“I know we need a break, but…”
“Everyone needs a break, Sam. Ma is going to take care of Baby Jen. You and I are going to pretend like we don’t have a shitload of problems waiting for us when we get back to Beverly. Can we at least do that? Can we postpone this fight until then?”
Samantha glanced out the window, folding her arms over her chest. She looked like she wanted to say something, but she ultimately stopped herself, nodding at her own reflection. “I suppose.”
Lucian hung around long enough to see his brother and future sister-in-law get checked into a hotel in Stamford, Connecticut, a room paid for by his mother.
He didn’t know why he decided to tag along with them to this point; he knew he wasn’t going to be strong enough to kill Connor’s parasite, and he definitely wasn’t interested in hearing their argument. Especially since he knew that Samantha was correct, that she was unaware of his brother’s addiction problem.
As Lucian watched Samantha and his brother lie on the bed, Lucian pressed his thumb and pinky finger together.
He reappeared on top of Old Death’s home, on the cliff overlooking the empty city with saber-shaped buildings and flying vehicles buzzing in the air.
Everything empty.
Seeing Connor and Samantha hash it out only made Lucian appreciate the complexities of a relationship, the parts that one person knew, and the parts the other didn’t. He had experienced some of that with Katy, his last serious relationship.
And being able to see both sides play out, to move effortlessly from one room to another, gave Lucian a power that most people would dream to have. Lucian had never been into politics, but he wondered briefly what it would be like to visit the nation’s capital, to hear what people were saying behind closed doors.
What secrets could he uncover now that he was in this form?
“Aliens,” he said to himself, smiling as he turned toward the glistening lake that sat across from the hangar he’d created. He snapped his fingers and his crows appeared, the two taking off toward the lake.
Ezra, Old Death’s cat, came out of the hangar, stretching and yawning before making his way over to Lucian.
“Anything interesting happen while I was gone?” Lucian asked as he stooped down to pet the cat, who purred lightly.
Ezra made his rounds, and then turned his attention to Hugin and Munin, who dipped in and out of the water, chasing after each other.
“At least I have you three,” Lucian said as he made his way to his workshop.
As he stepped inside, his robes disappeared, leaving him in a black shirt and a pair of comfy house pants that he’d created over the last three days.
Knowing that he had other things that he could do, but also feeling the urge to be distracted, Lucian sat on his bed and went for his video game controller.
He powered up the system, the flatscreen attached to the ceiling flickering as it turned on.
The intro music for Zero Enigma played, those familiar strings followed by the combined crash of a tympani and the rest of the orchestra.
Lucian’s avatar appeared, still with his scythe.
Just to get his hands loose, he pressed the [O] button to perform an attack, and [L2] to cast a wicked lightning bolt that struck a tree.
The companion he had named Danira was with him as well, and as he moved through some of his attacks, she also brought her weapons to the ready, prepared to engage.
It was too bad that Zero Enigma didn’t allow him to customize his companions.
The gameplay was only set up to exploit companions, not actually allowing one to customize them, aside from taking away their armor. Companions could die, and once they did, Lucian could find another companion at any pub across the land.
It was as simple as that.
But Lucian enjoyed the game, and he especially liked the skill tree system and the uniqueness of some of the quests. He also enjoyed how everything he did would have an effect on the game somehow. He wished he could officially partner up like it was an old-school JRPG, where the companionship had been preordained, and party members were customizable and actually part of the dialogue and story.
If the current Danira were customizable, he would replace her robes with sexy golden armor.
He would give her large white wings, curly blonde hair, a strip of blue over her face. For a weapon she would have a golden sword, and if he were able to really customize it, in her other hand she’d have a sick futuristic firearm, one ringed in glowing energy.
“If only…” he whispered to himself as he turned in the direction of the nearest village.
A flash caught Lucian’s attention.
He looked toward the lake to see that…
“Shit.” Lucian rolled out of bed and his black cape came to him, swirling before settling onto his body. By the time it had settled, he had his carbine in one hand and his lava sword in the other, ready to engage.
“I don’t know who you are,” Lucian growled as he turned to the three cloaked figures that stood before the lake, “but you have picked the wrong…”
Lucian never got the chance to finish his sentence.
His arm was now lying on the ground, one of the cloaked figures holding a double-bladed scythe, which she’d apparently thrown at him.
Legs sprouted from Lucian’s severed arm, his hand still on the trigger of his carbine.
It began firing at the three cloaked figures, using its centipede-like bone legs to stabilize itself.
Lucian flew up into the air, aware that it would take a moment for his arm to heal up.
One of his assailants appeared before him, delivering a blow to his stomach that sent him flying downward. He crashed through the ceiling of his workshop, losing his lava sword. After a quick recovery, Lucian blasted upward again, launching an enormous fireball at the female with the double-bladed scythe.
With a swipe of his free hand, Lucian invoked dozens of injurecrows, which he sent toward the cloaked figures on the ground, as well as the one currently roasting in the air.
He also called Grim Mecha to him, the mechanical reaper appearing in a flash. The rockets on his feet fired as he slammed into his assailant.
The woman tossed her scythe at Lucian again, cutting his body in half.
He didn’t feel any pain, even though his legs were falling away from him.
And rather than smacking into the ground, his cape swooped under the bottom half of Lucian’s torso, keeping him airborne.
His arm and hand regrown, Lucian began firing his MX-11 at the figures on the ground.
“Enough!” one of them said, just as Lucian’s two crows were about to tear through his body.
They stopped, as if they had pressed their sharp beaks into an invisible wall.
A few of his injurecrows slammed into the invisible barrier, exploding on contact.
Lucian’s Grim Mecha simply fell to the ground, causing a crater and kicking up a load of dust.
The female Grim Reaper now floated before him, her hood down, black holes where her eyes should be.
“You cannot defeat us,” she said calmly.
“Like fuck I can’t,” Lucian equipped his plasma blowtorch.
He pulled back the lever, his upper torso still suspended by his cape.
The concentrated blast of energy tore right through the woman’s chest, Lucian thrown backward, his cape stabilizing him.
When he was done blasting he looked to see that the woman was completely healed up, and that her ends of her cloak were now spiraling toward him.
One of the tendrils wrapped around his neck, the other two went for his arms, his cape fighting her cloak and eventually losing.
Lucian was slowly dragged to the ground, where his severed arm that had been firing his carbine joined him, trying to protect him.
One of the men below snapped it in half, and threw it over his shoulder.
“We are not Death Hunters,” the man said, pulling his hood back.
He had long blonde ha
ir, his handsome features at odds with his darkened cloak and his overall deathly demeanor.
The figure next to him also pressed his hood back, revealing an utterly androgynous face, Lucian barely able to recognize this Death as a man. His hair was in a topknot and his skin was bronze.
“If I let go, will you stop trying to fight us?” the woman asked.
Lucian looked at his crows, which were still trying to slam into the invisible barrier that was now protecting all three cloaked figures.
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice suddenly a little haggard.
One glance at his Soul Points and he saw that the fight had taken way more out of him than he would have anticipated.
“What the hell?” he whispered to himself, trying to come to grips with how he’d dropped nearly eight hundred Soul Points in such a short amount of time.
And while he wasn’t experiencing pain, Lucian was starting to notice a tingling sensation, which only reinforced his belief that his energy and power, and even his pain tolerance, were tied to his Soul Points.
“We are members of the Committee on Luminaries,” the woman said in a firm, but gradually softening voice.
“The what?”
“We monitor interactions with the Progeny of Light,” the man with long blonde hair said.
“The Death Council?” Lucian asked.
“A part of it, yes,” the woman replied.
She walked over to Lucian’s legs, and grabbed his foot. With a short tug, she dragged the lower half of his torso over to him, tossing it in front of Lucian.
“Put yourself back together,” the androgynous Death said. “And let’s wrap this up.”
“We have time, Gaspard,” the blonde-haired man quickly replied. Lucian tried to shift his torso forward, reconnecting his lower half to his upper half. “Lucian North, it has come to our attention that you recently visited the South Wind.”
“I did,” Lucian said with a grunt.
“We’re merely here to gather exploratory information as to what occurred there. At a later time, you will be brought before our Committee, where everyone there will have a chance to question you.”
“Why do you care if I went to the South Wind?” Lucian asked as his torso started to stitch back together.
He was able to sit up now and, as feeling returned to his feet, he slowly stood.
Lucian could tell that his cape was still agitated, the ends of the garment flickering up, still ready to engage. He also saw his crows raring to go, both hovering behind the three Deaths.
“It has come to our attention that Cuthbert is still alive. And not only is he alive, but he has disappeared with a member of the Progeny of Light.”
It took Lucian a moment to connect the name Cuthbert with Old Death, Lucian only recently becoming familiar with his predecessor’s human name.
He didn’t remember the name of the angel that Old Death had been imprisoned with, but he did recall that she was a brunette with gray streaks in her hair, and small wings on her ankles.
“I don’t know where he went, or anything about her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Why did you go after him?” the woman asked. “Did he ask you to rescue him?”
“No, it was my own choice.”
The Death named Gaspard snorted. “Very bold move for someone who has only recently taken the mantle.”
“Some of us are made differently than others,” Lucian said through gritted teeth. He didn’t like the way the man was glaring at him, a purple fire burning behind his eyes.
“I see the Death of the twenty-first century likes to play with toys,” the man continued, walking over to Grim Mecha. He brought his foot back and kicked Lucian’s android in the face.
“Gaspard,” the Death with long blonde hair said, “perhaps it is best if we don’t rile him up too much. After all, we need him to comply with our request.”
“Yes, Lord Lifton,” the man said, nodding as he re-approached, his hands now behind his back.
“You have some spunk, don’t you?” the woman asked as she watched Lucian curl his fists at his sides.
“Yeah, I guess you could call it that. I’m winding down for the evening when the three of you show up, attack me, ask me vague questions, and talk shit about my creations. How would you feel, huh?”
The woman tilted her head, Lucian feeling uncomfortable looking her in the face considering she had two dark holes for eyes, something he could have sworn he’d once seen in a video game, or maybe a gothic music video.
“I suppose it’s a bit late for this, but we should introduce ourselves,” the man with long blonde hair said. “My name is Lord Lifton, and I am the chairman of the Committee on Luminaries. This is Gaspard, the vice-chair, and Mastima, the principal investigator. We will be able to go into more detail once you are called before the Committee, but you should know that what you have done has had repercussions across this world and others.”
“Repercussions?”
“It is not often that a gate to Heaven is breached by one of our own. In fact, the last time this was done was well before any of our times, and while it isn’t the first issue our kind has had with the Progeny of Light, it continues to be a sore spot for them. We would like to understand more about why you went.”
“I already told you why.”
“And we would like to know more about your relationship with your predecessor, and what you experienced at the South Wind.”
“Am I under arrest or something? Are you going to take away my power?” Lucian asked, realizing as soon as the words left his lips how dumb he sounded. But that was what he was feeling, so he went with it.
“It is not our role, nor is it within our power, to arrest you or strip away your mantle,” Lord Lifton said. “Your mantle cannot be stripped away. It can only be given away by you. That said, there are ways to coerce a Death into prematurely passing his mantle on, but we are not here to do that either. Our primary goal at the moment is just to better understand what happened.”
“And have you already gone to Yoshimi? I’m sure she can tell you.”
“We have tried,” the woman named Mastima said. “But she hasn’t been as forthcoming.”
Lucian grinned, recalling the female Death from Japan and how powerful she had grown in the wake of the atomic bomb attacks in the 1940s. “She kicked your asses, right?”
Gaspard frowned at Lucian, his eyebrows quivering. “That’s not…”
“We figured we would start with you,” Lord Lifton said, cutting his counterpart off. “From there, we may interview her and, if we are able to catch up with him, Cuthbert. If he contacts you before our conversation, please let him know we are looking for him.”
“And your Committee can’t just find him?” Lucian asked. “Aren’t the three of you basically omnipotent? Can’t you just press your thumb and pinky together and teleport to wherever he is?”
“Different Deaths are capable of different feats at different levels,” Lord Lifton explained calmly. “Your predecessor was able to create all this with his mind alone,” he said, gesturing toward the city in the distance. “Haven’t you ever thought deeply about that? Do you know how many beings he would have to have helped pass on to gain this much power? Surely he would be able to hide himself.”
“A lot,” Lucian finally said.
“Yeah, a lot,” Gaspard said with disdain.
“And clearly Cuthbert is interested in your well-being, or he would just collapse the place,” Mastima added. She pressed a strand of hair out of her face, the woman completely focused on Lucian.
“Our Committee will meet a day from now,” Lord Lifton said with finality. “At about this time. I want you to be here, waiting for a portal to appear. If you are not here, we will send someone to get you. But this process is much easier if you just follow our rules and comply with our demands. Until that time, good luck, Lucian, and happy hunting.”
Chapter Three: Life Goes On
It took awhile for Lucian to
wind down after being visited by the Committee on Luminaries. He spent a good hour tinkering with Grim Mecha, still not certain why he had just fallen out of the sky when the three Deaths showed up. He also checked Old Death’s house below, a portion of the forest near his workshop, and took a quick spin over the futuristic city in the distance, making sure that no one else had found him.
Lucian wasn’t happy that he’d been taken down so easily, even though he assumed that the three combined had centuries of experience in combat.
But even knowing that didn’t make it sting any less.
And it wasn’t that Lucian was a particularly competitive man; no, the sting he currently felt centered around a sense of pride he had started to develop based on his creations, and the fact that the three stronger Deaths had just shown up here at his domicile, able to quickly tear him down.
To help himself fall asleep, Lucian figured it would be best to fire up a video game. It had worked when he was alive, and it seemed to work well enough now that he was dead.
Lucian was back in Zero Enigma in a matter of moments, his avatar coming upon a small cottage somewhere between the cities of Karonyoff and Murgnar.
As he approached the cottage, a barbarian tore out of the front door of the home, dragging a woman by her hair. A guy who Lucian presumed was the woman’s husband burst out after the barbarian, bleeding, the man trying to stop his wife from being abducted.
As was often the case, Lucian was presented with several options for how his avatar could respond.
And as was usual, he went with the snarkiest one:
[Looks like you just kidnapped your last fair maiden.]
The barbarian tossed the woman into the vegetable garden.
Rather than come back with a witty reply, he charged Lucian with an ax. Lucian struck the muscled man with an electric bolt, Danira also firing off magic at the barbarian.
He was a bit of a tank, absorbing damage like a sponge.
The barbarian reached Lucian’s avatar in no time, Lucian barely managing to step aside to avoid a strike.
He came back up with his scythe, an arc of blood spritzing the air as he cut into the barbarian. The burly fighter managed to strike him in the face, a blow that would have killed a person had this not been a video game.
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