Death's Apprentice

28

"You need to sleep," Uriel said, crossing his arms. "Even your apprentice takes better care of herself, and she's dead."

"I can sleep once I have my scythe back." Death flipped through another newspaper. "Besides, what's that saying? No rest for the wicked?"

"Demons sleep. I'm guessing you've gotten three hours of sleep in the last five days."

"By my time yes, by yours no. Did you get those papers or not?"

Uriel tossed a pile of papers bound with a ribbon onto the table. Death scrambled to undo it before reading through them. Some of the papers were ripped, some were stained, and some of them were in a language I'd never seen when I was alive.

"As for you." Uriel fixed his eyes on me. "Don't do anything stupid. Making deals for your soul is dumb enough, but when you're part of Death's realm, you could end up screwing up the balance."

"Hey, it's my job to yell at me, not yours." I said, before taking another bite of soup. "And it's really hard for me not to do something stupid, there's something about this place that rubs off on you."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, kid. Get me another cup of coffee." Death's eyes never left his papers which were surrounded by thirty coffee mugs. I sighed, slid off the barstool, and grabbed another one from the cabinet. Steam rose from the fresh coffee along with its overwhelming scent. I grabbed the instant coffee and stirred in an extra two spoonfuls.

"Have you considered drugs?" I asked, placing the mug next to him. He continued working like he hadn't heard me.

Uriel moved to stand behind Death. His hands glowed softly as started running his fingers through Death's hair. "You need to take a break. It's not going to do any good if you aren't at your best when you go after Jacob."

"I'm fine," Death said, batting Uriel's hands away. He continued reading through papers. Coffee spilled over the table, and I hurried to set the cup upright. Snagging a towel from the oven handle, I mopped it up. I tossed the towel onto the bar. My hands closed around six coffee mugs, the handles to each hand, and I carried them to the sink.

"This isn't exactly how I pictured my day going." I turned on the water and rinsed out the mugs, hoping they would get a coffee ring in the bottom.

"You aren't doing anything until I'm sure you won't reopen one of the wounds. I've never had to heal bullet wounds before, normally I just reap people who have those."

"You're not my dad, Death."

"No, I'm your boss. Now go take a nap."

"Hey, I'm the one who's slept. You go take a nap, and I'll read through this stuff."

"How about no?" Death continued shuffling through papers. "You don't even know what I'm looking for."

"Something to do with an immortal?"

Death shook his head. "I already know where I can find a thing to track him down. There's a guy who collects weapons in New York. The address is over there." He gestured to a piece of paper sat apart from the rest.

"Then what are those for?"

"Just stuff on if Life could deconstruct my scythe." His hand moved to mess with the scarf, only to fall back to his side. "I don't think she can, but she knows how much easier that makes my job. It's so much easier to slice through the chain than to use my powers to erode it." A soft sigh left Death's lips, and when Uriel started running his fingers through his hair again he didn't swat him away.

"You need to sleep, Death. It's not healthy to keep drinking this much coffee," Uriel said.

"I've seen how much coffee your dad drinks."