Forever After - By David Jester Page 0,27
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?
“In time you will learn,” Azrael mocked with a broad smile.
Michael nodded exaggeratedly. “Of course I will.”
He watched his boss depart the room. He left through the front door, bypassing a merry Chip who was cleaning his sinuses with a series of grunts and snorts.
“Un-be-fucking-lievable,” Michael muttered in his absence.
****
A foreboding figure sat alone in a quiet and well-lit office.
He drummed his thick fingers, wrinkled and worn, on the solid surface of his desk, pounding a gentle, dull rhythm into the room.
He sighed, leaned back in his chair, which squeaked and strained against his heavyset frame, and spun gently, watching the office whirl by before his eyes as the chair spun on its revolving axis.
A tall bookcase of the finest dark oak, lined with first editions of priceless books, never read and barely touched; walls adorned with expensive paintings, a self-commissioned portrait, doctorates and degrees; an assortment of fine whiskeys, brandies and wine, encased in a cabinet alluringly visible through a thick sheet of glass.
He lowered his head when the chair settled. His eyes fixed on the far wall