On A Pale Horse (21 page)

Zane pondered briefly. He heard the running footsteps of others in the bowels of the hospital, becoming aware that something was wrong. Time was limited.

He had done his assigned job; he had collected the old woman's soul and in his fashion had redeemed his murder of his mother. He had now done openly what he had done covertly before. He had shown that even Death himself would have made the same decision Zane had, long ago. But had he done his human job? These people were being denied their most fundamental right: the right to let life go.

“You know it would be mass murder,” he said.

“It would be mercy,” the old man said. “My grandchild is going broke paying for me, because the doctor says she must—and for what? For this? For eternity in a hospital ward, too sick to move, let alone enjoy life? Hell can't be worse than this—and if it is, I'll take it anyway! At least there maybe I'll have a chance to fight back. Cut me loose, Death! There's more'n just us patients suffering here; it's our families, too. They'll cry a while, but soon they'll heal—and maybe they'll still have a little something left to live on.”

Zane decided. He was already doomed to Hell for his violations of the standards of his office. What did he have to lose? He wanted to do what was right, regardless of the consequence. These were his clients, too.

He went to the service area of the ward. There was the main circuit box. He yanked down all the handles.

Power died in the ward. Darkness closed in. The machinery stopped running.

There was an immediate outcry. Hospital personnel rushed in. Someone groped her way to the circuit box, but Zane stood before it. The nurse felt a skeletal Hand close on hers, pushing her away from the box. She screamed in sheerest terror.

“That is the horror you have been visiting on these patients,” Zane told her. “Death-in-life.”

No one could reverse what he had done, this time.

A few days later, once more caught up on his schedule, Zane paid Luna another call. This time she smiled when she saw him. “Come in, Zane; I'll be ready in a minute.”

“Ready?”

“You're taking me out on a date, remember? Somewhere interesting, so we won't be bored with each other.”

Zane had really had more talking in mind, for their last dialogue had affected him profoundly, but he didn't care to say that. True, aspects of their talk had been uncomfortably candid, and the notion of her paying off the demon still bothered him. But a portion of his self-doubt and disgust had eased significantly after their last meeting, and he hoped for similar positive impact in future. After all, how could he object to anything about her, after what he had done at the hospital? That had made ugly headlines on Earth as well as in Purgatory!

He looked at Luna's paintings as he waited for her. They were beautiful. She was much more of an artist than he had been. The colors were clear and true, and the auras realistic. It was hard to believe that a person whose soul was presently slated for damnation in Hell could do such excellent work. He was getting to like Luna better—and that realization caused him to wonder again why the Magician had wanted the two of them to know each other. Surely it was not merely because they were compatible or had a common interest in auras.

Luna reappeared—and this time she was stunning. Before, clothes had converted her most of the way from neutral to attractive; this time they had completed the transition. Bright blue topaz glinted from a band placed in her hair, and green emerald was set in her slippers; the rest of her between these two made the beauty of the gems pale.

“How do you like me now?” she inquired archly. He was cautious. “I thought you didn't really care for me. Why are you making yourself so lovely?”

She grimaced prettily. “I told you my deepest sins, and you didn't reject me. That's worth something.”

“Because I'm no better!” he replied. “How can I condemn you? You were helping your father, while I—”

“Was helping your mother,” she finished, completing the rehearsal of their excuse for being together, which somehow seemed necessary for each of them.

“We're both well tainted. Anyway, until we know what my father had in mind, there's no sense in letting it go. I confess you're not the man I would have chosen on my own—”

“And you aren't the woman I was slated for—”

“Do you think Fate had her fickle finger in this?”

“I know she did. She put me in the office of Death by arranging the thread of my life to terminate right when my predecessor was getting careless. I suppose Fate even steered me past Molly Malone, where I got the gun I used. Whether Fate would have done this without the behest of your father, I don't know.”

“Never trust a woman,” Luna said seriously. “Fate least of all.”

Zane smiled. “I'm a fool. I do trust Fate. She helped me get started as Death. The truth is, my life was hardly worth it before. Of course, I know I'm nothing special as Deaths go.”

“I would hate to encounter something special in Deaths, then,” she murmured. “That episode at the hospital—and I think I recognize your touch in that Miami riot, too.”

Zane smiled. “It was no riot. But it illustrated the point. I let too many clients go free, when I can, and I take some I'm not supposed to, and I waste time talking to others, trying to make it easier for them. The Purgatory News Center is having a field day with my exploits. I don't know what Purgatory did for humor in the news before I came along.”

“You're too well-meaning, and too trusting.”

Zane looked at her, and was daunted again by her sheer beauty. “Surely I can trust you, though!”

“No.”

“No? I don't understand.”

“Put on your Death cape,” Luna said abruptly.

Zane glanced at her again, startled. “I don't know. This is personal, and I don't like to mix—”

“I want a date with Death,” she insisted. She turned her face to him and looked him in the eyes and smiled, and her eyes seemed lambent. He could not deny her, though he knew it was deliberate artifice.

“My suit is in the car,” he said. “But—do you really want to be seen with Death?”

“No such worry. People don't see Death unless they are clients.”

Not entirely true, but close enough. Zane proffered her his arm, and they walked out to the Death mobile.

The night was dark, with a drizzle threatening. He fetched his cape and gloves and shoes from the car and donned them.

“Now you are truly elegant,” Luna said. “I never realized before how handsome a well-dressed skeleton could be. Kiss me, Death.”

“But my face is not—”

She leaned into him and kissed his lips. “Oh. you're right!” she exclaimed after a moment. “A bare skull! Alas, poor Yorick, I kissed him. An infinite jest!” She brushed off her mouth with one hand as if removing sand.

“Death is no pleasant date to most people,” Zane said, disturbed by her attitude. What was motivating her? “You should see the mail I get.”

She smiled as if this were a pleasant invitation. “Yes, let's see your mail. Do you actually answer it?”

“Yes,” he said, embarrassed. “It seems only right. No one seeks out Death, in any manner, without good reason.”

“That's touching. You are a decent man. Show me a letter.”

Zane reached into the dash compartment and brought out a letter, turning on the interior light of the car so they could read it. It was written in a rather neat juvenile script; it normally took many years for a person to reduce his script to adult illegibility. Children tended to write letters more than adults—at least they did to his office—for what reason he couldn't quite fathom. Maybe it was because their beliefs were more literal.

Dear Death, Every night Mommy makes me say my prayers, and that’s okay I guess, but they scare me. I hafta say If I Should Die Before I Wake I Pray The Lord My Soul To Take. Now I’m afraid to go to sleep. I lie awake most of the night and then I daze out in school and I’m flunking something and please Death I don’t want to die right now. Is it okay if I sleep a little at night without having to die? Love Ginny.

“Suddenly I see what you mean,” Luna said. “That's awful. That poor little girl—she thinks—”

“Yes. When I first read that letter, it made me so angry I broke out in a sweat. That prayer seems to equate sleep with death. No wonder she's afraid. How many children expect to die before they wake—because of that sinister message put in their minds? I would never do that to any child of mine!”

“She's pretty literate, but she hasn't mastered the apostrophe yet,” Luna remarked. “It must have been an act of real courage to tackle the source, of her fear like that! Zane, you must answer this letter right now.”

“What can I say to her? I can't promise not to take her; she might appear on my schedule tomorrow.”

“But you can reassure her that death has nothing to do with sleep.” Luna brightened. “Let's do it now. You can phone her!”

Zane was uncertain. “She would think it was a cruel joke. Who ever heard of Death telephoning people?”

“Who ever heard of Death answering letters? I gather your predecessor didn't. She's a child, Zane! She'll believe. A child won't be surprised by a phone call from an Incarnation. That's the way children's minds work, bless them.” She hauled him back to her house and fetched the telephone and proffered it to him.

He sighed. Maybe this was the best way. He accepted the phone and called the Information operator for Ginny's city of Los Angeles, using the child's address to run down the number. Soon the phone was ringing. Zane felt suddenly nervous.

“Yes?” It was obviously the girl's mother.

“Let me speak with Ginny, please.”

“But she's asleep!” Actually, it was not as late in Los Angeles as in Kilvarough, but children retired earlier than adults.

“She is not asleep,” Zane said, his quick ire rising. “She is lying awake in the darkened room, terrified that if she sleeps, she will die before she wakes. Do not make her say that prayer any more. That's not the way God takes souls.”

“Who are you?” the woman asked sharply. “If this is an obscene call—”

“I am Death.”

“What?”

Of course she couldn't assimilate that. “Please fetch Ginny now.”

Flustered by something strange, the woman backed off. “I'll see if she's awake. But if you say anything to upset her—”

“Fetch her,” Zane repeated wearily. How much damage was done by well-meaning people!

In a moment the child answered. “Ginny speaking,” she said politely. “Gee, I never got a phone call from a strange man before!”

“I am Death,” Zane said carefully. “I received your letter.”

“Oh!” she cried, whether in joy or fear he could not tell.

“Ginny, I do not think I will come for you soon. You have your life ahead of you. But if I do come, I promise to wake you first. I will not take you in your sleep.”

Her voice was tremulous. “Gee—you mean it? Really?”

“Really. You will not die before you wake.” That much of a promise it was within his province to make. He would issue a memo to Purgatory to make sure that he personally was summoned for her case, though she would surely be bound directly for Heaven with very little evil on her soul, so that he could honor that commitment.

“You mean it?” she repeated breathlessly. “Cross your heart and hope to—” She paused, aware of the incongruity.

“Cross my heart, Ginny. Sleep in peace.”

“Gee, thanks, Death!” she exclaimed. Then she thought of her manners. “It's not that I want to hurt your feelings or anything, but—”

“But you don't want to meet me yet,” Zane finished, smiling, as people were prone to do even when they knew they could not be seen. “I understand. Few people care to do business with me, or even to think about me.”

“Oh, it's all right by day, in play,” she said brightly. “Day is different. We don't sleep then. We talk about you when we jump rope.”

“You do? What do you say?”

“Doctor, Doctor—will I die? Yes, my child, and so will I! It keeps the beat, you know!”

“That's nice,” Zane said, taken aback. “Farewell, Ginny.”

“Bye, Death,” she said, and hung up.

“Now doesn't that feel better?” Luna asked, her eyes shining.

“Yes!” Zane agreed. “It makes me glad to do my job, this one time.”

“If more people knew Death personally, fewer people would fear him.”

“I would like that. What a world it would be if there were no fear of death!”

“Now we can go on our date,” she said. “There's no other way I would have preferred to start it.”

They returned to the Death mobile. “Where did you have in mind to go?” he asked.

“I don't know. It's enough just to ride with Death.”

Zane was not entirely satisfied with this, but let it be. He started the car and drove slowly through the drizzle.

In the center of town, the headlights picked out a figure with a wheelbarrow. Zane slowed. “There's Molly Malone,” he said. “The ghost of Kilvarough.”

“Oh, I've never met her!” Luna exclaimed. “Let's give her a ride!”

“Give a ghost a ride? That's not—”

“How will we know, if we don't offer?” Zane stopped the car and got out. “Molly!” he called. The ghost waved her hand. “You can't take me, Death,” she cried gaily. “I'm already dead!”

“I'm not on business,” he said. “My watch is stopped. We met before I assumed the office. In fact, I think you were my omen, for I left my former life soon after I met you.” He drew away his hood so she could see his face.

“Oh, yes—you saved me from getting robbed or worse,” she said, recognizing him. “You were so nice. I'm sorry I signaled your end.”

“Signaled my end?”

“Didn't you know? Anyone I interact with is doomed to die within a month.”

“Oh, yes, I realized that, later. But as you see, I didn't really die.”

“Well, you had a date with Death. That's usually the same thing.”

Luna got out of the car. “Hello, Molly Malone,” she called.

Zane froze. “Oh, no! You—Luna—”

“I can't say I like it,” Molly said. “But I remind myself that I don't cause the death, I merely signal it. So really, it's providing fair warning—”

“But if you interact with Luna—”