To Cheat Death

Chapter 3

Death returned to his home which was a small thatched roof cottage, much like those found in the Suffolk countryside. Death came across this cottage when he was collecting a Miss Anna Gilbert who had died in her bed. She was very good about Death copying her home and she said she would be most flattered. He found it far more agreeable than the old castle he had lived in before, keeping track of his paperwork has become nearly impossible because he just tossed it into one of the rooms and forgot about it. In his cottage however, he had to keep things organised because it was a smaller space and couldn't just toss things into the rooms and forget about them. Death now had a proper paper system that helped him keep track of things, which he had found to be beneficial, especially when the British Empire began invading everywhere and he had people left, right and centre dying from war as well as the regular person dying because a doctor thought that blood letting would cure it (Death still struggled to understand humans and their ever changing ideas).

Death carefully placed his sythe by the front door and pulled down his hood, revealing his gleaming white skull - far bigger than a regular persons but that could be because Death was a rather tall and looming figure. He proceeded to his study and began scanning the shelves for a particular book.

"Mr Lucius Todd..." He muttered to himself.

His bony fingers running along the spines of countless books until it rested on a navy leather spine. Death pulled it out and sat at his desk. He opened the book and examined the pages.

"1845 was the first, then there was two encounters in 1847 and one in 1849" he murmured. "Suppose he has done rather well considering this is 1852"

He then turned to the folder from Time. These folders gave full details on Deaths collection, including a picture. Death had become rather accustomed to meeting Lucius, he saw Death on the several occasions that he was supppsed to have died but Death can't collect him until his time is finished and his watch had never stopped (it was not Deaths department to have them killed that was someone else and nobody had any business to interfere with someone else's department). It was not uncommon for Death to sit and knit while waiting for the human to draw it's final breath, he found knitting a good way to kill some time especially if he was waiting on someone to be hung - humans had a bad habit of making long speeches or causing delays and just generally not getting on with things. However, Death had always found Lucius rather interesting as while some accepted their deaths and others tried to fight him, Lucius would always smirk and treat it like a challenge. In all the years previously he should have died, any other person would have died, but not him and Death found this oddly infuriating. He was not used to being cheated and despised him for being the cause of so much paperwork issues but at the same time admired him for being different.

He looked over the profile. Lucius was 22 now, still in London and in the picture supplied by Time, looked as mischievous as ever. He was scruffy but Death could see that he was a handsome man underneath it and had his circumstances been different would have been quite a catch among the upper class ladies. He glanced over at the watch, which was still slowly ticking. Death found himself debating about whether to wait for the watch to stop and then go collect him or go and see what he was up to and watch his outcome. It took him a few moments but he eventually decided on seeing what Lucius had been doing for the past few years.

The bell that rang for Times mansion echoed through Deaths cottage. It appears that he would have some other business to attend to while waiting for Lucius.

He gathered the pocketwatch and tucked it inside his robe and proceeded back to the front door for his sythe. He ran his finger across the edge of it, made a mental note to sharpen it later, tossed his hood over his skull and snapped his fingers.