Chapter Thirty-Four
Millie
W e drive to London in silence, occasionally punctuated by Jackson swearing at other drivers as we hit more traffic. My mind feels swollen, achingly full of knowledge it didn't carry before. Nothing Jackson had said was believable. Nothing about it made sense, but at the same time … I knew every word was true.
Jackson was a reaper. Jackson killed people.
I knew he believed that he didn't. That reaping and murder weren't the same thing, but how could he be right? How could taking a life, even if he helped them pass over, not be killing?
Jackson had never made sense. It was what I loved about him. I'd felt separate from the world for so long, but meeting Jackson had shown me I wasn't the only one. I wasn't the only person who floated through life, carried on a different breeze than everyone else. Now I knew the truth. Now I knew all the pieces of Jackson, the parts he'd always hidden behind the blinding smile and slick charm. The big question was simple—did it change how I felt about him? How could knowing he was a reaper not change how I felt about him? But if it didn't? What did that say about me?
I turn to look at him. The window is down, and the wind is sweeping back his raven-black hair, his eyes narrow, dagger-sharp and glinting like metal. The late-morning sun picks up the golden hues in his skin. His crumpled shirt is rolled up at the elbows, showing the definition of his arms. I still want to touch him. Nothing he has said has doused the flames of that fire. I turn away. The thought of losing him feels like physical pain, as real and substantial as a blow to the jaw. But all this? It's all too much, and I can't breathe.
“We're not far now if the traffic's on our side,” he says, his deep voice crashing through my thoughts.
We've just arrived in central London—with more black cabs on the roads than cars, old and new buildings towering over us. The air is denser here, with too many scents to split them apart. There’s movement everywhere, throbbing with life. Like Bristol, everything is a little off, too. Every so often I see people yelling at each other in the streets, a person sobbing on a park bench. The churches, synagogues and mosques we pass are full of panicked and scared people.
The world is still spinning, but it's tilted off its axis.
I don't know London, but Jackson seems to. Apart from a visit to the West End to see a show with Mum and Roisin as a child, I've never been before. We arrive in a part of London where every building seems to be an imposing skyscraper. Metal and concrete soar upwards, sharp and as brutal as weapons. Sunlight radiates off the glass, making the world shine unnaturally. Jackson parks on the road outside one of these towers. He looks up, having to lean his head back to see the top. I know we've reached our destination. I recognise the garish logo—Red Horse Media.
“Is this it? What are we doing here?”
Silence.
Jackson climbs out of the car, still staring at the building and waiting for me to follow. Sighing, I slowly climb out and walk in his direction. He looks at me, his face grim.
“Come on, let's go.” He storms ahead as I continue to stare up at the building, still with no idea what the hell we're doing here.
We walk through a bustling office near the top of the building, Jackson having charmed a frazzled receptionist into letting us up. I follow him through, trying not to stare and look even more out of place than how I already feel.
We're walking through the office of the Daily Beacon, a red-top newspaper known for its love of unflattering photos of celebrities and its dislike of almost anyone who wasn't white, male and privileged. It's a large open-plan space with countless desks. The acrid smell of printer ink and bitter coffee lingers in the musty air. The people look like extras from a zombie movie, with crumpled clothes and the pasty, sickly complexions of people who don't have the time for daylight or self-care. I can't tell if that's their normal state of being or, like everyone else, they're still coming to terms with being in a world with no death.
Screens cover the walls, set to various news channels reporting the same story. It's been over six hours, and still, nobody has died. The voices of journalists and so-called experts are higher and a little more hysterical than when I was watching the news with Roisin a few hours ago.
We reach the far side of the room, where large glass windows give us a perfect view of London. A faint fog smears the skyline, turning the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben a little hazy. The Thames shines brightly in the morning sun, the white light shattered by the gentle ripples that move along the surface. Before the windows stand a large spiral staircase that leads to a mezzanine with a view of the whole room. Jackson leads me towards it, and I follow him upwards, our footsteps clanging loudly on the metal stairs.
The mezzanine consists of one large, airy office. In front of it, an ageing and tired-looking man sits at a small desk. He looks like a chihuahua trying to guard a castle.
“Do you have an appointment?” he mumbles without looking up from his monitor.
“Can you tell him Jackson Mort is here?”
“Do you have an appointment?” he repeats, still not troubling himself to look up.
Jackson smiles at him sweetly and then, taking my hand, pulls me to the door. Without knocking, he saunters in. The receptionist jumps up and chases us in.
“Wait! You can't go in without an appointment!” he screeches like a flustered owl.
Jackson shoves open the second set of double doors, and we walk into a large circular room. Glass walls surround us, making the man standing ahead with his back to us look like the lord of London.
His desk is the size of a king bed, made from reddish wood and decorated with gold flourishes, its grand and antique appearance out of place with the modern styling of the rest of the room. Above his desk, on one of the few walls that aren't glass, is a large painting of a scarlet horse and a rider carrying a large dazzling sword, blood and bodies surrounding them. The image makes me feel queasy. Below that same painting is a monstrous sword identical to the one depicted in the oil. I shiver at the sight of it.
He turns, a phone pressed to his ear. When he sees Jackson, his face splits into a wide, unsettling grin. He's a large man. At one point, he may have been muscled, but something about his frame makes me think of a warrior gone to seed. His generous belly hangs over his expensive-looking suit, his hair wiry and dark but greying at the temples. His eyes, a shade of amber, are almost fiery. They remind me of the ruby glow of the hellhound's eyes.
“I have to go …” he mutters, hanging up and dropping the phone to the table without another word. “Jackson!” he calls, his voice booming across the room. “How are you, my boy?”
Jackson chuckles and walks closer. “Not bad, given it's the end of the world and all.”
The man shakes his head and tuts loudly. “I know, I know. No fire, no brimstone. I'm feeling very left out.”
“Sir,” mutters the breathless receptionist. “He just barged in. And he doesn't have an appointment.” He glares at us, and I'm left wondering how many times a day he utters the word appointment.
“He doesn't need one. Go get us some coffee, please, Brian. And clear my schedule for the next hour, please.”
“But …”
“That will be all.”
Brian purses his lips and storms out.
The man approaches Jackson, stomping across the room. He pulls Jackson into a one-armed hug before slapping his back hard. Jackson grimaces, and I know it hurts, but he grins a moment later.
“Looking good, my boy.” He turns to me. “And who's this lovely young lady?” He shoots me a predatory grin, and I try to return a smile, but my insides tighten.
“This is Millie,” Jackson says.
“Millie …” He rolls the vowels of my name around his tongue. “Delighted to meet you.” He takes my hand in a hot and clammy grip. “I'm Marcus Slaughter.”
I gulp. I may not know the face, but I knew the name. Marcus Slaughter is the head of Red Horse Media. There's barely a newspaper or news channel in the world he doesn't own. He is arguably one of the most powerful men on the planet.
“I'm sorry to just turn up like this, but I don't have a lot of time. I need to know what you know.”
Slaughter smiles, moves back behind his desk, and sinks into the large chair, which groans under his weight. He signals for us to sit down in the chairs in front of his desk.
I turn to look at Jackson—the charm has been put aside, his face now serious.
“So, am I to assume you have something to do with all this chaos?” Slaughter holds up his hands, chuckling deeply.
Jackson nods reluctantly.
“I've been set up. I, uh … Death has passed over.”
A flicker of something passes across Slaughter's face. Not quite concern, more like interest.
“Well, that explains it. And how did my brother die, exactly?”
Brother?
“Sorry …” I snap, unable to take any more of not knowing what the hell is going on. “You're Death's brother?”
Jackson shoots me a look that says we don't have time, but I don't care. If he won't tell me, then I'll find out for myself.
Slaughter chuckles, his eyes amused.
“I like this one.”
“Millie, Slaughter is War.”
“What?”
Jackson clenches his jaw. My eyes are drawn to the painting and sword above Slaughter's head, and slowly, the penny drops.
“You're a Horseman? Like the Four Horsemen? Like the Apocalypse Horsemen?”
He laughs deeply, leaning back deeper into his chair. “Yes, that's right.”
“And you run a media company? What is this? Like a hobby? Something to keep you busy before you end the world?”
He bellows again. The sound is grating on me, and I clench my teeth.
“And how do you think wars begin? On the battlefield? In the offices of politicians? No, they begin out there …” He points out of the window. “In the hearts and minds of the people. Mortals love a war, they love bloodshed, they love a bit of righteous anger, someone to blame for the hollowness of their lives. All I do is point them in a direction, wind them up and let them go.” Slaughter mirrors the action with a great, fat hand—an imaginary wind-up toy soars off the table. He's grinning broadly, his incisors gleaming in the harsh office light.
I feel sick.
“I need to know what I can do. How can I bring Death back?”
Jackson stares almost desperately at Slaughter, and though his face is grim, he merely shrugs.
“Death hasn't passed over. That's not possible, not for us. We are eternal, or we are not. Death no longer exists, and since the embodiment of Death is no more …”
“People can't die,” I finish. I glance at Jackson; fear is peering out through his eyes, and his lips tighten into an unhappy line.
“Exactly.” He smiles slyly in my direction. “People will continue to be born, but death will no longer touch them. The Death realm will collapse, taking Scythe and all the reapers with it. Without Death, there's no stopping it.”
Jackson sinks into his chair, his face chalky, staring blankly ahead.
“There must be something? Something we can do? Some way to reverse it?”
Slaughter looks at me, his eyes sparkling like this is all just entertainment to him. I want to slap him. Slap him hard with one of his own rolled-up newspapers.
“You could always turn back time?”
“What?” Jackson sits up, his face alert.
Slaughter chuckles. “Time has never existed for us the way it does for you humans. And Death, more than any of us, had the power to move through time in any way he pleased. Why have you all been so worried since he went missing? When something goes wrong, how does Death fix it?”
“He stops it from happening in the first place,” Jackson mumbles to himself. “But none of us have that power? We can elongate time, not travel back?”
Slaughter nods, his face serious.
“For the past couple of millennia, Death has been trying to delegate his responsibilities, but it hasn't always made him popular with the rest of my brothers and sisters, I can tell you.” He chuckles my way as if I should already know what he's talking about. “He found ways of giving his power to reap to others, to travel through the Death realm. You don't think he's tried to work out a way to hand over his ability to manipulate time, too?”
Jackson looks frustrated. He's running his hand through his hair as the door swings open. Brian walks in, his face still pinched, but he takes a steaming mug of coffee off a plastic tray and places one on the desk in front of each of us. Rich coffee permeates my nostrils, reminding me again how tired I am. Adrenaline can only fuel a person for so long. I gulp down the steaming liquid, ignoring how it burns my tongue.
“Thank you, Brian.”
He grunts and hurries out of the room, shutting the door a little too loudly.
“But if Death had worked out a way,” Jackson mumbles. “We would have that ability, but we don't? No one ever has.”
Slaughter shrugs, laughing as he picks up his mug and slurps the hot liquid loud enough to echo through the room.
“I know he made something. A device of some kind, like your rings and your app. A way to hand over his ability to undo what shouldn't have been done. Of course, he could never get it to work properly. That was one power not even reapers should have access to. Not that he needed it to work in the end. There was a … convenient alternative.”
Jackson goes stiff, and I notice his hands clenching hard on his knees.
“Alternative?”
“Oh my boy, I don't think you, of all people, need to ask me that.” Slaughter bellows loudly, his mug quivering on the table.
Jackson leans forward, eyes blazing. “Are you talking about the successor?”
Slaughter watches Jackson curiously and then shrugs. He groans as he makes himself more comfortable in the seat. “Another rumour. And before you ask … I don't know who it is.”
Jackson exhales, looking away, his mind working through Slaughter's words.
“OK, so this time-travel thing. How can we find it?” I snap, my palms slapping on War's desk. I see a subtle flash in his eyes, and then he smiles.
“Where is it? HQ?” Jackson asks.
Slaughter rewards him with a snort. “You think he keeps anything of value in Scythe? That place is just a playground to keep you reapers amused, make you feel important with your magical memory windows and food court. Anything of real value he keeps elsewhere.”
He leans backwards, pausing for dramatic effect.
“And where's that?” I hiss.
He smiles at me. “Where it all began, where we all began.”
I roll my eyes, but Jackson stands up as if all this makes sense to him, and slowly, I join him.
“Thank you.” He nods. “We need to go.” Jackson heads towards the door, and I follow, but before he reaches it, I grab his wrist, and he stops.
“Wait,” I say quietly to Jackson, keeping my voice low enough so I hope Slaughter can't hear me. “Isn't he War? Doesn't he want the end of the world? How do you know it wasn't him who set you up?”
Slaughter laughs—turns out I wasn't as quiet as I thought. It's a big, open-mouthed roar, pulling his head back dramatically.
“I really do like her, my boy.” He smiles at me. “I'm a man of fire, of gunpowder, of the sword. This is the world going out in a whimper, not a bang. Not my kind of apocalypse. I haven't spent thousands of years waiting for the end of the world to come and not have a little fun of my own.”
I shiver, but Jackson moves forward, putting a hand on the small of my back.
“We'll be going now. I promise I'm going to set this right.”
Jackson opens the doors with me close behind.
“Jackson? Whoever set you up, may not be done with you yet. I would remember that …” Slaughter’s voice is quiet, but that lilt of amusement is still there.
Jackson turns, nodding. “I know.”
Slaughter throws something at Jackson, who catches it cleanly. When he opens his hand, I can see a small set of keys.
“Make sure she comes back in one piece, please? I'd hate to have to hunt you both down.”