Messenger of Death
“How in the bloody hell do I manage to get mixed up in other peoples’ problems?” Josephine mumbled to herself. She leaned against the steel railing of Ha’penny Bridge and stared out at Dublin’s reflection in the glassy surface of the River Liffey. She let out a long sigh, then fished around in her trouser pocket for a coin. Her mobile phone beeped in consternation as she dug past it and found her quarry. “I’m beggin’ you, ol’ Nick, keep a steady eye on me. Someone once told me that you’re the patron saint of beggars and thieves. Help me do this one job, and I promise I’ll go on the straight and narrow. They threatened my mum. I’ve no choice but to do what they want. My mum is all I have in the world.”
Josephine kissed the coin, then tossed it into the river. It kerplunked through the surface and sent ripples racing for either shore. They didn’t quite reach.
“It is a shame, really,” an unfamiliar voice said from behind. “I do not believe that Saint Nicholas has ever answered a prayer of one preparing to commit a crime. To think that a lass as pretty as yourself is so insistent on wasting her life in such a manner.”
Josephine spun on her heel to find a dashing gentleman standing only a few paces away. “I thank you for your kindhearted words, sir, but if you would kindly feck off and mind your business, I’d be forever grateful.”
Josephine shouldered past the stranger and continued along the bridge, then crossed the empty street as she turned left along Wellington Quay. At three a.m., the street was eerily desolate, made doubly so by the heavy snowflakes that drifted down from above. Josephine continued, pulling her hood further over her head as she softly padded through the odd silence.
“You do realize how rude it is to brush by someone without so much as an Excuse me or anything of the sort?”
Josephine looked up to see the same dashing gentleman leaning against the lamppost at the corner of Bedford Row. Flipping back her hood, she stopped and looked toward the bridge where she’d left him, then back to the man standing a few feet before her.
“Are you a bloody magician or some shite?”
He smiled and chuckled. “No … Not quite.”
She looked him over a little more closely so she could report the creep to the Guard. She noticed his expensive-looking long coat with a bright orange ascot. He was clean-shaven with piercing, ice-blue eyes and carried a smell that brought the thought of mother’s milk and daddy’s money to mind.
“You do realize,” she said, repeating the man’s phrase, “that creeping about the streets at three in the morning is not the proper way to pick up a girl? Come near me, and I swear I’ll gut you like a pig.” She pulled her hood back over her head and continued past him, turning right and stomping away along Bedford Row.
Across the street at the intersection with Fleet Street, stood the dashing gentleman once again, leaning against the corner of the building. A short bleat of surprise escaped her lips. Stopping dead in her tracks, she looked over her shoulder for the man’s footprints in the snow.
Her stomach had already churned with worry for most of the day, but now anxious pain stabbed at her. Her chest felt tight, like someone had bound her with heavy ropes. Slowly, she swallowed, forcing the acrid bile back down her gullet.
Is this guy a bloody fecking vampire or something?
“Are you sure you wish to continue with what you have planned?” he asked, his voice echoing through the empty, snow-dusted streets. “There are other options. You do not have to go through with it.”
“I don’t bloody know who you are or what you want, but you can bugger off anytime you’d like.” She waved a hand in the man’s direction, then turned left, jogging along Fleet Street. Once again, he grinned from ahead of her.
She hiccupped, and the bile returned.
“I see that you are not up for any sort of real conversation, though I cannot say as I blame you, considering the hour and the weather. I must admit that I would be hard-pressed if I were in a similar situation.”
“And what is it again that you think you know?”
“I know the O’Malleys are wrong to threaten your mother, no matter how desperate they are for the information they ordered you to steal. Regardless, you have the chance to change things before you pay the ultimate price. I also know that you have a kind, giving heart, which is the primary reason I am here.”
Taken aback, she blinked uncontrollably as the whirlwind of thoughts formed into a cohesive mass. “Whoever you are, you can leave my mum out of it and mind your own fecking business! Got it?”
Josephine crossed the empty street and dashed down Parliament Row, ducking into the stairwell of a dilapidated parking garage. She climbed the twelve flights of stairs two at a time and burst through the door at the top of the stairwell onto the garage’s roof.
And there he was again.
“In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen,” Josephine said, crossing herself. She glared at the stranger.
Maybe I’ve gone bloody mad. That’s it. It has to be stress. But if I don’t get this information before daybreak, there’s no telling what they’ll do to Mum.
Josephine let out a frustrated shout and stomped her foot into the snow.
But what if it isn’t stress?
“Whatever sort of haint or spirit you might be, bugger back off to where you came from. I don’t have time for your supernatural shite.”
“Honestly, I preferred doing things my way instead of this dreadfully stuffy method, but if that is what I must tolerate to ensure the task is properly carried out, then so be it.” The dashing stranger let out a frustrated sigh, casually cleared his throat, and then clasped his hands behind his back. “Have you ever considered your impact on those around you? On the individuals you interact with every day? Friends, family, perfect strangers … In the grand scheme of the universe, you affect the outcome of each and every one of them, which in turn perpetuates itself down the line as they interact with others, and so on,” he said with a lazy wrist roll flourish.
She swallowed hard between panting breaths, pushing the anxiety down. “Piss off,” she said, then sprinted across the empty rooftop car park and over the edge onto the roof of the next building. She dodged around scattered patio furniture and other discarded rooftop amenities before rounding the building’s ancient chimney in a hurry.
“As I was saying, that impact can have a chain reaction to those around you,” the dashing gentleman said, leaning against the back of the chimney.
“Bloody hell!” she snarled. “I don’t care if you’re a fecking fairy or not. Piss off!”
His countenance twisted in contemplative thought as he rocked his head back and forth. “No. Not exactly. I am neither fae nor imp, but I suppose you could say that I am a distant cousin.”
“I swear, I’ll bloody cut you. Now go away!”
Josephine gripped the roof’s edge below and swung over the side, dropping a few feet to the roof of the next building. She crossed from rooftop to rooftop until she reached her target, then pulled herself up and over the highest peak of the solicitor’s office.
“It is not too late. I am only here because you are a good person and have a kind heart. You still have time to rethink your decision and change your mind.” The dashing gentleman gave her a toothy grin. He sat stiffly on the roof’s peak, one leg casually crossed over the other, his fingers laced around his knee.
“Bollocks! Don’t do that!” She glanced toward the chimney where she’d left him, then turned back.
Josephine leapt a short distance and landed on the next section of the shingled roof. Her footing shifted on its icy surface, and she dropped to all fours. She scrambled over the next peak, scootched up to the roof’s edge, and glanced over.
“There be my way in, right where they said it would be,” she muttered as she stared at an open skylight.
“Last chance,” the stranger said from over her shoulder.
Turning to swing at the voice behind her, Josephine slipped. Sliding toward the edge of the roof, she grabbed for the only thing within reach.
“Personal space!” the handsome gentleman shouted as Josephine grabbed his arm to steady herself. But it didn’t work, and they both slid down the roof and into the open air.
“Bloody hell,” they said in unison as they fell.
Being the type that didn’t generally dwell on the topic of death if she could help it, Josephine imagined it would be disconcerting, painful, and over in a wink. Unfortunately, that was precisely the opposite of what actually happened.
She realized this as she watched the heavy snowflakes fall silently all around her from the flat of her back. She sat up, shaking, and on the verge of panic. Looking around she realized she still had the handsome stranger’s jacket gripped tightly in her right hand. Despite his neck being cocked and twisted in three separate directions, he still managed to wear that heart-melting smile. He was most assuredly and without a doubt, dead. But then again, she wasn’t a doctor, so what did she know?
Josephine released the stranger’s jacket, dusted off her hands, and stood. Staring down at the bent, broken man, she noticed an oddly realistic tattoo. It turned out to be reptile-like scales peppered across the back of his left forearm.
Purple lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and a thick, foggy mist rolled into the alleyway. A horse whinnied, hooves stomping on the pavement from somewhere behind her.
Josephine turned and stared into the hollow eye sockets of a skeletal face covered in a heavy dark hood. Death sat atop a fiery pitch-black steed, scythe in hand. Thick tendrils of smoke roiled from the demonic beast’s nostrils, flames licked out from its charred lips, and sparks danced from the cobblestone with every hooved step.
The Grim Reaper swung a leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground. A near-blinding flash of purple lightning filled the sky amid a cacophony of thunderclaps.
“Dammit, Emanual! This is the absolute last thing I need right now,” the Grim Reaper said as he loomed over the handsome stranger’s twisted body, opening his jacket with the tip of his massive scythe. “You couldn’t have picked a worse time to do this to me. The Chinese economy is in ruins and their suicide rates are through the freaking roof. I swear, if this quarter is anywhere under four hundred percent more than the historical average, I’ll be surprised.”
With surgical precision, the specter poked and prodded at the man’s pockets, the contents of which evacuated as if on command onto the street all around the motionless corpse.
“There you are,” Death said. The stranger’s phone floated upward from the cobblestones then rocketed into the Reaper’s skeletal hand like an over-caffeinated hummingbird. Turning, he held out the odd-looking phone to Josephine. Unconsciously, she accepted it, but her gaze never once wavered from the vision of the chattering skull before her.
“You can thank Emanual for this crash course. The job is simple: you pay attention to the notifications on that fancy electronic gizmo there. You answer each new case that pops up for review, and the rest of eternity will be absolutely peachy. Or, well … as peachy as it can be as long as you don’t do anything stupid like Emanual here.” The chattering skull momentarily cocked sideways as the figure pivoted round to face her. “Oh, and whatever you do, it is of the utmost importance that you do not let a mortal touch you. If you do, then you are mortal as well, and I honestly don’t have the time to go through this all over again. I’m well behind schedule already and will be stuck pulling a triple shift if I can’t catch up by the end of the day. Now, if you’re good, I have souls to collect.” The Reaper pointed a bony white finger at Josephine, then gave her a thumbs up.
With a snap of his fingers, the cloaked figure was once again astride his nightmarish mount. “If you have any problems or questions, do not call me. Just check on that thingy there. It’s supposed to have all the answers you’ll need. And before you ask, the answer is no. I cannot and will not do any special favors for any employee, including the collection of certain souls, no matter how much you’d like to get back at them. I still catch hell over that one guy in the cave even after I put him back.”
“Wait, what about him?” Josephine pointed at the dead stranger.
“Dammit.” The Reaper mumbled to himself. “I’d lose my head if it weren’t attached.” The reaper snapped his fingers once again and a small glowing blue bauble of light appeared from the stranger’s chest and rose slowly. “Let’s go, Emanual. I don’t have all night.”
The bauble floated aimlessly for a moment before drifting over toward the Reaper and his outstretched hand, disappearing once it touched bone.
“Remember, don’t call me. I’ll call you,” Death chattered. The horse reared as mount and rider were engulfed in a roiling cloud of flames and black smoke, then disappeared.
A loud ding echoed from Emanual’s phone, followed by what sounded like the opening horn blasts to Walking on Sunshine. Josephine flung the phone away, shook her hand as if it were diseased, and fled the scene.
* * *
By the time the sun rose the following morning, Josephine had convinced herself that she’d simply laid down the previous night, only to be assaulted by the sandman via a twisted dream. Simply a nightmare better forgotten. That was at least until a loud ding followed by that incessantly happy song drew her attention to her bedside table. There, vibrating atop the laminate surface, was Emanual’s phone.
Josephine hurled the possessed device across the room. It bounced from one wall, ricocheted across the corner to the adjacent wall, glanced off the top of the cluttered chest of drawers, and tumbled to a complete stop on the carpeted floor.
She pounced upon the unsuspecting device and assaulted it with the six-inch heel of a stiletto boot she’d grabbed from the foot of the bed, but her strikes harmlessly bounced off its screen.
The phone let out an ear-piercing shriek.
“This must be what going insane feels like,” she said, fumbling for the phone. She stormed through her door and across the apartment’s living room, which she shared with her mother. She yanked open a window and heaved the offending device earthward into the paved alleyway fifteen stories below.
“Beep at me now!” Josephine shouted and laughed as she forced the window closed.
“What was that about, Jo?” her mother asked.
Josephine jumped back at the unexpected sound of her mother’s voice. “Oh my god, Mum. Are you trying to scare the life out of me?”
“No, not at all, dearie. I was just curious.” Closing the book, she sat up from the couch. Her face suddenly contorted with a look of concerned curiosity. “Do you hear that?” She rocked left, then right. Reaching around in the cushions of the couch, she prodded and dug until she triumphantly produced a very familiar-looking phone that chimed then began playing the introduction of Walking on Sunshine.
“Oh, my. I do so love this song.” Her mum cradled the phone, humming along with the electronic tune. “Did I ever tell you that this was mine and your father’s song? It was playing on the radio the night he snuck up the fire escape into my room while my mum was sleeping.” She closed her eyes and smiled wide and let out a longing sigh. “That was an amazing night that I’ll never forget.”
“And why is that, Mum?”
“Because it was the night that we made you, Jo.”
“Bloody hell,” Josephine said, snatching for the phone, but recoiled and drew back, remembering the Reaper’s words. “Mum, could I please have the phone?”
“What? I was enjoying that.” Confused, she held out the phone, which Josephine daintily grabbed with a single finger and thumb.
“Thank you.”
Josephine strode from the living room into her own. She slammed the door, leaned back against it, and slid down its painted surface to sit on the floor. She bounced the back of her head against the door and let out an ear-piercing shriek of frustration.
“Is everything alright, Jo?”
She let out an exasperated breath. “Everything’s fine, Mum.”
The back of her arm suddenly began to itch, burning furiously. She pulled back her sleeve and twisted her arm, attempting to glimpse the offending area. Unable to see it, she crawled across the room and looked in the stand-up mirror. Two scaly green protrusions were just above her elbow on the back of her arm. “Great, let’s just add insult to injury. First, a cursed phone was handed to me by the bloody damned Grim Reaper himself, and now I’ve managed to catch a weird new venereal from the guy I just met and replaced. Just my bloody damned luck.”
The phone beeped again with alarm, and the tune grew louder.
“Fine!” Josephine huffed and unlocked the screen with a simple swipe.
Several familiar icons appeared on the screen, but one stood out that could not in any way be ignored or mistaken. It pulsed with rippling lines that radiated outward at a hypnotizing speed and was labeled DeathNet.
Holding her breath, she pressed the icon. The screen loaded with a list of names and locations that seemed to scroll on forever. At the top, unmoving, was a notification labeled So you had a brush with Death, subtitled Click here to begin.
Josephine tapped the notification, and the phone suddenly came to life, projecting a life-sized image of a curvaceous blonde-headed woman in a form-fitting white gown decorated with golden thread and pearls. She was like something out of a Hollywood movie based in ancient Greece.
“Hello,” the image said, flashing a perfect smile. “Most people, including you,” the image said, pointing at Josephine, “would think that the job of Death is an easy task, but you would be wrong. The primary duties of the Grim Reaper are to collect the souls of those who have crossed between life and death, and to guide them to their eternal abode. But more important than collecting are the tasks of identification and restoration, should there be a deficiency in the cohesion of the universe. Even Cronos can have a bad day, just as with any mortal across the multiverse. But when an immortal has a bad day, you can expect everyone to have a bad day.
“In order to efficiently perform his duties, Death requires the assistance of others. When you meet Death for the first time, I must remind you that he is very busy and may not be in the greatest of moods. Over the last century, a small army of file clerks have taken over most of Death’s clerical responsibilities. These employees of the heavenly host are responsible for the stacks of paperwork that must be filled out in triplicate and submitted for review that same day for all new acquisitions.”
“Okay?” Josephine scratched at the back of her head. “So Old Skully has an office full of staff doing his paperwork. What does that have to do with me?”
The image smiled, folded her arms behind her back, then continued. “You have been selected to replace Death’s previous apprentice due to the previous apprentice’s untimely passing. This position cannot be refused now that the transfer has been completed and you have attained a para-immortal status. It is of the utmost importance that you remain cognizant at all times of those around you. If you come into contact with any mortal, you will revert to mortal form once again while in contact with the individual.”
“Skully could have been a little clearer about that last night, now couldn’t he?” Josephine mumbled to herself. “And why is it that I have become para-immortal?”
“Due to the possibly hazardous work environment that you may find yourself in while you carry out your duties as Death’s Messenger, the gift of immortality has been extended to the position. In all reality, it lessens the number of individuals we have to train which, and in turn, is reflected in our efficiency reports at the end of each quarter.” The image smiled and shifted her stance. She took a long, deep breath, laced her fingers together in front of her, and continued. “Your duties as the Messenger of Death are simple. We understand that situations occur from time to time that may be easily avoided, and those who would be beneficial to society as a whole aren’t always the most skilled in situational awareness.
“In order to streamline Death’s duties, your job is to filter out and determine the validity of the individuals slated for termination. You will be required to access the DeathNet on a daily basis and process the candidates pre-selected by our quality control agents.
“Those individuals with a good heart or good intent are the ones we wish to preserve for the betterment of society. It will be your job to determine how best to persuade those individuals to deviate from their current situation, but it must not be forced. The choice must be made freely by the individual.”
“Please feel free to access the help directory at any time on the DeathDevice that you currently possess or call our helpline and speak with one of our betterment advocates, should you find yourself in an unorthodox situation and are unable to make the determination yourself. One other item of note when taking the mantle of Death’s Messenger upon yourself: Immortality comes at a cost. The universe will maintain its equilibrium. Should you ignore the calling of this position, the universe has been known to reprimand the individual by devolving the recipient to an earlier form of evolution.”
Josephine jerked her hand away from the back of her arm, catching herself unconsciously scratching at the scaly spot.
“Well, that explains that little nuisance,” she mumbled to herself.
The image of the woman flashed a perfect white-toothed smile. “We hope that you have found this abridged tutorial helpful. Please feel free to complete the brief survey at the end of this session, and have a blessed day.”
The image winked out, and the notification disappeared from the top of the list with a complementary beep, which was replaced by a name Josephine recognized. Not that there weren’t thousands of people with the last name of Smyth, but she’d only ever known one Brianna. She was a shy, quiet girl Josephine had gone through all six years of secondary school with. Selecting Brianna’s name, Josephine suddenly found herself standing in the dark corner of a candlelit bedroom overlooking a vigorously sweaty, moaning pair, deep in the act of copulation.
Bloody hell, Josephine thought, repeatedly tapping the back button on the phone until she found herself once again standing in the middle of her own room.
“What the bloody fecking hell was that? Yeah, that’s it. Let’s just save her life by jumping in the middle of a good old-fashioned threesome, shall we? That’ll bloody well fix everything.”
“What’s that, dear?” Josephine’s mum shouted from the other room.
“Nothing, Mum!”
Looking back at the phone, she noticed the status for Brianna had been updated to, In progress. She tapped at a plus sign to the left of the name, expanding the information. According to the app, Brianna had gotten herself wrapped up with one mess of a boyfriend, who was into all sorts of kinky fetishes, along with some heavy drug use. The list of possible methods of death continued through three-page swipes on the device. Asphyxiation, heart attack, aneurysm, aspiration, overdose, strangulation, and the list went on.
“Guess even Death doesn’t know what will be a person’s final undoing.” She flopped back onto her bed, examining the list. “So, what the hell am I supposed to do, exactly?”
The phone chimed. “The primary duty of the Messenger of Death is counseling individuals on the possible outcomes of their future, giving them a chance at an extended lifespan. In the end, the decision is the individual’s to make and should not reflect in any way on the skill or compassion of the Messenger themself,” the phone said in a soothing, robotically female voice, then chimed again.
“Well, alrighty, then.” Josephine let out a long sigh, then stood. “If I can’t get rid of you, maybe I can at least do someone else a bit of good.” She looked at the list and was about to tap on Brianna’s name, then jerked her finger back. “Not so sure I want to interrupt them in mid-stride. God knows it’s hard enough to find a good man, let alone one as good in the sack as it sounds like the bloke is. Who else do we have on the list?”
Scrolling through the seemingly unending list, Josephine selected the name of Li Mei, Beijing. She found herself atop the snow-covered roof of a skyscraper, surrounded by chain-link fencing fastened all around the edge of the building and topped with razor wire.
The jingle of the metal fence and light sobbing drew her attention. Rounding a piece of rooftop equipment, Josephine found a young woman clinging to the outside of the fencing, spattered blood covering the frightened woman’s hands and torso.
“Oh my God!” Josephine sprinted across the rooftop. The young Chinese woman looked up, shouted something in Chinese, then let go.
Just as suddenly as the young woman released her grip on the fence, Josephine once again found herself standing in her bedroom.
“Bloody fecking hell!” Josephine gasped, covering her mouth as she slipped to the floor sobbing. She fought back hyperventilating gasps with slow, deep breaths.
“Are you alright, dearie?” her mother said, followed by a light knocking at the door.
“No, I’m not bloody alright! Nothing is bloody alright! The entire world is a shite pit!” she sobbed.
“Ahh, I see, dearie. The painters and decorators are in, are they? Give me a moment, and I’ll fetch you something from the medicine chest to help with that.”
“Mum, please. Just go away.”
“Alright, Jo, if that’s what you want. I’ll be out here if you need me, okay?”
“Okay, Mum.” She wiped at tears and snot with the back of her hand, then looked back at the phone.
“Zhang Yong, Wang Li, Li Na, Gao Chan.” She let out a frustrated sigh. “They really are having an issue over there. Most of these are in Beijing.” She swiped up, allowing the names to freely scroll at a blurring pace, then tapped the screen, stopping the list.
Josephine’s mousey brown hair fluttered about in a warm sea breeze, blocking her vision. She brushed the hair from her eyes and looked out over the steel railing at a vast expanse of churning green ocean. Heavy machinery surrounded her on all other sides, the hum of which drowned out the sound of the whitecapped waves. Carefully stepping closer to the railing, she looked over the edge to the water far below. The steel grating underfoot dug into the soles of her bare feet.
“Mental note, be properly dressed before the next excursion. Now, where in the bloody hell am I?” She glanced back at her phone and expanded the current client’s details.
James Parham Evans, III.
Aliases: Jim, Big Jim.
Profession(s): Welder, heavy equipment mechanic, oil field technician, Quality Assurance associate, deep sea drilling specialist, foreman.
Termination: Drowning, Impalement, Traumatic Brain Injury, Disembowelment
Warning alarms sounded from beyond the wall of equipment.
“Someone lockdown that shutoff valve!”
“The valves’ frozen,” shouted another voice. “We’re losing it! The pressure is spiking!”
“Tell those deck apes to get clear!”
Careful to step lightly, Josephine peeked around a wall of steaming pipes to find a shirtless and heavily muscled man holding a massive wrench over one shoulder while he yelled into a radio. If it weren’t for the currently dire-sounding situation, he’d be the pinnacle image for a “working man’s” calendar, she thought.
“Get everyone off the upper deck!”
“Hey, Jim!”
The man leaned his head to the right, straining to hear the radio over the blaring alarms.
Josephine cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled again. “Hey! Muscle man! Jim!”
The man turned around at the sound of her voice and stared at her. His face twisted with a look of utter bewilderment. “Who the hell let you up here? You can’t be out here! Get back to the quarters module with the rest of the hookers!”
“Feck you, asshole! I’m not a bloody hooker! You need to get out of here!”
The decking shuddered underfoot.
“Run!” the man shouted and turned his attention back to the oil rig tower.
“You don’t understand! You need to get out of here, or you’ll die!”
The man dropped the massive wrench as he turned and hurried toward Josephine. “You can’t be here!” The ear-piercing sound of tearing steel preceded bursting pipes that sprayed crude oil across the deck. Before the man could turn around, a small explosion rocked the rig. He dropped to his knees. A look of confusion painted his face as he focused on Josephine, who stood dumbfounded just beyond the end of a long steel rod protruding from his forehead. Falling forward, Jim bounced against the decking and came to rest at Josephine’s feet, his head propped at a painfully awkward angle.
Josephine screamed and collapsed to the carpeted floor of her bedroom.
“It’ll be alright, dear,” Josephine’s mother said through the door. “Cry it out, whatever it is, and you’ll feel better.”
“Oh, just bugger off, Mum.” Josephine wiped away tears and looked back to the phone, where she began scrolling through the DeathNet list. “There has to be someone I can save.”
Slowly swiping at the screen, the incessant song began again and a new notification with the name Jackie Jones popped up at the top of the screen. She froze, stopped the scrolling list, and stared at her mother’s name before the notification disappeared.
A fast, heavy-handed knock at the apartment door shook the walls.
“One second,” her mother shouted from the other room. “I’m coming.”
“Mum,” she whispered under her breath then sprinted across her room and flung open her bedroom door. “Relax, Mum. I’ve got it. No need to bother yourself on your day off.”
“Alright, dearie. If you say so.” Jackie sank back into the corner of the sofa, clicking on the telly.
Another series of knocks resounded throughout the apartment. Josephine hurried over, cracking open the door to find a six foot tall mountain of meat staring back at her from the dark hallway. Shaved head, scruffy beard, and wearing a long leather coat.
“I don’t care how big you are, if you break this door you’ll be the one answering to the super.” She gave the massive man her meanest scowl.
“Josephine Jones?”
“Depends on who’s asking.”
“I’m here on behalf of my employer, Donny O’Malley. He expected you to be waiting for him at his office this morning with the information he requested, but alas,” the goon said, spreading his hands outward with a placating smile, “you were nowhere to be found.”
Josephine slipped into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind her. She stepped forward, standing toe to toe with the goon. Staring straight up at him, she poignantly poked him in the chest with her index finger. “You tell Donny not to get his knickers in a wad. Things went a little … sideways last night and I couldn’t get to the files. He’ll have the info tonight.”
The large man let out a low growl. “For your mother’s sake,” he said, nodding at the door with his chin, “you’d better deliver.” He turned and slowly made his way down the hall toward the stairs.
Feck me.
Josephine slipped back into the apartment, latched the lock, and leaned against the door.
“Oh my god, Joe,” Jackie shouted. “Bless that poor girl’s soul.”
“What is it, Mum…?” Josephine asked, skidding to a stop. She stared at a blue and bloody-faced version of herself staring back at her from the television screen. A similar image of Emanuel flashed onto the screen next. Jackie turned up the volume.
“The following individuals were found beaten and deceased near Fleet Street early this morning. Local law enforcement is asking for your assistance to identify them so their families may be notified. No official report has been released and we have no other information at this time.”
“Oh my, Joe,” Jackie said. “If you weren’t right here beside me I’d think that was you on the telly.”
She popped up from the couch and shuffled across the room to wrap her arms tight around Josephine.
“Be careful out there, dearie,” she said. “Don’t go dying some foolish way like that poor girl, or I’ll kill you myself.”
Josephine hugged her back. “I’ll be careful, Mum. Promise.”
* * *
Josephine leaned against the ancient, aged brick chimney and watched the tiny specks of snow flit about on the breeze and drift slowly to earth. The rooftops looked the same as the night before, but now they seemed darker, almost ominous.
“Dèja vu,” she whispered to herself, a puffy white cloud of breath billowed from her lips. The hologram lady might have said I was para-immortal, but she didn’t say anything about not falling to my death again or how badly it might hurt.
“Come on, Joe. You can do this,” she said, goading herself. Slowly, she stepped closer to the edge and turned to face the drop. Judging the distance, she balled her fists, closed her eyes, and leapt, dropping to the roof below. Josephine let her legs crumple beneath her upon impact and rolled to a stop.
Glancing back up at the other roof she released a nervous chuckle of relief. “See, that wasn’t so bad, now was it?”
She crossed several more roofs, closing the distance to her goal. With one last easy leap, she landed in nearly the exact icy spot she had the night before. Her head suddenly swam with the memory of sliding over the edge. See, easy as pie when no one is harassing me, she thought.
“Head back in the game,” she grumbled to herself. “This has to be done. I can’t let the O’Malleys hurt Mum.” Josephine continued across the roof to the large skylight positioned near the front of the building that led directly into the solicitor’s office. She brushed away the accumulated snow and peeked through the skylight into a nearly pitch-black office below.
Retrieving a small flashlight from her pocket, she directed its beam downward and found what she assumed was the solicitor’s desk resting directly below the opening. “It’s only a few feet to drop. Should be easy breezy, lemon squeezy.” She opened one of the glass panels, slowly forcing its ancient hinges to do something they probably hadn’t done in decades. The hinges popped and squeaked in protest until she gently laid the panel to rest.
Placing the light in her mouth and holding onto the metal frame, Josephine quietly lowered herself through the opening. Aiming to land on the massive wooden desk below, she dangled for a brief moment before letting go. She dropped the few final feet to her target, executing what she thought was a perfect superhero landing atop the desk.
She took the flashlight from her mouth and shined it around the room. Besides the large desk, the room was somewhat plain and ordinary. The entirety of the wall behind the desk was taken up by a large bookshelf covered in books on law and judicial judgments. Two leather seats sat just in front of the desk, while the far wall with the entrance into the room was lined with a bank of six-drawer filing cabinets that stood as tall as Josephine.
“Bloody hell,” Josephine muttered to herself. “Go get me the file that the solicitor has on us,” she muttered to herself in a mock impersonation of Donny O’Malley.
I’d bet he keeps the important stuff closer to hand.
Hopping down to the hardwood floor, she rounded the desk and pulled at each of the drawers, finding them locked.
A smart man keeps important things locked, and the keys with him. A lazy man keeps things conveniently close at hand, she thought, then pulled away the office chair and knelt to look beneath the desk.
“Gotcha…,” Josephine chuckled to herself, then reached for the key hanging from a hook on the underside of the desk. Unlocking the drawers, she searched through them one by one, quickly looking for anything about the O’Malleys. At the rear of the last drawer was a small metal safe built into the drawer, which took up almost a third of its space. She glanced at the drawer key in her hand and shrugged. “It sure won’t hurt to try,” she said then slipped the key into the lock. The key turned with little effort and the lid of the small safe popped open.
Inside, Josephine found several file folders full of papers and pictures, each marked with the names of the other criminal families she’d heard mentioned who were operating out of Dublin, and there at the bottom of the stack was a folder labeled O’Malley.
“And Bob’s your uncle.” Josephine started to place the other files back into the box, shrugged, and then tidied up the entire stack. Excited, she kicked the lower desk drawer closed with the heel of her boot as she stood and turned to leave, but froze at the loud thud her absentmindedness had just caused. “Bugger me.…” She stared at the door to the office, waiting, blood pounding in her ears. Moments seemed to pass like an eternity as she waited.
Good enough, I suppose.
She hurried, crossing the room to the door in a few steps. The door swung open before she could grab the door knob. A bright white light flashed to life, blinding her.
“You’ll be explaining yourself, miss,” an older male voice ordered from beyond the blinding white haze.
Josephine staggered back a step, raising the folders to block the light.
BANG!
The folders jerked toward her, nearly wrenched from her hand.
Lowering the flashlight, the figure nervously shifted. Josephine could see the still-smoking revolver in his right hand. She glanced down at the folders, finding a hole the size of her thumb penetrating the entire stack.
Panic beginning to set in, Josephine checked herself for any wounds. No holes, no blood, nothing.
“Miss, are you okay?” The man holstered the gun and flicked on the overhead light. He was a pudgy gentleman on the older side of middle age who wore a look of absolute regretful worry on his face.
The guard started to say something else, but it came out in a nervous stammer before he managed to catch his breath and start again. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, miss. I’ve never even shot a gun before. You startled me is all. I’m … I’m so sorry … really, I am. Should I call you an ambulance?”
Josephine glanced up at the man, then turned just enough to look behind herself. A large section of wooden trim decorating the shelves directly behind her had splintered, revealing unstained wood beneath its polished surface. She looked from the wall to the folders and then back to the guard.
“Fecking hell, you bloody bastard. You could kill someone like that.”
“Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph,” he whispered, crossing himself. “You’re the girl who died out in the alley last night!”
He fired two more rounds at her, but they passed harmlessly through just like the first.
“Blimey … What’re you here for? What do you want with me?”
Josephine froze for a moment, but then her head cleared.
That’s actually a brilliant idea, she thought, then shifted her expression to an angry, downtrodden scowl. Men are always guilty of something. She spotted the gleam of metal on his left ring finger. And married men, doubly so.
Raising her left hand, she curled her fingers to form a gnarled claw aimed at the guard. “You must atone for the wrongs you have committed,” Josephine said in a raspy, growling voice.
The guard let out a panicked squeak.
“You do yourself a disservice and a dishonor to your wife. You are her shining light in the roughest of life’s storms. No matter how bad things seem, she is devoted to you. Without you, she feels empty and incomplete.”
“She does?” The guard sucked in a shaky breath, his face contorting with guilt.
And now, for the icing on the cake, she thought.
“I bring a message from Old Skully. If you don’t change your ways, she’ll become a broken husk of the woman you once knew. You’ll earn yourself a first-class ticket to ride with the Reaper and go meet the devil himself.”
“Have mercy!” The guard collapsed to the floor, sobbing.
“Oops,” she mumbled. I may have overdone it a bit. She stifled a laugh. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll go home right now and make amends or so help me I will be back with Old Skully to carry you to the other side.”
The guard was a blubbering, sobbing mess. He scrambled to his feet and hurried away down the hall.
“And get her some chocolates,” Josephine shouted. She followed him but stopped short and peeked out into the hallway before glancing back up at the skylight.
“Guess I could go out the easy way.”
The chorus line from Queen’s “We Are The Champions” suddenly erupted from her pocket, followed by a second rendition that made it sound like a bad arena recording with a horrible echo. She unlocked the phone and saw two new notifications at the top of her screen. Highlighted in glowing gold letters were her mother’s name and one Tuck Murphy.
Out of curiosity, she tapped on his name and the phone responded a sound like clattering coins, like in a video game when treasure is awarded, and the name vanished from the list. The phone resounded once again collecting treasure when she tapped her mother’s name on the screen.
She pocketed the phone and strolled down the hallway toward the exit sign. “I think I might enjoy this job after all,” she said and started humming the chorus to “We Are The Champions.”
In a previous lifetime, William Joseph Roberts was an F-15 mechanic and Staff Sergeant in the United States Air Force. He has traveled the world and experienced many things in his few years. He has been called a Jack of all trades, a Renaissance man, and an insane squirrel wrangler by his peers. He has since pursued careers as an industrial and architectural designer, design engineer, and is now an award-winning author, editor, and publisher with Three Ravens Publishing.
Copyright © 2025 William Joseph Roberts.