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deaths_head"You're staring, boy."
"Don't mean nothin' by it, sir."
The man sitting at his kitchen table just smiled, despite lookin g as uncomfortable as Josiah felt most of the time. He made good money, but the world simply wasn't made for men their size, and the furniture in his home left something to be d esired. He'd made time for his bed, and only his bed, crafting that particular piece of furniture himself to fit his frame so he had at least one refuge from the smaller shaped world around him.
The stranger just smiled, sipping his coffee. "I don't fault you, son. Don't surprise me none that you ain't seen a man like you before. We're few and far between."
Having poured his own cup of coffee from the pot on the stove, Josiah crossed the room of his small apartment and folded himself to sit in the chair across from his strange new friend: broad and tall as Josiah was, with hair that same hellish shade of dark red. He wore it cut down short, where Josiah let his grow out a mite, and had eyes of charcoal where Josiah's were a clear grey, slate when he was angry or impassioned.
"Momma, God rest her soul, was a real Irish spitfire." he explained after a long, scaling pull of the bitter brew he favored. "Got that from her, right down to the carrot top."
The stranger laughed, a dark sound that chilled Josiah to his marrow. "I ain't talkin' of the Irish, boy. I mean us...them the dead speak to."
"I wouldn't know 'bout that." Even he, however, knew the words came too quickly, too automatic. It was a rehearsed response, one he needed in order to be able to cover up the Devil's power made manifest within him.
The stranger folded his arms along the edge of the table and leaned forward, with a smile that took blandly handsome features and pulled them tight against his skull...it was the smile of a corpse, long dead.
"I heard tell of you, Mr. Cole. The undertaker who soothes his corpses while embalming, who comes to call just before the Reaper does...that's power, Jo, power few possess. That's the kind of power a wise man will use to his benefit, to right the wrongs that Fate's done him."
Josiah was chilled by the look of the man he'd invited in from the rain, speaking freely of the witchery he fought so hard to hide, to turn away from...but the mention of righting wrongs, of Fate's fickle touch...
"What wrongs you think can be righted?" the question left him before he realized he was speaking.
"The wrongs, Josiah Cole, of life stolen in its prime. This son, is the domain of the death mage...and if you'll merely give me the pleasure of your company, along with a little room & board, I'll teach you all you need to know."
* * * * *
"I can't make it work!"
The stranger, who Josiah now knew by his true name of Death, narrowed his eyes at the young man folded into his seat at the table, tossing the dead branch halfway across the room in frustration.
"If you're going to raise three souls, Josiah, you must learn." Death reminded him calmly, crossing the small room to pick up the branch. "You know the feel of the power."
Josiah sighed, raking his fingers back through his hair as he rested his elbows on the table. Dimly, he was aware of the branch being placed before him again, empty and hollow...and after several weeks of practice, singing a song only Josiah could hear. A simple dead tree branch, and it called to him with a haunting melody of pure longing that made his heart clutch in his chest.
"I do." he admitted gruffly, lifting his head to look back up at Death. "But using it like this instead of just soothin' the souls in my parlor? It feels...it's a thousand souls rioting in my head. Chaos, sir."
"Then think of the waterfall."
Josiah blinked, confused. "Sir?..."
"Think of the waterfall." Death echoed, laying a hand on Josiah's shoulder. "Shut your eyes and think of it."
With a dubious look at his teacher, Josiah focused on the tree branch for a moment, then shut his eyes with a weary sigh. As he did, he pictured a waterfall, etchings he'd seen of the mighty Niagra Falls. As he focused on the details, the low, soothing voice of Death sounded in his ear.
"Think of the waterfall. Sound, fury, riptides...chaos. Still, it travels a single path, pours endlessly downward, begins as a trickle and becomes a tide in time...consistent, unchanging. Chaos can be channeled...you simply need to give it a direction in which to flow."
Josiah let himself hear the roar of the water, focused on the tempest as it surged forward, ever forward...heard the whisper of the spirits, and when they threatened to drown out the roar of the water, he sketched out stones in his mind's eye and sat them on either side of the flow of sound. One by one, he laid them at the edges to channel the sound forward, ever forward...
The cool wind that touched him before the visit of a ghost slipped under his skin as he reached out and touched the branch. It was cold water, dipping his fingertips into it and pulling it away. Heat flooded in its wake, sweeping away the cold and filling his lungs with something deeper, brighter, hotter than just breath.
Josiah opened his eyes, and gaped as he stared at the apple blossoms that now sprouted from the once dead limb.
"Very good, Josiah." Death praised softly, his hands heavy on Josiah's broad shoulders. "You learn quickly. Now it's time to move on to animals..."
* * * * *
"I didn't know...oh, God, Zeke, I didn't know..."
Everything with the ritual had gone the way it was supposed to. Death stood at his back the whole time, gently offering instruction when his will wavered. The power that had moved through him had been something touched by the divine--bliss like he'd never known, strength he had never dreamed.
Resurrecting the dead, in its own strange way, felt like home...until it all went wrong.
He would never forget the screams that pierced the air as the graves of Elton and Katherine Cole caught fire and burned before his eyes. Even now, they lay smoking, charred memorials to the bodies that once lay sleeping beneath the earth.
Still kneeling before Ezekiel's tiny grave, standing open wide...and gazed into the eyes of the child that stood in front of it.
The toddler was caked with earth, grimy and smeared with a mixture of dirt, decay, and unspeakable things left behind by the scavengers in the soil. The child under the filth was perfectly restored, a four year old boy flush with life...except for his eyes. His eyes were those of a man, ancient compared to the chubby cheeks and angelic curls that lay against his forehead.
Those eyes were ancient, and they leapt with pure hellfire.
"I didn't know." Josiah breathed, shaking his head as his stomach threatened to rebel. "Oh, God, Zeke, I didn't know..."
He turned his head, violent words on his tongue to demand answers from Death--to know what had gone wrong when everything was so perfect. This was supposed to be perfect.
Death was gone. Josiah was alone.
"I can hear them screaming, Josie."
Josiah turned back to Ezekiel, his tiny child's voice speaking a man's words, threaded through with a thin note of hysteria. The cold night air was warm on his face and bare arms, but the heat wasn't natural. It radiated from the tiny form in front of him, the brother Josiah ached to hold.
"Can't you hear them screaming?" Ezekiel repeated, clutching the sides of his head. "Mamma, Pappa--they weren't meant to leave! And me--why would you put me back?! Why would you put me here!?!"
"Zeke," Josiah tried, raising a hand to offer his little brother, "take a breath--listen to me, please. He told me I could make it right--that we could be together. Death...he didn't tell me this would happen! I didn't know!"
"You didn't care!"
Josiah flinched, physically pained at the shriek of rage that burned like coals. On top of that, to Josiah's horror, as his hands dropped from the sides of his head, pure flame leaped from his pudgy little fingertips.
It was him. he realized, angry and grief stricken at the same time.
"Twenty four years you took from me--and now I can't go back!" Ezekiel spat. "What did you turn me into?!"
The helpless baby with flames licking up his arms, lapping at him without wounding him...those flames had to have rolled off his little body and across the floors of their home, burning his parents, the beams that broke his fragile little body...
Flames that had spared Josiah, the child born not to fire, but to death.
Josiah shut his eyes, covering his face with his hands. "I just wanted you back...I didn't know it was you..."
"WHAT DID YOU MAKE ME?!?!"
Josiah's head lifted, even as he winced--right as the child raised his hand and conjured a ball of pure flame, one he threw at Josiah's knees.
It caught his trousers, and with a hoarse cry as he began to burn, Josiah tried to slap it out.
Little Zeke, a grown man in a four year old's body, threw another fireball.
And another.
And another.
And as the child grinned and laughed, Josiah Cole, weakened by spending all his power, screamed as he slowly burnt to death at his little brother's feet.
"Don't mean nothin' by it, sir."
The man sitting at his kitchen table just smiled, despite lookin g as uncomfortable as Josiah felt most of the time. He made good money, but the world simply wasn't made for men their size, and the furniture in his home left something to be d esired. He'd made time for his bed, and only his bed, crafting that particular piece of furniture himself to fit his frame so he had at least one refuge from the smaller shaped world around him.
The stranger just smiled, sipping his coffee. "I don't fault you, son. Don't surprise me none that you ain't seen a man like you before. We're few and far between."
Having poured his own cup of coffee from the pot on the stove, Josiah crossed the room of his small apartment and folded himself to sit in the chair across from his strange new friend: broad and tall as Josiah was, with hair that same hellish shade of dark red. He wore it cut down short, where Josiah let his grow out a mite, and had eyes of charcoal where Josiah's were a clear grey, slate when he was angry or impassioned.
"Momma, God rest her soul, was a real Irish spitfire." he explained after a long, scaling pull of the bitter brew he favored. "Got that from her, right down to the carrot top."
The stranger laughed, a dark sound that chilled Josiah to his marrow. "I ain't talkin' of the Irish, boy. I mean us...them the dead speak to."
"I wouldn't know 'bout that." Even he, however, knew the words came too quickly, too automatic. It was a rehearsed response, one he needed in order to be able to cover up the Devil's power made manifest within him.
The stranger folded his arms along the edge of the table and leaned forward, with a smile that took blandly handsome features and pulled them tight against his skull...it was the smile of a corpse, long dead.
"I heard tell of you, Mr. Cole. The undertaker who soothes his corpses while embalming, who comes to call just before the Reaper does...that's power, Jo, power few possess. That's the kind of power a wise man will use to his benefit, to right the wrongs that Fate's done him."
Josiah was chilled by the look of the man he'd invited in from the rain, speaking freely of the witchery he fought so hard to hide, to turn away from...but the mention of righting wrongs, of Fate's fickle touch...
"What wrongs you think can be righted?" the question left him before he realized he was speaking.
"The wrongs, Josiah Cole, of life stolen in its prime. This son, is the domain of the death mage...and if you'll merely give me the pleasure of your company, along with a little room & board, I'll teach you all you need to know."
"I can't make it work!"
The stranger, who Josiah now knew by his true name of Death, narrowed his eyes at the young man folded into his seat at the table, tossing the dead branch halfway across the room in frustration.
"If you're going to raise three souls, Josiah, you must learn." Death reminded him calmly, crossing the small room to pick up the branch. "You know the feel of the power."
Josiah sighed, raking his fingers back through his hair as he rested his elbows on the table. Dimly, he was aware of the branch being placed before him again, empty and hollow...and after several weeks of practice, singing a song only Josiah could hear. A simple dead tree branch, and it called to him with a haunting melody of pure longing that made his heart clutch in his chest.
"I do." he admitted gruffly, lifting his head to look back up at Death. "But using it like this instead of just soothin' the souls in my parlor? It feels...it's a thousand souls rioting in my head. Chaos, sir."
"Then think of the waterfall."
Josiah blinked, confused. "Sir?..."
"Think of the waterfall." Death echoed, laying a hand on Josiah's shoulder. "Shut your eyes and think of it."
With a dubious look at his teacher, Josiah focused on the tree branch for a moment, then shut his eyes with a weary sigh. As he did, he pictured a waterfall, etchings he'd seen of the mighty Niagra Falls. As he focused on the details, the low, soothing voice of Death sounded in his ear.
"Think of the waterfall. Sound, fury, riptides...chaos. Still, it travels a single path, pours endlessly downward, begins as a trickle and becomes a tide in time...consistent, unchanging. Chaos can be channeled...you simply need to give it a direction in which to flow."
Josiah let himself hear the roar of the water, focused on the tempest as it surged forward, ever forward...heard the whisper of the spirits, and when they threatened to drown out the roar of the water, he sketched out stones in his mind's eye and sat them on either side of the flow of sound. One by one, he laid them at the edges to channel the sound forward, ever forward...
The cool wind that touched him before the visit of a ghost slipped under his skin as he reached out and touched the branch. It was cold water, dipping his fingertips into it and pulling it away. Heat flooded in its wake, sweeping away the cold and filling his lungs with something deeper, brighter, hotter than just breath.
Josiah opened his eyes, and gaped as he stared at the apple blossoms that now sprouted from the once dead limb.
"Very good, Josiah." Death praised softly, his hands heavy on Josiah's broad shoulders. "You learn quickly. Now it's time to move on to animals..."
"I didn't know...oh, God, Zeke, I didn't know..."
Everything with the ritual had gone the way it was supposed to. Death stood at his back the whole time, gently offering instruction when his will wavered. The power that had moved through him had been something touched by the divine--bliss like he'd never known, strength he had never dreamed.
Resurrecting the dead, in its own strange way, felt like home...until it all went wrong.
He would never forget the screams that pierced the air as the graves of Elton and Katherine Cole caught fire and burned before his eyes. Even now, they lay smoking, charred memorials to the bodies that once lay sleeping beneath the earth.
Still kneeling before Ezekiel's tiny grave, standing open wide...and gazed into the eyes of the child that stood in front of it.
The toddler was caked with earth, grimy and smeared with a mixture of dirt, decay, and unspeakable things left behind by the scavengers in the soil. The child under the filth was perfectly restored, a four year old boy flush with life...except for his eyes. His eyes were those of a man, ancient compared to the chubby cheeks and angelic curls that lay against his forehead.
Those eyes were ancient, and they leapt with pure hellfire.
"I didn't know." Josiah breathed, shaking his head as his stomach threatened to rebel. "Oh, God, Zeke, I didn't know..."
He turned his head, violent words on his tongue to demand answers from Death--to know what had gone wrong when everything was so perfect. This was supposed to be perfect.
Death was gone. Josiah was alone.
"I can hear them screaming, Josie."
Josiah turned back to Ezekiel, his tiny child's voice speaking a man's words, threaded through with a thin note of hysteria. The cold night air was warm on his face and bare arms, but the heat wasn't natural. It radiated from the tiny form in front of him, the brother Josiah ached to hold.
"Can't you hear them screaming?" Ezekiel repeated, clutching the sides of his head. "Mamma, Pappa--they weren't meant to leave! And me--why would you put me back?! Why would you put me here!?!"
"Zeke," Josiah tried, raising a hand to offer his little brother, "take a breath--listen to me, please. He told me I could make it right--that we could be together. Death...he didn't tell me this would happen! I didn't know!"
"You didn't care!"
Josiah flinched, physically pained at the shriek of rage that burned like coals. On top of that, to Josiah's horror, as his hands dropped from the sides of his head, pure flame leaped from his pudgy little fingertips.
It was him. he realized, angry and grief stricken at the same time.
"Twenty four years you took from me--and now I can't go back!" Ezekiel spat. "What did you turn me into?!"
The helpless baby with flames licking up his arms, lapping at him without wounding him...those flames had to have rolled off his little body and across the floors of their home, burning his parents, the beams that broke his fragile little body...
Flames that had spared Josiah, the child born not to fire, but to death.
Josiah shut his eyes, covering his face with his hands. "I just wanted you back...I didn't know it was you..."
"WHAT DID YOU MAKE ME?!?!"
Josiah's head lifted, even as he winced--right as the child raised his hand and conjured a ball of pure flame, one he threw at Josiah's knees.
It caught his trousers, and with a hoarse cry as he began to burn, Josiah tried to slap it out.
Little Zeke, a grown man in a four year old's body, threw another fireball.
And another.
And another.
And as the child grinned and laughed, Josiah Cole, weakened by spending all his power, screamed as he slowly burnt to death at his little brother's feet.
