A…man? had opened the door, his skin colour slightly yellowed, eyes black with white iris's. His three quarter length shirt covered over with a black waist coat sat awkwardly on his body. His lower torso was covered with light brown cloth held up with a red metal belt. It wrapped around his waist and curved down around his hip. The cloth curling about him revealed his right leg which had clear stitches sewing the skin together. It oozed blood and infection down to his heavy boots which reached half way up his lower legs. They had steel toe and heel caps and were held up with metal clasps attached directly into his very skin. He had brown hair which reached down his back.
Behind him there was a young girl. Very pale in complexion with crimson hair much shorter than any woman would possibly like. She wore a simple red shirt, long black skirt and black waistcoat. On her feet were crimson red trainers caked in old dried earth and covered with dust. She looked as if she could drop dead at any moment, the reason clearly discernible along her wrist which had a visible scar.
"What are you?" The-Interviewer asked of them. He tilted his head as he looked up from his mug of beer once more. He directed it to the man but the girl whispered back sounding dazed, not altogether present.
"Death."
The-Interviewer narrowed his eyes, looking into the girl's as he did so. They were glazed over and red covered her irises.
"I am The-Interviewer. Who are you?" He asked the girl noting how the man looked down at her.
"A willing slave of Death."
The-Interviewer narrowed his eyes further. The frown passed to his mouth. "What's your name?" He whispered sweetly, working his spells on the girl to break her from whatever hold Death had on her.
"Spirit." She whispered back. Her voice lightened just a touch before Death beside her dropped his jaw revealing slightly jagged teeth. As he did the girl took a razor from an unseen pocket and cut her wrist open, the blood flowing readily.
The-Interviewer rose pointing at her. "What do you think you're doing?" He yelled, more in shock than anything else. Far from appearing panicked herself Spirit raised her arm allowing the silent man to take her wrist. The-Interviewer watched, powerless to interfere, as Death halted the blood from dripping freely onto the floor and set it into his mouth instead. After a time he dropped Spirit as she fainted and lowered with her revealing a squelching sound. He took a needle and thread from the breast pocket of his waistcoat sewing up the slit Spirit had made.
He uttered a soft, satisfied sigh and picked her up in his arms carrying her to an empty table and lowered a red drop of liquid to Spirit’s parted mouth.
The-Interviewer wasn't sure what to be; shocked? Disgusted? Though his indecision settled on disturbed as the girl brought herself up from her position with an expressive first breath. It sounded like deep sexual satisfaction before her pallor became pale once more and her eyes glazed over.
"So you're Death? Are you going to take my soul?" The-Interviewer asked as soon as he’d found his footing in the many reactions he had partaken of in the last thirty seconds.
"My master is made from death." The girl whispered breathlessly.
"Made from death?"
Death looked up and across at him. The-Interviewer raised the back of his hand to his mouth as the essence of the man flowed into him. The man has no soul. Made from dead bodies sewn together, someone’s made a mess of the stitches. You were made in a hurry. "How can you be alive? To live you need a soul. To have a soul your body must be whole."
For the first time Death uttered a sound, a laugh if it could be called that. It sounded too empty, mirthless and evil to be such.
"He is alive." Spirit whispered again. "My master has a soul, his heart is his own." She looked at Death. "His brain is also."
"Who made him, why can't I see his soul?"
Spirit watched Death. He dropped his head down staring into her eyes and a glow emanated between them. The glow was soft. It had a narrow spread at first but as it grew Death pulled his head back ceasing all activity.
"His soul is shrouded in the mist of death and decay. He stitched the body together. He used spells to keep his old body alive and stitched in his heart and then he transplanted the brain. His brain," Spirit murmured mechanically.
"How?"
"Necromancy spells." She whispered, The-Interviewer noted the way her voice deepened to a growl, the way she smiled almost insane. Then it dropped away leaving Spirit returned to the quite overpowered broken spirit she was. The-Interviewer smiled at his own joke, laughing to himself.
"I suppose that's how he raised the body as well?"
"Yes." She whispered smiling again.
"And he needs blood to survive?" He asked. The-Interviewer lowered a cloth to the bar and wiped it down with care.
"Yes." She whispered smiling more, sounding breathless with adoration.
"Why did he need another body anyway?" The-Interviewer wondered nonchalantly.
"My master likes to escape."
The-Interviewer watched Death a moment. "Can't he talk himself?"
"When I come to the end of my service, he will harvest my body and absorb my life force. He will gain his voice then. Then he will choose another to serve."
"He'll absorb your soul?" He assumed.
"No. My soul will be released. He will take all the years I would have lived if I had not been taken by him or illness. He will replace the parts of his body failing with mine." She smiled as though drugged. "I live to serve my master."
The-Interviewer took up his mug of beer in order not to vomit across his interview establishment "Why do you sound drunk? Not drunk with alcohol intoxication, you sound as if you are drunk... you sound as if you are high on drugs."
Spirit laughed beginning to sound worse and it was then The-Interviewer noticed the white glow around Spirit.
"He smiles back at me from his soul. As long as he smiles..." She tapered off as though suddenly void of will. Her voice took on a voice not her own. It sounded a man's voice, disconnected and sounding slightly apart from the usual rules of sanity though far from insane. "As long as I smile to her, her soul is calm within her, her memories of her life will not plague her."
Death’s voice
The-Interviewer met Death’s eyes as the man looked at him. The neck appeared slack, wobbling as if off centre, clearly not connected properly. "I took her from her deathbed, took her from the streets and enveloped her within my soul."
"So she isn't willing at all," The-Interviewer glowered. Occasionally being unbiased, as he was always supposed to be, was not easy.
Spirit’s voice returned, her tone lighter for a mere moment. "I was. I didn't want to die." Her eyes shook with misted tears. Death grinned behind her and turned her head. The-Interviewer’s eyebrows twitched as Spirit calmed looking into Death’s eyes. Her unshed tears vanished from her eyes and she smiled again.
The-Interviewer felt he understood. The red droplet replenished her blood. The faint white glow around her was both souls connecting to each other. Death kept her happy, in a dreamlike state, not thinking of whatever it was she had left behind.
"What kind of life is that to have?"
"I travel, I meet many,” Spirit answered, turning to look at him again.
"What would your life have been like without Death?"
"I would have died on the street. My body thrown away."
The-Interviewer paused for a second or more. He allowed the thought to settle and then asked, "What memories does he protect you from?"
"Cold dark rooms, constant fear and a certainty of being beaten and raped."
"So," The-Interviewer ventured frowning again, "if you were rescued from that, why were you on your deathbed?"
"I took ill, pneumonia. He came to me in a place where they hide the ill and the dying."
"And how did he make you well?"
"Necromancy spells." She said taking on the same slight insane smile as the previous time she had uttered those words.
"That red liquid?"
"Yes." She laughed, it sounded to The-Interviewer that she was losing her grip on reality even more so than she already had. How many years had she been serving? She could only have been maybe seventeen now.
"When did he take you?" He asked curling his fingers under his chin and resting his elbow on the wood of the table.
"I was ten. I had five good years and then he had to take more."
The-Interviewer fell still with his mouth open. The two were causing more confusion than anyone he had interviewed before. "More? More what?" He asked as soon as he found his wits.
"My life. My life essence was growing. He couldn't stop the horror of my memories flooding my mind. Once he takes the extra life it is only two years before my service ends. He had to take the excess life before it caused us to break."
The-Interviewer straightened up stretching as he considered what he had learned. "Were you fifteen?"
"Yes."
"Was something happening to you to make your life essence grow?"
"I was coming of age, he thought I could have one more year but I developed early." Death rose a hand, it looked tired, and stroked his fingers through her hair. In an entirely inappropriate way he seemed to be sad for her, caring for her.
"What were those years like for him?"
"I can't answer those questions. He has to take me now." She sounded just a little frightened as Death kissed her neck softly. The-Interviewer put the back of his hand to his mouth as Death snapped her neck and her body dropped without dignity.
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