When she unexpectedly dies, Mackenzie Bowen lacks the paperwork she needs to pass into The Beyond. To avoid sitting in a waiting room for centuries, Mack is paired with Leon, a miserable Reaper, and hopes to either undo her death or earn her spot be...
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There was a universally accepted image of Death, and I was not a stranger to it.
A cloaked skeletal figure atop a pale horse, the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, and a creature of pure darkness. With a scythe in his bone and claw fingers, he cut down the living and stole their life's essence for himself, driving them to the underworld as he saw fit. Death was a terrible, monstrous master who held dominion over mortal souls.
I wasn't looking forward to this job interview.
Dead though I might have been, I still had some sense of self-preservation. As Leon marched me back through the endless corridors, I had to wonder if it was too late to go to the waiting room after all. Perhaps even Hell wouldn't be so bad by comparison. It would be warm, and I was sure I'd find a lot of interesting, if not morally questionable, people to talk to.
While the afterlife appeared to be little more than a string of train lines and underground tunnels which connected various offices to one another, it pleasantly surprised me when we arrived at our new destination. We entered a decadently old-fashioned station with wooden walls and flickering gas lanterns hanging from the arched tunnel ceiling. The sweeping grand staircase conveyed us to a Gothic building, which was a macabre change from the dull magnolia office in which we'd found Clark.
The corridors were panelled similarly with dark wood and large, arched doors reinforced with black iron broke up the space. Numbers and names were embossed into them with gold leaf which glinted and winked under the soft glow of brass oil lanterns. Leon led the way through the labyrinthian manor until we entered a cavernous hallway. On one side were arched leaded windows which looked out upon impenetrable darkness, and on the other hung gilded frames filled with oil paintings of grotesque images. People twisted in horror and agony, cities were aflame, and monstrous demonic entities clawing as though attempting to break free from their portraits to wreak havoc upon the world. I hurried my pace and pinched Leon's suit jacket between my fingers like a frightened child. If it bothered him, he didn't say as much.
At the end of the hall was a pair of towering arched doors. They were easily twelve feet high and, amongst the same wrought iron reinforcements as the rest in the building, there was an enormous black iron skull square in the middle which stared down at us with hollow eyes. Having learned his lesson back in Jane's office, Leon raised his hand to knock. I darted ahead and placed myself in the narrow gap between him and the door, our chests crushed together as I splayed out my arms to prevent him from alerting his boss to our presence.
"One minute," I said. "I don't know if I want to do this."
"Changed your mind?" Leon lowered his hand. "Thought you might."
"I'm just composing myself," I corrected. "I mean, this is the Death, right?"
