Bartimaeus

I never really cared to think about the afterlife before. Obviously, you try to avoid dying, and if, for some stupid reason (like say sacrificing yourself for the sake of trying to be some heroic idiot like a certain person I knew) you do die, well, you're dead. So congratulations, you get to rot in the earth for a few decades while the worms chew at you.

But, for once in my vast existence (ok, not exactly once, I thought much the same and still hope for Ptolemy) I actually wished the afterlife were a little more than just a hole in the ground. So it was with a strange twinge in my essence I looked at the scene before me.

I'd never been able to visit a grave before, always being tied down by some greedy magician, but thanks to Kitty, I was back to the same freedom I'd been granted under Ptolemy. At first I spent it seeing sites around London (I say around because London itself is garish place. Nothing but smelly humans, and iron structures that cast out the sky. Ugh. Its no wonder humans are so dreadful, spending their lives in those hovels they call cities) but soon I came the feel a heavy sensation in my essence that no amount of shape shifting or visits home could cure. It was probably because of the time I spent in that little wretch of a boy, but I suspected I was beginning to fall victim to the horrible useless feelings humans called emotions. Not that I didn't have feelings of course (I'd felt plenty in my time, mostly painful and ending with some form of taunting that I don't believe I'll go into now.) but I'd also never been held back by them in the horrible, inhibiting way human emotions seemed to do.

I suppose Nat hadn't been completely horrendous. I mean, he'd been a horrible little prat who wore my essence to the bone (Figuratively, of course, since I didn't really have bones) and sent me on all sorts of nonsensical errands. But then, what magician wouldn't? It was part of their charm, or lack of. He did, however, do one thing of worth; saving me. And I suppose I did sort of understand why he was such a prat after having spent time rattling around in his head. But that didn't mean I actually missed him, did it?

The false boy raised a hand to his eye and pulled it away, glistening with moisture. He was standing around 500 feet away from what was left of a giant glass and iron pyramid. He didn't dare get closer for the cold sting the iron presented, nor did he move away, out of the vaguely painful presence. The ruble had been taped off in bright bands of yellow, proclaiming the danger ahead and several orange trucks and orange-clad workmen worked to clean up the rubble.

After 237 days, the rubble had yet to be properly cleaned. I would cite other examples of the extraordinary laziness of humans, but I suppose with the rebellion and other human issues going on it was understandable. If you understood humans, which I knew I never would.

Flicking the moisture from his hand to the ground, the boy took a step back, into the shadows, and transformed into a scarlet hawk.

There was no sense staying around such a dreary place. I knew I wouldn't get the answers I wanted from it. 5,000 years I'd lived, and only 2 years had been filled with purpose. After Ptolemy summoned me, my life had some meaning, rather than my own ego and self preserving ways to satisfy I had actually found someone to live for. Another 2,000 years after his death I'd had to wait before my life started to have purpose again. And then the moron had to go and get himself killed. Not to say Kitty didn't give me some purpose. Of course I'd give my life to Kitty, she was my everything now, but I never got to see her really. The trip to the Other Place had taken so much out of her the only thing she ever got up to was reading and having an amazingly stimulating conversation with yours truly. I didn't need to protect her because there was nothing to protect her from. And although I loved talking to Kitty, she was much too much like myself, and as amazing as I am, there is a such thing as too much of a good thing. I couldn't really tease Kitty, not like I could Nat.

2,000 years of waiting for another purpose.

And the only one I wanted went down in rubble 237 days ago.