Chapter 5

Waking up after twelve hours of continuous partying was disorientating. The room span and my stomach tried to force its way up my throat. Clamping a hand over my mouth, I squinted through the gloom at the unfamiliar surroundings.

The room was vast as far as I could tell with my hazy vision. It was a testament to the ridiculous amounts of alcohol that I had consumed the night before as the loss of clear vision was only a symptom I suffered with a raging hangover.

I rubbed my hand across my eyes and sat up, looking about the room with only half of my normal level of concentration. It was why the familiar figure sitting in the corner of the room only sent a pang through my heart but didn’t send any of my alarm bells ringing. I smiled dumbly at the apparition feeling tears gather at the corner of my eyes as I looked at the face that was so like my own. The same dark hair and the same nose though the woman across from me had eyes greener than any grass I had ever seen.

“I miss you mum.” I whispered raggedly as I tried to stop my stomach from rolling.

The figure sat forwards and beamed at me. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck. With a blink and a not so wise shake of the head, I tried to shake off the paranoia.

“Hello Savannah,” my mum’s impossible voice spoke to me.

Yelping, I fell back on the bed. My hangover became something of a background annoyance as I stared into the cold eyes that twinkled at me with mirth. It wasn’t my imagination. My mother was really there. And yet I knew with certainty that it couldn’t have been her because she was dead. I had been the one to identify her body. I had been the one to identify dad’s body too.

“Mum? But you’re dead?!” The words slipped from my lips before I could put much thought into them. My heart was already aching from the mere sight of the woman before me and I couldn’t help but hope that my memory was wrong and that whatever was sitting only a few feet away was my mum.

But life didn’t like me that much.

The strange apparition sitting on the other side of the room was obviously enjoying my torment as she threw back her head and laughed so hard that tears would have been streaming from her eyes if she were anything ordinary.

“Oh sweet child, I am most definitely not your mother.” The familiar term of endearment on the imposter’s lips sunk deep into my veins sending a chill up my spine.

“Who are you?” I questioned, my voice coming out in no more than a whisper as I stared at the face I had wanted to see for so long.

“I am someone that was very much interested in meeting you.”

I frowned and looked away from the figure. My dry mouth and throbbing head were doing nothing to help with my concentration but the fact that this being, the one that looked so much like me, so much like my mum wanted to meet me caused nothing but confusions and dread. There was no good reason that something like this would want to meet me.

“Why me?”

Pushing to their feet swiftly the figure pranced up and down the length of the room waving their arms around.

“Why not you?”

My mum’s lookalike snorted when she noted the dubious expression on my features.

“I suppose that was a little much to expect you to expect on face value. No my dear, I wanted to meet you. Firstly to meet the one that is threatening my existence, to see the one who thinks that they can hunt me, that they can defeat me.”

My head throbbed painfully. Bringing my fingers to my temple I massaged them gently to try and ease ache while I puzzled over their words.

“Why would I want to defeat you? I don’t even know who you are. Except from looking like my dead mother, you have not caused me any injury as far as I know.” I answered the person logically, all the while my mind was sluggishly processing their words.

“Ah but if you think about it Savannah Holmes, really think about it, with your heart not your head you will figure out who I am.”

I hated the expectant look in their eyes because I could not think past the fact that the being had my mother’s face to even consider who they were.

“I thought you might possess more intelligence as you are meant to be my great adversary but I suppose it does not matter. Not everyone can be born with intelligence.”

I huffed indignantly, understanding the insult as it was delivered without inflection, just a passing judgement on my character.

“I am neither living nor dead. I am death.”

Whatever retort had been forming on my lips quickly fell away as I tried to get my half-drunk brain to co-operate.

“Did you just say you were?” I felt like such a dunce for repeating the words but even sober I would have been second guessing the statement my mum had just issued.

“I’m death, the grim reaper. There are many names that I have been given but those are the ones I am known by in this modern society. Though why they think I walk around with a cloak and a scythe I will never know.”

My mother’s top lip curled upwards, transforming the kind and welcoming face into one of a stranger. Never had I seen an expression of disgust and pure loathing on her features the entire time that she was alive. To see it here and now was so wrong… so disturbing.

“Did I say that right? I am still getting used to the new colloquialisms for this modern age. You all talk so strangely.” She paused, looking down at the white blouse and worn jean combo with disdain before closing her eyes and sighing.

I blinked and when the opened once more my mother looked like she was taking part in a period film. Big skirts billowed around her and her posture was ridiculously stiff from the corset that was probably hiding beneath the layers and layers of expensive blue material.

“I can’t say that I admire the fashion in this era either but it will probably change again within the next century so I don’t have to concern myself with it too much.”

I opened and closed my mouth, finally getting enough coherence together to pull myself up from the bed. I did not venture away from it however. Moving away from the huge bed would have meant moving closer to death. Despite how bizarre and ludicrous the sentence sounded, just the thought of getting even close to their personal bubble was enough to have bile crawling up my throat.

I idly wondered whose room I was even in but then shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. It was stupid and completely ridiculous thing to even be thinking about at this moment but yet again I was proving why I wasn’t a born leader or warrior. I was just a normal woman who has been forced into this strange world by God or fate. One of the two but I was never sure who. From what I had heard, the three sisters of fate and God often worked with each other.

“That’s all well and good, but why are you here and why, if you are death, do you look like my mum?”

“I told you, I wanted to meet the one that thought they could defeat me.” My mum held up a hand to silence me when she saw that I was about to retort. “I am here to give you a warning. Forget about me and my kin. Forget about trying to defeat us and lock us away again. We won’t go down without a fight. I can assure you that if we were forced to, we could wipe off the entire population with one move. My magic may not work against those in favour of your God, but there are other ways to destroy a person.”

The imposter who held my mother’s likeness had grown redder and redder as their passion and agitation had come to the surface. Pausing they took in several deep breaths.

“I wear your mother’s face as a warning. You may think you can defeat me but I can be or become anyone. If you strike against me, I will come after everyone and everything you care about. And you won’t even see me coming.”

To prove the point, a sigh escaped my mum’s lips which quickly dissolved into a male groan.

The hair has receded back into the head until a small amount of salt and pepper stubble covered their head. My mum had disappeared. One second she was there and a moment later my father’s likeness was staring back at me.

Seeing him standing there but knowing it was just an illusion, that it wasn’t really him was more painful that seeing death in my mother’s likeness. I had always been a daddy’s girl when I was younger and his departure from this world was more painful than anything else I had experienced. It was even more painful that even dying or being burnt white hot flames, both of which I had been unlucky enough to experience.

“Stop it. Please.” I whispered when death gave me a smirk that was so far from the man I had known and idolised.

“No.”

Death did not get to say anymore because loud shouts and cries could be heard in the hallway. My head snapped to the closed bedroom door as I tried to decide whether I should go and find out what was happening. And then I saw movement out of the corner of my eyes and my attention was once more on death.

“Ah, they found the second part of my warning a bit sooner than I expected. Never mind.” My father shrugged and walked over to the door, morphing into someone much shorter and much younger as he did. His hand reached for the handle but they did not open the door. The young man now staring back at me was so plain and unassuming that I doubted I would remember his face should I see it again. “Let this be a warning to you, just as one of your friends has found out. If you cross me, there will be nowhere you can hide. Not even protective enchantments and spells can keep away death.”

Footsteps got closer and closer, door after door crashing open as the crowd in the hallway got closer and closer.

“I believe it is time for me to exit. I don’t want to kill you Miss Holmes and I won’t but if you push me, you will be begging me to let you die.”

With a last malicious smirk, the young figure dissolved into the stream of people now moving steadily along the corridor.

I waited a moment, strangely disorientated before I rushed to the door, unsure whether I wanted to slam the door closed. Curiosity got the better of me and I looked into the stream of people moving through the corridors at such speed that I was frightened to step outside the door for fear I would get swept up in the current.

A familiar mop of black hair became visible over the crowds and a second later his eyes snapped over to me. Apparently waving my hands above my head like I was at a 90’s rave was enough to draw his attention. He pushed his way through the crowd like a salmon struggling upstream. His jaw was set hard and his entire frame was tense. I knew with certainty that the look was not just because he was fighting against a panicked hoarde of people.

He pushed through the door way and knocked my backwards. I stumbled but managed not to fall flat on my backside.

“Savannah.” Lucius breathed with relief evident in his tone. “You’re okay.”

“Of course I am.” I murmured, feeling warmth and peace floor through my tired and worn body as he pulled me up from the floor and enveloped me safely within his warm embrace.

I could smell stale sweat on his clothes as well as alcohol and perfumes. The typical scents of a night out but they made my less than settled stomach roil angrily.

“Lucius, I have to tell you something.” I muttered into his shirt, ignoring the fact that some women had to have been very close to Lucius to have made his clothing become this pungent.

“So do I.”

“No Lucius listen to me. Death is here.” I pulled away to look expectantly up into my employer’s face. What I didn’t expect to see on his expression was the pure and utter sorrow etched into his features.

He eyes flicked over every inch of my face as if he was waiting for me to do something. When I did not do as he expected, he pulled me tightly against him in a warm embrace.

“So you heard about Mephistopheles then.” He murmured brokenly.

I shook my head back and forth before pushing away from him once more. Lucius, more of a child in that moment than I had ever seen him before, had his eyes trained firmly on the ground. I put a hand on either side of his face and drew his attention to me.

“No, I haven’t heard anything about Phil. What’s going on?”

Even as I asked, I knew that I wasn’t going to like the answer.

Lucius sniffled once before pulled back his shoulders in his attempt to be strong for me.

“Savannah, Phil is gone.” When I continued to look at him blankly, tall dark and handsome sighed. “He’s dead Savannah. Someone murdered Phil. He was already dying and someone took his last few months away from him.”

I gulped and looked away. I could feel the tell-tale sting in my eyes that foretold of tears but I blinked rapidly to keep them at bay.

“It’s a warning.” I spoke under my breath remembering my mother and father who had been talking to me only minutes before, warning me away. “Death was here Lucius. Death took Phil and if we pursue him, he will take everything I love and care about away from me.”

I glanced absently towards the panicked stream of people that was now slowing to a trickle and then lifted my eyes to meet the icy blues I loved so much.

“We can’t let him win. I don’t care what we have to do. Death has to pay.”