Deathless

Chapter 3: Jackson

I'm back in the lift, feeling deflated after failing my test. As the lift ascends, I lean forward, pressing my forehead against the cool glass. I stare out at the world through the window. The view seen through the glass is different depending on who's looking through it. Scythe HQ exists in the Death realm, inside the fabric of reality that protects the living world from what comes next. A place both real and not real. Solid but also as malleable as clay. And Death has made us all its sculptors.

Whoever was in this lift last looked out onto the golden, dusty outback of Australia. I stare, mesmerised by the way the orange sun scorches the landscape until the view sharply shifts into Paris. My Paris. Elegant sepia-toned buildings, the Eiffel Tower puncturing the skyline and the midday sun shimmering along the Seine. My chest aches, and my mind is drawn painfully into the past.

The intricate golden hand reaches my floor, and with a ping, the lift stops. I rush out into the hallway, heading towards Jeanette's office. The long hallway is more black stone walls, and silvery-mottled marble stretching out across the floor. At the end of the hallway, in a semi-circle-shaped room of more glass and gold gilding, sits Vera, Jeanette's assistant. Her neat charcoal desk perched in front of Jeanette's door like a feeble guard dog. Vera pushes her glasses back up her nose as her eyes gaze at her screen. She picks up her coffee mug, taking a sip and leaving pink lipstick smudged around the rim. When she sees me, she flinches. Coffee sloshes onto her desk.

"Mister Mort!" she splutters, brown liquid dripping down her chin.

I smile kindly, but she continues to look at me like a deer caught in headlights. Frank was right. Death's absence was putting everyone on edge.

"Hey, Vera... is Jeanette around?"

She shakes her head nervously and starts dabbing the desk with a tissue. She pushes up her glasses again.

"She's due back any second, but she'll probably be late. Those Milk Carton meetings tend to overrun," she mumbles, her eyes darting nervously around the room even though we're the only ones here.

"Milk Carton?" I roll my eyes and sink into one of the chairs that form the waiting area in front of Vera's desk. She nods, the jowls of her chin shuddering wildly.

"Project name for the Death-is-still-missing meetings." She squeaks this with a look of wide-eyed fear, as if the very concept of the meetings terrifies her.

Jeanette rushes past the both of us towards her office, talking rapidly on her phone. Vera desperately pats down the papers fluttering on her desk in the gust of efficiency and perfume created in Jeanette's wake. Jeanette jabs her finger towards the door and I stand up to follow.

***

I sink into the familiar soft leather as I watch Jeanette pace the room. Her office is spacious, and decorated with furniture that would be retro or kitsch now but would have been modern and classy in the 1940s when Jeanette was a young woman before Death recruited her for Scythe. The vast collection of antique weaponry hanging around the office seems designed to intimidate, but it's as nostalgic as everything else—Jeanette worked in factories, building these weapons during the second world war.

"OK, OK. I'll get a couple more reapers on the search, but that's it. I can't afford to lose anymore."

She looks at me and mouths 'sorry'. I shake my head, making sure she knows I don't mind the wait. I've known Jeanette a long time, and she's someone I consider a genuine friend.

"No... you know my views on doubling shifts. We start putting extra pressure on our teams, and that's when we're putting ourselves at risk. Look, I've gotta go OK? No, I need to go. Yes. Bye."