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Kissing Rio, she knew it would be the last thing she’d ever do in her life. Well, dying in Death's arms looked like a worthy ending to her grand tale.
Even though Agatha had no intention of leaving this world just yet. Death is powerless as long as you have unfinished business. Wasn't that why Rio hated ghosts?
Agatha loved Rio no matter what. That's why she put her soul into the kiss. Rio wouldn't get a second chance to touch her soul, so she could give her the first one. Only when she felt Death's magic burning away the life inside her, Agatha loosen her grip. Black whirlwinds lifted her into the air. She glanced at Rio and saw a tear roll down her pale cheek.
The agony was excruciating, paralyzing, but mercifully short, and soon Agatha's breathless body fell to the grass.
She lay dead for about two minutes, as Billy later kindly informed her. All this time Rio stood over her with a face like a wax mask, while wildflowers bloomed on the grass around Agatha's body.
Then Agatha twitched, took a deep breath, and opened her eyes.
The look that Rio was staring at her was inexpressible.
“Agatha!” Billy helped her up. “Are you all right? Why did you do that?”
“Yeah, Agatha, why?”
The green clouds over Westview had cleared and the black fog had receded. Her backyard was covered with a carpet of flowers that filled the woods and fields where she'd once roamed with Rio. Then with Nicky, then with covens of misfits looking for free wonders. Rio had given her a charmed grave.
Agatha had no idea how she'd managed to survive, but right now it didn't matter.
“Go away, Billy," she said and adjusted the scarlet cloak around his shoulders. “Death won't stop until it takes us both. We can't beat it. I certainly can't, believe me, I've tried.”
“Don't make a drama, sweetheart. I told you, the boy would be enough.”
Billy frowned. “Get out of here,” Agatha mentally repeated, hoping his doubts pushed him to do the right thing. Despite fainting, she felt fine. She would distract Rio until he left Westview.
But Billy, a sitcom child, was as self-centered as any teenager. He believed in the best in people, that Agatha Harkness would willingly sacrifice herself for him.
“No, Agatha, I'm not leaving you.”
Such an idiot.
“Go away!”
All three of them flinched at the sound of her sepulchral voice.
“Wow," laughed Rio, who, of course, had realized first. “Seems like you overdid it, my love.”
Oh, for fuck's sake. Agatha raised her hand and summoned a flame in her palm.
The black flashes of Death's magic were clearly visible in her purple fire.
***
A human, even the most powerful, would not survive after absorbing the power of Death. That was the second thing she'd learned about Rio back in Salem.
It was impossible, and yet she had seen it with her own eyes. Worse, she was beginning to feel it. Alien black magic was boiling inside, and the world around her was boiling with it. Images and connections were appearing that Agatha had never realized before. Every particle of the universe made sense.
In the midst of this harmony Billy Maximoff was a hideous scarlet stain.
Agatha had never been known for her calmness. She knew how to keep her cool, but she didn't hesitate when her instincts screamed to attack. Billy was a walking target. The Scarlet Witch's unnatural chaos magic had produced a homunculus capable of endless rebirth, one that by its existence violated the most important laws of the universe. Agatha saw it now as clearly as she saw Billy himself before her. That was why Death had sought to destroy him. That was why Agatha, with her new power, had to help her…
Rio stroked her dagger fondly and held it out to her.
“Take your first soul, Agatha.”
“No.” With an effort of will, she focused on the material world, where Billy was just a boy his insane mother had created with magic. “You got me, one way or another. Teen, it's time for you to go.”
Rio shrugged.
“I'll come by in a couple days," Billy said goodbye.
Agatha extinguished her purple and headed into the house.
As she crossed the threshold, she slammed the front door shut and turned the key in the lock, though it wouldn't stop Rio. Death didn't take hints well. But Agatha was on edge. She'd been through a lot in the last twenty-four hours: the Road, the trials, Nicky's voice, the goodbye kiss with Rio…
Rio.
The thing that angered her most about their relationship was that Rio was sure that Agatha would never leave her in the afterlife. They were made for each other. The strongest witch of her generation and Death with a black heart, who for the first time in history had fallen in love with a human. While they were doing well, Rio cherished Agatha's life as her greatest treasure.
After everything got bad – probably out of habit.
But sooner or later, Agatha, ending her brilliant life path, had to take Death’s hand and realize that Rio was right. Rio hadn't even considered the ghostly possibility that Agatha had other plans for her postmortem.
When she entered the living room, Rio was already there – sitting, leg over leg, in the chair she'd favored since her first visit. She'd replaced Death's black outfit with a simpler black one and looked almost normal. Actually, gorgeous. In other circumstances, Agatha would have stared.
“Sure, make yourself at home," she said instead.
“Really?” Rio raised her eyebrows.
“No.”
“You should be more polite after you tried to steal from me.”
“Take it back.” Agatha spread her arms out. “That was a side effect, I don't need your magic.”
“You think it's that easy to get rid of?”
“I just don't care. I'm not going to use it anyway, forget it.”
The clock on the wall read six. Day? Night? Ah, never mind. Agatha decided she should eat first – her stomach was already cramping from hunger. Then sleep for a couple days and think things over with a clear head. She snapped her fingers on the way to the kitchen, and her luxurious purple robe was replaced by a shirt and jeans.
Detective Agnes O'Connor fed on frozen junk, but Agnes friendly neighbor had a more varied menu. Whichever neighbor bought her groceries made sure to take that into account. Agatha found vegetables and smoked meat in the fridge and put the oven on to heat up.
“Can I help you?”
With a wave of her hand, Agatha sent a cutting board and knife into the voice. Rio caught them and stood beside her at the counter, reaching for the vegetables.
“You know, you have to talk about this. Find out what's waiting for you.”
“Right now I've got food and a bed waiting for me. If you shut up, I'll let you join me for dinner.”
“Whatever you say," Rio grinned and kept honestly silent while they finished cooking.
Figuring how long it would take, Agatha turned off the oven and heated the roast with magic. Getting her purple back was very satisfying. They ate in silence, forkfuls from the same dish, and she thought again that under different circumstances Rio would have looked good in her house. The tension of the last few days must have made her soften. Agatha didn't suggest Rio to stay the night, but she caught herself thinking that she wouldn't mind.
She went up to her bedroom and lay down on the bed, turned off the overhead light, then pulled the locket from under her shirt collar.
According to the rules Agatha explained to Teen, at the end of the Road, everyone would get what they wanted most. Billy didn't know that their coven's journey was supposed to be much shorter. Her wish was granted by Billy himself, and it was beautiful, all things considered. If the Road was real, she would have wished for something else, but would her son want to return to her after he knew what she'd turned into?
Turning onto her other side, she saw Rio in the semi-darkness.
“I didn't invite you.”
“You're thinking out loud.” And Rio was the only one who could blame her for that. “Wanna talk?”
The truce they'd made on the Road was long since broken, and an awkward dinner for two didn't change anything. Any frankness with Rio could backfire on her – in two hundred years, they'd both fallen into that trap.
Agatha sighed.
“I heard Nicky's voice in the haunted house, remember? He saw me. Saw what I did.”
Rio shook her head and looked at her with an expression that someone else might have mistaken for pity.
“He wasn't there, Agatha.”
“He wasn't?”
“Vivid Teen’s imagination. He summoned your mother because he'd found out about her between the trials. But Nicky. Never. I wouldn't let an abomination disturb the soul of your son.”
“Okay.” Agatha closed her eyes.
They both knew the son was theirs. Nicky looked exactly like Rio, but she'd never laid claim to him. All the creatures, except the ghostly outcasts, came to her at the end, and otherwise he belonged to Agatha.
Sometimes Agatha was grateful for that. More often she was angry, because it was Rio's way of distancing herself from the uncomfortable truth. But either way, Nicky was dead, Rio had taken him, and even if Agatha had been able to take comfort in the inevitability of death, the Scarlet Witch's hex proved otherwise.
“Are you going to stand there?” she asked, not opening her eyes.
“I like watching you sleep.”
“I find it annoying. Come here.”
Rio had learned something on the Road too: the ability to keep her mouth shut. This time she didn't look for a subtext, but simply did what she was told.
As Rio stretched out on the free side of the bed, Agatha grinned sleepily and laid a hand on her. It had been a long day full of nightmares, and next to Rio she always slept like the dead.
***
In the morning, the other side of the bed was empty, and there was a flower on the pillow. Judging by the world news Agatha had watched over breakfast, Death was having a busy time.
As the lesser of two evils, Agatha preferred Rio at work, but that didn't save her from the “Honey, I'm home” line every time there was a gap in the gathering of souls. Deprived of her afterlife idyll, Rio dove headfirst into a suburban pastoral. One could have escaped. But Death was masterful at stalking her prey, and Agatha no longer had Darkhold to hide in the shadows.
So she did what witches had done for centuries – she adapted. Day by day, she remembered old habits and fit Death into her life. She started cooking for two, bought a used hatchback, and introduced Rio to the neighbors as her girlfriend. Herb seemed genuinely happy for her.
In the manner of a nosy neighbor, she advised the guy from the house at the beginning of the street to quit smoking and Herb himself to avoid the extension ladders. Death cannot be fooled by that, but still.
Flowers on the pillow appeared every morning. White, yellow, purple. They still didn't talk about it, but Rio invited her to the harvest, and it was fun, though Agatha herself only watched.
One day she caught Rio in the cellar, in the light of the purple runes, playing with the rabbit. Señor Scratchy would get up on his hind legs and drum his front ones on her open palm with a flick.
Instead of taking the rabbit away from Rio and kicking her out of the holy of holies, Agatha laughed and recorded the video on her smartphone.
***
Two weeks later, when the first snow had fallen in Westview and Agatha was almost resigned to the fact that Rio wasn't leaving, Billy knocked on her door again.
“Hey.”
“What are you doing here?”
Billy shook the snow off his hood. He parked the car on the other side of the street, away from the ruins of the Maximoff house. Agatha sympathized with him. It was nice that people in town still hated Wanda, but the sight was depressing.
Agatha stepped out onto the doorstep. Mrs. What's-her-name from across the street, whom she'd advised not to drink too much, shook her head disapprovingly and drew the curtains.
“This is no time for visits, Billy. You know I'm not alone.”
“Honey, do we have guests?” said Rio from the kitchen.
Speak of the devil.
“Hide,” Agatha mentally hissed, but Teen only smiled. Billy's subconscious could do wonders for survival, but he stubbornly put himself under Death's dagger.
Agatha escorted him into the kitchen. Outside the window it was evening. She picked up the phone book, left over from the nineties, and began flipping through the yellow pages.
“What are you looking for?”
“A hotline for kids who want to commit suicide.”
“I'm not a kid," Billy frowned.
“Technically you're three, and if you keep acting stupid, you'll never grow up. Look, Billy, stop stalking me. You've reached the end of the Road," she could feel Rio's smirk on her back. “I've done my job, now stay away from me.
“You don't believe that.”
“If your... Wanda Maximoff was still alive,“ Agatha turned to Rio, and she wrinkled her nose and shook her head, ”though she definitely isn't, she'd agree with me.”
Billy took a seat across from her on the counter.
“You promised me, Agatha.”
“You've got some nerve, Teen.”
“You promised me you'd help me find Tommy.”
The black magic inside her surged. Her new power saw Wanda's offspring as a huge mistake, disgusting blobs of chaos that had no place on Earth. She longed to destroy them.
It would be easy: Billy trusted her, one swing of a knife or a purple electric shock and Billy Kaplan's body would be uninhabitable. The boy would have to leave him, Rio would do the rest…
But Agatha didn't let Darkhold take control, and the forces of Death wouldn't have power over her.
She turned around, and Rio spread her arms, as if to say, don't worry, I won't touch your pet. For now.
“Okay,“ Agatha clapped her hands together, ”you talked me into it. Make yourself busy, there's ice cream and beer in the fridge.”
“I'm three.”
“And I'm not your babysitter anymore.”
Leaving Billy and Rio to look after each other - whoever ate whom, may the best witch win - Agatha waved them off and went down to the basement. She fed Señor Scratchy and renewed the protective runes on the walls: you never know when you might need to lock someone up.
“Let's watch something together," Billy suggested when she returned to the living room.
“How would that help us find Toby?”
“Don't be so boring, Agatha," Rio smiled. “You need to relax.”
Of course they hit it off, who would doubt it. Billy was looking for friends. Mentors. A coven. Rio could pretend to be anyone to get an obstinate soul to take her hand and ferry itself to the afterlife. And that brought them back to the problem his little teenage brain couldn't yet fathom: Rio wasn't his friend with a bad habit of killing people. Rio was Death, Death was out to get the Maximoff twins, and Billy, against all odds, wasn't taking the threat seriously.
Agatha was fed up with both of them.
In the kitchen, Billy made the popcorn she never had, brought it into the living room, and set it on the table by the TV. Rio sat down on the couch. She threw a stern look at Billy to take the only chair, and with a sigh, Agatha sank to the opposite edge of the couch. Billy held out a bucket of popcorn to her, scattering half of it on the way. Rio scooted closer and slung an arm around her shoulder.
“What's on your subscription?” Billy clicked the remote. “Oh, “Pet Sematary.”
“Don't you dare, Teenager.”
“I want to watch it," Rio interjected.
“I don't. And neither do you, believe me.” Agatha snatched the remote from Billy and clicked on the next movie on the list. “If you want some stupid slasher, let's do this one.”
“The Shining is not a slasher!”
“I don't want to watch a movie about ghosts!”
Two against one, they sat down to watch a movie where grief-stricken parents can't let their dead children go. Of course, Billy didn't know. How the hell would he know? He, like the rest of the witch world, believed the creepy yet ridiculous Darkhold story.
After the cat's resurrection, Rio had begun to suspect something. Not very quickly, but you had to hand it to her: there was a reason she'd pretended to be an FBI agent in Wanda's fading illusion.
Feeling her tense up, Agatha stood up.
“I'm going to get a beer. Don't pause it.”
“And a Coke, please," Billy smiled.
Agatha dropped his mental question like Rio's hand from her shoulder. Someday she would tell him what really happened to Nicky, but not today.
In the kitchen, she went to the window and looked out over the lawn where, if everything had gone according to plan, her body would be laid to rest. The plan was good, but she turned out better. More powerful, more capable. She'd managed what no one in the history of the universe had ever managed: she'd stolen a fraction of Death's powers and survived.
Bad luck.
“You were right,“ Rio said behind her back, ”we should have chosen ghosts. Zombies don't behave like that. It's completely unrealistic.”
Agatha didn't bother to specify how realistic zombies behaved. She didn't care. If Billy had a gift for pulling out the darkest secrets, whether he wanted to or not, Rio dealt with pain in two ways: licking wounds or opening them with a dagger.
“People are crazy for fairy tales about defeating death. But even in fairy tales, it turns out to be impossible.”
A dagger, then.
“Living proof that it's possible is now scattering popcorn all over my house.”
“He's the spawn of chaos, the misfit of the universe, Agatha. Is that what you'd want for your child?” Rio put her hands on her waist, leaned in, and whispered: “And for that matter, you couldn't defeat the Scarlet Witch, my love.”
Agatha clenched her fists.
“I couldn't," she answered, finally turning to Rio. “But the two of us would have been stronger than Wanda.”
She thought about that as she got closer to the hex. No one could stand up to the first Green Witch. If they hunted together in that damned sitcom illusion, Wanda didn't stand a chance.
“You broke up with me!”
“After you weren't willing to fight for him.”
It infuriated her that Rio didn't even try. Closed her eyes for six years, but other than that, she did nothing.
“Enough!” Through Rio's human face came her original form. “You know what the natural order is. You understand the rules. Why do you persist?”
“Because I am more than my magic.”
“You mean “our magic”?”
“How is that even possible?” Agatha shook her hands. “You kept telling me not to even think about it, that it would kill me, and here we are. What the hell, Rio?”
She was seething with frustration and anger, but more than anything she wanted to know. Why? Of all the laws of the universe, why had she managed to break this one?
“You're exceptional,“ Rio grinned, regaining her humanity, ”you always have been.”
“Bullshit.”
Something didn't add up, and it wasn't Rio, it was her. She could steal what was turned against her. But Rio had never used Death magic against her, never, even if they fought for real and Agatha believed they hated each other.
Their battle in the skies above Westview flashed before her eyes. Billy, volunteering to share blue magic. Her purple, absorbing the Scarlet Witch's legacy. Rio, burning with jealousy, this time not of woman or man, but of the boy she thought had replaced their late son for Agatha.
No one else in history got special treatment from Death.
Billy's magic flowing into her, Rio's magic – how could she not understand?
“I thought it's impossible.”
“Me too," Rio said quietly. “I didn't know if it worked or not until you opened your eyes.”
“Take it away.”
“No," Rio shook her head and took a step back. “No, Agatha. You'll die.”
“But it's what I wanted. Maybe it was just my time.”
“No!” Rio's eyes glowed black. “You weren't going to die, you were going to get away from me!”
Agatha grimaced, not the least bit frightened by her anger. If she got a dime for every flash of Rio, she would have become a millionaire long ago. Death was a cosmic creature, impassive and ruthless – exactly so long as it did not concern Agatha Harkness.
Still, it was heartbreakingly romantic: Death had wanted her for centuries, and Agatha already had one foot in the grave, but when Rio realized that she would get the body and Agatha's soul would slip away, for the first time in the history she truly sent the universe to hell.
Agatha was tired of pushing her away. They both deserved as much time as they could steal.
“Six years, or three hundred and fifty..." she said softly, cupping Rio's face in her hands. “It's never enough, is it, my love?”
And poor Rio, whose very nature should have rejected such a thought, nodded, keeping her blackened eyes fixed on her.
“I hate your job," Agatha sighed, stroking Rio's cheek and leaning past her toward the refrigerator. “And don't even tell me it's our job now.”
“No way, honey, you're not qualified.” Space creatures handled themselves too easily. “But I could use a secretary, baby.”
“Taking notes and serving poisoned coffee to clients?”
“And answer the phone!” Rio grinned happily.
Agatha handed her a couple of beers from the fridge and took a Coke, which seemed to appear in her kitchen along with the popcorn. Rio, a true gentleman, opened the door in front of her.
“Everything okay?” mentally asked Teen as they walked back into the living room. Agatha, imagining thumbs up in response, handed him a Coke.
Billy thanked without taking his eyes off the movie. On the screen, the father was carrying his dead son to the pet cemetery.
***
Night fell on Westview. Teen made Agatha promise that she would go with him to New York for the weekend, and drove home, turning on “Final Destination” for Rio.
Judging by the laughter from the living room, Billy was in no danger of dying in his sleep, at least for the next two days.
Agatha stood in the doorway, resting her shoulder on the doorjamb. Rio's figure on the couch in the flicker of the TV screen seemed bathed in a dead silver light.
She hadn't seen anything more beautiful in a long time.
“Is it a good movie?”
“Yeah," Rio smiled as she turned to her. “Too bad it's short.”
“Wait a minute.”
In a world obsessed with sequels, people just couldn't stop at one. Agatha typed the title into the search and showed Rio the smartphone screen.
“There are five more.”
Her non-existent subscription included them all, and Agatha mentally gave Billy's Hex the highest score.
“Wanna watch with me? Idiots die stupid, you'll love it.”
Agatha had no doubt about that. She had three hundred and fifty years of varied experience. She sat down next to Rio on the couch and then lay back, resting her head on her lap. Rio's fingers immediately tangled in her hair.
“Speaking of sequels,“ Agatha said as the opening credits rolled, ”so I'm Death Number Two now?”
“No,“ Rio laughed, ”you took too little for that. You're Death's harbinger.”
“I'm the cause, not the harbinger.”
“Not anymore.”
Agatha squinted; Rio looked slightly guilty and very pleased.
“You can't kill anyone who isn't on the list.”
“What's that fine print?”
“You know the rules.”
“Take it away," Agatha stood up and demanded. “Now. I'm not kidding, Rio. You have to maintain the natural order. I kill, it's natural, Wikipedia calls me the Witch Killer. And you love it!”
Rio shrugged.
“Is Teen count?” Agatha asked after a moment of silence.
“He's doomed anyway, so he's legitimate prey, sweetheart. How are you going to kill him?”
“Why would I kill him? Billy wanted the great Agatha Harkness for a mentor, and the universe approved his internship. He'll be my right-hand man, if you know what I mean.”
That's how she and Rio started, too, back to the old days.
“You think he'll pull it off?”
“Have a little faith, my love.”
She let Rio take them into a long, passionate kiss, and grinned to herself. Billy had created the Road at her prompting. Perhaps he and Tommy would be of use to her again.