Death's Uneasy Alliance.(or pull up a Pew)

Death didn't look up to much today; in fact he looked positively wilted. His black suit needed pressing, the crisp white shirt in need of some starch and his tie was drooping at half-mast.
'Care for a snifter, matey?' I asked casually, knowing his temper was unreliable at best and earth shaking at it's its worst.
'Don't mind if I do, Pestilence, ' he replied, 'but none of those stinking concoctions of yours, the last one nearly put me out of business for over a week.'
I poured him a Martini, one of my best even though I say it myself.
He swallowed it in one gulp. I looked for the telltale signs of weeping eyes, (I do tend to go a bit overboard on the Vodka), but he didn't bat an eyelid. This suggested something serious was afoot, or should that be ahoof? Damn it all, I'm getting my fiends muddled up. It's the Devil that has hooves; at least it was the last time I looked.

'Call that a drink?' he said, ' if I wanted some ambrosia I'd be off to visit St Peter.'
Hmm, this was more serious than I first thought. We rarely hobnob with the elite unless it's a special occasion. Gathering my famous skull-bones I mixed a treble Black Russian, easy on the cola and top-heavy on the Vodka and Tia Maria. Once again he downed it in one go.
'I hate to say this, Death, but I think something is seriously wrong with you?'
'Bugger off Pestilence, that's you all over, always looking on the dark side of death.'
'I guess you haven't had your daily dose of souls today?' I quipped inadvisably.
Wham, the fist crashed down on my arm, splattering my new plague of sores everywhere.
'Hey, that was uncalled for,' I said, 'I was just making an observation. '
'Well get your mate Famine in here right now, I need some cheering up.'
'Oh hell no, he's such a party-pooper, always drizzling along about the state off the world, as if he never had a hand in it himself.' I said, unwisely as it turned out.
He stamped his feet on my favourite mixing tablet. 'Just get him, you poor excuse for a hell-raiser.'

There are some things that affect my professional pride and this was one of them. I hate visiting Famine, his quarters are the pits, that fellow has no pride at all. Still, Death is our superior and I wasn't about to get in trouble with him below. I had to kick Famine's bony arse before he'd get a move on, those feet were never made for walking. By the time I got back to my own quarters there was just about every demon I could think of taking up my space.
'You called the posse in,' I accused him, ' that's against the rules.'
'Sod you're fucking rules, this is a crisis,' Death answered, idly flicking one of my plague-bats away. 'We're all in deep shit so lets get pissed and work the problem out.'
Now he was talking my language, there's nothing like a good old booze-up to get the brain cells working.
'Hey, wait a minute, I'm not using my supplies,' I protested.
'Give over you whiny old alcie, ' I couldn't believe my mate Glutton was having a go at me, let him provide the booze and see what we'd get from that.

Luckily the crowd had all chipped in, Jealously was loath to part with his gin, but Death just rattled his cage a little. The same with Glutton, Greed, and a few of the lesser demons. Pan was having a field day, this was right up his alley. Avarice was good for a few barrels, so was half of the assorted vices. There was even a caseload of best Scottish whiskey donated by someone from "up there, the situation must be have been very serious for that.
It was quite a party, my stock of skulls were running short before Pan popped off to bring some goblets back. Famine contributed some of his begging bowls and before long everyone was rolling around with fits of the giggles.

Death finally got round to catching our attention, a few thunderbolts from Thor did the trick. (Technically Thor doesn't belong here, but if someone, somewhere, keeps believing in him, he'll stick around.)
Standing on my best table, Death gave his short and shocking speech. As far as I can remember it went something like this.

'Friends, demons, assorted warthogs and sprites, I have something very disturbing to relate.
You may know of the giant strides that Mankind has made in the past years. ¦¦¦¦¦¦.'
A pause here to let the slower thinkers catch up.
'Well death rates have been plunging for some time now, but my administrators put it down to seasonal fluctuation. No doubt you greater demons have been advised in a similar manner? To cut a long story short, they have fiddled the figures, blown gas out of their arses and generally have dropped us in the proverbial shit.'

A general scuffling ensued, Death is a fine orator, but there are some here short of a few marbles. Of course I caught on straight away, I'm considered something of a thinker and I had noticed the seasonal fluctuations seemed, well¦ not entirely seasonal. (To be perfectly honest I had been imbibing a tad more than usual these past months.)
'Pestilence!' I jumped to attention, 'what were your last annual figures?'
'I muttered the number, thinking of my lapse in communication.'
'Have you conferred with Plague and Famine?' he demanded.
Whoops, if I didn't play my cards right here I was in for a scorching.
'We did discuss it, Lord Death, but we came to the conclusion that Mankind is slowly adapting to our various skills.'
'Just as I thought, ' he agreed, although we hadn't even bothered to discuss it.
'I want reports from all of you, on my desk at seven am sharp.' He said before wandering off to walk in his private gardens.

The noise was more than I could stand, we'd all been a bit lax and now we were going to answer for it. I cleared my room as quickly as possible; my experiments were suffering from lack of oxygen, well we all have to breath, even my children. Famine and Plague lingered a while, they had also noticed the dip in figures but everyone knows how corrupt administrators can be.
'Just add an extra 20%,' I said confidently, 'he'll not notice the difference.'
Famine turned his big round empty eyes at me,
'That's not a good idea, the truth is, he's right. I've been trying to ignore it, blaming the charities for a run of good luck.'
'What about you, Plague?' I asked, my balls starting to creep upwards.
'I've thrown the lot at them, it seems they have developed new vaccines, new ways to kill my children,' he sounded more than miserable, if a demon could cry he was well on the way there.
'We'll have to blame them up there.' I pointed to the ceiling.
'Umm, sorry Pestilence, old chap, it appears they are having their own problems, lack of souls and all that mystical business.'
I dismissed them both, I may not be brightest in the stables, but Death was definitely holding something back.

It didn't take me long to hop over the walls, the hellhounds weren't a problem either, they avoided me, as well they should. I caught him up, pacing up and down his garden, the belladonna plants perfuming the night air. He didn't seem that surprised to see me.
'Come on mate, what gives, you know more about this than you're letting on.'
'Trust you Pest, you're sharper than I thought. This is in strictest confidence, you blab and I'll make sure you spend some time down under.'
'Sounds like a nice trip,' I said flippantly, ' I haven't been to Australia in a while now.'
'Quit it, you know damn well what I mean.'
Sure I did, who the hell would want to spend time with that mindless moron? I'd rather take a holiday on a cloud, much as I hate harps, they are infinitely better than the shrieks of the damned.

'I haven't collected one soul all week,' he blurted out, 'neither has Gabriel or that big poofter, Michael.'
This was more than disturbing, it signalled catastrophe on a grand scale.
'I take it you had a powwow with him upstairs?'
'No, but he delegated to Peter as usual, that guy could do with some serious R & R down here. It seems that Mankind hasn't much use for any of us anymore. We let things slide and now they've made enormous advances. Of course, there will always be accidents, but war has been eradicated, too many of those damn nuclear weapons. They agreed to scrap them after every nation made a pact, we didn't see that one coming.'
'What about poverty and the third world countries,' I asked, well aware I'd given them scant attention for a while.
He walked me over to his telescope, 'look down there and tell me what you see.'
I couldn't believe what I was seeing, rain clouds gathering over the barren lands.
'They can't have adjusted the weather?' I asked.
'They can control it for now, soon they will conquer it for good.'
'They'll mess up, ' I said, 'its their nature.'
Death cast me a sidelong glance, he knew exactly what was happening.

'Too much interference from sources that should have known better.' He said looking even more wilted than he had that morning.
I supplied the rest of it; after all, we were all to blame.
'We let our guard down.' I replied.
'You know what this means?' he said, but it wasn't a question.
'A truce¦surely not?'
'There isn't any other way. We both need the souls, without it the balance of the world will give way to utter chaos.'
'So why bother to hold a meeting?' I asked.
'Imagine the consequences of letting them all know their efforts are useless? Already some minor angels are rebelling. We must merge until the balance is regained.'
'Sorry Death, I didn't realise it would ever come to this.' My words were as empty as a bottomless pit.
'Aw fuck it all, bring on the jungle juice Pest, and let's get rat-arsed.'

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦

The souls still trickle through, accidents, old age, it still happens from time to time. The waiting list for re-incarnation has shot through the roof. Heaven and hell are getting pretty crowded now. Heaven's jammed up, the souls in hell can't move on until a space is available.
This new breed are impatient, damn their horny hides. My laboratory is working overtime but results are poor. If I didn't know better, I'd give up now, but I never could stand queues.
Gabriel and me are getting on fine, he makes a mean cocktail. As for the bosses, I reckon they got what they deserved; still, it's kind of strange watching them stroll through the gardens. We wait for an alien invasion, now that would put the cat among the pigeons.

© Lisa Fuller. March 2006.