CHAPTER 2

There are basically four rules in the business.

One: Never ever let your client's soul stay in the body upon death. That's probably the most basic. The one that we all know.

Two: Only take those who are on your list. Never just see somebody dying, go over to them and take their soul. These people are somebody else's client and they have forgotten about them, or they are not really dying, or they are dying before it is time for their appointment. Hey, we're not gods, okay? We're not quite infallible. Lots of stuff can go wrong between B-day and D-day. Sometimes people get destroyed along the way.

Yeah, it's a bummer, but it's not so bad. I mean these people just gotta kick around until their real appointment. That can be a while. But they have fun. They haunt things, they explore, et cetera.

See, that's where all the fuss comes in, about it not being someone's time. "It's not my time! I'm too young to die!" Yeah, sometimes these are just arrogant fucks who think their time is way, way away, but this had to originate somewhere, didn't it? Of course it did. Sometimes it's not really their time. And they gotta wait a while.

Lesse.

Rule Three: Never ever ever interfere with another Maker. That's just asking for trouble. It's not nice, and it's really not a good idea to go fooling around with somebody's appointment. You can ruin things. They can go into Afterlife, the other Maker can get in trouble, which means they'll rat you out and you'll get shit from your Great Beyond, it's not a good thing. It's not so competitive that we have to go around foolin' on other peoples' deaths. That's just not cricket.

And finally the most important rule of all, rule four. NEVER EVER let a human convince you that they can stay alive for a while. This creates a nasty immortality effect. Yes, we can go around applying immortality to whomever we choose, but it's not good. No, in fact, it's really really really bad. REALLY bad. Imagine the worst thing you possibly can. It's way worse than that. The only beings that can let somebody continue to live without negative consequences are Devils and Gods. Don't think for a moment that you can do what they can. They're special. They have different powers and way different contracts.

. If some Maker lets a person continue living, they lose their appointment. If you're still alive when your appointment is supposed to go on, well then everyone's screwed. You can't die. Depending on how powerful the contract you sign with your Maker was, you have a few choices. The really unskilled Makers let you keep living, but don't offer any special premises pertaining to your body. Hence, zombies. You continue to rot and your body doesn't heal itself. This is bad.

The more powerful Makers can let you live on with better bodies. This accounts for the instances of vampirism and the like. Deals with Makers.

But we don't do that. Nope. Not a good idea.

Don't want to tamper with Humanity.

It's just not right.

And so we don't.

As I walked along the busy street towards the Coco Cafe on 5th Ave in Georgia, I reviewed the case file on the man I was about to pick up.

Zappa Harrison.

18 years old. Senior in High School. In a punk rock band. Huh. Interesting. I flipped through the clipboard to cause of death.

Gigantic cafe explosion.

Oh great. A convention.

I sighed. I hate it when I have to intermingle with other Makers.

"Apocalypse!" I turned on my heels, still walking.

Armageddon skipped up behind me, a smirk on his face.

"Hey, Poca, what's up?" He asked, swinging his little vile of Lifesand.

I rolled my eyes. "If you break another vile of Lifesand before Death, Hamunaptra's gunna kill you."

"So?" Armageddon smirked. "I'm already dead."

I shook my head.

He'd never learn.

Armageddon was about four inches taller than me, so he was about five feet and two inches tall. His skin was pale and his spikey, near chin-length hair was the color of the sky on a clear day. His wide eyes were yellow, with green irises and slitted pupils. He had large ears and fangs.

Like all demons.

Like me.

He was wearing the uniform of Hamunaptra's Civil Servants. It was a white work-shirt, the kind with the collars and short sleeves, under a black vest with a red tie, and green shorts,, complete with knee-socks and boots. He had a matching jacket, but had left that somewhere.

My outfit, incidentally, was the same, except I had a pleated skirt instead of the shorts.

We matched.

"So, you gotta Client at the Coco Cafe as well?"

"Yup." I said, showing him my vile of Lifesand.

He nodded. "Cool."

"You know there's gonna be other Maker's there."

"Yeah, yeah." He rolled his eyes. "Let's just hope that there aren't any Heaven Makers there. I already have a headache."

"Tell me about it." I said, shaking my head.

Because of the high risk of being seen in a group, at mass death sights, the Makers just became invisible. We could see other Makers and the humans, but the humans couldn't see us.

Once inside the place, Armageddon and myself were both invisible.

We sat down on top of the piano in the corner and waited for the explosion.

"Oh my god!" We both turned, and Armageddon cursed under his breath.

Joy came running up to us, holding onto her halo as she skipped around tables that couldn't see her.

"Hi!" She squealed, grinning from ear to ear with girlish glee.

"I knew there'd be angels here." I muttered to Armageddon.

He shook his head.

"I haven't seen you two in ages!" She squealed, covering her cheeks with her hands. "Oh, you look great! I love these mass deaths, don't you? You get to see all your old friends and everything!"

"Yeah, Joy." I said, with a dry expression on my face. "It's real keen."

She giggled. "I should say so!" She sighed. "We're the only ones here right now, but I heard that there'll be Makers from EVERYONE!"

"Fantastic." Armageddon said. "Maybe a Monster will eat you."

"Huh?" She said.

"Nothing." I said, smiling at her with a fake smile.

She giggled. "You're so funny, Armageddon!"

Joy was about five and a half feet tall, real curvy, with pink hair pulled up in a high pony tail. She had wide blue eyes and rosy cheeks. She wore what all other angels wore; A sort of frilly ballet-dress tutu kind of thing. White, of course, with pink lace and bows. She wore thigh high white stockings and pink little slippers with bows on the ends. Real girly.

Heaven. What a yutz.

Never liked her much anyway.

She was a Beyond, but not like Hamunaptra. Where Hamunaptra was a sort of small Beyond, Heaven had millions of clients a day. She had hundreds of Makers. Hamunaptra had ten including me and Armageddon.

Heaven's Makers were all Angels.

Hamunaptra's were demons.

But Heaven had angels.

And they were about as annoying as fingernails on chalkboard.

There was only one decent one among them, and that was Charity.

And she didn't seem to be here yet.

Unfortunately for us, Hamunaptra and Heaven got along pretty well, and sometimes to help out, her Angels would help us out, or we'd have to help the angels out.

We were always at business meetings together, and family picnics and stuff.

It was pretty terrible sometimes.

Joy was busy playing with her sparkly little magic wand.

See, each Great Beyond used different mediums. We had our little vials of LifeSand. I guess that would be because Hamunaptra is originally from the desert. So we get sand.

Hell... Well Hell's a little old fashioned. They all get scythes. I'd kill for a scythe. They just look cool.

Tir Na Nog's little Makers have coins. Lifecoins. The kind that they used to place on the eyes of the deceased, so they could pay the Charon to ferry them across the River Styx to get to Erebus. Those coins. They're not so cool. But Tir Na Nog's not really cool. He's actually a little scary. But then again, so are his Makers.

Val Halla's got Ravens. That's where that old Indian myth came from, that when you die, a crow carries your soul to the land of the dead. Yeah. They got ravens. That works pretty good.

Heaven's got stupid little magic wands. All ribbony and sparkly and pretty. It's enough to make you sick.

I hate 'em personally.

Much prefer our little vials of Lifesand.

Glad I'm not an angel.

I'm a demon. And proud of it.

Now all of these little mediums are used for two things. To keep track of the souls, to stop time, and to transport them properly.

No, we don't put them in the vile. No, the ravens don't eat the souls. They sort of act as magnets.

It's pretty technical. I don't want to get into it.

"I see that the Demon world is well represented today, aren't they?" We all looked around for the source of the voice.

Down, leaning against the piano, was Moppet, one of the Makers for Tir Na Nog.

Let's get a few things straight here at this point in the story. Kids can't die.

Yeah, they do die, but they aren't supposed to.

Nobody's appointment is scheduled until they are an adult. Kids who die aren't supposed to die. Their souls aren't fully formed yet. So they can't go into their Eternal rest. They can't meet their Great Beyond. They just can't. And they can't hang around until their appointment like adults who die early can, either. Nope. That's it. Not their fault, but so what? Fate's funny that way.

Nope, nope, nope, kids aren't supposed to die.

But they do. And when they do, they get picked up by Tir Na Nog. He uses them as his Makers. Makes a pretty good living of it, too. There aren't any child labor laws in the Underworld. None whatsoever. Actually, everybody's pretty glad he does it. I'd hate to have a bunch of undead children running about the place.

And plus, if he didn't help them, who would?

Moppet was about four when he died. That was several, several centuries ago. Now he's one of Tir Na Nog's Makers. What we call Leprechauns in the business. He's about two feet tall and kind of pudgy. His hair is light blond and curly, with big blue eyes to match, and a fair complexion.

Moppet was wearing a little green suit. Tailored just for him. He was pretty cute. And sort of unnerving, actually. He was flipping his LifeCoin. Flipping it up and then catching it again.

Repetitiously.

Moppet was kind of creepy.

"Hello Moppet!" Joy squealed. "Oh, you look so cute in your little suit! I could just eat you up!"

Moppet smiled up at her.

He liked the ladies, but sadly, was trapped in a five year old's astral body. So he took what he could get.

Joy sighed and adjusted her halo.

"T minus 4 minutes." I said, glancing at the vile of Life Sand.

"Wow, the tension's just great!" Joy exclaimed.

"Ohmigawd!" Joy turned.

"JOY!!" Two of the most annoying angels in the entire world came skipping across the floor of the cafe.

"Oh great." Armageddon muttered.

Euphoria and Ecstasy. I shudder.

The three angels screamed and began hugging each other. They had undoubtedly seen each other at breakfast. Stupid girls.

Euphoria had blue hair that was pulled up in pigtails with bright pink ribbons. Her wide pink eyes were sparkling with joy. She looked very nice in her little angel outfit.

Ecstasy was a little taller than Euphoria. She had green hair pulled back in a braid with curly wisps falling around her face. Her eyes were bright and blue. Very cute.

The three giggled, and then Euphoria and Ecstasy turned to me and Armageddon.

"Hi!" Euphoria giggled. "We haven't seen you two in forever!"

"We saw each other last week, Euphoria." Armageddon muttered. "That's not forever."

"Oh, but it seems like it!" Ecstasy chirped. "Don't you two just love Conventions?"

"Oh, immensely."

"Ohmigawd..." Joy whispered, leaning in close to all of us, drawing the other two angels inwards, as if we were doing some sort of huddle. "Look who just walked through the door..."

We all turned slowly, and saw two monsters.

They walked in coolly, eyes watching the people as they ate and talked.

Three minutes to go.

Monsters.

They worked for Hell. Hell was one of the most busy Beyonds.

And don't let his name fool you. He's no worse than the rest of us. The Christians and the like used his name in reference to a bad place, but there's no difference. He may appear evil, and his monsters certainly aren't the most wholesome looking people in the world.

The two that walked through the door didn't come over to us. They acted as though they hadn't even seen us, actually. They leaned against the wall and casually chatted with one another.

The girl was Blasphemy, and the guy was Chicanery.

Blasphemy was truly beautiful, but in a sort of fiendish way. She was about five and a half feet tall, with slender curves and skin that was the color of coffee and cream. Sort of mocha, if you will. Her hair was black, so black that it looked blue in some lights, soft as silk and just as liquid-like. It hung in wisps around her face and was then pulled back in intricate braids that fell past her waist.

Monsters tend to be well dressed.

The rest of us pretty much have uniforms. Heaven's angels wear the little ballerina get-up. Tir Na Nog's Leprechauns wear the little green suits. Hamunaptra's demons wear the stupid little school girlie/boyscout uniforms. Val Halla's Valkyries used to wear these stupid heavy metal get-ups, but now they just wear silver stuff. Not metal. A lot easier to move around in.

But Monsters...

Hell's not particularly picky. They're just generally really well dressed. A little gothic, perhaps, but well dressed none the less.

Blasphemy wore a black suit jacket trimmed with black mink fur over a see-through sort of taffeta shirt. It had frills that hung out past the cuffs of the suit jacket, wrapping around her well-manicured fingernails in a quite sexy way indeed. Underneath it, she wore a light black skirt that seemed to move by an unseen breeze. The fabric was that caliber light! She wasn't wearing a slip underneath it, and you could tell the way it hugged her body, her curves. Incidentally, you could tell she was wearing thong cut panties and a full corset and garter set. Her sexy little black pumps were perfect for her feet.

She looked marvelous, holding her scythe with a gently tapered hand as she spoke quietly with Chicanery.

Chicanery was about six feet tall, and darkly attractive.

He could've doubled for Blasphemy's brother, but that was impossible. Monsters do not have siblings. Perhaps someday I'll find out why. I just know they don't, that's all.

His skin was slightly darker than hers, and his hair was the same color, hanging all unchecked around his swarthy good looks. His eyes were crystal blue and very, very piercing. He had well formed lips and high cheekbones. He was quite... Good looking.

But I'm not the kind of girl who falls for good looks that easily. I'm not a huge fan of monsters. They freak me out to be quite honest.

Chicanery was quite well dressed, as well. Again, monsters are well dressed.

He wore a full tuxedo. It was sort of frilly at the cuffs, curling around his well-manicured fingernails like Blasphemy's. The way his pants hugged his curves, you could tell he, like Blasphemy, was wearing thong cut panties and a garter belt under everything as well. Monsters were, after all, a quite kinky bunch.

"Wow..." Euphoria murmured. "Mr. Chicanery looks good..."

"Yeah..." The other two angels nodded in agreement. "But he smokes too much."

"Yeah..." Euphoria nodded.

Chicanery was a total chain smoker.

A complete chain smoker. Never seen him without a cigarette.

"Hey, where are all the Valkyries?" Armageddon asked.

I shrugged and looked at my watch. One minute.

"I guess there aren't any clients for Val Halla here." I said.

"Hey look!" Euphoria said, pointing across the room. A lonely little angel walked quietly through the door.

It was Charity.

Armageddon smiled at me.

He had a crush on the lovely little miss Charity. Even I liked her. Everyone liked Charity. She was very sweet, quiet and demure. The other angels were all bouncy and happy. Charity was happy as well, but it was a sort of toned down happiness.

Charity was the exact same height as Armageddon. About five feet and two inches or so. She had very pale but healthy colored skin and a wonderful body. Her eyes were very wide, slightly angled and almond shaped, and a perfect shade of magenta. Her hair was black, like Blasphemy and Chicanery's, but hers had little stripes of purple in it.

Charity's hair was down to just below the nape of her neck. It was cut in bangs in front, with two twin chunks in front of both of her slightly pointed ears, and a little longer in back, mostly straight, but flipping out just slightly at the very ends. She was absolutely adorable. Today, like most days, she wore her bangs down, with little chunks of hair framing her face, but the rest was pulled up into twin buns, then wrapped in pink cloth and tied in ribbons.

Charity was the highest ranking of all the angels. She was sort of like den mother. A little bit detached from the others, but still one of them. She wore the same silly little ballerina dress get-up, but hers was all pink instead of white. That's how you knew that she was the highest angel.

She stepped in through the door looking a little bit down. She wasn't smiling.

Before she even made eye contact with us, a hand snaked around her wrist and whirled her around until she was face to face with Chicanery.

He smiled down at her and tenderly ran his hand across her cheek.

Blasphemy smiled over his shoulder.

They exchanged words, but none of us could make it out. Charity tugged at her hand after being polite for a few moments, but Chicanery wouldn't let it go. He slithered his other arm around her and pulled her close. She struggled against him, gently, but he still wouldn't let her go.

He leaned in and pressed his mouth against her ear and seemed to whisper something.

Charity slapped him, and her let her go, laughing.

She shook her head, said goodbye to the two, and crossed the room to talk to us.

"Charity-san!" Euphoria, Joy and Ecstasy cried in unison. "Are you okay? What did Chicanery-sama whisper to you??"

"Nothing, nothing..." Charity waved it off with a gentle smile. "He's just a man, and men can be monsters."

"How are you today, Miss Charity?" Armageddon asked.

He so wanted her.

Charity shrugged and shook her head.

"What's wrong?" Moppet asked.

"Oh, it's nothing." She said. Charity was never one to bother others with her problems.

"Oh, come on." I said. "What's eating you?"

"Nothing, Miss Apocalypse." She said.

We all gave her a look.

She finally shrugged. "Oh, it's just my assignment after this one."

"Yeah?" Armageddon asked.

"It's just..." She started flipping through her clipboard. "Look at it."

I took the clipboard and we all looked carefully.

"Miss Rui Ophelia." I said, studying it. "No fixed address, no fixed anything."

"You mean you have to get a wanderer?"

"Not just that." Charity said. "A wandering orphan. She has no parents. Her soul is JUST barely formed. She's sixteen."

We all shook our heads. It was sad when such a soul had to go so early.

She'd barely begun to live.

"See what I mean?" Charity said. "I always get so depressed when I have to take poor unfortunates like this..." She sighed. "But it gets worse. Look at cause of death."

I flipped the page and came to that part.

We all looked at each other.

"Unknown."

Unknown...?

"Unknown?" Euphoria, Joy, and Ecstasy whispered in unison.

We all exchanged looks again.

In all my years, and believe me, that's a long time, of being a Maker, I had never ever ever had an unknown cause of death.

"Unknown?" We all jumped at the sudden appearence of Chicanery. "My my my, why is it that the angels always get the interesting ones."

"You ever seen anything like it, Mr. Chicanery?" I asked.

Chicanery looked at me. "Not in any of my days..."

"That's odd..." Charity murmured. "I just have a funny feeling about it, that's all."

"It seems that there isn't much known about this little girl at all..." Blasphemy was suddenly in on the conversation. She shook her head. "How can it be that there is one person with so little known about them?"

We shared an awkward moment of silence.

"All I know is," Charity sighed. "That she dies in a weyerhouse. An abandoned weyerhouse."

We all fell silent.

A murder victim.

We'd all been there. And we had all been severely unnerved by it. There's nothing worse than having to sit through a violent murder, and then having to stop time and take the soul away. They don't stop crying. They're too scared.

We much prefer random accidents and old people.

Those are the nice easy jobs.

But somebody has to take murder victims, and sometimes you had to.

Poor Charity.

"I'll be fine, you guys." She said, waving her hand. "I'm sorry, I'm just a little bit down lately, is all. I don't know why."

Chicanery nodded, and he and Blasphemy returned to the other side of the room.

"Almost time." I said.

"Is it just me, or is Chicanery carrying two scythes?" Moppet suddenly asked.

I looked across the room.

Sure enough, Chicanery was carrying two scythes.

"Hey, Chicanery!" I called, hopping off of the piano. "What's up with the double scythes?"

Chicanery turned a lazy, monster eye upon me and smiled softly. "I have two clients here."

"What?" I asked, cocking my head to one side.

"Two." He said. "Marianna Fallburg, and Zappa Harrison."

"What??" I demanded.

He rolled his eyes. "Lord Hell is a little shorthanded and he lets us take two at a time if need be." He shook his head. "I know it must be hard for a demon to-"

"I'm taking Zappa Harrison." I said. "He's got an appointment with Hamunaptra."

"No, you're mistaken..." Chicanery said. "It says on my clipboard."

He raised his hand and manifested a clipboard from thin air.

"See?" He showed it to me.

It was the same slip of paper that was attached to mine, except where mine said Hamunaptra, his said Hell.

"Nuh-uh." I said. I held up my clipboard. "See?"

He narrowed his eyes.

"There must have been some sort of mistake..."

BOOM.

There were sparks everywhere as the explosion went off and everyone started stopping time.

Blasphemy twirled her scythe around and slammed it into the ground to stop time for her client. Then, after explaining preliminaries to him, she swung the scythe into his forehead and his soul leaked out.

She was gone.

The angels had done their work, as had Armageddon.

That left one person left.

And Chicanery wasn't letting me do my job.

We were yelling at each other, and nothing was being accomplished.

He had taken Marianna Fullburg, but wouldn't let me take Zappa Harrison.

But I wouldn't let him take him either.

Finally, after much yelling, Chicanery dropped his clipboard and bam, embedded the point of his scythe into it.

It burned up upon contact.

"There." He said. "He's all yours."

With that, he took his soul and disappeared.

I turned to get Zappa, and was met with a most alarming scene.

Everyone was dead, and the soul of Zappa Harrison was standing in front of me, eyes narrow.

"What the hell is going on?" He demanded.

My heart leapt into my throat. I hadn't stopped time. His soul had been in his body at the time of death. And here he was, in Overtime.

He was a Ghost.

I covered my mouth.

"Shit!" I quipped.

"Hey, girlie, what the hell is going on?" He repeated.

He was a little taller than me. His skin was now perfectly white, and his hair was a light blue, hanging in spikes around his face. He was a punk after all. He was wearing black clothes, but they looked sort of faded now that he was dead.

My hands were still over my mouth.

"Hey, what the hell?" He demanded.

"Hamunaptra's gunna kill me!" I wimpered.

"What's going on?" He repeated.

I was so flustered that I hadn't explained anything to him.

I collected myself. "You're dead." I said. "You just died. I was supposed to take you to your appointment, but there was some sort of mixup. Your name was on two different Great Beyonds' lists, and we were arguing, and now you've missed your appointment. Shit. This has never happened to me before. I've always been so good about making my appointments. Never missed one. This is awful, I had a perfect track record! Hamunaptra's gunna kill me..."

"Who the bloody fuck is Hamunaptra??" He demanded. "Is that like that City of the Dead in Egypt?"

"Exactly." I answered. "Hamunaptra is your Great Beyond. He's where you go when you die."

"He's where everyone goes when they die?"

"No, not everyone." I answered. "Some people go to Heaven, some to Hell, some to Tir Na Nog, some to Val Halla, there's a bunch of Great Beyonds."

"How do you know which one you go to?" He asked.

"Well, your name shows up on our list." I said. "It's preordaned when you die. That way we know when we should collect you. See, if your soul stays in your body when you die, you go into Afterlife. Eternal Overtime. You're a ghost, now."

"A ghost?" He asked.

"Uh huh." I nodded.

He looked at himself. "So let me get this straight. I've missed my appointment?"

"Uh huh."

"So now I'm a Ghost." He said.

I nodded.

"What's the problem?" He asked.

"Well, it's extremely difficult to reschedule." I answered. "And you know, if you're a ghost, all you can do is wander around the earth and haunt things and stuff like that."

"Cool!" He said.

"But you'll never be able to enter the City!" I said.

"So?" He asked.

"So that's bad!" I said.

"How so?" He asked.

"It..." I stammered. "It..."

He smiled.

"It just is!" I said, exasperated.

"Maybe I wanna be a ghost." He said. "Maybe I want to haunt stuff. This mean I can go anywhere?"

"Um, yeah, except for the City!" I said.

"But anywhere on Earth, huh?"

"Y..es..."

"So I can sneak into girls' locker rooms and things like that!" He grinned. "What's the problem?"

I sighed. "Look, we've gotta get you to Hamunaptra." I said. "I'm sure he'll see the problem. He'll understand. He's a good man, if we just-"

"Nah, I think I wanna stay a ghost." He answered, and turned and walked away from me.

"Hey, come back here!" I cried. "You can't stay a ghost!"

"I can, and I will." He said, walking through a wall.

I had to run after him. I jumped through the window and out into the street, where he was wandering away.

"Come back here!" I called after him, but, as so many ghosts tend to do, he had vanished.

I just stood there.

"Hamunaptra's gunna kill me..." I muttered.

Oh how I didn't want to go back to the Office.

I was so nervous that I was trembling.

This was not good.

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