The rain poured down all day, that peculiarly savage rain that came to Gotham three or four times a year. The heavy drops, driven by hard winds, hit like plastic riot-control bullets, with the added bonus of leaving every bodily surface they landed on soaking wet as well as battered. Above, the heavy overcast rendered the city—never the galaxy's most cheerful—even gloomier than usual. Nightfall, when it came, was merely a diminution of what weak daylight that had managed to seep through the overcast, an almost imperceptible slide of the sky from grey to black.

As late evening settled like a shroud on the East End, Gotham's toughest borough, the pelting rain and gusting wind kept everybody inside. Even the city's street criminals, who were renowned across known space for their hardiness, stayed out of it any way they could. The street corners and alleys, usually hotspots of dubious activity late into the night, were deserted.

Almost deserted.

Down Gotham's most notorious passage, an alleyway so infamous for violence and danger that it appeared on actual maps of the city as "Crime Alley", went a single figure. Shrouded from head to foot in black, evidently indifferent to the sheets of rain slashing down the alley, this individual walked with unhurried but purposeful stride toward the low white building at the end of the block, then paused before the side entrance—one of the only lighted doorways in this part of town at this hour—and seemed to be regarding the sign.

EAST END FREE CLINIC, it read in large, friendly letters, glowing green-on-white above the door. Beside the entrance another sign, this one rendered in red neon tubes, declared, EMERGENCY ENTRANCE. WE NEVER CLOSE.

The cloaked figure stood motionless for a long moment, then seemed to square its shoulders before stepping forward. The automatic door failed to notice, remaining firmly closed against the weather... but the figure in black passed through the armored glass as though it weren't there.

The room beyond was as empty as the alley outside, but brightly lit and considerably cleaner: a small but well-equipped emergency medical bay, with a couple of biobeds and neatly arranged carts and cabinets of equipment. The cloaked figure passed through without paying the contents of the room any attention, leaving no trace behind—not even moisture on the floor, despite having just come in from the pouring rain.

Classical music filtered down the darkened hallway beyond the emergency room, coming from the lighted doorway at the far end. The silent figure walked up the hall and turned into that doorway.

This room was a laboratory, dominated by a long central bench with a wooden top scarred and stained from long, hard use. Counters and cabinets lined the walls, along with various pieces of technical equipment. Unlike the emergency room, the lab had an occupant: a lone woman in a white lab coat. Incredibly pale, she had blonde hair drawn into a pair of pigtails, one dyed jet black and the other crayon red. She stood with her back to the door, working at the console of a large, expensive-looking machine.

The cloaked figure paused as if surveying the room, then stepped inside. It made for the door on the far side of the lab, and gave every indication of ignoring the lab-coated woman until the latter suddenly spoke. She said only a single word, but with such sharp finality that it halted the black-clad figure in its tracks:

"Stop."

The figure in the cloak froze, its body language evincing surprise. When it spoke, its voice was touched with a chilly, hollow, ethereal quality—but underneath that, it was unmistakably also the voice of a woman. What it said, after a brief, startled pause, was,

"... You can see me?"

"Yeah, I see you, reaper," the woman in the lab coat replied. She completed whatever she was doing to the device, then turned to face the figure in black. Fist on hip, she cracked a sardonic little smile, her blue eyes twinkling with something that was not quite mirth. "I'm a doctor and I run with a weird crowd. This ain't my first rodeo with your kind."

The reaper's face was invisible in the darkness of her hood, but from her posture, she seemed to be regarding the doctor as she regained her composure. Her voice had lost the touch of shock and was cool and clinical as she said,

"I'm not here for you, Dr. Quinzel."

"You ain't here for anybody tonight, reaps," the doctor shot back. Pointing to the machine she'd just been working at, she said, "The synth's working on a fresh batch of D-342 right now. It'll be ready in five minutes. Then I gotta titrate it, say five or six more. I'm that close."

The reaper shook her hooded head. "Too late." One skeletal hand emerged from her cloak, holding a small hourglass. As the last grain of its sand fell into the lower chamber, the reaper went coldly on, "The boy's time is up."

Dr. Harley Quinzel's eyes narrowed. She had just heard something in the spectral figure's voice she would never have expected, but recognized immediately: a familiar sort of strain, the sound of a person keeping her voice level with an exertion of will.

She's frontin', Harley realized. Why?

What she said aloud was, "Like hell it is."

Reaching to her side, she withdrew an object from behind the synthesizer cabinet—an object so out-of-context in this environment, so distinctly un-medical, that it took the reaper a moment to recognize it: a metal baseball bat, its shaft wrapped in black electrical tape, barrel decorated with festive stickers depicting cartoon stars and ringed planets. The doctor rested the bat on her shoulder with the casual ease of long familiarity, the threat in her eyes unsubtle, and went on,

"I dunno why I can see you tonight. Somethin' in the air, maybe somethin' to do with the weather—Gotham doin' Gotham things," she added with a faint smirk. "But I can. Which means you're gonna stand right there an' let me work..." The smirk became less faint and entirely unfriendly, her eyes hardening. "... Or we're gonna hafta go outside an' have a frank exchange of views, you 'n me."

The reaper regarded her in silence for a moment, then turned the hourglass over and placed it on the counter next to her with a sharp, final click.

"Ten minutes," she said flatly.

Lacking either the time or the inclination to quibble, Harley set her bat aside and got to work. When the fresh compound came out of the synth, she set about cutting it with the right moderating agents, a complex process that required a precise match between the final composition and the patient's biochemical baseline. Ordinarily she'd have had an assistant or two to help with this, but not now, in the middle of the night, with Pam away at that damn conference.

She was (almost literally) juggling three test tubes while looking up a ratio in the back of a well-thumbed textbook when the flask containing the main solution slipped out from between her fingers. Cursing, she caught it, nearly spilling one of the tubes in the process, then turned to the black figure watching her in silence and thrust the flask toward her, snapping,

"Hold this."

The doctor's command was issued with such casual, natural authority that the reaper found herself obeying automatically, as if by instinct. From holding the flask, it was a short hop to active participation in the process, and before she knew it, she was in the next room, standing by the patient's bedside—not to take his soul, but to watch as Harley gave him the injection that would render that service unnecessary.

"There," said Harley, setting the spray hypo aside, as the little boy's fitful tossing ceased and he settled into a restful sleep. "That oughta do the job." Smiling, she reached and brushed his dark hair away from his closed eyes. "Poor kid. Grodd only knows where a ten-year-old street kid from Little Sicily picked up the Spican marthambles in the first place—me and Doc Fries got some epidemiology to do this weekend."

"Mm," the reaper agreed, nodding.

There was a slightly awkward silence.

"I should go," said the reaper.

"Yeah," agreed Harley. "I guess ya should. Nothin' for ya here tonight."

Without replying, the reaper turned and started to leave the room. Just as she reached the door leading back to the lab, Harley's voice stopped her.

"Hey."

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"For what?"

Harley nodded toward her sleeping patient. "For givin' Tonio... however much longer he's got now."

The reaper hesitated, as if uncertain what to say, then fell back on the old standby of "nothing" and left the room.

She paused in the lab to collect her hourglass, then retraced her steps to the exit and stepped out into the night. While she was inside, the rain had stopped, and the streets of Gotham were now shrouded in fog—fog that felt more like low-pressure steam, given the warmth of the July night.

Standing in the middle of the alley was another, taller figure in a black robe. At the sight of him, the reaper pulled up short.

"Forseti?" she said, sounding surprised and faintly alarmed. "What are you doing here?"

INTERESTING APPROACH, Forseti not-really-replied in his eerie, sepulchral voice, which sounded more like it was emanating from a deep well than anything with the figure of a man.

"I—" the reaper said, but then her voice trailed off and she hung her head. "I... I have no excuse, sir."

THAT WASN'T SARCASM, Forseti replied, surprising her again. I REALLY DO FIND IT INTERESTING.

The reaper looked up. "You're... you're not angry?"

WHY SHOULD I BE ANGRY?

"I... I ignored my assignment. I let that doctor sway me from my task." The reaper shrugged. "I even helped her."

Forseti nodded. I SAW.

"Are..." The reaper hesitated, then asked, "Are you here to finish the job for me?"

Forseti shook his head. NO. I'M HERE FOR YOU, NOT ANTONIO DINARDI. HE CAN HAVE, AS DOCTOR QUINZEL SO APTLY PUT IT, HOWEVER MUCH LONGER HE'S GOT NOW.

The reaper cocked her head quizzically. "You sound like you know her."

WE'VE MET, Forseti said dryly. Then, returning to the matter at hand, he said, TELEUTE WANTS TO SEE YOU.

The reaper consulted her hourglass as if it were an oracle of some kind, then said, "I still have three more on my list for tonight—"

I'LL LOOK AFTER THEM, Forseti told her. YOU GO BACK AND GET YOURSELF TO THE HEAD OFFICE.

"They're my responsibility—" the reaper began, but Forseti silenced her by reaching out and placing his pale, gaunt hand on her shoulder.

MORI, he said, not unkindly, taking the hourglass from her with his other hand. I'LL TAKE IT FROM HERE. With a slight smirk audible in his unearthly voice, he added, I HAVE DONE THIS A TIME OR TWO, YOU KNOW. I PROBABLY WON'T SCREW IT UP.

Mori lowered her head. "Yes, sir."

Mort Plaza
New Oslo, Hel

When Mori arrived at the outdoor patio of the Mort Plaza Starbucks, few there took any particular notice. Such creatures came and went from this place all the time, after all. At least this one wasn't riding a flaming skeletal horse like that showoff Slade.

The reaper paused just inside the low fence that divided the patio from the street and looked around. The person she was here to see wasn't hard to find. Slouched in the overstuffed chair in the corner, her cowboy-booted feet up on the table, Teleute glanced up from under the broad brim of her hat of the day (a black Stetson in the classic "Boss of the Plains" style) and gave her the universal "yo, over here" sign.

"Howdy, cowpoke," said Teleute in an exaggerated Western accent, touching her hat. "Pull up a chair and set a spell."

"... OK?" said Mori awkwardly, doing as instructed. Unlike her boss, she sat upright, hands on knees, like a student called into the vice-principal's office.

Teleute considered her subordinate with keen, dark eyes, their expression far more serious than the rest of her casual demeanor suggested; then, sighing, she swung her feet off the table and sat up, if not as bolt upright as Mori, at least a little more conventionally. Leaning forward, she said in her normal voice, without preamble,

"Forseti's worried about you."

Mori drew back slightly in surprise. "Me? Why?"

"I think you know why," Teleute replied. "You drive yourself harder than any three other psychopomps in his department. Or mine, for that matter. You volunteer for more assignments on top of your normal caseload, and you cherry-pick the hardest ones." She leaned farther forward, elbows on the table, her gaze boring into the darkness within Mori's still-raised cowl. "Accident victims, especially young ones with a lot left to live for. Terminally ill kids. People caught up in violent crimes. Anybody fated to go before what mortals think of as 'their time'."

When Mori didn't reply, Teleute sat back, folding her arms, and continued, "The ones least willing to go. The ones who don't understand what's happening. The most traumatic partings of the thread. You take them all. Go out of your way to claim them before any of your colleagues."

"Is there a problem with the quality of my work?" asked Mori in a quiet, level voice.

"No," Teleute replied, shaking her head. "Quite the contrary. You handle those cases with grace. Even beauty. Practically every spirit you reap is at peace by the time they arrive here, no matter how hard it was for them to let go. You're the best we have. An artist."

Mori sat silent for a moment, almost unable to process the compliment, and then said haltingly, "Thank... thank you."

"It's just the truth."

"But... if that's the case, then why did Forseti—"

"Because you're grinding yourself to dust," Teleute said, her voice rising slightly. "All that misery, that pain and fear, at a pace that shocked even me when Forseti brought me your file. You never take a break, have no life outside your work. Even you can't keep that up forever. You'll destroy yourself."

"I'm not..." Mori began, but Teleute cut her off again—not with an argument, but instead a question, asked in a quieter, gentler tone of voice.

"What are you punishing yourself for, Calliope?"

This time Mori's startled recoil was anything but slight; she sat back so sharply it made her chair legs rattle on the patio paving, her skeletal hands involuntarily rising as if to placate her superior.

"Yes, I know who you are," Teleute said calmly, placing her own hands flat on the table. "I know the Names of everyone in Hel. I know you're the last of Hela's shinigami. And I know why there are no others left."

"I..." Mori said, then trailed off as it belatedly occurred to her that she had no idea what she meant to say next.

The silence stretched between them like a desert, lasting an eternity in a moment.

Then, sitting back in her chair and throwing her feet back up on the table, Teleute broke the moment and said cheerfully,

"Forseti asked me to send you on vacation, but since you're constitutionally incapable of taking time off, I've got a new job for you to do instead."

"... Huh?" was all Mori could come up with in reply.

"I'm pulling you off standard duties," said Teleute. With a negligent flick of her hand, she tossed a manila file folder she hadn't been holding a moment before across the table to Mori and went on, "I want you to look in on a buddy of mine who's got himself into kind of a situation in another timeline. Mind you, there's a war on, so it's possible you might end up with some reaping to do along the way, but that's not what I want you to focus on."

Puzzled, Mori picked up the folder and opened it, examining the top page of the dossier within. Then she looked up and said in a faintly incredulous tone,

"Nineteen forty-six?"

"That's what Marcy told me," Teleute confirmed, shrugging.

Mori reached up and pushed back her cowl. Regarding Teleute with the most skeptical look a person with a bare skull for a head can muster, she said wryly,

"I think I might be a little obvious."

Teleute frowned thoughtfully. "Point, I didn't think of that." Then, shrugging, she snapped her fingers.

"What—aaah!" Mori cried in surprise, bolting up from her seat, as she was briefly engulfed by mystic light.

The sudden flash drew the attention of everyone else on the patio and in the vicinity around it, so that they were all looking as the light faded and revealed what lay within. Where, a moment before, had been a skeletal figure in a ragged black robe and cloak, there now stood a well-built young woman of slightly greater than average height, clad in a snug-fitting, gold-trimmed black dress with a high slit up one side and a plunging neckline, her long pink hair topped with a black tiara supporting a decorative veil.

"What the heck?!" Mori blurted, regarding her suddenly-non-skeletal hands in shock, as the patrons and staff of the coffee shop applauded.

"There you go," said Teleute cheerfully. "Sit down, willya, people are staring."

Her new face glowing scarlet all the way to the ears, Mori resumed her seat.

"So here's the deal," Teleute went on. "I'm promoting you to dís Second Class (Provisional). You'll be on special assignment, so for the time being you'll report directly to me. Forseti's already on board."

Mori looked back down at the open folder, considering the photograph paperclipped to the inside of the cover, then rereading the top page again before raising her crimson eyes to her boss and saying in some confusion,

"This guy's an immortal. You're sending a reaper to watch over somebody who can't die?"

"He can die," Teleute told her, sobering. "It just takes a lot of work. The enemies he's currently in the process of making might be able to get it done, though. That's where you come in."

"I..." Mori shook her head, still hopelessly bemused, and closed the folder. She sighed, puffing out her new cheeks (what a weird sensation), then met Teleute's eyes again and said with a sort of skeptical-but-game resignation, "I'll do my best."

Teleute smiled. "I know you will. Look, just... don't sweat the small stuff for once. OK? Go there, be yourself, let what happens happen. You'll adapt." Then, signaling to the waiter, she continued, "Before you go, though, you should really try coffee, now that you're equipped to appreciate it."

Some time later, after a still-bewildered Mori had taken leave of her superior and gone off to present herself to Heimdall for onward transit, Forseti sat down in the seat she had lately occupied and asked,

SO HOW DID IT GO?

Teleute chuckled. "I think she'll be fine," she said.

I HOPE YOU'RE RIGHT. THAT ONE'S BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH.

"Mm," Teleute agreed, thoughtfully swirling the remains of her Americano and considering the pattern they made. Then, in a speculative murmur, she said, "The last shinigami..."

AND GOOD RIDDANCE TO THE REST OF THEM, said Forseti bluntly.

"Amen, brother," Teleute said, and drank the last swallow of her coffee.

Friday, July 12, 1946
Paris, Gallia
Dimension GCC #332/S

Pierre Laverdière, the SNCF clerk at window number 3 of the Gare de l'Est's ticket hall, looked up from completing the previous customer's paperwork and said, "Next," in the usual tone of faintly harassed boredom that characterized his profession.

The boredom dissolved at the sight of the person standind before his window. He was no stranger to unusual-looking women passing through the station, what with the war and all. Gare de l'Est was the most likely station for, as an example, witches bound for the Karlsland front to use, since the lines it served were the most direct route to said front.

Even in that company, though, this one stood out. Tallish, buxom, with the type of open face that always made him think instinctively of Liberions, she was dressed in an arrestingly peculiar uniform even by wartime standards, and her hair was the most remarkable bright pink—roots and eyebrows included.

"Next train to Colmar, s'il vous plait," she said in a low, husky voice, sliding a folded sheet of pasteboard into the cutout at the bottom of the window.

Taking it up and opening it, Pierre saw that it was a SHAEF priority pass in the name of one Calliope Mori, granting the aforesaid individual authority to travel anywhere in the war zone. All the stamps appeared to be in order, and the face in the photograph could only belong to the woman standing before him, intense red eyes and all. He was interested to note that nowhere did it specify what branch of which Allied Forces service she belonged to. That usually meant that the person in question was especially important and not to be questioned.

Mine not to wonder why, thought Pierre, and he generated the requested ticket, handing it back enfolded within the pass.

"Your train leaves from Platform 12 in fifteen minutes, Mademoiselle," he said. "Pleasant travels."

"Merci," she replied, taking the documents, and she was gone.

Calliope made her way to Platform 12 without trouble, and managed to climb aboard the train without incident, in spite of the fact that she still wasn't quite used to walking in these heeled shoes. She had to walk forward two cars before she found an empty second-class compartment. As she entered, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass of the door and paused for a second to consider the still-unfamiliar form that looked back at her.

Not too bad, really, she admitted to herself, and then, a touch ruefully, I always imagined myself as more of a tomboy type, but it is what it is.

Then, seating herself, she propped her elbow on the windowsill, chin in hand, and gazed out at the platform, waiting for the train to get underway.

Just before it did, while the conductors were blowing their whistles and doors were slamming all up and down the train, the compartment door opened and someone came in. Turning, Calliope glanced with mild curiosity at the new arrival—then pulled a hard double-take, because the figure in the doorway was worth a second look.

Like her own current form, the newcomer was a young woman in a black uniform, but there the similarities ended. The uniform was completely different, for one thing, consisting mainly of a tight-fitting sailor-collared vest that didn't quite meet a skirt so abbreviated it was really more of a grandiose belt—the kind of thing only a witch could get away with in public in this era. She wore a military-style beret on top of a mane of flame-orange hair that faded to a curious shade of pale green at the end, and regarded the occupant of the compartment she'd just entered with wide, slightly startled violet eyes.

"Ah, 'tschuldigung," she said, blinking, then gestured to the bench opposite the one Calliope was sitting on. "Er, is this side taken?"

"Huh?" Calliope replied, and then, recovering her wits, "Oh, uh, no, be my guest."

"Danke," said the redhead, entering the compartment the rest of the way.

Our Witches at War Special Episode: Mythic Dawn
Chapter 1: "Death Takes a (Mandatory) Holiday"
by Benjamin D. Hutchins
© 2024 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited