His Name Was Death (Dead Man's Tale Book 1)

by J. Eric Hance

  At Karen’s insistence, I’d been driving it since I took her to the hospital.

  She didn’t need to insist much.

  If Dad were still alive, he’d be green with envy.

  Sliding into the driver’s side felt like pulling on a glove. Everything fit perfectly, as if the car were made for me. I hadn’t adjusted anything; there was no need.

  And each time I felt a little guilt over delighting in a missing man’s pride and joy, a tap of the accelerator washed it all away.

  He was probably in Cancun anyway, having a much better evening than me.

  I smiled as the engine roared to life. It was time to go home. Tomorrow’s agenda included getting Karen from the hospital and passing Robert’s picture around the airport. It would probably be a good idea to get a picture of his secretary as well, since men notice young, beautiful women much more than other men.

  Before then, though, I needed a good night’s sleep, assuming the nightmares would allow it.

  I turned the wheel, preparing to pull into traffic.

  A rectangle of white fluttered on the windshield, tucked under the driver’s side wiper.

  Annoyed, I killed the engine and stepped out onto the street, tugging an unmarked white envelope away from the glass.

  It was sealed. I ripped it open.

  Inside were two photographs.

  The first picture was of me helping Karen into Robert’s Mustang, about one o’clock this afternoon. We were on our way to the hospital.

  But that wasn’t the disturbing one.

  The second picture was of me, just a few minutes ago, asleep in the bus station.

  Across the bottom of the second picture, the photographer had written, “Back off,” in small red letters.

  My adrenalin kicked into overdrive, and I quickly scanned the street. There were lots of people, but no obvious suspects; no one appeared to watch me, and no one hurried away.

  I’m not a detective like my brother Steve, and I’ve never been a hero. I’d offered to help Karen because I felt sorry for her. I never thought things would turn dangerous.

  Now, though, it seemed likely that the police were wrong and Karen was right. Robert hadn’t just skipped town.

  I swallowed nervously. This was more than I’d bargained for.

  Could I be in real danger?

  It’s a big step from threats to violence, but Robert had been missing for a week, which suggested it was a step the photographer might be willing to take.

  And, as a Reaper, the danger was far more serious…far more permanent.

  The safest thing would be to tell Karen I couldn’t help. Maybe that’s what I should do.

  But then, as a Reaper I also had certain gifts—certain protections. I was never going to be defenseless or unarmed. Now, more than at any time before my death, I was equipped to defend my life.

  And I desperately wanted—even needed—to “choose to do good,” as Emma had said. Otherwise, I was just a poor, helpless schmuck stuck in this life.

  Tomorrow I would be picking Karen up from the hospital. I’d have to make a decision before then.

  A bright white light flashed inside my eyes; the Mustang began to pulse red.

  I’d never been so happy to have someplace else to be.

  XII

  Anger and Regret

  The Sight led me quickly to the First Hill Campus of Swedish Medical Center. Just inside the emergency room entrance, an elderly guard half dozed in a Plexiglas security booth beside a pair of metal detectors. Beyond those, a frazzled-looking nurse at the triage desk was arguing with a Russian man who barely spoke English. The sounds of numerous conversations filled the air—people waiting to be seen.

  I stepped sideways, circumventing the checkpoint entirely.

  It never hurts to be careful.

  Once again, I found myself wrapped in the smooth, silky mantle of my new life…at once both compelling and revolting.

  The pulsing light led me unnoticed past the reception area and emergency room, and then through a series of dimly lit hallways. The halls were nearly abandoned, and those few people I encountered gave no indication of seeing the walking skeleton stalking their halls, though they subconsciously went out of their way not to cross my path.

  A number did shiver as I passed, as if from a sudden chill.

  In a bank near the main lobby, an elevator stood wide, as if awaiting my arrival. Inside, the button for the eighth floor pulsed red. The doors closed as I pushed the button, and the car began to rise.

  The elevator opened into a small foyer between the pediatric and adult ICUs. Roughly thirty people, from late teens to middle age, sat conversing in a large, disorganized group. A few smaller children lay asleep on couches, and several of the adults had clearly spent more than one night in the clothes they wore.

  Furniture was arranged haphazardly, suggesting it had been moved to suit their purposes. A wide variety of discarded grocery store bags and fast food cartons filled the trash cans.

  Many of the people shared similar features—not exactly carbon copies, but rather different renditions from the same artist’s brush. Small groups within the whole continually formed, split and merged. The easy way they spoke, jeered, interacted…this family had clearly been close their entire lives.

  An elderly woman sat at the center of the commotion, the calm eye within the surrounding storm. Her face was etched with decades of laughter, but her haunted look suggested another emotion drove her now. She joined none of the small groups surrounding her, yet with the occasional nod and well-timed phrase, she remained a part of them all.

  Awaiting my red beacon, I moved among them—the watchful matriarch and the tribe that she tended. I listened to their words. The subjects were trivial and varied: weather, sports, the lagging economy. All conversations, though, held a single common thread.

  Dad. Grandpa. Marv.

  My stomach dropped with a sickening lurch.

  The doors leading to the adult ICU lit up with pulsing red light.

  I pulled reluctantly away from the group as they comforted and supported each other, feeling suddenly like an intruder.

  A thief in the night…a murderer on the prowl.

  Scott White had been difficult, but he was a man who’d already given up on life, with nothing left. Karen wanted desperately to live, but she was different as well: a dying woman alone in her apartment.

  Neither had been surrounded by loved ones—a family to be crushed at their demise.

  Crushed by me.

  Locked double doors stood between me and the Intensive Care Unit. Mounted on the wall beside the doors, a large blue button with a cheerful sign asked visitors to ring the buzzer and wait for admittance.

  With what little politeness I could muster, I silently asked the doors to unlock. They responded quickly; in a place like this, visits from Reapers were probably common.

  I threw the doors open savagely as soon as the lock was free. They slammed with a loud crack against the inner walls. My angry grin grew wide at the sound.

  A nurse squeaked at the unexpected impact, running over to investigate what must have appeared to her as a surprisingly violent malfunction.

  I swept past her unnoticed, even when the hem of my duster brushed her ankle. With a furious stride, I chased the bouncing red ball down the hallway.

  Dad. Grandpa. Marv.

  It took only seconds to reach my destination—the first door past the first intersection. A doctor and nurse stepped out of the room as I approached, shaking their heads and talking quietly.

  “He should have been dead three days ago.”

  The nurse nodded, her face pale. “Is there anything I should tell the family?”

  Dad. Grandpa. Marv.

  The doctor sniffed quietly, before shaking his head again. “No, no change. Let him rest a bit, then let them back in.” The doctor sighed. “At this point, death will be a mercy, to him and to the family.”

  I swept in unnoticed behind them.

&nbs
p; An elderly man lay in the room’s only bed; tubes and wires beyond count ran between him and clusters of machines. Even without the Sight, it was clear the machines were breathing for him, pumping his heart, and keeping him alive.

  His aura was barely visible; pitch black, it was the width of a hair.

  My anger evaporated, overridden by the reality of the situation. The Sight showed me that his heart and lungs were shot, full of oily black stain.

  I whispered softly to myself, “Who are you?”

  Black smoke swirled before me, coalescing into the hazy, indistinct form of a nurse. The ghostly apparition read from a clipboard in a tinny voice.

  “The patient is 87 years old; his name is Marvin Adams.”

  Dad. Grandpa. Marv.

  The woman evaporated again into a cloud of black smoke, which itself vanished before the sound of her voice left the air. She’d been on the verge of saying more, but my question was answered.

  “Okay,” I asked again, “why am I here?”

  Images danced before me, brief snippets from the past few days. Doctors, nurses, and family appeared and vanished in flashes of black smoke.

  Mr. Adams was removed from life support two days ago. The doctors expected him to pass quickly. He’d spent nearly twenty-four hours fighting for every breath. Unwilling to let him suffer longer, the family had asked to restore the life-sustaining machines.

  In other words, Mr. Adams simply refused to die. I examined him sadly through my Sight, but there was clearly nothing I could do.

  His time had come.

  “What now?” I asked of no one in particular.

  No images appeared.

  But I knew the answer.

  “Marvin Adams, I would speak with you.”

  My voice was bolstered by my newfound power, with more authority than it had ever had in life. It was the same authority with which I’d summoned Scott White and Karen Winston.

  It was the Authority of the Reaper.

  A man, who should have been dead, sat up at my summons. Of course, that sitting man was only visible in my Sight. To the naked eye, he still lay unconscious in the hospital bed.

  I’ll get used to that someday.

  The soul of Marvin Adams spoke to me. “Call me Marv.”

  Dad. Grandpa. Marv.

  Marv’s eyes were clear and bright, fully aware; they locked on me without a hint of shock, anger or fear.

  To a man in his condition, I suppose, the arrival of Death is no surprise at all.

  I dropped the scythe, which evaporated in the instant of release. I could recall it at a moment’s notice, but for now it was unnecessary. Pulling a stool from the corner of the small room, I settled in at Marv’s bedside. “Do you know why I’m here?”

  The lines around the old man’s eyes crinkled, though the smile never reached his lips. “I suspect it’s because I’m a stubborn old bastard.”

  I nodded, allowing myself a small grin in return. “Your body is lost, the doctors have given up on you, and all that’s left is your agony. Why are you hanging on?”

  The soul’s smile turned bitter. “Don’t suppose your kind marries?”

  I honestly didn’t know.

  My thoughts jumbled, wandering briefly to old memories of Sarah, then newer ones of Michelle.

  He continued after I failed to say anything, taking the silence as sufficient response. “Next week will be seventy years; we were just kids, you know. She moved straight from her folks’ home to mine.” He stared off into space, a tear trickling down his cheek.

  “She’s never been alone.”

  The soul’s tear was mirrored on the cheek of the comatose body.

  “Your wife isn’t alone, Marv. Your family is clustered around her in the lobby. She’ll never be alone.”

  The silence stretched on for minutes, interrupted only by the machines struggling to dull the worst of his physical pain. Whatever thoughts plagued the mind of Marvin Adams, he kept to himself.

  “You aren’t going to wake up. This is all you will ever be. Why drag out your suffering…her suffering?”

  The soul’s head turned slowly to fix his stare on me. His voice cracked when he spoke. “I never said goodbye.”

  The pain in those halting, whispered words nearly broke my heart in two. I laid my hand on the body’s shoulder, hoping the soul could feel the comforting touch. “I will let her know, Marv. Rest now and I’ll tell her.”

  I could almost hear Elliott mewing at my back. No doubt I was breaking multiple rules.

  I didn’t care.

  Tears spilled freely from the eyes of both the soul and the man.

  “Thank you.”

  A bright golden glow suffused the soul as it shrank slowly to a shining point of light. It bobbed briefly before drifting slowly through the ceiling tiles.

  As the soul vanished, so did Marvin Adams’s wisp of an aura.

  Dad. Grandpa. Marv.

  The body shuddered once, uttering a single word with its final breath.

  “Grace.”

  XIII

  The Problem with Promises

  The machines began to cry out, sounding their alarms.

  I doubted the doctors would put much effort into saving poor Marv.

  Not that it would matter.

  Marvin Adams had left the building.

  Voices called outside the room. Several pairs of footsteps came rushing down the hallway. In short order, the limited space would grow disturbingly cramped.

  Pulsing green light flared up around the room’s only door.

  It was time to leave.

  Taking my cue, I slipped out barely a step ahead of the first nurse to arrive. She brushed against the billow of my duster as we both passed through the door, which caused her to stumble. Recovering quickly, she continued into the room as if nothing had happened.

  Elliott was right.

  It’s amazing what people will choose to ignore.

  I passed the same doctor as he walked slowly toward Marv’s room, his expression a mixture of shock and relief.

  The pulsing green lit up the doors to the foyer. No longer in the throes of my angry tantrum, I pushed the plunger and waited patiently. The soft hydraulic whine sounded suspiciously like an expression of relief.

  As the doors opened, over thirty pairs of eyes turned as one to look at me.

  Or, rather, through me.

  The mood in the foyer was subdued. If anything, the ranks of Marv’s family had swelled; they all watched the ICU with expectant apprehension. No one had spoken to them yet, and presumably no one would until the situation was certain.

  The frenzied activity of the staff, though, was unmistakable. Everyone knew that something important was happening beyond these doors.

  As they slowly closed behind me, attentions reluctantly returned to their prior focus. No one seemed engrossed in conversation; absent now was the idle chatter. They were simply passing time.

  Green light flared to life around the elevators. My unknown dispatcher wanted a quick and clean escape. Nothing blocked my route. It would be a simple matter to slip unnoticed from the floor, and the building.

  I hesitated.

  I’d made a promise.

  At the center of the Adams tribe sat its widowed matriarch. A doctor would be along shortly to inform her of dear Marvin’s passing; she didn’t need me for that.

  Were Elliott there, he’d have a fit over what I contemplated.

  That thought alone made me smile.

  I walked confidently toward Marv’s family. A soft vibration accompanied my change of outfit; Reaper’s garb gave way to green hospital scrubs and a white cotton jacket bearing the Swedish logo. With a second vibration, I clipped the passable forgery of a hospital ID to my jacket pocket.

  It was a fair replica of every nurse’s uniform in the ICU.

  I took a deep, cleansing breath, free at last from the taint of my uniform—the horrible, euphoric power.

  The family didn’t notice me until I entered their out
er circle, fully in character. Conversations stopped abruptly and all eyes tracked each step of the intruder approaching the queen of their court.

  I ignored everyone except the woman at the center, speaking only when I stood before her alone.

  “Grace Adams?”

  Grace nodded reluctantly, eyes searching my face for any sign. Her voice was clear and strong. “He’s gone.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  I smiled sadly, nodding in return.

  A low murmur passed through the surrounding crowd. It wasn’t the sound of shock, anger, or even sadness; it was a simple, collective sigh.

  Mrs. Adams gripped the chair’s arms, keeping her face neutral. “Was it peaceful?”

  I nodded. “It was.”

  She slumped forward slowly, coming to grips with her new reality. Days’ worth of building tension escaped in a long, low breath. There was no doubt in my mind she loved her husband, but she’d lost him days before.

  Her private hell of anticipation had finally reached its end.

  “Marvin said one final word as he passed away—he said, ‘Grace.’ It felt like he was saying goodbye.”

  I hesitated, then said, “I thought you should know.”

  The widow started to speak, but at a loss for words, she quietly closed her mouth. Tears filled her eyes. As they began to roll down her cheeks, she gripped my hand in both of hers and managed a husky, “Thank you.”

  I squeezed her hands in return. “It was the least I could do.”

  The family began to cluster around her, offering condolences. Their pain would wait until hers was tended. It was obvious, to any who might happen upon the scene, that I’d been right; as long as Grace might live, she would never be alone.

  The pressing throng slowly pushed me to the outside; I went without struggle. I didn’t belong. Once clear of the mourners, I strolled confidently into the elevators, then through the lobby and out the front door. Just another nurse stepping out for a breath of fresh air.

  No bouncing, colored lights led the way. Once I’d chosen to reveal myself, there was no longer any need.