Forever After (a dark and funny fantasy novel) (16 page)

             
They slunk to the floor like rag dolls, dropping out from under Michael’s grasp. Their cold, lifeless bodies, coiled around his feet.

             
He stepped back, brushed his hands together and happily announced, “That was easy.”

             
Naff inspected the corpses with a gentle shake of his head. “It scares me that they gave you guys that ability.”             

             
Michael tapped his friend jokingly on the shoulder, Naff jumped instinctively and then cursed under his breath.

              “Just be thankful they didn’t give it to someone like Chip,” he said.

             
Naff felt a chill coast through his body, he shuddered. “Good point.”

             
Michael bent down to inspect the dead duo. He reached into the pocket of Two, and withdrew a timer. It didn’t look much different from his own; he could have easily confused the two devices.

             
“What do you think?” he asked, handing the device up to his friend, who had only just finishing pondering a world where Chip could kill anyone who annoyed him or didn’t buy him a drink.

             
Naff took it, turned it this way and that, inspected the screen, toyed with the buttons and the menu. “Remarkable,” he said after a few moments, his eyes wide. “This is
our
timer,” he held it up like a trophy, “
our
technology.”

             
“Copy?” Michael wondered, still on his haunches as he searched through the dead men’s pockets for any further clues.

             
Naff shook his head. “No. Straight off the line. I’d say someone somewhere was missing a timer.”

             
“Why would they need it?”

             
“To keep tags on you I guess. They weren’t very bright but clearly someone told them what you could do to them. I guess if they had the timer they knew where you would be and how long they had to finish,” he shrugged, “
whatever
it is they were doing.”

             
“How could they see the spirits? They were mortal.”

             
Naff dropped the timer into his pocket and shrugged. “They had a hard time identifying us, and they seemed unsure about their actual targets,” he explained, watching as Michael inspected their identical faces. “It seems they can see us but they can’t distinguish--”

             
He stopped short. Michael had removed the sunglasses from one of the men to expose a set of glimmering metallic eyes which appeared to be whirring inside his skull.

             
“Creepy,” Naff said with another little shudder.

             
With a brave thumb and forefinger, Michael reached into an eye socket and plucked out the metallic orb, leaving a black hole embedded with a fine silver lining inside the skull. He rolled the eye on his palm like a marble. It had stopped whirring, but it still glimmered like polished steel when it caught the light.

             
“What about these?” he asked, tossing the eye over his shoulder to his friend.

             
Naff toyed with the catch, bouncing it off his palm with a twisted face, as if his friend had just tossed him Chip’s balled collection of body hair. He watched it spin uncontrollably out of his hand and onto the sofa. “Never seen them before,” he said to the back of Michael’s head, hiding his hands sheepishly behind his back. “Could have something to do with our missing souls though.”

             
Michael stood up, straightened his body with a complimentary groan. He looked at his friend and noted his hidden hands with a small flicker of bemusement.

             
He held a weapon and a vial in front of Naff, the question on his lips unspoken.

             
Naff nodded knowingly. “No doubt that’s how they collected--”

             
A cough from the other side of the room alerted them; they turned to see the ghosts of Alan Richards and his wife standing serenely and expectantly. They were both smiling, their arms locked.

             
“What happens now?” Alan asked them.

             
“Now you can rest in peace,” Michael told him. “Come with me.”

             
“To heaven?”

             
“To the alleyway.”

10

             
“Hold on,” Chip raised a quizzical eyebrow; it looked like a hamster was folding into the foetal position on his forehead. “Didn’t the clones have souls?”

             
Michael continued walking, ignoring the inquisitive imp behind him. The waiting room had filled up somewhat since his last visit. In the corner a short, stocky reaper who had never introduced himself, or even spoken a word of a greeting, sat with his head down, catching up on some sleep. Beside him a teenage spirit twiddled his thumbs and took in every inch of the room with wide, awe-filled eyes.

             
“Clones don’t have souls,” Naff told Chip.

             
“But the original one would have,” Chip pushed, clearly perturbed by the event.

             
Michael turned around at this, he grinned at his friend. “Precisely!” he declared triumphantly.

             
He was having a minor eureka moment or a stroke, Chip wasn’t sure, but he shot back a grin that said otherwise.

             
Michael dropped the eyeball taken from the clone onto the reception desk. It bounced with a heavy clunk and then settled.

             
Hilda stared at Michael and then at the eye. She picked it up with great caution and trepidation and then rolled it around her palm when she decided it wasn’t going to bite.

             
“What is it?” she wanted to know.

             
“Eye ball.”

             
Hilda dropped the eye like it was made of molten lead.

             
“Where the hell did you get that from?” she asked, surprisingly disgusted for someone who worked with the dead and looked like she spent her free time cackling over a cauldron.

             
“Where do you think?” Michael said dryly.

             
“Why--”

             
“I need to speak with Azrael,” Michael interrupted.

             
She snapped her mouth shut and glared at him under thick, arched eyebrows. “I told you no,” she warned.

             
“This is important.”

             
Hilda was looking over Michael’s shoulder, a hint of perplexity on her haggard face. “Hasn’t that naked man been here before?”

             
“Where is Azrael? I need to speak with him.”

             
“He looks a little lost,” she said distantly, her eyes lowered to crotch height as they followed James Waddington on a merry wonder around the room.

             
Michael shook his head in exasperation. He took the wondering soul by the arm and beckoned for Alan Richards and his wife to follow, taking them all into the processing room and calling for Chip and Naff to stay and wait.

             
The room sparked into life as Michael entered. An automated voice cackled into existence all around him, issuing instructions as Michael apathetically listened.

             
“Place souls on the marked spheres.”

             
Three spheres lit up on the floor. The three spirits looked mesmerised, their contentedness flicked to reverence. Michael looked annoyed. He gestured for them to step onto the spheres and they did so with a joyful skip in their lifeless legs.

             
A rainbow of epileptic lights followed; a cacophony of noise. The three souls vanished, as did the marked spheres on which they had stood. The lights overhead began to dim, descending a blanket of darkness over the room. Michael rested against the far wall and allowed his back to gradually slide down until his backside rested on the floor.

             
He took out the metallic eye and began to idly flip it between his fingers as a desk rose from the foundations in the middle of the room, its radiant surface glowing brighter with each incremental ascent.

             
“Take the ticket for use in the machine,” the automated voice said after the desk had finished its climb. A slip of paper poked out of a small computer on the surface of the desk, awaiting collection. “The money will be credited to your account immediately.”

             
Michael glanced at the ticket but didn’t make a move to collect it.

             
The automated voice issued a warning after several moments of inactivity. “If you do not take your ticket in the next five-seconds, your credits will be cancelled and your account will be suspended.”

             
Michael felt his breath catch in his throat. “What the fuck!” he bolted to his feet quicker than he knew he could and practically dove towards the table, ripping out the ticket like he was snatching food from a lion’s mouth.

             
“Jesus,” he mumbled softly with the ticket stuffed neatly into his pocket.

             
He turned to leave, but the Angel of Death was blocking his path. Michael started in surprise, and then settled, holding his chest. “
JesusFuckingChrist
,” he hissed in one long breath.

             
Azrael beamed at him. “Did you like my impression?” he asked merrily. “It certainly seems to have got you going.”

             
“That was you?” Michael replied, unable to suppress a grin. “The Angel of Death has a sense of humour?”

             
“Why so glum?”

             
Michael looked like he had been asked for tea and crumpets with Freddy Kruger. “
Why so glum?
” he parodied.

             
Azrael shrugged. “I’m trying to sound informal.”

             
“It really doesn’t suit you.”

             
“As you wish,” Azrael said with a swift nod. His demeanour instantly changed to something more serious and far more intimidating. “What is wrong?”

             
Michael skulked forward, stretched an arm to indicate his intentions and then and dropped the eyeball into Azrael’s waiting palm.

             
“I stopped the men,” he explained tiredly. “They were clones. They were using this to see the souls. And--” He retrieved the weapon and the vial he had found on the two men, “--this to gather them.” He took a step back, sluggishly drooping against the desk and praying it didn’t duck back into the foundations as he wasn’t sure he had the energy to remain upright.

             
“That’s all I can do,” he said as Azrael examined the objects briefly. “I’m not a detective and I live in a world of few answers and too many questions. This is bigger than those two guys, but I can’t find out how big or--”

             
“You’re work here is done,” Azrael interjected sharply. He had deposited the objects out of sight and looked ready to leave.

             
“What?” Michael said, taken-aback.

             
“You are finished.”

             
Michael found the energy to propel himself upright. “That’s it?” he asked, incredulous. “What happens now?”

             
“For you?” Azrael shrugged indifferently. “Nothing. Although what you have done here, will be taken into account. It will not be forgotten,” he explained with a sense of finality.

             
“And this werewolf business?”

             
“It does not concern you.”

             
Azrael turned to leave. Michael hopped forward eagerly.

             
“No! Stop fucking telling me that!” he spat belligerently. “It
does
concern me. I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours chasing down two fucking maniacs who have been trying to do my job for me,” Michael was so annoyed and caught up in his arguing that he was spraying drops of spittle towards Azrael, who stood with a charmed look on his face.