Chapter Four
Jackson
B ack in the lift, the shuddering shift as the gold and glass cage descends flips my stomach. Paris turns into a sepia blur. Sunlight bounces off the window and pierces my tired eyes. I place my palms against the glass, looking down at the familiar streets. At a world frozen in time. Like me, unmoving, unchanging. There was a drip-drip of fear echoing through Scythe, frightening people like Frank and Vera. Good people were scared. And if someone could get into Death's office, maybe that someone could find some answers.
There are whispers he'd chosen a successor.
I swallow hard. I hadn't seen Death in a long time. When he’d trained me, I'd spoken to him every day. He'd been a person I'd never known I needed, filled a role I didn't realise I needed filling. And then he smashed it all to bits.
I remember our last conversation in his office. The most powerful being in the universe, the original Ethereal. The only being in the universe who hadn't been born or created. When life first sparked into existence, so had Death, like a puff of smoke following a lit match. But that day, he'd squirmed in his chair like an anxious schoolboy. His bottom lip quivered as he spoke. He had a proposition for me, but first, there were some things I needed to know.
I remember the way my blood had pounded in my ears, the slam of the door as I'd left, and how the echo had followed me down the hall. How it still followed me in my nightmares. I'd run that day and didn't look back. And he didn't come after me. He never came after me.
Maybe I wanted nothing to do with Death, but Scythe means something to me. As do the people who work here.
The lift hits the ground floor with a faint screech, the glass windows ahead revealing the dark but bustling atrium. Death's ever-watching monument to himself peers down at me, those dark sockets staring, judging me. The doors ping open, but I don't walk out. The Death Wardens watch me curiously behind their skull-shaped masks as I linger.
Groaning, I slam my palm on the glass and swear to myself, fighting every urge in me just to leave, to go back to my life. I press a button on the control panel. The doors shut, and I step back, leaning against the gilded handrail as the lift jerks to life once more. And goes down and down and down.
The dark labyrinth of halls and corridors that make up the lowest floors of Scythe are not spaces people go through too often. And it's partly why they're so neglected. They're also the crevices and corridors that Death used to haunt like the dark spectre he is. I always got the impression that he loved the darkness, that the creeping neglect almost reflected him in some way. Not the myths and legends that created an infinite number of tattoos, logos and slogans, but the person he was beneath the hood.
A person I sometimes miss, as much as I wish I didn't.
I stride down the hall that passes the centre of the basement, the space under the atrium. I speed up, wanting to avoid anything to do with what's inside. There is a faint sound of clacking. It grows and grows, morphing into an ear-splitting chatter, ricocheting off walls and surrounding me in a wave of sound as I get closer.
This is the true face of Scythe. And I have no intention of looking at it today.
I pass by the arches that lead in, walking so fast I'm practically running. The hall is long and will take minutes to cross. The noise makes my head throb.
“Hey, you! I seriously hope you haven't come all the way here not to pop in and say hi.” Carmel leans casually against one of those grand archways, its matte carvings reaching what seems like miles over our heads.
Busted. I stop sharply and turn, grinning broadly, trying to avoid glancing over her shoulder at the massive space behind her. And at what lives there.
“Wouldn't dream of it.”
Carmel turns and waves me to follow. I groan inwardly and trudge behind her into the Temple. They call it the Temple, but I can't think of a place less holy. The circular space is vast, about the size of a couple of football fields and full to the brim with small black desks and matching chairs. Thousands of hunched creatures type rapidly on old-fashioned, rusted typewriters. On the floor, in a layer of inches thick, is paper. The smudged ink under my feet tells the story of those almost selected for reaping. In the brass trays on every table are the chosen few whose death is now upon them.
Silky, almost liquid fabric hangs from the vast ceiling surrounding the room. Fate's tapestry weaves the history of existence. It's embroidered with details that, to a person like me or Carmel, just look like delicate decoration, but to the eyes of the Ghouls, it tells a story—a story of death.
Death created Scythe to help him deal with reaping as the population exploded. Or that's the theory, but I don't buy it. Death has the power to manipulate time. He has all infinity to reap if he chooses to. A cynic, someone like me, would say he didn't need help. He just wanted it so he could go on his little holidays and explore the mortal world like some tourist in a zoo. But before he created Scythe, he brought the Ghouls into existence. Snapping one of his ribs from his body, or so the story goes, he brought to life the creatures that sit before me. Nobody understands precisely what the Ghouls are—an extension of Death, animals trained to perform, silent servants of the leader of the Ethereals. No idea.
But, like most people, they give me the creeps.
They look like gargoyles, except they are made of bone rather than stone. Their strange skeletal features hide in dark cloaks, like miniature versions of the being that created them. They don't talk, though Carmel swears they can talk to each other and Death.
Carmel walks around the room, delicately touching shoulders, readjusting cloaks, and straightening papers. Her bright smile is genuine and earth-moving. She's a ray of sunshine drenching this dark space in colour. Her bronze curls are a storm around her head, and a colourful knitted poncho hangs off her shoulders. While Jeanette is as bold as a wildfire, her wife is as tender as a flame.
“Here. Don't get cold.” She adjusts the dark hood on the nearest Ghoul's head. “I haven't seen you down here in decades, Jax? Oh! Are you taking the new trainer's job? You'd be excellent! People love you.” She moves between the desks with a dancer's grace, with sincere joy in what she's doing. Returning Carmel's beaming grin is the easiest smile I've faked all day.
“I, ugh … yeah, you're right. I figured I'd check out the old training centre. I said I'd consider the job for Jeanette. Do her a favour.”
“That would make her so happy. She adores you, you know.”
Her words create an uncomfortable itch across my skin, and I rub the back of my neck unhappily.
“Yeah …” I look around at the Ghouls, typing away as if nothing has changed. As if Death was still here. Their dark sockets remain unaffected, revealing nothing. When I glance back at Carmel, she's stopped moving and is watching me curiously.
“I know what you're thinking. And I've tried. Jeanette's tried. The Dead board has tried. Ghouls don't talk; they don't communicate with anyone but Death. They can't tell us anything. But if they're still working, he's still out there. That's all they can tell us.”
A silence descends, and Carmel wanders about the room again. Her light lilac perfume sweetens the musty and bitter scent of paper and ink.
“I better go. It was good to see you, Carmel.”
She twists and shoots me another time-halting smile. “Don't be a stranger.”
I give her a playful salute and walk away back into the hallway. The Ghouls all raise their heads. Thousands of black voids target me like lasers. The tapping stops, and after the final echoes fade, silence drops in the grand space. I gulp, feeling a coldness descend. I clench my hands hard enough that my nails dig painfully into my palms.
“Oh, that's a little weird. They must really like you.” Carmel chuckles lightly and calls throughout the room. “Don't worry, babies. He'll be back soon,” she sings, her musical voice tripping off the walls.
The Ghouls slowly return to their work, and the noise returns, carving into my skull with renewed vigour. The golden fabric continues to sweep around the walls of the room like a waterfall.
I back away into the corridor, the icy cold sensation not lifting. I walk quickly, eager to leave those hollowed sockets and that click-clacking behind. The hallway gets quieter as I get deeper. For a few minutes, I enjoy the silence until the faint sound of weeping builds. I turn a corner, and for the first time since I left Carmel, I see a sign of life. Along this corridor, standing beside every door, is a Death Warden. I halt, slowing my steps as I walk past them. They're twice as wide as me and taller by nearly a head, and I'm not a short guy. They shroud their faces in skull-like masks.
I walk past the doors and the Death Wardens. They ignore me, and I ignore them. But the sounds coming from behind each door, I can't ignore.
This is Death's prison, where those who deviate from his plan are kept.
This is the cost of breaking the rules. For taking a life not fated to pass over, or letting someone live who should have been reaped, for risking the exposure of our world by getting too close to mortals. Behind each door wasn't a room. It wasn't a prison cell but a memory. And Death locked you in it for as long as he desired. It didn't change or shift. The sun never rose, and it never set. Time was fixed, just a few minutes, and then it reset. Reliving that moment, the worst in your existence until Death decided your punishment was done. And then he retired you. You walked through your door and hoped your afterlife was kinder.
There are dozens of doors, dozens of stories for each time Death's plan was ignored, and each time, he was needed to fix the timeline, to undo what had been done. I keep walking, ignoring the gnawing in my gut, the ache from my clenched jaw. I think of the girl, of those leaf-coloured eyes and those soft curls, and remind myself of why I need to forget her. There are so many reasons, but repeating my worst moments for eternity seems like a pretty good one to me.
The hall leads into a glass dome almost as large as the Temple, revealing the true face of the Death realm. Not Paris or New York, but black nothingness. Violet and cerise weave through an endless veil of black. Stars punctuate the blackness with their flickering white. This is what the universe looked like before there was life. Before there was anything.
And there, in the glass, is a door. His door.
The door to Death's office isn't grand. It's not elaborate or boastful like the statue. It's just a door. Mahogany wood with an old-fashioned brass handle. My footsteps slow as I approach, moving through the towering statues of Death's siblings—the Ethereals, gleaming in the faint light. My body is weighed down like I'm underwater. High above my head, the universe watches, shrouded in glass.
I don't want to do this. The last time I was here, I fled and never came back.
My hand reaches for the handle. My throat dries as I touch it. Only an Ethereal or Death's successor can unlock this door. I push down.
Nothing. I feel the resistance, and then I laugh. Taking a few leaping steps backwards, I breathe deep, the first proper breath I'd taken since Jeanette's office. Death may be missing, but there's nothing I can do about it. I can't get into his office because I'm no different from any other reaper. And this just proved it. I laugh to myself, running my fingers through my hair, practically bouncing on the balls of my feet. Death's disappearance, Millie Nightingale, it was all playing with my head. Turning quickly, I head back into the hall.
And if I hear a quiet click as I walk away, it soon fades into the echoes of my footsteps.