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The heel-toe, heel-toe click of Grell’s boots were the only sounds. The flames raged all around him and far off on the distant air the screams of London’s inhabitants still rose on the wind, but they were muted now - they were already over, time just needed to catch up with what was already known. Here, now that the ravaging had already happened, was peace. He took a deep breath of smoke and burning flesh. These were the only times he could ever think straight - when the action was over, when the climax was over, when the two of you could look into one another’s eyes-
The dirt beneath his soles crunched as he came to a stop. Shinigami had instincts that lead them to their quarry. A tug in his gut told him another one had dropped.
-
“It hurts, doesn’t it?” He gazed down at the infant still held in the arms of its mother. His eyes held a mad, quiet amusement, and a tension that was either pleasure or pain. He could never quite tell. “I’m sorry,” he continued, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear before pushing himself upright. The baby wailed and he turned away. “I can’t finish you off.”
He left the mother behind as the baby cried out for comfort. It must be terrified and confused, and he wondered if it knew it was being held by a dead woman. His gaze followed the buildings up to the horizon, watching the glow of red, orange and yellow seeping up from the city’s black silhouette. It brought his body alive; he could feel the panic and bloodlust rising from every inhabitant. He raised his chin to the heat and spread his palms to bask in it all. It was intoxicating.
The baby’s shrieks cut through the air again. He crippled forwards, body crumpling like a ghoul’s in distaste at such a horrid interruption. His teeth snapped so hard that he bit his tongue. “That little brat!” He whirled around and looked back at the dark mouth of the alleyway. “When I was young, children were seen and not heard!” Fists clenched, nose snarled, he stomped back to the body of the dead woman.
His silhouette rose over the crying infant. He was a black shadow of death, a harvester of the souls of the lost. He was a harbinger of annhialation, a vulture of the apocalypse, a creature that fed from the screaming of the damned.
“Upsie daisie!” He bounced the little creature in his arms, a song in his voice as he rocked her back and forth, grinning down at her like a hungry predator. “Ooh, don’t be like that! I’m a friendly reaper!”
“That’s the first I’ve heard of such a thing,” came the measured, amused voice from behind him. Grell span around, already curling his body over the baby like a mother hyena protecting her young. He watched with sharp eyes as the Undertaker stepped out of the shadows.
He snapped upright and balanced the baby so that he could readjust the drape of his red coat. Cupping the back of her head and holding her under his chin, he batted his eyelashes at the other man. “I promise, I’m on the pill.”
“She’s still crying,” the Undertaker continued, grinning.
Grell sniffed and angled his body away from him. “And I suppose you’ll tell me to put her back?” He watched out the corner of his eye as the Undertaker drifted through the space between them. Even though he knew the old coot well, and even though he’d never even seen him harm a hair on someone’s head, watching that black shape float so easily through the dying gasps of a city gave him chills.
The Undertaker held out his hands to take her. He set his jaw against an immediate rush of insolent tears. “I can’t put her back now!” he cried, but put up no resistance as the Undertaker plucked the shrieking infant from his arms. “I think I’ve put my scent on her,” he fluttered, “Now the humans won’t take her back!”
“There-there,” the Undertaker’s strange, croaking voice cooed down at the baby. He settled her in the crook of his arm and watched her red face settle, her screaming quietening down to a few worried burbles. His head and hidden eyes rose to look at the other man, who was flapping like a butterfly caught in a spider’s web.
The air seemed to rush around Grell’s manic gesturing, whipping up into a tornado and kicking up dust. It was manic, unsettled, frantic, but then it would flow past the Undertaker and become as still as the air in a tomb. That which crossed him found peace. Things lay at his feet like sleeping hounds.
“You’re lucky I came along,” the Undertaker said as the baby quietened. They stood facing each other under the bleeding sky of the city of London. “Even I don’t know how many times they can demote you.”
“I suppose you want the credit for snapping its neck yourself?” Grell said, scoffing against the creeping sensation rising up his spine. The Undertaker giggled.
“Credit for taking something before it’s time? I would never do such a thing.” Then he turned away. He stepped into the darkness, god and child both engulfed by the night. Grell was left alone, standing by the infant’s fallen mother.