 Death had been a burly man in a too tight robe clutching an oddly short scythe to his chest like a jealous lover. The kind of guy whose truck always had a broken muffler and who hogged every 45 pound plate at the gym. Mega Death was a pale, tatted up girl wearing scuffed converse and a loose black dress. The kind of girl I would have taken one look at in a coffee shop and dreamt about the rest of the day. Of the two of them, I vastly preferred Mega Death, even if she seemed to hate me. I swear to God, if you call me Mega Death one more time I'll toss you off the side of this ship. She said, and trust me dude, you will not like the next guy you see. Ship? That's cool. I said, spinning myself quickly around to get a feel for my surroundings. I tripped as I did it, barely clutching myself on the bar. Mega Death didn't so much as reach out a hand to grab me. You're a clumsy one. How the hell did someone like you even get here? She reached over, grabbing a mug and pouring herself a cup of coffee. Can I get one of those? I asked. She just shook her head, staring me down. Okay, cool, I didn't want one anyway. I got hit by a train, if you must know. Some might say I tripped, but I strongly suspect that big bastard pushed me. She shook her head, little black curls swinging back and forth. You mean the train to the afterlife? You got hit by that train. I nodded, and she burst out laughing. Wow dude, I guess the big guy didn't have a plan for that one. Still though, you aren't my normal type. Her type? I could have guessed I wasn't at a glance, but my heart started racing all the same. Type for what? I asked. Crew, she said simply. Just then, the diner's door opened, and a gnarled old man stepped in. His nose was viciously hooked to the left, evidence of a horrendous break, and his beard stretched all the way down to his badly scarred prosthetic leg. Captain, the man shouted. We sighted sinners in the fog, five points south, southwest. The wind whipped in hard through the open door. It was hot and dry, carrying a hint of sulfur. The sky outside seemed to stretch on forever. Captain, I asked, surprised. Who are you? And where the hell am I? She smirked at me, downing the rest of her coffee in one long gulp. Elizabeth Doherty, she said, sketching a mock curtsy. Captain HHS Penitence. Come to the service. She rose from her curtsy, and tossed me her mug as she swept from the room. I bobbled it for a moment, but brought it down in the end. Looking up from my catch, I caught a glimpse of her skirt whipping in the wind as she turned the corner out of the diner. You'll want to refill that? The old man said, pointing at the mug in my hands. The captain likes her coffee, and you best not disappoint her. I shrugged, grabbing the coffee pot and a second mug. Just the one boy, he interrupted. The penitence is a hard ship. Luxuries come at the captain's discretion, not ours. I blinked hard, setting down the second mug. Coffee was a luxury? When we left the diner, the captain's mug in hand, I realized just how different a world that train had splattered me into. Death's train station had been a sleek affair, white walls, turnstiles, generous standing room and seats only occasionally marred with gum. The train had looked pretty nice from the outside, too, what little I saw of it. Mega Death's ship was something else. From the diner, with its long black and silver bar, complete with red stools, to heavy, battered oak door, and the whistling wind had shut out, to constant buckling of the deck beneath my feet, it was already the strangest place I'd ever been, but the view outside took my breath away. I stood on an ocean of solidity in an endless sea of sky. There wasn't a drop of water in sight, and rather than the crashing of waves, there was only the dull roar of engines and the omnipresent wind. A gust hit me, and I took a hard step backwards only to be caught by the old man's hand, and in that sprawl, I looked up for the first time. Above me was a balloon. Like one of the zeppelins from old photos, it stretched out and out, some hundreds of feet into the foggy murk of this place, illuminated by lamps every couple paces, and floodlights sat on the raised decks on either end of the ship. All around me was a tumult of action. Men and a few women rushing this way and that, youths bursting up from ladders, set into the floor laden down with rifles, and who knew what else? Welcome to your new home. Her voice snapped me out of my shock, and my eyes shot down to mega-death. The wind plastered the dress against her, making her look too small and fragile for a place like this. She stood alone in all the chaos, relaxed, one hand on her hip as she studied me. The mug, you idiot! The old man said, nudging me forward. I handed it to her, and she sipped, turning away from me. You'll report to Burton, she said, gesturing towards the old man, unless I tell you otherwise he's your god. So what do you think that makes me? Uh, mega-god? She nodded. Good boy. Now get out of my sight and don't die a third time when the shooting starts. Duck. Shooting? She walked off casually, still sipping her coffee, only to be replaced by Burton, stomping towards me on his fake leg. This way, maggot, he said, grabbing my elbow. Um, my name's Miguel. Burton smacked me in the head. What if I say it isn't? He walked me over to the stack of weapons accumulating on deck and began pulling things out seemingly at random. You ever fired a gun before, maggot? My cousin had an airsoft gun if that counts. Burton glanced up at me. You really aren't her type, are you, boy? You know, you people keep saying that. It's not my fault I got hit by the train. His laugh carried loudly enough on the wind that a group of men loading an imposing artillery piece looked over at us. The afterlife train, that one. God help you if you fall overboard. Burton handed me a rifle and a revolver along with what had to be a bowie knife. There's seven shots in the rifle, six in the pistol, and if you can't figure out the knife, then you're hopeless. At the speed we're closing, I estimate we'll reach weapons range in fifteen minutes. If you've got any questions, now's the time. I stared down at the rifle in my hands with more questions than I'd ever had in my life. Suddenly I missed normal death and his stupid looking sigh. He'd only asked me to board a train and I'd screwed that up. What the hell was I gonna do here? Yeah, I guess I've got a couple questions. Like what is going on at all? Burton chuckled. He sat down on the desk, pulling his knife from its sheath and beginning to sharpen it. Didn't figure it out from the name, did ya? The afterlife has three locations, two of which were considered big enough for a train station, heaven and hell. The third, Burton gestured around with his knife. The third is purgatory. I frowned. What's that? He frowned harder. Don't they teach kids anything these days? Welcome to the in-between, the borderlands of the two great kingdoms where fortunes are made and fates are sealed. In the old days, days before even the captain got here, this was a place where sinners went to expiate their sins. You drift through the endless fog and think about what you'd done until God or the devil decided to take you in. Now it's the front lines of an arms race and you fight until one of them realizes you're still here. My blood went cold. I'd never been a fighter. The closest I'd ever come was a couple scuffles at school and that one horrific attempt to try out for the wrestling team. I was clueless in every way. The rifle in my hands felt like it weighed a ton. Worse than that, the train station had been white, bright, spotless white. That couldn't have been hell, could it? I'd been in Heaven's train station and I screwed it up. Burton, I asked, my voice shaking. How long have you been here? Oh God, I've stopped counting. Some Prussian killed me when Frederick was still emperor. I collapsed onto the ground, burying my head in my hands. I didn't even know what a Prussian was. Ship ahead. The call came from high above, echoed loudly from voice to voice as it passed across the penitence. I glanced to Burton, his face was stony and worried. It's too soon. He said quietly, we only sighted her the first time when the fog cleared, but it came back. If they've seen her from the crow's nest, it means they've turned. Who's turned? I asked. A moment later, the fog parted around the sharp knife-like prowl of a pitch black vessel. A single scarlet line was painted all along its side from the ornately carved figure of a woman on the bow, all the way to the gigantic bank of engines at the stern. In the middle of all of that was Megadeth, a single moat of concern marring her face. She stood tall, though, holding a pistol in each hand, and for the first time I thought she looked every bit the captain. It's the blood countess, Burton whispered, and then the shooting began. Somehow we fired first. Perhaps their spotters hadn't realized just how close they were to us in the fog bank. Perhaps our captain was quicker than theirs, but from her spot amid ships, she roared one harsh word, fire. And all our guns opened up on the imposing darkness of the enemy vessel, all the guns that were ready, that is, and that seemed to only be about half of the ones on the top deck. It was a roaring, roiling inferno of fire, and though all I'd done so far in my tenure as crew was hand the captain a mug of coffee, my heart soared and I shouted in articulately, pumping my rifle in the air. Then the blood countess opened up, and I realized we were not the biggest fish in the sea. The noise that came from the countess's hall was unearthly. It was a wild, shrieking scream of lead like a million hornets pummeling against the side and the deck of the ship. It was the echoing roar of heavier ordinance and the sickening pound of the cannonballs against our timbers. And it was a cold, superhuman laugh that stretched out towards us on the wind. I got one last look at the captain's face before Burton pulled me down. Her concern was gone, replaced by fury. She was massively, royally pissed, and her rage made her look viciously beautiful. Suddenly, Megadeth wasn't so funny anymore. This wasn't the hot girl at my local coffee shop. This was an avenging angel. Or worse. Then I hit the ground and Burton lay atop me, screaming in my ear, Are you daft? The captain said to duck when the shooting starts. My ears rung so badly, I could barely process his words. My heart skipped a beat every time a cannon blasted, and a small part of my brain was warning me that I may have pissed myself. Of course, what I said didn't reflect any of that, not because I was brave, but because I was too stupid to realize I was stupid. She didn't duck, I said, staring straight at her. Burton grabbed me by the neck, turning my gaze back to him. That's because she's an officer. Officers don't duck. You're a maggot. And on this ship, maggots obey orders. All of them. Now come on and lay low. Burton turned, darting between barrels and past the shadows of cannons, as if any of them may save his life from the hail of lead. I stuck close to him, but I had no illusions. This was a game of chance we were playing. There wasn't any skill involved. Across the deck, men lay in agony. The second gun from the bow was gone entirely, and only two men from its crew remained. One of them clutching at a footlong hunk of wood that jutted out of his shoulder, the other motionless on the ground and bleeding heavily. That man's body seemed to be coming apart before my eyes, little pinpricks of light showing through the flesh. Under different circumstances, it might have been beautiful. Finally, Burton stopped at the stairs leading to the forecastle. There were gun slits there large enough to accommodate a rifle, which would have been an encouraging amount of protection if there weren't already a dead man laying beneath them. I fell hard to my knees beside him, cowering in the space between the steps and the last slit. Fire, damn you! Burton shouted at me, raising his rifle to the slit and squeezing off shot after mechanical shot. I'd never been anywhere like this. Not in real life, not in video games, not in my dreams. I'd died twice over, accidents both times, and never had long enough to be scared like I was now. Staring at Burton, though, my horror began to subside. He wasn't calm, far from it, but his anger had a sharp, focused point. The man's entire being screamed hardened badass, and if I hadn't been the captain's type, he certainly was, as were all the others crisscrossing the deck under heavy fire. Over and above it all, though, I heard the captain's stentorian voice. It tore out of her in a way that brooked no argument and no cowardice. It wasn't the deep rough tone of command the movies always portrayed. It was high, cutting the din rather than battering through. I raised the rifle to my shoulder, and I fired. It turned out that a BB gun was to a real rifle, as a house cat is to a tiger. It mauled me on the first shot, and there's no denying it. It had rested against my cheek, bucking hard against the bone, and the thing nearly flew out of my hands altogether. I gritted my teeth and bore it, working the lever like I saw Burton doing, and I fired a second shot, and then a third. When I chambered my fourth, I realized I had no idea how to reload. Something happened then, a lull in the fighting. One moment we were passing again, exchanging broad signs, and then the next moment the Countess was wheeling about, and that same laughing from the beginning of the fight was on the wind. It's her, Burton said, and for the first time I sensed genuine fear in the man's voice. Who is it? I asked. Burton pointed at our enemy, and said just two words. The Countess? And I instantly knew he hadn't meant the ship. At the prow of the blood Countess, the ship's figurehead had begun to shiver. As I watched, the shiver became a shake, and the shake became a violent tremor, and all the while the laughing grew. It rose higher in the air around us, and the crew of the penitent seemed to slow in time with its growth. The rifles fell silent. The gun crews loaded in half-time, and Captain Doherty turned her once-grand voice to her helmsman, shouting in a tone that was clearly overmatched. Retreat! The Countess is coming! And then the figurehead threw the shards of wood that covered it, and in its place hung a woman in a blood-red dress. Bathory. Burton whispered. She's come. Then the blood Countess's floodlights cut on in a lurid red glow. The woman who had been the figurehead swung herself up nimbly into the waiting arms of her crew, and a long sharp point began to slide out of the ship from where she'd been. Burton, I sent. What the hell is that thing? They're gonna ram us, he said, and if they do, it's over. The blood Countess accelerated hard towards us. Our two rear-facing guns kept up a steady fire on her, but it was no use, and our captain went amongst the crew, pointing men out here and there to go to the rear to the spot where they would hit us. On the way, each man filed past a weapons locker, pulling out a single spherical object with a wick coming out of it, clearly a grenade of some sort. When she pointed at me, my heart stopped, but I stepped out of line all the same. She laughed then, and for a moment I wanted to call her Megadeth again, until Burton clapped me on the shoulder and pushed me back into line. She pointed at me, maggot. Stay here and stay down. Captain Doherty went to join them, and together some 20 of them stood in opposition to what seemed like the most terrible force in the world and the giant spear point that raced towards us. Bathory. Elizabeth Bathory, I sent, repeating the name over and over under my breath. I knew it, although I didn't know from where. I only knew that it was evil. That the first sure thing in the whole of purgatory was that anyone who could laugh like that scared the shit out of me. She was coming now. I could only hope our Elizabeth could stop her. Our Elizabeth began counting distance. 1000, 900, 800, 700, 600. I braced for impact, wondering if it hurt when the light tore men's bodies apart. Now, the captain yelled, and every man gathered at the stern rail began to hurl his grenade. What followed was confusing. First, the balloon thing made a hissing venting noise, and the ship's deck tilted sharply down into the right, the helm driving our nose down into the depths of the fog. Then the engines cut out, and the lights were shut down, pitching the whole of the ship into a strange gray haze. Then every man fell completely and utterly silent. And finally, the grenades exploded in a riot of glittery silver mist that obscured any bit of the world still left to be seen in the gloom. We were falling shockingly hard and fast, the deck tilting sharply enough that I had to grab at the rail to stay in place, and passing just overhead. I heard the whooshing wine of what could only have been that spearpoint followed by the cries of the blood countess's crew and the roar of her engines. We fell and fell and fell, and with every passing moment more of the light died out, and the air around us grew ever so slightly hotter. A minute later, we began to level out, the deck grew walkable, and the captain stood, making her way to me. As she passed, she glanced at me and gestured towards the heavy oaken door. And soon we were walking back into the diner where it had all begun. The diner's interior was a catastrophe of broken dishes and spilled beverages, but standing alone in all of it was the single brass coffee pot we'd first spoken over. The captain sat tiredly on a stool several seats away from it, and without needing to be told, I grabbed one of the few unbroken mugs and poured her a drink. She accepted it gratefully, taking a long swig before speaking. How many shots did you fire today? She asked. Three. I sent. She shook her head. You really aren't my type. Still, though, you made it. And that's saying something. She looked down at herself, and I realized suddenly that there were bullet holes in the hem of her dress and a single long thin gouge along her left arm. Three shots. She chuckled, taking another sip. We will never make a fighter out of you, and we need those worse than you can imagine. Got any soldier friends you could convince to jump in front of a train? No, ma'am. I said, ma'am, she said with a small smile. What happened to Megadeth? The captain happened. You're kind of a bad ass. You're a bit of a character, you know that? She said. I just shrugged, right back at you. She stood, smoothing out her ruined dress and looking around sadly at the remains of the diner. I really love this place. Josephine, the last girl we had running it, was captured some time ago. It hasn't been the same since. She looked me up and down appraisingly. I puffed out my chest a bit, even though it made me feel like an idiot. Can you cook? She asked. Uh, yeah. Sure. My ex said I could at least. Sometimes I think it was the only reason she liked me. Good. Then you're hired. The captain held out her hand to me, and I took it. She squeezed harder than I'd have thought possible. And when she let go, my hand throbbed. You'd better make good coffee, or we're going to have some serious problems. The captain turned, brushing sweaty hair up into a loose ponytail as she walked back to the door. Oh, she said, and change your pants. You're excused on account of it being your first battle. But if it happens again, I'm throwing you overboard. She left the room and I looked down. It turns out that the small part of my brain had been right. I'd pissed myself when the shooting started. I looked around the wreckage of my new workplace, surveying the damage, which looked to be just about everything. Oh, shit. I sent sitting down and pouring my own cup of coffee. Hell with whatever Burton had said earlier. I am mega-dat.