Reaper Man

If someone had told me a month ago, Windle thought, that a few days after I died I'd be walking along the road followed by a bashful bogeyman hiding behind a door and accompanied by a kind of negative version of a werewolf... why, I probably would have laughed at them. After they'd repeated themselves a few times, of course. In a loud voice.

The Death of Rats rounded up the last of his clients, many of whom had been in the thatch, and led the way through the flames towards wherever it was that good rats went.

He was surprised to pass a burning figure forcing its way through the incandescent mess of collapsed beams and crumbling floorboards. As it mounted the blazing stairs it removed something from the disintegrating remains of its clothing and held it carefully in its teeth.

The Death of Rats did not wait to see what happened next. While it was, in some respects, as ancient as the first proto-rat, it was also less than a day old and still feeling its way as a Death, and it was possibly aware that a deep, thumping noise that was making the building shake was the sound of brandy starting to boil in its barrels.

The thing about boiling brandy is that it doesn't boil for long.

The fireball dropped bits of the inn half a mile away. White-hot flames erupted from the holes where the doors and windows had been. The walls exploded. Burning rafters whirred overhead. Some buried themselves in neighbouring roofs, starting more fires.

What was left was just an eye-watering glow.

And then little pools of shadow within the glow.

They moved and ran together and formed the shape of a tall figure striding forward, carrying something in front of it.

It passed through the blistered crowd and trudged up the cool dark road towards the farm. The people picked themselves up and followed it, moving through the dusk like the tail of a dark comet.

Bill Door climbed the stairs to Miss Flitworth's bedroom and laid the child on the bed.

SHE SAID THERE WAS AN APOTHECARY SOMEWHERE NEAR HERE.

Miss FIitworth pushed her way through the crowd at the top of the stairs.

"There's one in Chambly," she said. "But there's a witch over Lancrew -"

NO WITCHES. NO MAGIC. SEND FOR HIM. AND EVERYONE ELSE, GO AWAY.

It wasn't a suggestion. It wasn't even a command. It was simply an irrefutable statement.

Miss Flitworth waved her skinny arms at the people.

"Come on, it's all over! Shoo! You're all in my bedroom! Go on, get out!"

"How'd he do it?" said someone at the back of the crowd. "No-one could have got out of there alive! We saw it all blow up!"

Bill Door turned around slowly.

WE HID, he said, IN THE CELLAR.

"There! See?" said Miss Flitworth. "In the cellar. Makes sense."

"But the inn hasn't got –" the doubter began, and stopped. Bill Door was glaring at him.

"In the cellar," he corrected himself. ‘Yeah. Right. Clever."

"Very clever," said Miss Flitworth. ‘Now get along with the lot of you."

He heard her shoo them down the stairs and back into the night. The door slammed. He didn't hear her come back up the stairs with a bowl of cold water and a flannel.

Miss Flitworth could walk lightly, too, when she had a mind to.

She came in and shut the door behind her.

"Her parents'll want to see her," she said. "Her mum's in a faint and Big Henry from the mill knocked her dad out when he tried to run into the flames, but they'll be here directly."

She bent down and ran the flannel over the girl's forehead.

"Where was she?"

SHE WAS HIDING IN A CUPBOARD.

"From a fire?"

Bill Door shrugged.

"I'm amazed you could find anyone in all that heat and smoke," she said.

I SUPPOSE YOU WOULD CALL IT A KNACK.

"And not a mark on her."

Bill Door ignored the question in her voice.

DID YOU SEND SOMEONE FOR THE APOTHECARY?

"Yes."

HE MUST NOT TAKE ANYTHING AWAY.

"What do you mean?"

STAY HERE WHEN HE COMES. YOU MUST NOT TAKE ANYTHING OUT OF THIS ROOM.

"That's silly. Why should he take anything? What would he want to take?"

IT'S VERY IMPORTANT. AND NOW I MUST LEAVE YOU.

"Where are you going?"

TO THE BARN. THERE ARE THINGS I MUST DO. THERE MAY NOT BE MUCH TIME NOW.

Miss Flitworth stared at the small figure on the bed. She felt far out of her depth, and all she could do was tread water.

"She just looks as if she's sleeping," she said helplessly. ‘What's wrong with her?"

Bill Door paused at the top of the stairs.

SHE IS LIVING ON BORROWED TIME, he said.

There was an old forge behind the barn. It hadn't been used for years. But now red and yellow light spilled out into the yard, pulsing like a heart.

And like a heart, there was a regular thumping. With every crash the light flared blue.

Miss Flitworth sidled through the open doorway. If she was the kind of person who would swear, she would have sworn that she made no noise that could possibly be heard above the crackle of the fire and the hammering, but Bill Door spun around in a halfcrouch, holding a curved blade in front of him.

"It's me!"

He relaxed, or at least moved into a different level of tension.

"What the hell're you doing?"