At the Death Mansion

After several hours of driving down featureless and boring highways and Charon’s unnerving habit of deliberately driving on the wrong side of the road to amuse herself and her insistence that unless you drive over a French mime every once in awhile driving was rather dull, Augustus was feeling somewhat queasy and was glad when they finally took a turning off the main highway onto a smaller road with less traffic. Charon seemed quite happy other than her moan every now and again about not being able to find a French mime to run down, Augustus on the other hand was feeling a bit lost and blown away by being outside in the “real” World.
Eventually they turned onto an even smaller road, which eventually ran into an even smaller dirt track. They followed the track until a huge pair of ornate gates loomed up out of the gloom, in the centre of the ornate ironwork of each gate was a skull with the word Death curved upwards underneath. Where the gates met was a massive chain wrapped around the middle and fastened with a huge padlock. The gates were held in place by the thickest and highest walls Augustus had ever seen and he could just make out chimneystacks in the distance above the tree line. He thought this looked exactly like the type of haunted house you see in horror films and now Charon was going to get out of the hearse and probably meet a horrible and grisly death, the reality was none of that happened. Charon grinned at him and assured him it was all about keeping up appearances.
She got out of the car and went up to the gate and stared at the padlock, she held it in her right hand and touched the ring to it with her other hand. The padlock clicked open and she unwrapped the chain and pushed the big gates open, they creaked eerily just like they were supposed to.

“Home, Sweet home!”

Augustus was not looking particularly convinced and she grinned again and got back in the car. She drove through the gates and Augustus noted that they closed themselves behind them. They approached the house and it seemed to almost leap up in front of them; it was a huge three storied, gothic ornate house which looked like everyone’s horror nightmare. Gargoyles seemed to frown, pout and loom menacingly from every part of the exterior and the grey brickwork was blackened and spattered by god knows what, even the roof was steep and slated with crows circling the chimney stacks which looked as though they were defying the laws of gravity by even daring to stand on the roof. The windows looked like cavernous, black holes and as they walked up to the porch, even the woodwork was ornately carved with skulls, snakes, demons, wolves and vampires, there was even an old fashioned bell pull finished in dull brass. Charon ignored the bell pull and pressed a small carving of a skull. A whole panel slid upwards, revealing an ultra modern fingerprint scanner and speech recognition panel. There was a recess next to this and Charon reached in and pulled out a portable version of the scanners. First, she scanned her hand on the wall scanner and announced her name.

“Charon Death, Carpe Jugulum.”

The front door clicked and opened slightly. She plugged in the portable scanner and scanned Augustus’ hand and urged him to give his name.

“Uh, I don’t have a surname.”

He looked helplessly at Charon.

“Just give your name as Augustus Death, Carpe Diem. I think pops would approve of you being a member of the family now anyway.”

Augustus swallowed and repeated what she had just said, then looked back at her.

“What’s carpe jugulum and carpe diem?”

Charon chuckled.
“Carpe jugulum means seize the jugular and carpe diem means seize the day. Makes sense really doesn’t it? You don’t like the dark and I seem to end up grabbing people by the throat. Perfect!”

She pushed open the door and much to Augustus’ surprise it was furnished with dark coloured woods but in a very modern design. The hallway was covered in ornate woodwork around the door frames and mirror but it wasn’t spooky and cluttered like he imagined.

“Make yourself at home, I have some urgent business to attend to.”

She encouraged him to have a good look round.

“Pick yourself out a wing, the place is huge. I have a wing at the front, you’ll know its mine its got trophies and belts slung everywhere!”

Augustus craned his neck round to take everything in properly and nodded to her. Charon ran towards the centre of the house and stopped at a plain door situated within the kitchen and touched the ring to a small slot on the left, the door slid to the right and revealed a lift. Charon got in and pressed the single button in the cubicle, the door slid closed again and the lift moved downwards, as it moved downwards Charon turned round to face the back wall. It hissed to a stop and the back of the lift thunked open and she stepped into the real hub of Death Mansion. A vast expanse of computer terminals and huge flat screen tv monitors sat on desks or were mounted on walls, they all blinked into life as Charon walked by chanting ‘on’. She headed to the right hand side where there was another door, it hissed open and she went through to the main control room. A huge black PC tower squatted in the corner linked to all the other white towers lined up against the wall, they were all printed with the words “Death Inc”
She sat down at the large desk with the wireless keyboard and mouse and looked up at the flat screen monitor mounted on the wall. She hit the power key and the tower whirred into life, within seconds the main screen flicked onto the monitor, the familiar black background with the skull and crossbones logo with Death Inc written in red underneath. She hit the e-mail logo and one single e-mail popped up, it was from Doctor Damien Death.
She read it quickly, then sat back in the chair mulling over the information, it was time to go pay Morty a visit. Leaving the computers all on she re-traced her steps, striding back through the kitchen and up to her own wing of the mansion.
She threw the doors of the huge wardrobe open and pulled a couple of items out and flung them on the four poster bed. Black kevlar lined combat trousers, a black kevlar lined t-shirt and black kevlar and flame retardant cloak, all with labels marked Death Inc. She stripped off and put the new clothes on, just the boots now, she decided on the knee length motorcycle boots with the mirrored steel fronts. She would take her own hearse from the parking garage.

She shouted to Augustus that she had to go out but that he would be safe and to stay in the house until she got back.
It wasn’t too long before she drew up outside Castle Mortis, she got out of the car and took a deep breath…….