Forever After (a dark and funny fantasy novel) Read online

  “No,” they chirped simultaneously.

  “You see any females?”

  “We assumed this was a working man’s club.”

  Michael leaned in again. “You ever heard the expression ‘bear’?” he asked to some gentle head shaking. “We use it in the gay community to refer to larger men.”

  “Oh.”

  “And our friend here,” he said, nodding towards Adder. “Is what we like to call a fucking beast, and I think he has an eye on you.”

  A wave of realisation hit the duo. They both drew sharp intakes of breath and when the blonde spoke he did so under the veil of an abhorrent exhalation. “You mean this is a club for homosexuals?”

  “Spot on,” Michael said with a wink.

  The wayward travellers drank their drinks so quickly that most of the liquid missed their mouths and ran down their tops. They left the bar to smiles and gentle cheers of jubilation before the fog of glumness re-hugged the miserable room like a black shroud.

  Michael turned to Adder, who had held a face of stern intimidation for the entire conversation. His thick jaw was set aggressively on his hardened face. His protruding forehead lined with a thick, blue vein. His eyes burned into everything they glanced.

  He grunted, almost complimentary this time.

  “You can stop that now,” Michael said calmly.

  Adder deflated. The vein on his forehead disappeared. His clenched jaw relaxed. The evil in his eyes unveiled; his posture slumped.

  “Thank you so much. You’re a gent.” His tone was slightly effeminate, lacking any of the heightened testosterone that his intimidating grunting had implied. “I was giving myself a sore throat and I think I have a headache coming on after all that scowling.” He lifted a monstrously delicate hand to his forehead. “You don’t happen to have a couple of paracetamol on you do you?”

  “Afraid not.”

  Adder sighed. His huge hand gently rubbed his big temple. “It’s OK. I’ll survive,” he said with a smile and a dismissive wave of his hand.

  Michael patted the big man reassuringly on the back, picked up his pint, collected his whiskey from a mildly amused, but silent, bartender, and joined his two friends at the corner table.

  “Chip. Naff.” Michael acknowledged his friends as he sat down. Chip sluggishly lifted himself up from the table, giving Michael a place to rest his drinks. “How’s things?”

  Chip groaned.

  “Same old, same old,” Naff said. “Heard you had a few issues today.”

  “Already?” Michael rolled his eyes. “Word travels fast.”

  “I work in the records department mate. It’s our job to keep account of, well, your job.”

  Michael smiled meekly. He drank the whiskey, enjoying the burn as it traced a heated path to his stomach. He slammed the glass down, instantly feeling better under the visceral glow of the alcohol.

  “What about the grumpy fucking tooth fairy here?” Michael nodded to Chip who was holding his head in his hands, weighed down by his own boredom. “Surely you can’t keep track of what he’s doing and still let him continue doing it.”

  Chip livened up at that. He lifted his head and gave Michael The Eye. “Hey!” he snapped.

  Michael stared straight back at him. “You drink and smoke all day.”

  Chip’s eyes rose to the ceiling in thought. He nodded, scrunched up his mouth. “True,” he conceded.

  “We cut him some slack,” Naff offered. “Or rather, I do,” he corrected. He received a thankful, but half-arsed glance from Chip before the tooth fairy resumed his slumped posture. “And the tooth game is different,” Naff continued, shaking off the uncharacteristic gratitude, “what he doesn’t collect will only be picked up by someone else. If you miss a soul, no one is there to claim it.”

  “I didn’t miss it.” Michael said defensively. “It wasn’t there to collect.”

  “Did you look properly?”

  “It’s not a fucking quid down the back of the sofa for fuck’s sake,” Michael snapped.

  Naff held up a hand, “Chill” he said calmly. “I’m just saying.”

  Michael calmed down in the heat of an impending argument. “Fucking hell,” he said softly into his pint, hunching his head over the rim of the glass. “It’s been a shitty day,” he grumbled soberly. “I lost another one before.”

  “Another soul?”

  Michael nodded solemnly. “Angela Washington,” he clarified. “Shot just like the other guy. I showed up a few minutes after and there’s no sign of her.” He took a long, slow drink, delaying the story of his own misery. “If I knew it was going to happen I could have been there, I could have seen it. I would know what happened to her, where she went.”

  “It’s never that cut and dry. Even if you had foreseen it, it’s never always that clear and definite. You can’t spend your life following around the potential dead on the off chance that this is their time.”

  “But sometimes it is clear, sometimes there is only one outcome: all roads lead to me. And even when it isn’t so clear,” he gave a simple shrug, “I like to see what happens. I like to keep track, to know the outcomes, which possibility the universe, fate or whatever, chose. And if someone’s going to rob me of a death I like to know who, so I can enjoy the moment more when it’s their time to die.”

  “Bit harsh.”

  Michael groaned and gave an apologetic nod. “I know. I don’t mean it, I don’t really care, truth be told. If someone finds the path and the possibility that doesn’t lead them into my hands then great, good for them. I’m just being an unnecessary bastard. It’s been a long day.”

  “Angela’s Washington,” Naff said with a thoughtful frown. “That name rings a bell. She’s a werewolf right?”

  Michael shrugged.

  “I remember reading her file. I’m sure she is.”

  Michael shrugged and took another long drink. “What’re you talking about?” he wondered.

  “What are the odds?” Naff quizzed. “The first guy was a werewolf. I was on duty at the time, I checked his file. Two people show up dead on the same day, both shot and both are missing their souls. This can’t be a coincidence.”

  “I don’t care,” Matthew said apathetically. “Whatever it is it could cost me my job.” He checked his watch; his eyes sank at the sight. “I should have reported in after that,” he explained. “I couldn’t bear to face them. The ridicule. Or worse.”

  Naff was looking increasingly animated, even Chip had started to pay attention and had lifted his head to take a drink.

  “But don’t you find it weird?” Naff pushed.

  Michael stood. “No,” he said simply. “Let it be. I’m going for a piss.”

  Naff wrinkled his nose. “I prefer to hold it in until I get home,” he said, reluctantly changing the subject. “It’s hell in there, and trust me, I’ve been to hell. Less fire, more piss, but I can take them in equal measures.”

  “Too many shakes,” Chip said suddenly.

  “What?” Michael asked.

  “They say shake it once or twice that’s okay, shake it three times and you’re playing with yourself.” Chip recited some of his encyclopaedic knowledge of the obscure, pointless and disgusting. “Judging by the floors we have a lot of excessive masturbators in here.”

  Michael paused with an open mouth, ready for a reply, but it shrugged it off for sanity’s sake.

  “I don’t understand that phrase,” Naff said as Michael worked his way around them with increasing speed, trying to get away from the conversation.

  “What’s not to understand?” Chip wondered, seemingly perking up now that the topic was urine and masturbation. “One shake: fine. Two shakes: fine. Three shakes: not fine.”

  “But what constitutes a shake? Is it one movement up and down, thus spraying yourself? Or is it left and right, spraying the floor and the poor idiot standing next to you.”

  “You’re putting too much thought into this.”

  “Well, what do you do?” Naff wonde
red, taking a sip of whiskey.

  “I wipe my cock on the hand-towel.”

  Naff nearly choked on his drink. Michael left the table, and his friends, with a smile on his face.

  8

  Michael awoke with a hangover. The perils of drowning his sorrows had caught up with him. His head ached. His stomach groaned. His mouth tasted like he had spent the night gargling toilet water.

  His mind ran through the nights events, or at least as much of it as he could remember. He remembered drinking glass after glass of whiskey in the Seamstress. He remembered stumbling out into the street in the early hours.

  He rolled over, scrunching up his face when the movement threw a dagger to the back of his brain. He sensed someone above his bed, saw their large form silhouetted against the amber glow from the closed curtain on the other side of the room. He slowly peeled his sticky eyes apart, at first he only saw a blur, but then his eyes adjusted.

  “Jesus Christ!” he spat, rocketing upright.

  His head exploded at the movement, his blood pressure plummeted. Sitting by the side of his bed, awkwardly positioned on a chair barely big enough for Chip, was Michael’s boss.

  “Not quite,” the large figure replied calmly.

  “Azrael?” Michael spat in astonishment, wondering if he was still drunk and seeing things

  “Indeed.”

  “Shit.”

  “Indeed.”

  Michael dropped his head tiredly into his hands. He furiously rubbed his eyes with his palms and fingers and used the base of his hand to knead some life into his skull.

  He said, “What are you doing--” but then stopped himself. “Can you give me a moment to get dressed?” he wondered.

  “As you wish.”

  ****

  Azrael, the Angel of Death, calmly walked to the kitchen, leaving Michael to rouse himself in the bedroom. His huge body bound gracefully through the grimy flat, almost floating with an ethereal decorum.

  He paused by the fridge and knelt down to open it; his eight foot frame towered over the large appliance. He looked through the contents with a murmur of curiosity. He picked up a tub of what appeared to be coleslaw, sniffed it with a startled grunt and then shoved it back on the top shelf, unimpressed.

  When he closed the fridge door he glimpsed Chip standing on the other side, entering the kitchen with his grubby hands scrubbing sleep out of his bleary eyes.

  Chip didn’t notice the Angel of Death poking around in his fridge, he brushed straight past him and drifted towards the couch in the living room as the demon watched him, perplexed and amused.

  Chip sat down and settled into the couch with his eyes still half closed. He picked his nose and wiped the offending contents onto the arm of the sofa. He jiggled his grubby fingers inside his ears. He sniffed his armpits, the smell woke him like a tub of smelling salts, his head jolted back and his eyes sprang open. Only then did he see Azrael watching him on the other side of the room.

  He dived onto the floor as if his legs had lost their rigidity and his body had spasmed.

  “Good morning,” Azrael boomed.

  Chip dragged himself back onto the couch, his feet kicking cartoonishly on the floor as he hauled himself up. He peered over the arm of the couch at Azrael, ducking down slightly as he prepared to hide or run.

  “Is it?” he asked, agitatedly. “I mean, of course it is! Good morning to you sir.” He slapped on his best smile, he looked constipated. “Can I get you something? A drink perhaps? Coffee?”

  He made a move to stand but quickly decided his legs wouldn’t hold him and sat back down.

  “I’m afraid it goes right through me,” Azrael countered.

  Chip tilted his head from side to side, bouncing it on his neck like an ornamental dancer. “That’s the point of a morning coffee isn’t it?” he enquired, feeling his heart rate settle slightly. “Helps clean the pipes.”

  Azrael shook his head. “I mean literally,” he opened his robe, exposing his skeletal frame. He closed it again before Chip had time to thoroughly examine the contents.

  “Holy shit,” Chip spat, more impressed than scared. “Well...” he said slowly, staring distantly at Azrael’s robe, “how about some toast?”

  Azrael frowned and waited for Chip’s gaze to meet his, when it did it suddenly flashed with a smile. “You’re an odd little fellow aren’t you?”

  “You’re not the first person to notice.”

  The Angel of Death nodded curiously. “You work at the tooth factory right?”

  “Freelance collector, kinda.” Chip shrugged. “How did you know?”

  “There’s a bag of teeth in the fridge.”

  Chip hopped to his feet. “I was wondering where I’d put them,” he declared, opening the fridge and removing the teeth, leaving another broad and simple smile for the Angel of Death as he passed.

  “Are you here for me by any chance?” He wondered. He was halfway back to the couch, ready to run to the front door if the answer was affirmative.

  Azrael simply shook his head, relieved that he wasn’t.

  “Oh, thank God,” Chip sunk into himself with relief. “Well, nature calls. Do excuse me,” he headed out into the hallway, talking as he went, “apparently I don’t need coffee this morning.”

  Michael passed his friend in the hallway and strode tentatively into the room, his hands clasped behind his back, his thumbs twirling nervously. He crossed to the living room and gestured for Azrael to take a seat. The Angel of Death took one glance at the sofa and shook his head.

  “I’ll stand, thank you.”

  Michael nodded calmly and rested against the back of the sofa, half seated, his arms folded across his chest. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked.

  “This is not a visit of pleasure,” Azrael replied soberly.

  Michael sunk his head into his chest and sprayed his feet out further in front of him, sinking into the cushions on the back of the sofa. “Of course not,” he said sullenly. “You’re sacking me aren’t you?” he spoke into his chest. “I always wondered how they’d do it, going from immortality to dust isn’t easy, you wouldn’t want to give the job of revealing that to just anyone. I guess sending down the head man, so to speak, makes things a lot easier for everyone involved.”

  He sighed heavily, pushed himself off the sofa and looked Azrael in the eyes. “You know what, I don’t care. This immortality business has been nothing but a confusing mess. I’m sick of people not answering my questions. I’m sick of still not knowing if there is a God and I’m sick of being told ‘you’ll learn’, because I won’t fucking learn. If I ask a question I want it answered, otherwise what would be the point of asking? I don’t want to be told I’ll figure it out for myself in a few decades or centuries, coz by then I won’t give a toss about the fucking answer will I?”

  Azrael didn’t flinch through Michael's rant. He remained standing, his eyes fixed almost amusedly on him.

  “So how does this work?” Michael wondered, prepared to face death for the second time. “Will it hurt? Will I go anywhere?”

  Azrael waited until a silence veiled the emotive atmosphere. “I’m not here to kill you,” he said eventually. “I’m here to help you.”

  Michael tilted his head to one side like a perplexed dog. “I’m not losing my job?”

  “No.”

  “Oh,” he said, feeling a sudden rush of embarrassment and regret. “Then everything I just said…”

  “Forgotten.”

  “Thank you.” Michael said, genuinely pleased.

  Azrael nodded sternly.

  Still feeling uncomfortably embarrassed, Michael leant on the counter next to his boss, his presence dwarfed.

  “This about the missing souls?” he wondered.

  “Yes.” Azrael eased Michael’s discomfort by shifting from his stationary position and walking across the room, taking an interest in studying his surroundings. “As you may know, both of your failed collections were werewolves. And although the souls
were not collected by you, they were collected.”

  Michael perked up. “Someone else on my patch?” he asked, wondering if help had been drafted to scrape the shit off the shovel in Brittleside.

  “No one sent by us.”

  “Oh.”

  “We believe your lost souls, those of Angela Washington and Martin Atkinson, are being used for,” he paused, stopping next to a small ornament of a tiny, cutesy fairy that Chip had bought and then dressed with the clothes from an Action Man: blue overalls and an AK-47. “Problematic experiments,” he concluded.

  “Problematic experiments?” Michael folded his arms over his chest and allowed his body to slink against the counter behind him. “Is this another one of those things you’re going to answer in a ridiculously vague way and then say nothing more about?”

  Azrael grinned. It was an unusual sight, like seeing a hated teacher or a revered politician cry. “The experiments are hazardous to our business and they have the potential to shift a great deal of power into the wrong hands.”

  Michael nodded knowingly. “That’s a yes then. How do I fit into this exactly?”

  Azrael picked up what he thought was a small fluffy toy-ball. He began tossing it idly from hand to hand while he looked at Michael, who didn’t want to tell him that the ball was actually a collection of Chip’s naval fluff that the fairy had persistently refused to discard.

  “They started in your area,” he seemed to catch a whiff of something unpleasant. He lifted the ball to his nose and recoiled when he caught the full scent. Michael barely suppressed a smile as his boss returned the offending ball to the bookcase.

  “We believe they will continue here. We need you to find out exactly what is going on.”

  Michael shook his head in disbelief. “You’re joking right? I don’t even understand my own job; I barely understood what you just told me, what do I have to--”

  “This is your patch,” Azrael interjected, a touch of menace flavouring his tone. “I have been watching you. I believe you are capable.”

  Michael shrugged and turned away, dejected. “So, can you fill me in a little more?