Chapter Forty-One - Death

Abigail hummed to herself as she prepared a little plate for Dreamer. The afternoon rush was coming to an end (at last) and she had promised Dreamer some snacks. It wouldn’t do for her favourite little monster to throw a fit.

Actually, now that Abigail thought about it, Dreamer had never really been overly upset about anything. At most she might violate some natural laws to get rid of an irritant, but for the most part Dreamer was a well-behaved young girl.

That was probably for the best, seeing how powerful Dreamer was.

Maybe all the beings like Dreamer were actually fairly nice. It was probably a little optimistic to imagine that every powerful being was kind and helpful and a bit silly, but it was a nice thought to have all the same.

“Abigail!” Dreamer called from the cafe’s main floor. “My guest is here.”

“Alright,” Abigail said absently. Then the words really registered.

Dreamer had a guest.

Dreamer had a guest.

It was probably not a problem, but it was definitely something she would need to look into. There were all sorts of scary creatures that might want to visit Dreamer, and there were plenty of strange and vile people that might want to harm someone that appeared the way Dreamer did. It wouldn’t do not to supervise.

Abigail placed a few more cupcakes onto the platter, then she walked around the counter and into the cafe with a bit of haste. She shivered on the way into the main room. Had someone left the door open? It was mid-winter; people should know better.

Dreamer was in the room, as was Pam. Abigail didn’t pay them much mind. Her attention focused on the other being standing by the door.

It was a tall creature, cold and ancient. Its power was swift and unrelenting, a presence that she realized she had always known but never felt before.

She blinked and tried to see the person there. There had to be something.

It was like chasing a fly in a darkened room. The moment she thought she saw something, the dark swallowed it. “Uh,” she said.

“Abigail, this is...” Dreamer began. She frowned, then looked into the space where her guest was. “Hey, you got a name?”

“I am He Who--”

Abigail shuddered as the person’s, the thing’s, voice clawed at her ears and gripped her mind, chilling and cold and ebbing with painful certainty. Like when she drank something cold too quickly, but all over.

“No no,” Dreamer said. “That’s too long. You need a short name that the mortals can say. They talk with meat flapping, it’s slow.”

“I see,” the space said. “In that case, call me... Death.”

“Death,” Abigail repeated.

“Yes. The end of all things.”

Abigail swallowed, then glanced down at the platter she was holding. “Would you like a cupcake?”

“... Yes please,” Death said.

“Come on, sit down and stuff,” Dreamer said. She pulled a seat out at one of the round tables, then she took a seat for herself next to Death. “Wanna sit with us too?” Dreamer asked.

“Uh,” Abigail said.

“You don’t need to be afraid of him, he can’t hurt you.”

“I can,” Death replied.

Dreamer rolled her eyes, and Abigail made a tiny mental note (with the part of her mind not screaming) that she had to find out who taught her how to do that. “Yes,” Dreamer said. “You could hurt Abigail. But then I’d eat you and wipe out your very concept from everything so that you could never come back.”

“You cannot kill the concept of death, for in killing the concept you must have realized it,” Death said.

Dreamer crossed her arms. “What if I try really hard?”

“I don’t think effort is part of this particular equation.”

“That’s just cause no one’s tried hard enough before,” Dreamer said. “Hurt Abigail and nothing in this universe or the next would stop me. I’d search the umbral plains for the one that hurt her and consume the fabric of reality itself until the ones I hunt rest eternally in a nightmare of my making,” Dreamer said. “Can I have a cupcake too?”

“Sure,” Abigail said. She placed a cupcake in front of Dreamer, then another in front of the embodiment (insofar as it might have a body) of Death. “Do you want some tea? Uh, coffee?”

“Coffee please.”

“How do you like it?” Abigail asked. This was familiar, well-threaded, ground.

“Six sugars, a dash of cream.”

Abigail nodded. “Good, good.”

“Can I get a coffee?” Dreamer asked.

“No,” Abigail said without giving it a second thought.

Dreamer pouted but it had no effect on Abigail. She nodded in the general direction of Death, then scurried off back to the counter where she could prepare Death’s coffee and hyperventilate in peace.

When she returned it was to find that Death had either left and someone else had taken his place, or the concept of mortality had taken on the shape of a middle aged man with a touch of grey at the temples and a nice well-manicured moustache. “Ah, my coffee,” he said.

“Here you go,” Abigail said as she set his mug down. “And here’s an eclair, uh, on the house, since you’re a friend of Dreamer’s.”

“Oh, we’re not exactly friends. Dreamer is just being polite.”

“I was gonna eat him, but then I remembered some of the stuff Daphne said at me,” Dreamer said. “So I invited him here instead.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Abigail said. “Um, were you coming here on business?”

“Yes, yes, to reap the souls of every living thing in this solar system,” Death said.

Dreamer shook her head. “Silly, you can’t do that. I said so.”

“Yes, I’m beginning to see that. Perhaps we can compromise on some of the finer details?”

“Yeah, okay,” Dreamer said.

Abigail was quite certain that the fate of her entire world now rested on Dreamer’s ability to negotiate. She wasn’t sure what exactly she was supposed to be more afraid of anymore.

***