Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Lyrics are from O Death as sung by Jennifer Titus.
Post Mortem
Chuck Shirley needs to disappear for a while.
He closes his bank account, sends his editor the final draft of Lucifer Rising along with an ambiguous note about going on an indefinite hiatus, breaks up with Becky who deserves much better than him, puts his house on the market, ends his cell phone service, and decides to write one more blog entry. It's a monologue, a eulogy to the life he led for several years, a send-off, a goodbye. He muses about a certain 1967 Chevrolet Impala while miles away a showdown takes place at a cemetery in Lawrence, Kansas.
This is it, he thinks as he shuts down his laptop and stomps downstairs for one last beer. He's been saving it for this very day. It waits for him, chilled and golden in his fridge, which has been emptied out of everything else.
Chuck stops at the doorway. "What are you doing here?"
Kali stops sharpening her nails and sets the stone down on the table. She graces him with a smile but her eyes are cold. "You should teach your children some manners."
"I-I don't know what you're talking about," he says, scratching the back of his head and his scraggly beard. He glances between her and the fridge. Just one last beer...
"Masquerading as other gods, starting the Apocalypse before it's time, killing their elders. Where are their manners?" She holds her hands up and studies her fingertips. "Especially your bratty little child, Lucifer."
"He's been punished," Chuck says, swallowing hard as he pictures Dean's bruised and bleeding grief. "He's been put back into place. He won't be coming back for a long time."
"Good," she says. "I detest the existence of anybody else who claims to be the destroyer of worlds."
Afternoon sunlight streams in through the window, casting shadows on the wall. The silhouettes of her other arms alternate between stroking her dark hair and sharpening a curved sword. He sidles along the other wall when her eyes drop to the tabletop, freezing when a quick stroke of the sword on the whetting stone spits out a shower of sparks.
"Did he honestly think he could destroy me like he did the others?" Kali asks. "Did he think he could chain me, use me to do his bidding? Did he not know what he was playing with?"
"He's not-that's not-it was going to happen anyway. The prophecies-"
"Were not supposed to cross the line," she says, looking up at him. Her eyes glow a violent red. "Death was never his to command, nor yours, if I recall your silly little Revelation correctly. That spell should never have fallen into his hands. He did this behind your back and look at the price we all paid."
"I..." She's right. He knew, he saw it happening, and he let it. But it really wasn't supposed to end this way. Human will and weary angels had taken his visions and twisted them, pushed and pulled until they were bent out of shape, unrecognizable by even him. "He's locked up now. If the Apocalypse is going to happen again it won't be soon. Why are you really here?"
She rises to her feet and walks over to him. Blood and sweat fill his nostrils while the heat of the battle surrounds him, traps him like a tightly woven cocoon.
Oh Death. Oh Death. Won't you spare me over another year?
"I'm here," she says, raising a hand and stroking the side of his face with the tips of her fingers, "to give you a warning."
She withdraws her hand and he feels beads of blood blooming on the side of his cheek.
"The next time this happens I will end it. All of it."
And then she's gone.
Chuck looks down at the ring on the table, enormous with a gleaming white stone. It flashes red as he crosses the floor to the fridge and grabs the beer.
Well I am Death, none can excel. I'll open the door to heaven or hell.