Knowledge aforethought, p.1
Knowledge Aforethought, page 1
Knowledge Aforethought
On Behalf of Death, Book 2
E.G. Stone
Tarney Brae Creative Endeavours
Copyright © 2021 by E.G. Stone
A Tarney Brae Creative Endeavours Production
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
For my fellow time travellers
Contents
1. Time is Relative
2. In the Interest of Time
3. Time Marches On
4. Time of Death
5. Lost Time
6. Time Long Past
7. Time and Again
8. All the Time in the World
9. Wasting Time
10. Time’s Up
11. Out of Time
12. Wisdom Comes with Time
13. Time of Our Lives
14. Killing Time
15. In the Shadow of Time
16. Time to Go
17. No Time Like the Present
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by E.G. Stone
Time is Relative
“You should wear this, Cal,” my assistant said, holding up a black silk cummerbund like it hadn’t gone out of style twenty years ago. Yolanda was grinning widely, her strangely white teeth contrasting sharply with her rock troll features: bald, with greyish-green skin that was tough as elephant hide, a squat nose and big yellowy eyes. She was also about the size of an American football running-back. Basically: scary, dangerous, and far too keen on my fashion choices. Granted, she was a whizz at computers and knew the ins and outs of every social media platform from the mortal realms to Elsewhere. And, despite the addiction to salt—apparently it was a rock troll thing—she was extremely reliable. She sat in the extra large leather chair at her desk, spinning back and forth and looking like a kid at Christmas. I narrowed my eyes and pushed my glasses up.
“You should maybe stop raiding the thrift store every time we go into the mortal realms,” I retorted. My other employee, Agravaine, snorted. He was an air elemental that had been kicked out (or escaped from, depending on who you ask) The Order of Silence after I got involved and nearly died, and instead came to work with me as an assisting marketing agent. So far, he had scared more clients away than he had brought in. Oddly, that was a far more helpful trait than I had anticipated, even if it meant all the marketing was on my shoulders. He closed the lid of his laptop and leaned back in his chair, propping his feet on his desk, opposite the room from Yolanda.
“That’s like trying to get her to give up salted foods,” Agravaine said. He winked at Yolanda when she gaped in horror at the mere thought and I smothered the urge to roll my eyes. Agravaine was the sort of classically handsome person that got people to like him just by smiling. It was extremely useful for building up an online presence. It was also extremely annoying to someone like me—that is to say, a perfectly ordinary human in a world of magical beings—who got ignored whenever he was around. Of course, neither he nor Yolanda liked to be around when it came to dealing with our primary client and my boss. They were downright terrified. Me? I was more…respectful by necessity.
To be fair, most people didn’t like being around when it came to our boss. That was why I had been hired in the first place. He had brought me from the mortal realms—just as I was being shot, which was not a great time—to Elsewhere to head up a marketing and PR firm to improve his image. Granted, that new job then immediately required I go solve a murder, got me mostly-dead on more than one occasion, and now resulted in my participation as chaperone…
My name is Cal Thorpe. I work for Death. And I was stupid enough to start this job without a proper job description.
“While I’m gone, would someone please tell Doc Graveltoes to stop posting selfies with his patients while they’re unconscious? It’s a little creepy,” I said to Yolanda, doing my best to tuck in my shirt without wrinkling it.
“Okay, Cal,” Yolanda said cheerfully, typing the note into her computer. Agravaine just snorted. Again.
“It’s your own fault for getting him a cell phone anyways,” he said. “Why would you give a phone to a gremlin? And then teach him how to use it?”
“I just want to do marketing. Okay? Marketing. If that means getting phones to gremlins or setting up interviews with people who are cultishly pleased to be talking with Death, so be it. But this? I have to chaperone Life and Death to the theatre!”
“Death is in charge,” Yolanda breathed like I had just renounced all salted foods for the rest of my life. She wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t make me like it any more.
“Babysitting two supernatural entities that could blow up the world with a sneeze isn’t in my job description,” I grumbled, messing with my bowtie.
“Well, at least you get good benefits,” Yolanda chimed in, flashing her too-white teeth with that annoyingly cheerful grin. I scowled deeper.
“Yeah,” Agravaine snickered, stretching and fixing me with a smug grin. “They’re to die for.”
“I was wrong. Babysitting those two will be a picnic compared to dealing with the two of you.”
I huffed and reached down to tie my shoe and polish the leather surface a touch. I will say one thing about working for Death: despite the job risks I have inadvertently walked into, he pays very well. Enough to buy the high-end shoes for this ridiculous night out. Why couldn’t a night out in New York City for me include just wandering around and eating a hot dog or going to a nice restaurant? Why did it have to include chaperoning Death and his completely-insane wife, Life, to the theatre? I had complained over and over again that I wasn’t a relationship counsellor, but no one seemed to take me seriously.
I straightened, grumbled, shoved my fully-charged phone in my pocket and grabbed my blazer. “Might as well get this over with. I hope I don’t get blown to smithereens, or eaten by a wyvern, or kidnapped by vampires. Again.”
“Good luck!” Yolanda called as I trudged to the office door. I waved over my shoulder, not entirely unhappy to be leaving my perpetually cheerful assistant behind. Especially as I heard, “So, how long do you think they’ll make it this time?” behind my back as I left. I winced.
“Twenty minutes,” Agravaine replied.
“Fifty bucks says you’re wrong,” Yolanda said.
“Done.”
I really needed a vacation. A normal vacation.
Advice to anyone starting out on a new job: I would suggest getting a very thorough job description before you begin. Otherwise, you will end up much like myself, doing things that you did not expect under the wildest of circumstances. Granted, my situation is a little bit more unusual than otherwise, but the principle still holds. See, for me, everything started to go sideways when I was just about to be promoted to vice president of my marketing firm. I was moving up in the world. I had people begging me to take them on as clients. I had the nod from the owner of the firm, Old lady Harcourt. Then, as I was walking to a lovely dinner where I anticipated the most wonderful promotion after working quite hard, I encountered Death.
Death, as it turns out, is actually a rather nice guy. He is tall, gaunt, with skin darker than the shadows themselves—in fact, he seems to create them—and instead of eyes he has nothing but empty holes that will swallow you, er, alive if you look too long. But apart from the fact that he is perhaps one of the most terrifying things I have ever encountered, Death is actually a nice guy. I met him on a park bench after being shot. He was wearing a three-piece suit, explained the not-so-good position I was in, and then, he offered me a job. He offered me a job. I was to be his new public relations manager. Given that my options just then were quite painful and completely unknown, I closed my eyes, shook his hand, and accepted.
The results were…unexpected.
Now, almost a year later, I was working way outside my usual job parameters of marketing and public relations. I was acting as chaperone and relationship counsellor to Life and Death, hoping to smooth out some of the wrinkles in their marriage. As you might expect, they have some serious wrinkles. And no, the wrinkles were not my fault. Entirely.
On this particular night, I was playing chaperone to Life and Death on a foray into the mortal realm, where we would be going to a decently posh theatre, surrounded by perfectly normal people, and watching The Mikado. I figured that some Gilbert and Sullivan would do us all well. I mean, it’s hard to start an argument when you have people singing and dancing in front of you. And blowing up a building in front of mortals was a serious taboo, so I figured we’d be safe. Ish.
It would definitely be a better option than the morose tea party at The Order of Silence we attended the week before. That had nearly resulted in the literal liquidation of a whole lot of people, including myself. The Order of Silence was still trying to stick me with the bill for damages. Then there was sandwiches at the tavern just on the border of Life’s lands and Death’s territory in Elsewhere. I, at least, had the foresight to order my reuben to go.
This time, I figured that they would have to behave since we were going to be wandering around with a bunch of very fragile, very innocent, very ignorant humans. No magic. No destruction. Nada.
That, and it was Gilbert and Sullivan. If they liked it, then they had something to talk about. If they hated it, then they had something to talk about. Either way, I would be out of Elsewhere and into the mortal realms and doing my very best to deal with headache. There would be no magic, no people trying to kill me. I could pretend that I was just a normal guy, accompanying his boss and boss’ wife to the theatre. It would almost be like it was.
Not that appearing out of thin air in the park across the street from the theatre was anything remotely approaching normal. At least I didn’t throw up.
As we were going to one of the more upscale features in my former hometown of a very large city, we were dressed to the nines. Death had worn the guise of a very tall black man who looked like he could play basketball for any of the teams the world and perhaps make a very large and tidy fortune. He wore, as usual, a three-piece suit, and looked quite dapper. Life hadn't bothered with such nonsense as a guise. She went as herself; that is to say, I couldn't tell you whether or not she was tall or short, thin or curvy, only that she was absolutely stunning in every way. She wore some sort of cocktail dress in a shimmery fabric. I was uncertain of the colour, simply because I had a hard time looking away from her long enough to notice something as mundane as her clothes. She was drawing the attention of everyone she passed as we walked into the theatre.
I, being human and not nearly so good at being noticed, looked completely boring by comparison to these two. I wore a nice pair of trousers and a button up shirt and some shiny loafers. I had put on my very best pair of glasses, the ones with the thick black frames, and even managed to tame my wavy brown hair into some semblance of order. Still, compared to Life and Death, I was pretty ordinary.
"I don't mean to be…difficult," I said as we shoved our way past some people at the drinks bar, "but wouldn't it have been a little bit better to try and blend into the mortal realms?"
Life looked at me as though I were nothing but a bug beneath her very pointy shoes. "Cal," she said. "You know nothing of humans, despite the fact that you are one. An interesting phenomenon, but the fact remains. Humans will see what they wish to see. Even now, they are coming up with some picture in their mind of what exactly I am. All they know is that I am exactly what they want. What should it matter to me what I look like?"
"Because my dear," Death said, walking on the other side of me and doing his very best not to grind his teeth, "we are trying to maintain a low profile. It is difficult to do so when you choose to walk around as yourself. More and more people are capable of seeing that which we would not wish them to see. It is one of the few benefits of having such technology at their disposal. Besides, we are meant to be here to enjoy the performance, not participate in one."
Life scoffed, tossed her head, and strode off, sashaying her hips as she went. As I stood next to Death, part of me desperately wanted to fall in after her. She was Life. Tempting, wonderful, bright, beautiful. But, I knew Life and she was not as pleasant as one would think. She was in fact rather difficult. Fickle. Cruel. Unfair. Uncaring. Death on the other hand, while terrifying, was at least sane.
"You know, I'm only your public relations and marketing manager," I said, not for the first time, not even for the first time that evening. “Perhaps it would be better if someone else did this for you. Mercy for instance? Or even Yolanda."
Mercy was an air elemental like Agravaine who worked for The Order of Silence, a group of assassins and zealots dedicated to maintaining a balance between Life and Death. The Order and I weren’t on the best of terms after I had liberated Agravaine and failed to die properly. Mercy, being their liaison with Death, did her best to avoid me as much as possible. She hated Yolanda, Agravaine and myself for bringing about the death of her sometimes associate Justice the year before. It was—truly—not my fault, but every interaction since had ended up with me desperately wishing to be far, far away.
"Mercy would live up to her name, which is not what Life, or myself, need. She cannot help being merciful. We cannot help needing anything but mercy. And Yolanda is, understandably, terrified of us both. Besides, she has a harder time fitting into the mortal realms than you do, Cal. Nor do you seem to be deferentially terrified of us. A human trait, I imagine. No, you are just going to have to accept that this is the necessary course of action. We must sort this out between us, or things are going to get a whole lot worse."
Death followed after his wayward wife and I paused a moment, trying to think how things could really become much worse. Given my experience with the magical and supernatural world, I decided there were many many ways that could be managed. So I shoved my hands into my pockets, touched my phone to reassure myself that there would still be the constants of technology and social media in these mad times, and walked after my charges, hoping that this night could at least be maintained without the yelling of our last two sessions. I didn’t have the legal capacity to battle more demands for payments for damages.
The viewing box from which we were going to watch The Mikado was understandably grandiose. The chairs were plush and lined with velvet, the exposed wood was gilded, the walls were carved into fantastical shapes, and the balcony was in full view of the entire theatre. I wasn’t surprised. After all, the point of these old theatres was to be a place where you could be seen. I only hoped that we could be seen without causing a scene.
There were four plush chairs in the box, three of which were taken up by Life, myself, and Death. I hoped that the fourth chair would be empty, or used by someone who was aware of the situation, otherwise the evening would be incredibly and increasingly awkward. How do you explain to a human—especially a truly mortal one, instead of the immortal and enlightened sort that I was these days—about the whole relationship counselling between Life and Death issue? These were some of the most powerful beings in the universe, and they could probably level the average human with a good glare. I had been given various assurances that this would all go well, but we all know the value of good intentions.
Life fanned herself with the brochures for the musical, staring at the filling theatre with interest. Each time her gaze focused on a particular person, they seemed to become more animated, more vibrant. When she looked away, they slumped as if exhausted. Death flipped through the pages almost mechanically, casually glancing over the advertisements and articles and descriptions of the actors’ roles. He ignored Life’s bored antics. I sat between them and twirled my phone in my hand though I didn’t use it, trying not to think of impending doom. I pushed up the glasses on my nose, and then blessed relief, the lights flashed twice to indicate the start of the performance.
During the performance itself, Life and Death behaved themselves…generally speaking. One thing I hadn't considered was that they would like certain parts of the show that the other didn’t like. Death particularly appreciated the bit about a list of potential victims. Life particularly appreciated all of the other pieces about tricking Death. As far as I could tell, they were just relegating themselves to glaring at each other out of the corners of their eyes. So far so good. I tried to pay attention to the performance and got almost nowhere. I was a little worried about my charges accidentally blowing up the theatre with me in it. Then—finally—intermission.
“I’m getting some drinks,” I said as soon as the lights went up. Life flicked her brows up with interest. Death waved a hand in acknowledgement.
“Nothing for me, thank you Cal. We will be perfectly fine in your absence,” Death assured me. I narrowed my eyes.
“Five minutes,” I said. “It took five minutes for the whole tavern too—“
“I will behave if you hurry and bring me a drink!” Life snapped. I was tempted to chew her out, too, but I dutifully trudged away to the nearest bar. People gave me looks at my unmoving scowl, but stayed out of my way. Mostly.
