The Hourglass
The Hourglass
By Barbara Metzger
Copyright 2013 by Barbara Metzger
Cover Copyright 2013 by Ginny Glass
and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
Previously published in print, 2007.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Also by Barbara Metzger and Untreed Reads Publishing
A Loyal Companion
A Suspicious Affair
An Angel for the Earl
An Enchanted Affair
Cupboard Kisses
Father Christmas
Lady Whilton’s Wedding
Rake’s Ransom
The Duel
The House of Cards Trilogy
The Scandalous Life of a True Lady
Valentines
To Laura, for letting me,
and in memory of Hero,
who sat beside me for every word.
The Hourglass
By Barbara Metzger
Chapter One
He was sick to death of his job. No, he was Death, or one of them, anyway. Collecting the departed was too much work for just one man. Why, a good influenza epidemic could keep a legion of death dealers busy for months, to say nothing of wars and famines. Besides, the Grim Reaper’s minions were not exactly men anymore. Most hardly remembered their own mortality. Not so Ar Death. He recalled being Sir Coryn of Ardsley, and he recalled all of his sins in the brutal battles they called the Crusades. He ached to make amends, to atone, to end his labors among the aged and the ailing, the injured as well as the innocent.
Unfortunately, one did not simply resign from being Death, any more than one refused to die. Who would do the wretched job if they could be lawyers or politicians instead? Only the basest, cruelest, most heartless of souls would apply for the positions. Ar once had a heart as well as a soul, and he sorely missed them.
He could not go to His Grimness and beg to be excused, not with so many stains on his earthly record. He’d only land in a worse place. Visiting Hell was one thing. Ar did not wish to live there, or be dead there, as the case may be. Visit he would, though, for in Hell lay his only chance at rebirth, redemption, and retirement. Elysium, Nirvana, Asgard, Tir-na-n’Og, all knew him. None held hope for a Final Ferryman. Ar could have stepped through the Pearly Gates, but no one gambled there. That left the Devil.
The Great Hall of Hell was hot and smoky and echoed with eternal screams. After over half a millennium spent on the job—and centuries devising an escape—Ar was used to the sounds and smells, as well as the revolting bones Satan constantly tossed.
“Epsilon, is it?” His Evil Eminence asked, peering through his red, reptilian eyes at the cloaked figure before him. The Letters of Extinction, whose names were taken from every alphabet ever known on earth, were hard to distinguish, especially in the Stygian gloom.
“No, sir. I believe you mean Greek Rho, who is taking care of a shipwreck in the Aegean. I am English Ar, at your service.”
“Mine and everyone else’s,” the Devil grumbled, jealous as always of losing a single soul. Then he grinned, showing pointed teeth, and tossed the bones from one clawed hand to the next. “But you’d play a game of chance, eh, just among friends?”
The Devil had no friends. And he cheated. But Ar was desperate, and his plans were ready. He had studied the current times, the societies and economies, and made arrangements. Ah, the things one could accomplish by giving a clerk time to say his farewells.
“Aye,” he said. “A quick game or two. There is a large military engagement pending. I’ll be needed.”
“The usual stakes?”
Old Nick liked to have his sinners sooner rather than later. He thought it a great joke that Ar Death was willing to play for gold and gems. What could a Final Debt Collector want with earthly riches, and where could he spend them?
Ar waved his hand, or what would be his hand if he had a body. “Not this time. Today I’d wager on returning to life.”
Another hooded figure—Aleph, Ar thought, a Hebraic Harvester—left the table, muttering about the coming confrontation. Ar did not know if he meant the war on earth or the Devil’s fury at Ar’s effrontery. Instead, the walls shook with Satan’s laughter. “Life? When you, better than anyone, know how fleeting it can be?”
Ar nodded. “Even so. I would try to be a better man this time.”
“You are what you are, fool, for all eternity. We all are, without change. Besides, you will never beat me.” He spilled the gruesome, gleaming bones out onto the table and grinned at the winning pattern shown. “Losing means you will have to do my bidding forever. A quick shake of the hourglass, a few souls lost in transit, so to speak.”
Ar took a deep mental breath, having neither lungs nor airway for inhaling. If he won, he’d gain mortality. If he lost, he’d still be Death, coming just a bit sooner to the Devil’s disciples than expected. In truth, he was always earlier than anyone wanted. As for stealing innocent souls from Heaven, that was impossible. Ar was merely the enforcer, not the judge. He nodded. “I agree.”
“A bet! A bet!” a gremlin shouted, hopping up and
down. Satan swatted at the small creature, who scurried to Ar’s side, clinging to his cape.
The game commenced. Ar lost the first round, and Satan drew smoke crosshatches in the air with a taloned finger. “So many sinners, so little time.”
But then Ar’s luck changed. Smoke poured out of Old Nick’s ears. He shook the bones harder. Ar still won. The smoke marks faded; the Archfiend’s grin did, too. He cursed his lucky, spell-ridden saint’s bone, to no avail. Of course not. Ar had switched the relics with a monkey’s remains.
No one cheated Death, not even the Devil.
The very ground trembled with bloodred rage. The demons writhed; the wraiths withered. The trembling gremlin at Ar’s side dug his claws into Ar’s hooded cloak. The former warrior stood tall. “I won.”
“You won life, for all the good it will do you.” Satan snatched the hourglass pin from the front of Ar’s cape. “Six months. I give you six months to find this symbol of your employment, now the symbol of the missing piece of yourself. Find it, find your humanity. If not, you will be my minion forever.”
Before Ar could claim foul, Satan tossed the pin, and Ar, out of Hades.
*
Smoke. Screams. Heat. Oh, hell, he was back in Hell.
Ar got to his feet. Feet? He had feet? He did, and hands, to feel for a face, a body, blessed ballocks! He even had clothes under his own cloak, thank goodness, and thanks to the saint whose ensorcelled bone still rested in a hidden pocket there, along with Ar’s cache of documents and bank deposits.
“I am alive,” he whispered, marveling at the very act of breathing.
“Alive! I’m alive, too!” The gremlin was hopping up and down nearby.
Ar frowned. “Not for long. You’ll be burned at the stake or shot on sight.” The shin-high creature was slimy, dark as a cinder, with a forked tail and horns. No one could mistake it for anything but a denizen of the Dark. They’d suspect Ar, too, if he was seen with the beast. “Go. Get back where you belong.”
“But I’m alive!”
Ar looked around. He was on a muddy field, in the obvious aftermath of a monstrous battle. Sudden bursts of spectral light told him his former comrades were at work, telltale flashes of life candles being extinguished. “Find a Dead Letter to carry you back. I thought I saw Spanish Ese.”
“No. I breathe. I fit. See?” The gremlin twisted around.
“I see a monkey, you flea brain. What would a monkey be doing at a war?”
The gremlin became a goat.
“You’ll be cooked at the first campfire. Now begone before you ruin my chances, too.”
A large black bird flew to his shoulder and pecked at his ear. “I help find the brooch.”
Ar had forgotten about the hourglass pin that every Alphabet Agent wore. He slowly turned, noticing smoldering fires, piles of bodies, fallen horses, shattered cannon, and mud as far as he could see. “Damnation, how am I to locate the wretched thing here?” He well knew he had far more than a trinket to find. Where was he to start, seeking his soul?
In the distance a few men were moving around, turning bodies over to find their friends. No, they were cutting off silver buttons, stealing what they could from the dead soldiers. Was this what he wished to be, some poor scrap of humanity, grubbing through his allotted time?
No. He would be better. He
could
be better. The man he had been, that ruthless Sir Coryn, had at least been brave. Now he would temper valor with wisdom. He pledged to behave nobly, honorably, with kindness and generosity, knightly traits from a time long forgotten,
long forsworn. If he could not find his own salvation or the bauble, at least he could do some good with his six months and the fortune he had amassed.
First he had to discover who won this battle they would call Waterloo, which language to speak, what currency to use.
The nearest soldier to him was driving a cart, trying to reload his pistol with one arm. The other was bandaged and hanging limply, in a ragged uniform that had once been scarlet. An Englishman, then.
Ar walked closer until he could call out: “Doth the King’s Army taketh the day, friend? That is,” he hurriedly corrected, “did England win?”
“They say we did,” the man answered. “Heavens be praised.”
Ar touched the papers in his right pocket for reassurance, instead of his left, and said, “Amen.”
“Although not without terrible cost, my lord.”
“I claim not your liege—” Ar started, but then he realized what the wounded, weary soldier must see: fine boots and rich apparel, clean hands unsullied by combat. He nodded. “A sad day, victory or not.”
“And for the poor horses.” The man wiped at the tear streaks down one filthy cheek with his good hand. “My job is putting the blighters out of their misery and collecting the saddles to send back to the families before the scavengers get everything.” He scowled at the crow on the nob’s shoulder.
Now Ar realized that the screams he heard were from the wounded mounts. The injured soldiers and officers had been carted off, leaving the dead for later. He had no idea what powers remained to him, if any, but he had to start his new chivalrous life somewhere. Let him begin with the animals. “Lord Ardeth at your service.”