone to stop him, he had put his hand on the glass and had left the room. Walter started to get up when Agatha quickly put her hand on his shoulder.
“Leave him be, Walter. This is obviously distressing for him. We’ll speak with him later.” Walter looked torn but slowly sat back down.
“Well then, I guess we’ll move on to our next topic.” Walter had quickly regained his composure and turned his eyes to me. “We have ourselves a potential new Tormented that Rose can tell us more about.”
Walter really didn’t mince his words. Tracy gave my hand a quick squeeze and a nod of encouragement. I stood.
“First of all, I didn’t surrender my weapon to the Tormented.” I was usually terrible at humor, but this response elicited laughs from Walter and Greg and smiles from everyone else sitting at the table. The frostiness of the room thawed somewhat. I took a deep breath and exhaled.
“Stan was – is – my boyfriend from the Overworld.” A slight tremor crept into my voice when I said ‘boyfriend’. I wouldn’t run from this. If I wanted to rescue Stan, I needed all the help that I could get. I needed to tell them the whole story. I swallowed.
“We had been dating for about six months before we moved in together.” I smiled fondly at the memory. “We spent a lot of time apart because of our jobs, but we were determined to make it work.” Everyone was now watching me. Looking at the now familiar faces, I realized I felt a sense of kinship with them – even Agatha. I continued.
“I was doing some overtime one night when Stan started sending me some texts,” I frowned as I tried to remember what they said. “He said that he wanted to tell me something important and that we ‘couldn’t go on like this’.”
“Did he want to break up with you?” Tracy asked breathlessly. I stared at the wall wher
e Tor had sat.
“I’m not sure. That crossed my mind, but I don’t know. Soon after, I was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mortimer turned me into a Conflicted and Tor,” I gestured at the empty spot at the table, “then Rid me, sending me down here. Death did the rest.” I finished, smiling.
“Was Stan behaving strangely leading up the day that he sent you those messages?” Agatha probed. I met her gaze, scanning her face to see if she was trying to get under my skin.
“No,” I said, plainly. “At least, nothing that I could sense.” Memories of Stan and I started filtering back into my mind. Us having ice cream by the docks, me laughing and cleaning up seagull poop that landed on his shoulder while we strolled on the beach, us huddled under a blanket watching Netflix… I felt the tears threatening to spill.
“Dante told Stan that he would give him the power to kill whoever killed me,” I said, recovering my composure. “They are using him and whatever’s tormenting him for their own purposes.” My mind went back to the operating theater. Dante wouldn’t have told Stan that Mortimer killed me. That didn’t make any sense. Was he looking at someone else?
“Tell me, Rose, what did you think of Dante when you met him?” Walter asked, looking at me intently.
Surprised at the sudden question, I became silent. I conjured up Dante in my mind. I replayed our final interaction, feeling his hands cupping mine, his pressure on my finger as he pulled the trigger on himself.
“Not evil – at least not in the traditional sense,” I said. “Mortimer feels evil. He’s just got his overall bad guy vibe about him – and not in a good way.” I said, smirking down at Tracy who I knew would be giggling. “He almost felt… friendly?” I said, gesticulating helplessly in the air.
Walter’s eyes were piercing into me as if checking the validity of my statement. Did I say something that set off some alarm bells? Did he think I was the traitor within the Deliverers? I was the newest one. He smiled but this time, it didn’t reach his eyes.
