“Hold still.” My body went rigid as all of my muscles tensed up. “You can come in now.” Death tapped on a portion of the wall behind him and a door opened.
“Is she ready to go?” It was hard to get a good look with my body frozen in place, but I could definitely see the figure of a woman enter through the door. This woman, from what I could tell, looked around the same age as Death and she had long black hair as well. As she approached the better lit portion of the room I got a better look at her face and I could tell she had no intention of helping me. In fact I could tell that she hardly noticed that I was frozen there, helpless and afraid, being told I was going to be a slave for all eternity. I recognized her then, mostly from her disgusted expression, this was the girl from the apartment that’d stomped my face in. I hated her immediately.
“I told her everything you said to, she should be fine. Although I’d feel better if you had Amy keep an eye on her.”
“Everything? Like never to hurt you no matter what? Not to betray you, your friends, or associates, and not to conspire to do any of the aforementioned items?”
“I figured she was already under a lot of internal stress, so it would be best to give her some time to digest everything first.”
“Silly Dante,” She laughed lightly as she brushed her hand across his face, and as she did I was able to see his face for the first time. He was unfamiliar to me and his expression was about as close to dead as you could get. “Kindness is a luxury, especially for people like her. She already hates you, no use in trying to make her feel otherwise.” She paused, as if waiting for him to do something. “Well…” He turned to me.
“I apologize for dropping this on you so soon,” The girl rolled her eyes at his politeness. “But as you can see I do have to follow certain protocol.” I did appreciate the small gesture of kindness, but it didn’t change my already ingrained hatred for him. The girl was probably right about it being useless to be nice to me. “You will not injure me in any way. You will not betray me or my interests, this includes my friends, family, business associates, and other acquaintances of note. You will also not do anything to harm yourself through action or inaction. I have no interest in those close to you, do not mention your family members or friends to me. You may not conspire to do any of the aforementioned items with others, including my associates. These ground rules may be altered or removed as I see fit but only at my command and with a secondary confirmation to do so. Am I clear?”
I glared at him. My head was throbbing like he’d just stuck a white hot poker into my brain through my ear canal. To be honest, I couldn’t actually answer over the sudden burst of pain. I didn’t want to answer anyway, it would only give him the satisfaction of knowing that he had total control over me. I was able to hold my mouth shut, I could disobey if I had the strength, but for some reason it felt very deeply wrong to do so.
“Answer me, am I clear?”
“Crystal.” I finally answered, and like finally being washed clean of the most putrid muck you can imagine, I felt better.
“Good.” He turned back to the girl. “Are you satisfied now, Hope? That probably gave her an aneurysm by the look on her face. Too much at once is painful.” Despite his rebuttal at the girl his voice remained calm and even, it didn’t sound like he cared at all.
“You’re the one that added the extra rules. If anything I’m a little upset that you put yourself at such a disadvantage. A handicap won’t really stop you from getting what you want, you of all people should know that by now.” She smiled at him and leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek. I didn’t like the way she talked about him getting what he wanted, from my experience when a guy got what he wanted, it didn’t tend to end well for the women he got it from. “Now let’s go, I’ve already told Amy what to do.”
Hope grabbed him by the arm and gave him a tug out of the room. I almost felt sorry for him, but the feeling faded. I felt safer as they both left. Another girl walked in as they walked out. She looked more concerned than I had expected. After Hope I’d been under the impression that everyone I met from that moment on would treat me like garbage or just outright ignore me. I was pleasantly surprised at the kindness in her expression, although she looked like the last person who would show kindness. Even in the dim light I could see dozens of scars across what I could see of her skin. Her long blonde hair was pulled back in a single thick braid that ran down her back, making it all the easier to see the scars on her face. This girl looked battle hardened, more so than any ex-military macho I’d ever seen on the street.
“Hey,” She sighed as she took a good look at me. It was a little awkward to have someone look at you and not be able move. “So you’re the new girl. I’m sorry about what happened. Not that I could have done anything about it. On the bright side, you probably have the gentlest contractor in the world.”
“What?” I was confused.
“Death, the gloomy guy with the long hair, he’s your contractor.” Her explanation wasn’t helping, she noticed my confused look. “You know what, it’ll be easier for me to explain later, but right now I’m supposed to get you to your room. I hope you don’t mind but, seeing how you’re stuck like that, I’m going to have to carry you.”
“Go ahead.” I sighed. She picked me up and threw me over her shoulder. She must have been much stronger than she looked because it didn’t sound like she was struggling at all. Not that I was heavy or anything.
“So, new girl, you got a name?” She asked as she walked out of the room and into a well-lit and well decorated hallway. It was a stark contrast from the dungeon like room I’d woken up in. Whoever this Death, or Dante, guy was he was probably loaded.
“Samantha King.” I choked on my words a little as I was pressed up against the doorway into another room down the hall.
“Amy Landcaster.” Amy grabbed hold of my limp hand hanging over her shoulder and shook it. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Yeah, same.” Amy placed me down on a stiff wooden chair in front of a small table in what I supposed was my room. I couldn’t move my head so I couldn’t really see most of the room around me. “Is this my room then?”
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“Our room actually,” She sat down across from me and leaned back, resting her feet on the table. “I know you don’t have anything so what’s mine is yours. I hope you don’t mind sharing, but it’s not really in either of our power to change our arrangements.”
“Its fine, I actually like the idea of sharing a room with someone as opposed to being alone. Prolonged solitude does weird things to people.”
“Well, you’re not wrong.” She grimaced. “It’s not always something you can avoid though. There will likely come a time in your new life where you spend a significant amount of time alone, and probably in the dark.”
“You say that like it’s less of a probably situation and more of a definitely one.”
“I assume you met Hope?” I tried to nod but managed to do a whole lot of nothing. I ended up settling for a grunt in the affirmative. “She’s my contractor. I’ve been stuck with her for… well it’s probably been almost three hundred years now. I spent one waiting in a buried coffin while she got over herself, and others in similar situations.”
“So, you’re like me? And we’re actually immortal?”
“Yep.”
“You spent an entire year in a small dark space… wide awake?” That was a nightmare by anyone’s standards.
“No, actually, I cheated. I splintered the coffin and used a piece of the wood to stake my heart. It cuts off blood flow and causes brain death, it’s about as close to sleeping as we can get.”
“That’s… gruesome. So since we can’t sleep or die or stuff like that, what does that make us? Are we, like, vampires or something?” I had no clue, and at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out I was some stupid mythological creature in a teen fiction novel.
“Contractors have been around for just about forever. Collectors, people like us, are generally the people that killed them when they were alive and inadvertently made them contractors. The whole transition is a cursed rite on both sides. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of myths and legends were based off of both, I know of a few that definitely are.”
“So I’m a collector? What is it exactly that I’m supposed to collect?”
“Well, contractors deal in human souls. They make contracts with mortals for their souls or parts of their soul, in exchange the mortal can get pretty much whatever they want. The thing is that without their soul they deteriorate into nothing in about six months and it’s like they never existed. As collectors, we don’t really collect souls, we just find people for them to victimize and do other dirty work.”
“Dirty work?” I didn’t like the sound of that.
“It’s not all actually dirty, but if someone’s going dumpster diving to find something or someone, it’s definitely not gonna be the contractor.”
“Gross, and I have no choice but to do it too. Yuegh.” I groaned. “What did I do to deserve this?”
“Murder.” It was a quick answer and her expression changed immediately as she said it. I didn’t quite get what she was expressing though.
“But I didn’t kill that guy!” I’d killed some other kid… for money. That had been bothering me. She’d said that collectors were people that had killed their contractors.
“Well it isn’t always the same person. In that respect you’re lucky, he won’t resent you and punish you mercilessly for what you did.” The scars on her face immediately began to take on a new meaning to me. “To be honest, we kind of deserve it all anyway. If you’re religious living forever like this might be preferable to the alternative after killing someone. Depending on your contractor it could also be the same kind of punishment though.”
“Is that what happened to you?” I hadn’t meant to comment on it, it had just sort of slipped out. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“No, it’s fine. You should probably know about it, after all our bosses are pretty much a power couple and Hope has a pretty large influence on Death.” She paused, she was definitely still reluctant to talk about it. “Hope’s kind of horrible. Eighty percent of these scars,” Amy gestured to her face. “Are from personally delivered injuries. Every year on the anniversary of her death she adds a little to this one.” She pulled back the collar of her shirt to reveal a particularly dark scar above her heart. “Right where I got her. Keeps it in for the full day, used to be she’d take it out herself too but I started developing reflexes. She tends to send other people to wake me up now.”
“Hasn’t she given you the order to never hurt her?”
“That won’t stop a reflex, it’s too quick for the order to process and it sort of slips by. There are a bunch little things like that that you’ll learn eventually.” I made a mental note on that, reflexes could beat direct orders.
“What about the other twenty percent, any good stories?” I was a little curious now.
“Random stuff, mostly work related.” She pulled up one of her pant legs to reveal a long thin scar that ran up her shin. “Tripped and fell.” She laughed. “Fought a lion.” She lifted a section of her shirt to reveal a crescent shaped scar along her side that looked like a bite mark. “Caught a sword bare handed.” She held out her palms, it was harder to see but the skin was definitely redder. “They’re all good stories, after almost three hundred years I have a lot. They’re not all so easy to tell though.”
“This… is… crazy. If it weren’t for the fact that I can’t move my body I don’t think I’d believe any of what you’ve said.” That reminded me. “Speaking of which, why did he leave me like this?”
“A few reasons.” She didn’t sound like she wanted to talk about it.
“Like?”
“Well… it’s a little embarrassing… mostly for you.” If I could have made a sour face, I would have. “You need to be physically prepared for the job you’re about to do, they figured you would be difficult and staking you in the heart would just make things more difficult so Death left you paralyzed so I could do it for you.”
“Prepare me how?” The way she said it made me uneasy.
“Well clothes mostly… and some other things.”
“What makes clothes such a big deal?”
“Well our uniform,” She gestured to the clothes she was wearing. “Isn’t the most attractive or comfortable ensemble.” It suited her just fine, but I couldn’t see myself wearing it, especially not the boots. It still hardly seemed like something that would cause a fuss. “It is however suitable for the various tasks we will invariably be forced to undertake.”
“What about the other things?”
“Death also wants you to get working on a revival reflex.” I was already frozen externally but now I was frozen mentally. “I’m not allowed to get him to free you until you can break free for yourself.”
“So you’re gonna…”
“Yep….” She sighed. “I’m gonna have to kill you.”
“Can’t you fight it?” I really didn’t want to know what it felt like to die.
“Wouldn’t make much sense. If I fought it I wouldn’t be able to move as precisely and it’d just hurt a lot worse for longer.”
“How then?”
“Knife to the heart.” Amy pulled a big knife out from a sheath on her belt. I’d been hoping that was more for decoration and I wouldn’t be expected to use one as well. “It’ll only hurt the first few times, I promise. If anything, It’ll only make you stronger.”
“Make it quick then.” I gulped down a breath as she stood and walked over to my chair. “I trust you.”