Chapter Sixteen
Collision Course
Death’s Door, LLC
The triple-word score sitting on the board mocks me.
I stare at the Scrabble board on my desk, calculating possibilities. My opponent just laid down ECLIPSE for thirty-four points, and I’m trying to determine if I can build off the P to make CRYPT or if I should play this a little more defensively.
I can’t afford to lose again.
I reach for my tile racks when my office doors slam open without warning, an announcement, or the basic fucking courtesy of a knock.
Time and Fate stride in like they own the place. Which … they don’t. That’s my name on that door.
“Ladies,” I say without looking up from my board. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this unscheduled, uninvited, and quite frankly unwelcome intrusion?”
“We need to talk, Daryl.” Fate’s voice carries that sharp edge that suggests she’s already annoyed, which means this conversation is going to be just ever-so delightful.
“I’m busy.” I place a tile experimentally. CRYPT does work. Lands on a double-word score. It’s twenty-four points. Not great, but also doesn’t reek of nervous desperation. “And it’s D, Big D, or sir. Not Daryl.”
“We have more pressing matters than your fragility with your name,” Time states, her voice smooth. “We’re here about the Lost Souls Division.”
“Is this the part where I’m supposed to be surprised?” I raise a brow. “Okay, hang on. Let me clear my throat here, and let’s run that again.”
I wait for Time to repeat herself. She doesn’t, and I give her a look stating I can wait for the next century.
Sighing, Time relents. “We are here.”
I swear, winning a power pull is better than an orgasm.
“To discuss the Lost Souls Division,” she grits out.
Dramatically, I whip my head up in shock and clutch my chest. “The LSD?” I gasp. “W-what about it?”
“It’s becoming a problem,” Fate huffs.
“A problem,” I reply flatly. “Define problem.”
“Rue Chamberlain”—Fate spits out her name like a curse—“has created an entire division dedicated to coddling souls. Giving them second chances. Helping them process their feelings.” She says feelings the way one might say festering boil. Which … I agree, but that’s beside the point.
“I founded the LSD, thank you very much,” I state proudly. “She is just middle management.”
Time laughs dryly. “Right. That may work on your reapers, but not us.”
“Fine,” I groan, growing bored with the conversation. “And how does this concern me?” I lean back in my chair, which causes it to creak ominously. I’ve been meaning to get the thing oiled, but the creak has grown on me. It adds to my aesthetic.
“It’s disrupting the order,” Time chimes in, moving closer to my desk. “Reapers are getting ideas. Souls are refusing to accept assigned roles. The efficiency we’ve maintained for millennia is degrading.”
“Efficiency.” I roll the word around in my mouth. “That’s what you’re worried about? Efficiency?”
“We’re worried about chaos,” Fate corrects. “Uncontrolled chaos. The kind that happens when souls start believing they have a choice. That there is hope.”
“Hope is dangerous,” Time agrees.
I stare at them for a long moment before I laugh, loud and mocking.
“You’re not worried about chaos,” I say as my laughter subsides. “You’re worried about control. Specifically, losing it.”
Fate’s sharp jaw tightens. “We’re worried about the natural order being disrupted by sentimentality.”
“The ‘natural order’ you two have manipulated since before most souls existed?” I stand slowly, causing them to have to adjust their gaze upward and take a half step back.
I button my suit jacket and brush off the sleeves.
“Let’s not pretend this is about cosmic balance.
This is about you losing your grip on the wheel. ”
“We came here as a courtesy,” Time says, her voice cooling several degrees. “To make you aware of the situation before it requires more … direct intervention.”
“Direct intervention.” I move around my desk, picking up a commemorative spoon from the Fall of Rome. I quite like this spoon. It has teeth marks in it from where its owner chomped down right before their demise. “So, you’re suggesting that I … what? Shut down the Lost Souls Division?”
“It would be in everyone’s best interest,” Fate states.
“Everyone’s?” I stop in front of them. “Or yours?”
“They’re the same thing,” Time says smoothly. “We all want the OtherWorld to function properly.”
“Do we?” I set down my spoon before turning back to face them fully. “Because from where I’m standing, the OtherWorld has been functioning flawlessly. Reapers are reaping, souls are crossing, and the LSD is helping usher along the ones causing problems in the mortal realm.”
“They’re helping souls refuse their fate. Giving beings second chances,” Fate says, her voice rising. “That’s not acceptable.”
“Says who?” I smirk while crossing my arms over my chest. “Says … you? You think because, what, you ‘weave the tapestry,’ you get to dictate how every soul in existence spends eternity?”
“That’s literally what being Fate means. And what I say goes. No do-overs. No whoopsies. No second chances!” she snaps.
“And being Death means I get the final say over all the happenings in my domain,” I snap back, but keep my demeanor calm. “Which includes deciding what divisions operate under Death’s Door, LLC. Last I checked, this is still my company.”
“A company that exists within the framework we maintain,” Time points out. “Without us, your reapers would have no one to reap. We provide the structure, the story, and the timeline.”
“And I provide the ending.” I let my words sit for a moment in the cold silence.
“Don’t forget, ladies; though you may be Time and Fate …
I am the ultimate inevitability. I am Death!
” The room rumbles under the boom in my voice.
I give them a cold smirk. “And Death, my dears, comes for all.” I look between them. “Including the two of you.”
The threat hangs between us. Unspoken but perfectly clear. They’re powerful, ancient, fundamental forces of the universe. But everything ends. Everything dies. Even them. And I’m the one who decides their time and fate.
Fate’s silver eyes flash with rage, the golden threads in her irises pulling taut. “Are you threatening us?”
“I’m reminding you of your place.” I smile without humor.
“You’ve gotten too comfortable. Too secure in your power.
Power is temporary. But Death? Well, that’s forever.
So, before you come into my office, making demands about what divisions I run and how I run them, maybe remember who you’re talking to. ”
Time’s expression remains placid, but I catch the slight tightening around her eyes. She’s calculating, like always.
She leans over my desk, slowly, and places her hand on my snow globe.
Pain explodes through my chest as the memory manifests. Emotions are forced to the surface that I spent millennia burying. The snow globe contains the worst day of my existence, preserved forever in Time’s collection—the moment I killed my father.
The original Death, the first Grim Reaper. The one who held the scythe before me. And I had to take it from him.
I see and feel it all again. His surprise. His disappointment. His acceptance. The weight of the scythe in my hands. The terrible necessity of the act.
In the OtherWorld, we suppress emotions. We bury memories. We function without the burden of feeling. But Time is forcing me to feel it now. Every second of that moment. Every emotion I’ve kept locked away.
Deities are the only things that can hurt other deities, and she knows exactly where to press to make it hurt most.
“Yes,” Time says softly, her hand still resting on the globe. “Death comes for us all.” She leans closer, her copper eyes with their turning clockwork fixed on mine. “Some sooner than others.”
The pain intensifies. I grit my teeth, refusing to show weakness, refusing to step back.
We stare at each other. A standoff between fundamental forces. Death and Time, locked in a battle of wills over a moment frozen in glass.
Finally, she removes her hand.
“The Lost Souls Division is a problem,” Fate says into the silence. “And problems have a way of … resolving themselves. Without Mercy.”
I freeze at the mention of her sister’s name. Do they know she’s been here? Do they know their sister has returned to the OtherWorld?
I steel my expression and respond coldly, “Is that a threat?” My voice remains steady despite what just happened.
“It’s a prediction,” Time says. “I see the timelines. The possibilities. And in most of them, your little project collapses under its own weight. Reapers fail. Souls fragment. Chaos spreads.” She smiles. “We’re simply suggesting you get ahead of the inevitable.”
“Noted.” I move back around my desk, putting distance between us. “And rejected. The Lost Souls Division stays operational. If you have a problem with that, take it up with Corporate.”
“You are Corporate,” Fate points out.
“Exactly.” I sit down, turning my attention back to my Scrabble board. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a game to finish.”
They don’t move immediately. I can feel them standing there, radiating divine irritation.
“You’re making a mistake,” Fate says.
“Wouldn’t be my first.” I place tiles on the board. C-R-Y-P-T. “Won’t be my last.”
“This isn’t over,” Time says.
“It never is.” I look up one final time.
“But remember, Sisters: You may control when things happen and what trajectory they follow, but I control everything after The End. Every story eventually reaches the epilogue, and I can write very compelling sequels.” I lean back in my chair, allowing it to creak again.
“So, before you threaten me again, ask yourselves, do you really want to find out what happens when Death gets tired of playing nice?”
The silence stretches.
Then Time turns and walks toward the door.
Fate follows, but pauses at the threshold. “Keep your project, D. It won’t matter in the end. Order always reasserts itself.”
“We’ll see.”
They leave without another word, the door closing behind them with a soft click that somehow sounds more ominous than if they’d slammed it.
I sit alone in my office, the echo of pain from the snow globe still pulsing in my chest.
They’re up to something. Obviously. Fate and Time don’t make social calls to complain about divisional operations. And the reference to Mercy couldn’t have been a coincidence.
Do they know she’s returned? Do they know I’ve seen her again?
Despite these unanswered questions, I’m not worried. Let them plot and scheme. Let them try to manipulate the OtherWorld back into their perfect, ordered system.
I’ve been Death long enough now to know where this will all end up.
And I know something they seem to have forgotten—entropy always wins. Chaos is the natural state, and order is the illusion.
No matter how tightly they try to control the threads, eventually, everything unravels.
I turn back to my Scrabble board, ready to plot my next move.
But something stops me. New tiles have appeared.
My opponent played their next turn while I was dealing with the Sisters.
I lean forward, reading the word they spelled out, building off the E from ECLIPSE.
COLLIDE.
C on a double letter, and the word touches a triple-word score. Thirty-nine points.
I stare at it for a long moment before releasing a low laugh.
Collide.
The coming together of two forces. All the more violent when those forces are in opposition. Like order and chaos. Or control and freedom. So much potential between the way things have been and how they might be.
And Death?
Death always gets a front-row seat to watch the world burn.
I pick up my tiles and start planning my response.
This game just got interesting.