Free Death Among Us by Jack Crosby

that we locate that axe first.”   I finished my beer.  The evening brew of choice was a light ale called the Piranha Pale Ale.  Much like the name, it had a nasty bite which I rather enjoyed.
    “You truly are Parson Weems?”  It still seemed we were on that fact.  “You don’t know what it means to be sitting here with you.”
    “Death is a pretty powerful being.  It is actually quite the turn on.”  Roxanne’s hand slipped up my leg under the table.  She was such a naughty minx.
    But Maggie was in total disagreement.  “Not because he is Death, but because he influenced an entire period of history that I have studied over and over again.  I read your memoirs more times than I care to count!”
    “You read that?”
    “Millions of people read that!  It’s kind of a big deal in the historical world!”
    I started to chuckle.  “I just wanted to give everyone an accurate picture of the man I befriended and came to greatly respect.”
    “I have a question about your story.”  Roxanne’s hand had left my leg, a shame really.  “You said Washington had been touched by the Light of Heaven.  Do you know who or why gifted him with that?”
    After meeting George and making the discovery, I had tried my best to find out who had gifted the Light to him, but to no avail.  With the folks upstairs, if they didn’t want you to have information, that did a great job of hiding it.  “Unfortunately I never found out.  It’s bothered me greatly, but it is much too late now to make that discovery.”
    I got up to get another beer.  “Derrick, is the story about the cherry tree true?”
    “Ha!  It was and old Augustine was so pissed!  That was his prized cherry tree and George hacked that thing down in three chops.  Thank the Almighty he told him the truth.  The tough bastard let him off with a warning but later that day came down and punched me in the face.”
    Maggie covered her mouth with her hand, trying to stop from laughing.  “He punched you?!”
    “Oh yeah, caught me unprepared too.  Knocked me right down on my ass and started ranting and raving at me.”
    Neither one of the girls knew what to say.  I’m sure they were waiting for the other shoe to drop where I went into a story how I scared the shit out of him and threatened everyone in the community.
    “When I started laughing at the entire scene, Augustine was mortified about what he did.  He helped me back up and invited me over for dinner that evening.  The man apologized to me almost every day for a month straight.”
    “You old softy!”  Roxanne was pointing at me, “You let a mortal off the hook and didn’t reap his soul for such an affront?”
    “There was no reason to.  I’ve done enough terrible things over the years where I didn’t need to screw the pooch on this one.”
    I’ll be the first to tell you, when I came to Earth from Eden so long ago, I was a total fuck up.  I’m not proud of a lot choices I made, but I considered myself above the mortals.  I did things that would make your stomach turn.
    “I respect you for not doing your ‘reaping’ thing.  It still creeps me out to no end.”
    “I hate to change the subject here, but we do have some more pressing matters to attend.  Roxanne, are we all packed up?”
    “Yes, I have the suitcases already to be loaded up.  Is our new friend going to be coming along?”
    That was the question.  “Well Maggie, you are more than welcome to stay here or go where ever you want.  Obviously, the closer you are to where I am, the better job I can do protecting you should the need arise.”
    “No, I want to come to Washington with you.  I doubt I can be of any assistance in fighting demons or whatever else comes our way, but I want to learn more about you and your life.”
    “Ahh so the historian in you comes out.  Well, I have seen a lot of major events.”
    “It is a long drive to the city; I expect to hear some of those tales.”
    “It is a long drive and