Death After Life
an excerpt

Death slinks under the door, drifting to the bed
Wearing night;
He bends over and rattles, "Don't wake up."
Chapter One

Killing people can get a little boring after a while— particularly if you’ve been doing it for a good ten thousand years like Death. He was getting old, and he knew it. His features, though he was immortal, had drooped somewhat under his black veil of night. People no longer screamed in terror when he appeared at their bedsides to take them to the Afterworld. They accepted him into their homes with a sort of casual nonchalance, as if he were only coming in for tea (which he sometimes had been known to do.) These days, he was regarded as a rather grandfatherly figure, a comforting escort into the afterlife. They welcomed death as a release instead of a dark unknown. Death had become nothing more than average.
Certainly, he was no longer the Almighty and Terrible Angel of Death.
Therefore, Death was on a mission. A mission to find someone who could help him become a man of the new millennium. He needed someone young and cool, but also adept in the art of the hunt. Someone scary. He needed a minion who could teach him the ways of the young and mortal. He needed to bring his powers into the twenty-first century.
His knees creaked a little as he half glided, half limped through the dark streets. He was tired, these days, so tired. He rarely wasted energy by teleporting places. It was easy enough to go on foot anyhow. It was near midnight and the shops were vacant save the alcohol store. The sign was misspelled, as always. Almost like a ritual, Death chuckled when he passed it.
A group of teenagers crowded around a rusty truck in the parking lot of the Lickher Markit. The tips of their cigarettes shone like stars in the gloom.
Trying hard to be silent and chilling, Death moved as gracefully as possible over the wet concrete. But one of them recognized him.
The kid shouted heartily, “Yo, yo, Grampy D, what up? Who you bringin’ home to the crib tonight?”
Cringing as he turned around, Death mustered up all the creepiness he could find and said, as airily as possible, “Good evening. I am in search of a minion to pull forcibly into the Afterworld where I will torture them until they beg for the release of true death.” He was sort of exaggerating. Sort of.
“Sounds like fun, man. Want a cig?”
The dark angel hefted his scepter threateningly until the boy backed away, giggling nervously as his friends guffawed. Death slid off into the night and his cheeks would have burned, had he still had circulation. They thought he was funny. The very idea was appalling.
His power-heightened senses recoiled like a cat smelling sour milk as he passed through a wall and into an alley. Everything stank of urine and trash. “Honestly, mortals are such pigs,” Death rasped to himself. The effort of speaking sent him into a fit of coughing.
“I couldn’t agree more,” said a dumpster.