There was a rustle behind her as she placed her other hand around the arrow feeling the deer’s heart kick wildly for a moment and then stop, she paid no attention to the sound concentrating instead on the deer beneath her hand. When she was sure that the deer was gone she stood up slowly, eyeing her hand that was covered with drying blood now, then watching as already a stream of ticks and fleas began vacating the body, most of life was this fast. If the Path let her she could stay a moment and see when the first flies found the body, maybe a crow would get here and pluck out a tender eye before the hunter found his wayward kill.
So fast life moved, her part in it so small and fleeting, necessary; still she sighed wiping her hand in a fold of the robe no longer certain if the garment drank the fluid or if the color of the stain was lost in its dark dye.
“You are not what I was expecting.”
Mitei turned, expecting the Path to open up beneath her feet even as she did so. Unusual indeed for anyone to see her once she had cast the spell of disinterest, but not entirely unheard of at least; probably of more concern was the fact that her feet stayed planted firmly on forest loam and she did not find herself whisked off to the comfort and relative safety of an office.
“Expecting?” She said, stalling for time and looking over the new arrival carefully. A man, short by modern standards and broad of shoulder, he stood in the remains of dappled sunlight though and she found it hard to make out his features. Still he seemed healthy, strong even, those shoulders spoke of muscles she could not see; not the usual suicidal type that saw through the spell.
“When I shot that deer,” he said his voice a deep rumble that seemed familiar to Mitei though she could not place why. “I wasn’t exactly expecting you, I was expecting dinner.”
“Oh,” she said smiling sheepishly. Of course he did not know who or what she was, though how he had managed to see her through the spell let alone what he thought of a robed woman of such odd coloring out in the woods alone with the night coming on. “I beg your pardon. I have no interest in this deer I just found it dying. If you will excuse me I will be on my way.”
The man stepped forward a hand raised to forestall her movement and she froze again, unwilling to move in front of this odd huntsman. “I was expecting the deer, but I’m not displeased to have found you so soon.”
Alright, back to being confused then. “I am sorry?”
“My name is Aedan,” he said stepping closer still. Close enough she could see his features clearly in the dusk. Short brown curls and green eyes, small details of a kind and open face that helped her relax a tiny bit more. “Do you recognize me?”
“Should I?”
“No I don’t suppose you should,” something went out of his frame and he seemed to shrink a bit with disappointment. “For a moment, you seemed familiar to me, but I suppose you walked closer with others than you ever did with me.”
“I do not understand what you mean.”
“You can call me Aedan; I am the god of the hunt.”
***
“You cannot be serious,” she said, smiling and taking a step back, there was only room for her to take one before she was standing on the deer, now she was out of places to go and the Path still had not taken her onward. Great, stuck in the woods with a crazy man who thinks he is a god. Wonderful month I am having.
Aedan stayed where he was, for a wonder but reached up behind himself pulling an arrow from a quiver she had not noticed on his back before. It was an odd arrow, tipped with a point that was not the dull bullet like affair of modern arrows, but having a sharp metallic point instead. She watched, frozen as he rolled the sleeve up on one arm, revealing a weave of old scars.
“I am the god of the hunt,” he said and as she watched he pulled the arrowhead over his arm, leaving a gash along the flesh that quickly began to bleed. Bleed and then close, fast as her wounds had healed at Leo’s, probably faster. It seemed no sooner had the first beads of blood welled up from the gash then they were being squeezed from the flesh as the wound closed up beneath them.
Her knees felt weak. At least this meant her spell of disinterest was still working, probably, she thought.
“I am the hunt,” he said replacing the arrow. “And you, you are Death; I’ve been looking for you.”
“Wonderful,” she said feeling her body flush with a heat not entirely unlike the blush Leo had helped her identify. “I do not know who or what you really are, but I do not have time for this.”
Path or no Path she was getting out of these woods -- now. She started striding through the underbrush, forging a new path through the dense foliage since Aedan was standing between her and the one she had used to get to this point. The forest was already dark here, though she could still see light touching the top of the trees, it did not filter down through so many branches. It did not matter. All she needed to do was keep walking, eventually the Path would open, or she would come across something she could use to orient herself and get to an office. Except –
Except, Aedan was following her with ease through the foliage and the darkening forest; easy for him of course, she was the one breaking the path through the underbrush. Even as she thought that she stumbled and he was upon her in an instant, helping her to stand. She brushed herself off and faced him again, “alright, what do you want?”
“I want what anyone wants who sees through this little spell of yours,” he said with a gesture reminding her that the spell of disinterest was still in place. “I want to die.”
“Sorry I cannot help you.”
Turning she started walking again going a bit slower but still walking purposefully through the trees and bushes. This time when he caught up with her he grabbed her arm, turning her to face him with a strength that surprised her though he was definitely gentle.
“You are Death, I only ask you to do what you have always done.”
“No, actually you ask me to do what I have never done,” she said pulling her arm away and glaring at this impossible male, he resisted but she was still able to pull her arm away and there was some small comfort in that. Perhaps I am as strong as this god, she thought and there went her comfort, “I do not kill.”
“But you are Death.”
She stamped her foot, “yes, yes, I am Death. Though I have a name as do you, Aedan; it is Mitei.”
He dipped his head in acknowledgement and spread his hands wide in a peaceful gesture. “I am sorry Mitei; I have been – impolite – in my eagerness.”
She crossed her arms and regarded him through narrowed eyes. If he really was the god of the hunt she was not going to be able to lose him in the woods. Her only hope of getting away from him was the Paths cooperation, and the Path did not seem like it wanted to play. Looking Aedan over carefully, he looked more human than she did. Brown hair and green eyes, not at all unusual coloring for a human, his skin was tanned a light brown and he was even wearing jeans. If it had not been for the healing cut on his arm she would just be regarding him as a crazy, and possibly harmful, human right now. If not for that she would still be trying to get away from him by losing him in the woods as well.
She uncrossed her arms to put a hand to her head; all of this was just making her head hurt - just one more, lovely, new thing to worry, or wonder at; one more thing about this body that was more unpleasant than seemed worthwhile. Touching her head only seemed to make the pain stronger and soon she was stumbling, blind with it, she heard the muffled sound of Aedan moving to catch her; then silence and darkness as the Path finally whisked her away to the Philadelphia office.
***
It was dark in her office, empty and quiet. For once she did not move directly for the intercom to call her secretaries, doubling over with the pain in her head instead. There were starbursts of light behind her closed eyelids as she slid to the floor. How long she spent down there clutching her head she could not tell but as quickly as this pain had started it seemed to end. She found herself blinking up at the impossibly distant ceiling and pa
nting, drained of energy in a way that did not feel quite like tired.
For once the knowledge that there was a secretary on call just a step or two away brought little comfort. She might get Anne again, and tonight she did not feel she had the patience to deal with a woman that could not recall her name. Leslie Roth could be lurking about the building, ready and willing to pounce on her despite the late hour. Mitei sighed, sitting up, she wanted Megan, or Jules, even Leo though he was on the other side of the country at the moment and was just as likely to make her feel worse.
The only option was to get up and see if there was anyone at the desk. If not she had a good chance of making it to the maze un-accosted and she could probably make it to Jules’ rooms without the Path interfering.
There was no way for her to open her doors stealthily, the machinery did not work that way, but she was fortunate to find the outer office empty. Striding as quickly as she could she picked out an entrance to the maze that would lead her quickly to Jules’ quarters and hoped that the girl had not decided to go exploring and gotten lost.
She was probably the only person currently living that really knew the entire maze. It had been constructed to exacting specifications when she had bought the building. An oddity to say the least, it had delighted her architects almost as much as it had frustrated them and her human employees. It took up the majority of the floor, leaving just a small portion for her actual office and the lounge and was several stories tall, though none of those floors were even to help further the confusion of the maze. She had asked the builders to boggle the mind in as many ways as they could think of, then suggested a few more. Resulting in a seemingly impossible space that protected this particular office in ways that she had rarely managed in any of the others and making Philadelphia a particular favorite for meeting with American dignitaries and even a few foreign ones.
It delighted and distracted them so much that none had ever managed to breach its walls. They felt secure in the guest rooms hidden within it because so few could navigate the maze at all let alone to any specific locations within it and the security at Death Inc. was beyond reproach. Still, sometimes people got lost in it. Mitei was the only one capable of navigating the maze fast enough to find them in those situations.
Now with her head throbbing at odd intervals, she dreaded having to search for Jules. Even as she drew near her rooms and realized another possibility, perhaps Megan had come and taken Jules out shopping or exploring the city? The other woman had mentioned wanting to do something of the sort. They could both be out there right now and beyond Mitei’s immediate reach. She gritted her teeth, resolving again to get a cell phone immediately if she did not find one waiting at her Tokyo office she would have someone fetch her one and this time she swore not to move till she had the little machine in her hand.
***
Mitei stumbled around into the area that she had designated as Jules’ rooms. There were other more opulent guest rooms in the maze but these were her personal favorites. There was a small courtyard area, the floor here was sunken down a foot or so below that of the floor of the hallway she had used to enter, and the resulting pit was filled with sand.
Soft, fine, beach sands that immediately swallowed Mitei’s feet, shoes and all, so she stopped a moment to pull the things off, flinging them over her shoulder carelessly; sometime after the maze had been built she had had a resistance pool built into one side of this courtyard. It was about the size of a big bathtub or a really big Jacuzzi, filled with water that pushed against the body through pumps and vents in a way that allowed for someone to actually swim in that small space.
The whole room was painted like a seamless expanse of beach with the far horizon opposite the entrance; painted as the horizon over the sea as the sun lowered towards the waves. Mitei walked up to that lovely painting and grasped the sun, then remembered herself and knocked briefly before opening the hidden door. It did not swing open, but rather slid smoothly into the wall on hidden tracks and she found herself in the blue room.
She called it blue, but it was not really, this room was built with rows and rows of hidden screens. Each playing sections of the same movie over and over in a loop that was long enough that people rarely realized it repeated. The screens played scenes from a coral reef. Fish swam and dipped, lived and died, crossed in and out of those screens in a constant stream while light seemed to stream in from above and the waves rippled on the ceiling.
Usually when she entered, Mitei would spend a moment loving that room, reminding herself to update the technology in it, or both. Today she barely managed to clear the doorway before sinking to her knees and clutching her head. She heard rather than saw Jules come running up to her, felt the woman’s gentle touch as Jules urged her to stand. Even in the midst of her pain she noted the difference in Jules’ arms to Leo’s, there was more muscle in those arms than even in Megan’s but they were still soft against her skin as Jules took most of her weight and half carried half dragged her to the dark room beyond the blue.
At first Mitei had kept the bed in the blue room, but she had soon been made aware that some of the humans found sleeping in a room that appeared to be beneath the sea more than a little disconcerting. So she had had the bathroom switched to the bedroom and placed it in the blue room instead. No one seemed to have too many objections to that. Though the arrangement was awkward and presented more potential social problems than the other had. So far she had been lucky enough not to march in on anyone using the toilet.
She smiled to herself and listened to the sounds of Jules fussing about the rooms looking for what Mitei could not be sure. The pain in her head subsided and she cracked her eyes open, Jules was bustling through the doorway. There was the sound of running water, then she was back a cup of water in on hand and something grasped in the palm of the other that Mitei could not see.
“Here,” she said, holding out her closed hand and Mitei moved to take whatever was in it. Jules dropped two tablets into her palm. “I don’t know what’s wrong but you look like you’re in pain so first, Tylenol.”
Jules handed over the water and mimed popping the pills into her mouth then taking a sip of water. Mitei placed the pills in her mouth, and then sipped the water making a face, “these are bitter.”
“Swallow them along with the water.”
“Oh,” Mitei said, blushing, and tried again. This time she managed to get the dissolving tablets down along with the mouthful of water.
“You should drink the whole glass; it’ll make them work faster.” Mitei obliged gulping down the rest of the glass as Jules suppressed a giggle. “Now that we’ve got those in you, wanna tell me what actually is wrong?”
“My head hurts,” Mitei said leaning back into the downy comforts of the feather pillows on the bed and closing her eyes again. “Leo will not be coming to Philadelphia any time soon -”
“Why not?”
“I am not entirely sure,” she said her voice fading as she found that exhausted feeling from before creeping back up on her. “He said something about not having time, I think, something about going back to work.”
She imagined Jules crossing her arms over her chest, “I don’t see why he doesn’t just accept your generous offer of employment.”
Mitei cracked an eye open for a moment, yes – she was standing with arms crossed and this expression on her face that Mitei could not quite read. She let her breath out in a sigh, “I do not understand either of you.”
Jules smiled and Mitei closed her eyes again.
“Are those pills helping?”
“I do not know, am I supposed to be tired?”
“Depends on what you’ve been doing lately I suppose. That and how bad the pain was and when you last slept.”
“I am not sure when I slept last. The pain was bad. Very bad,” she said slowly as each word became a greater effort. She seemed to be having trouble just remembering what she was trying to say. “I was in the woods, running in the woods.”
“Running? Whatever for?”
“I met – god,” she said sleep overtaking her.
***
Jules sat in the disturbingly bright lights of her beach, dangling her legs in the resistance pool. She’d found out quickly enough that whatever lights Mitei had had installed in this room, they were strong enough to give her a tan. As well as raising the temperature of this particular room to near summer like levels.
There was sun-block provided in the bathroom which she’d been making liberal use of at first, not wanting to return to school after her unexplained absence with a deep tan. Her professors might take her pleas for leniency a bit less well if they thought she’d been off sunning herself somewhere.
The question now was, whether she was going to go to school again at all. On the one hand her father worked himself to near death to finance her education. He wanted her to study something useful, and make a ton of money in a field that didn’t involve a working knowledge of the best ways and times to spread manure. Of course she was just studying agricultural science anyway, still – she sighed, if I find the bottom to this puzzle and came out the other side with time for things like classes and studying I’ll go back.
This time at least, she’d be able to pay for it herself. Being offered the option to be one of Mitei’s very well paid secretaries had been like some odd dream come true. Someone wanted to give her insane amounts of money for basically no work at all. What wasn’t to love about that? Except – except there was this Leo, and he wasn’t accepting the offer. The little swine was resisting it like his life depended on it or something.
So he had a job already, but it couldn’t possibly be as cool as this one, she picked up a handful of fine sand letting it sift through her fingers. What could? Whatever he was doing for money now, how could that compare to places like this! Not that she had really had time to explore the maze yet, truthfully it was a little intimidating, the idea of stepping out into it without a map or a string or a piece of chalk to mark her way.
She stood up, dusting the sand from herself. Well, none of that really mattered. Not terribly much anyway, even if it did seem to be stressing Mitei out quite a bit. When she wakes up, she’ll be all focused on that last thing she said. Of course, she had to, something that out there would definitely eclipse Leo’s odd behavior.