Death looked absolutely miserable while we walked past the shops. In a way, it was my revenge on the little stunt he pulled earlier and I figured agony looked good on him.
I made him carry all of the bags, which wasn’t a problem for him. The problem was that we’ve been shopping for hours now and I was still not anywhere near done. I just didn’t know if he looked that way because I was spending all his money or because he didn’t like shopping.
Besides, I wasn’t forcing him to stay. That was his own choice.
“I want to look in there,” I said pointing at yet another shoe store. I’d been trying to find the right sneakers for a while now but I hadn’t found any cute ones yet.
“Of course you do,” I heard him mutter under his breath.
I looked back at him and I swear I could almost see his soul leave his body. If he even had one in the first place, that is.
I quickly determined there weren’t any nice shoes in there either and walked back out, making him follow as if he were my personal servant. Suddenly, I remembered what I had been wanting to ask him.
“Hey, Death? If I do something stupid here, will I immediately go to hell too?”
“No, you are bound by my rules, not theirs.”
“Yesterday you said you didn’t make the rules,” I pointed out incredulously.
At least he seemed to remember this as well because the corner of his mouth lifted upwards. “I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because you ask so many goddamn questions.”
“Well excuse me for trying to understand what happened to me,” I said, scowling.
I’d almost forgotten what an ass he was all the time and I made a mental note to not forget it ever again. I was so busy cussing him out in my mind I almost bumped into the girl who had suddenly stepped in front of us.
Her blonde hair was shaven on one side and the shape of her eyes were barely noticeable under the heavy black makeup. A shiny ring adorned her right nostril which seemed to fit in with the rest of her punk-style outfit.
“You,” she said while pointing at Death, who didn’t seem to be too impressed. “Are so fucking dead.”
The raw anger in her voice made even me a little scared, and I wasn’t even the focus of her anger. Her eyes had narrowed into slits and her teeth were visible from under her vicious snarl.
“What’d I do?” Death asked calmly.
She stepped forward with her index finger still pointed at him. “What did you do? Ricky, is what you did.”
I wondered what their history together was, seeing as she felt comfortable enough to threaten him despite him being 2 ft taller than her and the literal embodiment of death.
“What’s wrong with Ricky? He’s a pretty solid guy?“Death seemed genuinely confused as to why she was so mad, and I think she picked up on this as well because when she spoke again her voice was a lot calmer than it had been before.
“He asked me if he could see my feet within the first five minutes of our date. And then when I said no, he started begging me. Begging, Death. To see my fucking feet. You set me up with a complete weirdo.”
I tried to hold in my laugh, the story was just so ridiculous but I could imagine it wasn’t all that funny to her. But death didn’t bother at all. His howling laughter filled the street as he almost doubled over. It took him a few moments to catch his breath all while she calmly waited for him to finish.
“Shit, I didn’t know he had a foot thing, Fel. I’m sorry,” he said all while not looking very sorry at all.
She just pouted childishly. “I’m never doing this again,” she said while looking down at the bags in Death’s hands and then back at me. I saw something light up in her eyes as her mood turned a full one-eighty and excitement washed over her features.
“Who’s this?” She asked. “Your girlfriend?”
Death and I both immediately replied ‘no’ in unison and the hopeful glimmer in her eyes died down instantly.
“This is Lilly,” Death said while pointing his thumb at me. “Lilly, this is Felicity.”
I hated how he didn’t even tell me who she was beside her name but I threw her a smile nonetheless, which she returned. “You have a very pretty name, Lilly,” she said. “So what are you doing with this himbo?” she asked while pointing right at Death. He glared at her but didn’t say anything.
“I, uh,” I started while trying to think of the best way to tell her what happened. “I’m not supposed to be dead, I think.”
She nodded her head like she got it but then hit me with the, “I don’t understand.”
Lucky for me, Death clarified what I was trying to say. “I got sent out to harvest some guy’s soul but when I got there it was she who died. She still had a decently long time to go so I don’t know what happened.”
“That’s impossible,” she just replied. Like there was no doubt in her mind that this couldn’t possibly have happened.
But Death shook his head, “It’s not. So now we’re trying to figure out how this came about.”
She nodded and the grave look on her face told me this situation might have been a lot more serious than Death had made it out to be. “Can I help?”
I expected him to turn her down and tell her he didn’t need any help with anything ever but he surprised me by nodding. “Can you find Carlos and tell him what I just told you? See if you guys can find anything on how this could have happened. I’ve been trying to get a hold of him but I couldn’t find him.”
“No, he’s been spending a lot of time in the mortal realm lately. But I know where I can find him so leave it to me,” she said before stepping back with a salute. “It was nice to meet you, Lilly.”
“It was nice to meet you too,” I replied with a small smile. And I meant it, she seemed pretty cool.
She returned the smile and vanished, making me wonder if everyone around here could do that.
“Who was that?” I asked as we started walking again. It took me a moment before I realized we were walking back in the direction we came from, but I didn’t mind anymore. I had to accept that I wasn’t going to find the shoes I like anytime soon.
“Felicity,” he answered simply.
“Yeah, I got that. But who is she to you?”
“Why, you aren’t jealous are you?”
I just gave him a blank look which he returned with a smirk.
“Felicity is one of my friends,” he started. “She, Carlos, Wulf, and I were created at the same time so we’ve been stuck together for a pretty long time now.”
I remembered him mentioning being created at the beginning of humanity, but I had no idea as to when that would be. “So is she like you?”
He shook his head.“No, not really. We are all different. Felicity, Carlos and Wulf were created to test the humans. I was created to get them to the afterlife.”
This whole afterlife thing was turning out to be a whole lot more complex than I’d thought. “Why do they have names but you don’t?”
“I never picked one. Carlos only came up with his a decade ago and Felicity keeps changing hers, it’s hard to keep up with.”
“What were they called before?”
“Famine, Conquest and War,” he said simply while looking straight ahead.
My blood ran cold. Those are the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I remember my art teacher talking about them when she showed us a painting. The four horsemen of the apocalypse were supposed to bring on the literal end of times. What did that mean?
“So... When are you guys bringing on the apocalypse?” I asked while not trying to sound scared at all. Besides, what’s it to me if humanity dies? I’m pretty much already dead. Maybe I could even get to see my family again.
But Death just laughed at me. “It’s not going to happen. Besides, I think humanity is doing an excellent job of killing itself without our help.”
It was hard to disagree with that, so I let it go. We walked the rest of the way in silence and I couldn’t help but feel a little bad about wasting his time today. I was so caught up in my revenge on him that I hadn’t stopped to consider I was also actively sabotaging myself by stopping him from investigating the situation further. Which meant it would take even longer for me to get back to my family.
