Love. II

“Excuse me, Love?”

“Yes?  What can I do for you, Fortune?”

“Well, Death and I are here on important business, and we need your cooperation.  Since neither of us wants to have sex with you, can we please skip the foreplay?”

“But of course!  Just tell me what business you’re here on.”

I froze.  “Uh… To introduce me to you?” I asked, realizing the flaw in it as I said it.  Love stood up.  As I watched, her light brown hair shifted to a light brown, and her short, waifish body morphed into a tall, well proportioned southern belle, in a red dress.

“Aww, honey,” she said with a thick accent, “sounds like you got some problems to work out with your friend. Here, I’ll tell you what.  I’ll make you a deal. Go bring Death over here.”

Walking over to him, I kicked the back of his chair, hard.  He sprawled on the floor, then whipped around and glared at me without saying anything.

“Come on,” I said, “She has a deal for us.”

“That’s right, boys,” she said, now in the form of a small Asian woman.  “I promise I’ll help you out on two conditions.”  Before she listed them, Death interjected.

“Pants are staying on.”  Love just glared at him, changing to a plus-sized African American woman in a flowery dress.

“You, shut up.  I’m not happy with you.  You didn’t tell Luck the truth about what you’re doing here, putting him in pretty serious danger and making him a lot of enemies.  Not.  Happy.”  She turned to me and sighed.  “Luck, I’m sorry about all this.  But you’re in headfirst and no one’s lining up to grab your ass.  Death will be a good ally, but he’s not quite perfect.  Did he tell you that Incarnations don’t have to worry about wearing practical clothing?  It’ll never get dirty or rumpled.”  I looked at him, and he shrugged.

“I never noticed.”  Love rolled her eyes.

“Typical,” she said, “Also, your focus doesn’t have to be a weapon, and you should get more than one.  No more than two, though.  But having more than one is a good idea. One for action, and one for everything else.”

“Say,” I said, “Love, what are your foci?”  She chuckled.

“I don’t have one, hun.  Don’t need any.  But I’m not a good role model for that, I’m different.”

“Oh, the shapeshifting?”

“Yeah. Also, I’m immortal.”

I gaped.  “Like…  unkillable, too?”

“Of course!  Love can never die!”

“So, you’ve seen a lot of Incarnations go by, right?  How long do we usually last?”  Love thought for a minute.

“Well, I’d say about two or three hundred years.  Death, here, is the number 2 record holder, with four hundred.  Right before him is your predecessor.  She had about… two thousand, before she,” Love said, glancing at Death, “died.”  I was about to ask, but Death interjected.

“Can we just get to the point already?  What do you want us to do?”  Love sighed and rolled her eyes.

“There’s something I need you to get for me.  I want you to go get it, and then when you come back, Luck has to know everything.”

“Everything?” Death asked.

“Almost everything.  Now, go.  Dorian will go with you.”  Death stood up and walked out of the room.  I stood to follow him.

“Thank you, Love.  I appreciate it.” Love chuckled, and changed shape again, into a well-built man.

“Don’t worry about it, man.  Anything for a friend,” he said.

…

I ran into Death again standing in front of a door with a handsome young man dressed in an eighteenth century suit.  He had long hair and an aristocratic tilt to his chin.

“Dorian Gray, I presume,” I said, stretching out my hand. He sniffed, but eventually deigned to shake it.

“Fortune.  It’s a… pleasure to meet you,” he said.  “But I’m afraid I must skip the formalities.  We are going to travel across almost all of Backstage to find a corrupted mortal in possession of Love’s old focus.  Got it? Good, let’s go.”  Death and he walked out the door, letting it slam closed.  I remained inside.

“What?” I said, to no one.

From the other side of the door, I heard a muffled, “Hurry up already!”  Shaking my head, I proceeded out the door.  I gasped.  I gaped.

“Wha-?  Whe-?  Where are we?” I asked, dizzy and shocked.

“We’re Backstage,” Death said, “Behind the curtain.  In the Dreamscape.  We’re where souls are born and where nightmares go to die.  This is where your power comes from, Luck.”  I looked at the building I had just exited.

Love’s palace was huge.  Multicolored, with sections taken from Victorian mansions and futuristic spaceships.  It was breathtakingly enormous.  But that wasn’t had caught my eye.  It wasn’t the moon, either, glowing blue and hanging almost right overhead, filling a quarter of the horizon.  It wasn’t the trillions of stars, either, in red and green and yellow, or the complete absence of light in between them. What caught my eye were the cracks in the sky, like a shattered pane of glass.

“The world,” Dorian whispered, “is broken.”

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