Death looked out over New York from the large thick glass windows of his office on the top floor of the tower. He looked down on the people below. Couples and crackheads, poets and pimps, from up here they all looked the same. They went about their day to day lives never knowing what the next day would hold. Many lived like it would be their last day, milking all the pleasure they could out of their meager existence. The idea of the human spirit driving them forward in their inexorable march. They sought love, happiness, hate, every emotion that they believed to make them human and therefore worth something.
The fools.
They all lived, they all loved, they all died the same. And when the last came to pass, he was the one to file it away. He had lived countless centuries and it never changed. In this century or the next, nothing would be different. They would play, they would laugh, they would love, they would hurt, then they would die. The inexorable march of the human spirit was no more than a simple progression to his domain. In the end all they were were strokes of his pen, written down, recorded, and reassigned. A cold unfeeling process, and he liked it that way.
He sighed and turned away from the window, facing the ever growing pile of papers and the ever present glass of scotch. Sitting in his leather chair and picking up the latter he took a drink before turning to the former. From the breast pocket of his vest he withdrew an onyx fountain pen with a small silver skull on the tip of the cap. Licking the end of the nib he slid the first sheaf of paper off of the stack and went to work. Every so often as he worked a crow would fly in and either deposit another stack of papers, or take one away. The large black raven on his shoulder however hopped about the room tidying things up.
Eventually the peaceful sound of nib on parchment was interrupted by a noise at the door. It was loud, obnoxious, sounded like the door was being torn off, and could only belong to one being. "Ah War, just what brings you here," he said without looking up from the paperwork.
He was going to kill her. Scarlet just knew it as she walked into his office, still fueled by her recent battle, the poor door hanging by a hinge or two, the red head herself covered in black blood, bone and some other third thing that she couldn't describe. She dragged her great sword in behind her, carving a path in his otherwise pristine office carpet.
"Hey~!" She sang as she plopped down in one of the chairs facing his desk. Honestly, it was like sitting in front of the principal's office, after a fight, or rather that's how she pictured it. She'd have to ask Lucy what it was like. Not that, the kid would know, she never did anything wrong in her life, whereas Scarlet on the other hand.....
She looked up at her brother, younger technically, but clearly the more mature of the two. Throwing her muck covered boot of the arm of the chair, her great sword vanishing as she brought the hand holding it to her chin. A sheepish, almost guilt pout of her pink lips. "So, I killed some people." She said with a shrug of her shoulder. "That may....or may not have been an accident." She said and looked up. "Biker gangs, ya know, they really ought to vet their members a bit more....Probably shouldn't be so trigger happy too, that might have helped. I was only after their VP but the whole damn room came at me...." She said and scrunched up her nose, in a way that would have been cute where it anyone else but her despondent brother. "Sorry."
The door falling unceremoniously behind them. Scarlet could only shrug sheepishly."I know," Death said without looking up from the paperwork. He tapped a thin finger against a stack of papers in front of her. "Hades," he said snapping that finger and pointing at the door. The crow that had been tidying up the room flew over to the door, as it got close it it changed into a tall unnaturally thin man with dress that was identical to Deaths. The raven-man picked up the door and put it back into place, and with a wave of its hand the hinges reattached themselves. It then did the same for the cleft in the floor that Wars sword had left in it.
Death meanwhile hadn't moved apart from his pen scratching on the paper and bringing the glass of whiskey to his lips. "With you, sibling, it's never an accident." He waved and his glass was refilled by a servant that to a mortal or most Daemons would have been invisible, but in reality was another one of those crow-people he used as servants. "Feet off the chair, you know better," his tone was emotionless, bordering on condescension with every word that exited his cold lips.
Scarlet pouted, dropping her dirty boots to the floor, with a thud. Otherwise oblivious to his tone. It was his usual one so she didn't taken offense. "This was an accident though-- Hey Hades." she tossed a hand to the raven man, as he passed. "Seriously, You know how I get when I'm fighting, and they just-- she gestured grandly, tossing her hands toward her as if to show a stampede. "kept coming, I mean one after another, Bro, I didn't have time to calm down before they all were like dead. I couldn't tell who was mortal and who wasn't. I really didn't mean for that to happen. she said defensively. "Like Seriously, I was standing there like...'Death is gonna kill me'" she paused a moment, frowned before snickering. "Sorry, I didn't mean that...that time. she said with a smirk and a shrug. She had the attention span of a three year old sometimes, she was aware of it, for about thirty seconds. "You know it wasn't completely pointless, I did find that there's a den of crossed over demons, I found that out right before the rest of the gang came at me, Ooo boy, did that daemon scream after I--Never mind, the point is, there's a Den in Midtown, and apparently it's not the only one." She said, and sat back against the chair."I know," he said pointing at a pile of Daemon death forms. "I know," he said pointing at a pile of human death forms. "And again, I know. I was actually just about to call a meeting with the siblings." He never referred to the other Horsemen as his brothers or sisters. This was partially because over the centuries they had each run the gamut of sexes and orientations for their incarnations, and he had been no different. It had gotten to the point where it was simpler to refer to them as coldly and analytically as possible. And that suited Death just fine.
Hades came back and made a bow to Death, licking his fingers after the hand that'd been given him. "Yes thats quite enough, summon the others," he said with a dismissive wave of his whiskey hand, the other not stopping in its work. Eventually he sighed heavily and capped off his pen, sliding it neatly back into his breast pocket. He leaned back in the chair sipping his whiskey. He looked at War finally, his amethyst eyes impassively surveying the state she was in. Reaching into his vest he withdrew a silver cigarette case, taking a long slender filterless and tapping it against the surface of the case before snapping a finger, lighting it. He took a long drag, the smoke roiling through useless lungs and coming out of his nose like a chimney as he leaned over and tapped out the ash in a glass skull shaped ashtray on a corner of his desk.
"I know about the Dens, and about the increase in unsanctioned Daemon crossover. I am also aware of the other den, or dens as the case may be. But that is a conversation for the four of us."
Scarlet looked at him, musing what he said. He knew a lot. It was his job to know these things, but disturbed her though was that there were so many unsanctioned daemons she didn't know about until now. she was the one with her ear to the ground. She worked in the seediest nightclub, she heard whispers and rumors all the time, why did she just now find this out, and it wasn't from her brother. She was immature sure, but she was efficient at her job. Punishing 'Crossovers' as she called them. MAybe she had been too distracted, raising a teenager wasn't exactly an easy cover job, not that Lucy was just a cover job. She loved that little girl like she couldn't believe. Strange thing for War to love. She rolled her eyes at her own thoughts and tapped her chin, leaning on the arm of the chair with her elbow. "Oh the whole lot of us?" She said. "This can't be good." He stood and put on his jacket while taking a drag on his smoke. Blowing the smoke out through his nose again as he straightened his jacket. He looked at War with the faintest trace of amusement on his face. "It isn't, its dead serious." He clapped twice and a dozen of those crow-man servants of Death started to prepare the room for the meeting. A long table was brought in, covered in food, famine was much more pleasant to speak to when she was eating. A large rolling pin-board with a map of New York pinned to it was brought in and placed to the right of Deaths desk. The map had a series of red pins in it, one of which was placed where War had just come from, the biker bar in Midtown. Throughout it all Death was conducting it all with the hand that held his cigarette, the glowing ember his baton while he drank from his ever-present glass of whiskey. Eventually all was ready and they just had to wait for the rest of the Horsemen of Apocalypse to assemble.
