Breath (12 page)

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m not?”

“You’re afraid of falling from a great height and dying on impact.”

“Well. Yeah. If you want to get technical.” Xander swallowed and absolutely did not look down. “I get that you don’t want to talk about why you’re sitting on my balcony railing. But can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“When you say ‘the end of everything,’ are you being metaphorical? Are you thinking of killing yourself
?”

“That was two questions.”

Nonplussed, Xander said, “I’m bad at math.”

The blond man smiled, shook his head slightly. “Cheeky. Yes, Xander. I’m teetering on the edge, literally and figuratively.” He motioned to the ground far below. “Ten seconds of free fall, then splat. Dead on impact. Very messy.” A pause. “Very permanent.”

Xander tried not to think about plummeting off the balcony. “You know who I am?”

“I know everyone.”

“Okay. Why are you on
my
balcony in particular?”

“That’s four questions now. You’re right, you’re horrible at math.”

“I am. I should get a tutor. I’d really appreciate it if you answered, though. Why my balcony?”

Another pause, and then: “We have unfinished business, you and I.”

Xander blinked in surprise. “We do?”

Death turned away from him to gaze at the bleeding sky. “Some time ago, you gave me a gift, one that I accepted freely. Because of that, I owe you a boon.”

The words both made no sense and made complete sense; some part of Xander recognized them as being true, even though he didn’t understand how that could possibly be the case.

“I don’t remember giving you anything,” he said slowly.

“That changes nothing. The scales must be balanced.” Death shrugged again. “Rules.”

“Okay,” said Xander, his head spinning. “So . . . just to be sure I’m clear on this, before you, ah, finish contemplating the end of everything, you need to give me a boon.”

“Aye.”

“What sort of boon?”

“Anything within my power to give.” A rueful smile. “By the way, the ‘can’t wish for more wishes’ thing is implied. This is a one-time boon. So tell me true: What would you ask of me?”

Xander bit his lip as he considered the possibilities.

A minute ticked by.

Death cleared his throat. “I should mention that this is a limited-time offer.”

“How much time?”

Death glanced at his watch, then looked back at the skyline. “Thirty-three minutes.”

“Right,” Xander said. “Okay. I’ve got it.” He took a deep breath, made sure he had the wording just right, and then he said, “For my boon, I want you to tell me what’s led you to come here, now, to do what it is you say you’re thinking of doing.”

Death whipped his head around to look at Xander. His eyes were the bluest things Xander had ever seen—they were slate blue, peacock blue, a blue that Picasso and Matisse could only imagine in their deepest dreams. They were the blue of the cosmos, of infinite possibility; they held the secrets of the universe.

“This?” Death said, his voice a whisper of malice. “This is how you would waste your boon?”

“It’s not a waste,” Xander replied quietly. “You matter. What you’re feeling matters.”

Death laughed, the sound bitter and cold.

“I want to know your story,” Xander said. Then, softer: “Please.”

For a time, Death said nothing. Then, finally, he spoke, and his voice was the low rumble of a distant storm.

“So be it. You would know my story, Xander Atwood? Then listen.”

God is growing bitter, He envies man his mortality.

—Jacques Rigaut

He turned away from the boy’s questioning blue gaze, away from the hope chiseled so carefully, so poignantly, onto his face. As if he could be swayed with a look.

Then again, this boy knew how to sway him. He’d done so before; it stood to reason that he’d use his boon to attempt to do so again.

Xander Atwood. The boy with the chocolate.

His mouth pressed into a tight line. He should have corrected the course years ago, when he’d had the chance. But he’d allowed himself to be moved by a gift given freely, and now he had to pay the gift price. Rules, as he’d told the boy. He’d created the rules in a fit of boredom not long after humanity had invented the wheel, and those rules had long passed their usefulness to him. More often than not, they were as annoying as gadflies coming back to bite. When he’d put the rules in place, he hadn’t foreseen the consequences, hadn’t anticipated that some humans would use those rules to their advantage.

He had a history of not considering the consequences of his actions.

His eyes narrowed. If only he could break rules as easily as people could. It was yet another thing about humanity that vexed him. So many things about mortals were out of reach.

Frowning, he gazed down. On the street below, people moved. Some walked; others used various modes of transportation—cars, bicycles, skateboards, even wheels attached to sneakers. Some milled outside their buildings, talking or waiting or dreaming while awake. Around them were transplanted trees, artfully placed along the sidewalk in their solitary prisons. Underfoot and unnoticed, strong-willed weeds cracked the pavement. He watched the mortals for a time: people the size of insects, crawling along the surface of the world.

And soon, he began to speak.

“Do you have any idea what forever feels like after the first few thousand years? It gets old.” He smiled thinly. “I’m old, Xander. Older than you could imagine.”

“What are you?” the boy asked. “I mean, okay, you’re Death. Capital D.” Lower, he said, “Which I magically know somehow.”

“All mortals know, in the back of their minds, who I am. Just as I know everyone, everyone knows me.”

“Okay,” the boy said. “But what does it mean that you’re Death? Is it a role? Are you the Grim Reaper?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Do you see a scythe?”

“Uh. No.”

“I’m no reaper, grim or otherwise, though I’ve been called that, and more. Yamaraj. Yenlo. Azra’il. Thanatos. Joe.”

“Joe?”

“It’s a fine name. Besides, I didn’t come up with it. People did. That’s how all this started: you people and your passion. Your energy. Your heat. You were so mesmerizing,” he said. “So
warm.
You can’t begin to understand how different that is from what I am.”

“You still haven’t said what you are.”

“No, I haven’t.” He paused, taking in the boy’s eager features. “I’m not like you. I’m something else. Something older. Something different. I’m . . .” He floundered. “I don’t have the word for it. It’s not a human word, not in any language. It’s not a living concept. I’m
other.
”

The boy nodded his understanding—or, more accurately, his acknowledgment. He asked, “Were you always Death?”

“No.”

He closed his eyes, remembering the sound of a door slamming shut—impact, then echoes of contact, then nothing.

“It’s been so long since it all began,” he murmured. “Even when I look back now, the images are blurry. I came here; that much is clear. I chose to come.”

“So you’re not from here? You know—Earth?”

He laughed quietly and opened his eyes. “No.”

“Where are you from?”

“Beyond. The other side of the door.”

“What door?”

“The doorway to elsewhere. A window to another world. From the other side of the door, we could see everything on this side. Think of a snow globe: Your world is inside, and mine is outside.”

“You said you came here. How?”

“Interstellar travel on a state-of-the-art spaceship.”

The boy’s face lit with wonder. “You’re joking!”

“Yep.”

The wonder gave way to embarrassment. “Oh.”

“How do you think I came here? It’s a
door.
I opened the door and stepped through. Doors existed long before you did, you know. Chocolate, though, that was all you.” He chuckled. “You people have made some brilliant things, but chocolate is among the best.”

The boy looked at him somberly for a full minute before he said, “You’re joking again.”

“Maybe. Stop interrupting me if you want me to tell you my story. Unless you’d like to change your boon to a game of twenty questions?”

The boy blushed and mumbled, “Sorry.”

Mollified, he nodded. “Everything from before, everything on the other side of the door . . . most of it is lost to me. That part of my life has been cut off, and all I have left are the tatters from where it was severed.” He tapped his head. “Or maybe it’s just an age thing. Ancient entity getting senile. But I remember some of it. I remember that my kind were first. I remember that we were easily amused. And I remember that we created something from nothing. We made you,” he said, motioning to the boy. “This world, this reality—that was us.”

The boy’s face paled. “You’re saying you’re God?”

“I’m saying we were bored. We had a blank canvas and some paint, and we made this reality.”

The boy shivered and shut his eyes. “Jesus.”

“Heh. No.” He smiled, bemused. “Not at all. And the art metaphor isn’t exactly right, either. You were a work of art, yes, but you were also a novelty. So many living things, all fighting and struggling and loving and surviving and just
being.
Creating. Like us. You were fascinating.” His smile broadened. “I remember watching you take your first steps. I remember when you discovered fire. I remember when you left your first markings on cave walls.”

“You
made
us,” the boy whispered.

“You made yourselves,” he corrected. “That’s what was so amazing about you people, all you living things. We gave you the spark, yes, but then you transformed it into an inferno. You created new lives. You redefined the world. You shaped everything around you. It was phenomenal to watch. That’s why I didn’t want it to end.”

The boy’s eyes opened again, and now they were bright with fear as well as fascination. He repeated, “End?”

“All things end, Xander. Paints dry and crack. Sparks fade. Infernos burn themselves out. This world, this reality, should have ended long and long ago. The spark of life here had begun to die. My kind were already thinking of the next new thing to make. I don’t remember much about us, but I do recall that we’re a fickle bunch. Easily distracted. Easily amused.” He shrugged. “Easily lose interest.”

The boy looked sick.

“But I wanted to see what would become of humanity. Other living things too—horses are admirable creatures, and the platypus is an unsung hero—but I was interested in humanity most of all. I wanted to renew the spark and keep the life cycle going.” He paused as he tried to piece together fragments of memory. “I argued for it, I remember that. I pled humanity’s case. I lost. It was a death sentence for you, for your entire world. Nothing is forever,” he said softly. “That’s what I was told, and it’s true. Nothing is forever. Even infinity eventually stops.”

Around them, the wind blew. The boy, captivated by the story, forgot to be afraid. That was something else about humanity that had always fascinated him: how people could so easily be distracted from their fears. Having a limited perspective had its advantages.

“I still wasn’t ready to say goodbye,” he said. “So I thought of a way to rekindle the spark for your world. A drastic way. On my side of the door, I alone wasn’t strong enough to renew the spark. How could I be? It had taken all of my kind, together, to create your world. But if I were to come
through
the door, step into your reality, be part of it, then I would be strong enough.” He shrugged. “At least, that was my theory.”

“Theory?” the boy repeated.

“None of my kind had ever done such a thing. There was no way to know what would happen, how the laws of this reality would affect one of us on this side of the door. But I was willing to try. I thought that at best, I would renew the spark and return home. At worst, I would fail and you would die, and I would still return home. But I would try, you see?” He smiled, sighed. “I had to try.”

“Um. Speaking for all of humanity . . . I’m glad you did.”

He met the boy’s gaze. “Be gladder, then, for my ignorance. Because had I known then what my action would cost me, I never would have stepped through the door.”

Taut silence as the boy waited for him to continue.

“I let my decision be known. And out of all my kind, only one other stood with me. Only one was willing to test my theory with me. That one agreed to be my companion on this side of the door, as on that side.”

“A friend?”

“Yes. No. Both more and less. We were part of each other. Connected.”

“Like a . . . what . . . a soulmate?”

“You assume my kind have both souls and mates,” he said with a wry smile. “But yes, that term comes close. My soulmate.”

“The one you’re meant to be with,” the boy said, his voice sounding both lost and dreamy.

“The one I had
always
been with. The one who helped define me.” He could almost see a face, could almost hear a sound, off-key and distant—a still, small voice like starlight. “We would venture here together, to keep each other company as we rekindled the spark. And together, we would return home and bear witness as humanity discovered its full potential. Together.”

The last word echoed and blew apart, lost to the wind.

“What happened?” the boy asked.

Images flickered, incomplete and broken, the memories so faded they were barely impressions in his mind. “I remember standing at the door between worlds,” he said. “There was a feeling, an understanding, that what we were about to do would forever change everything. It was a good feeling. It was
right.
” He looked at the boy, at the cascade of emotions on his human face. “Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever known that you were about to do something instrumental, and that everything would change because of it, and you still did it because it needed to be done?”

The boy bit his lip, then nodded.

“Then you understand. I thought you people were worth it. So I stepped through the doorway. And then I was here.”