Organ Reapers

by West, Shay

  Next time I run away, I’ll have to pack better.

  The forest came alive as the stars appeared in the sky. He could hear branches crackling as something large moved through the trees, but whatever it was stayed out of the light. He strained his eyes, but couldn’t see what was out there. He had spent his whole life in the woods and he wasn’t scared of the creatures that lived there. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t danger. Two helpless people would make a nice meal for a bear or a forest cat.

  And there were always other people to worry about. While the King tried to maintain peace, it was impossible to prevent robberies and the occasional killing that occurred away from the protection of city walls.

  Kelhar’s men might kill us if they find us.

  Tani wished he could see in the dark like the forest cats. Kelhar’s men could be creeping up on them right now, swords drawn, eager to slice them across his and Keena’s soft, white throats.

  When a branch fell on his head, he squealed in fright and jumped to his feet, breath coming in gasps. He glanced up and laughed when he spotted two round eyes staring down at him.

  Blasted owl.

  He kept watch until he estimated that half the night had passed. His eyes tried to close on several occasions, but he refused to give in. Sleeping meant dying if Kelhar’s men came upon them. When his turn was drawing to a close, he shook Keena’s shoulder to wake her.

  Keena yawned as she sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Tani reminded her to stay awake as he lay back against his knapsack. It wasn’t the most comfortable pillow, but exhaustion eased him into sleep.

  ***

  Tani awoke the next morning before the sun. He could see Keena in the distance standing with her back against the rough bark of a pine tree. She was shivering and stomping her feet, breath coming in puffs of grey air.

  “What are you doing so far from the fire?” he asked.

  “I was too drowsy, so I stayed away. The cold helped me stay awake. I hope we don’t have to do this for the rest of our lives,” she said miserably.

  “I don’t think that will happen. As soon as we find somewhere we can settle, we’ll be able to relax.”

  “How long do you think Kelhar will look for us?”

  “I doubt he will put that much effort into it. It’s not like he can’t get others to do our job.”

  “I’ve been thinking of that all night,” Keena whispered.

  “Best not to. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

  Keena stared at him over the remnants of the fire.

  “What if there was something we could do about?”

  CHAPTER 6

  ELI IGNORED the throbbing in his head. For once, it wasn’t caused by too much booze. He’d had a few drinks before bed, but nothing that would be considered over the top. This headache was brought on by the flashing red and blue lights and the discovery of another body.

  “We gotta stop meeting like this.”

  Eli turned to face the medical examiner, who had just arrived. “Sherry, please tell me it’s not the same MO as before.”

  “Wish I could, but it is the same as the others. Only this one is young. Her name is Molly Simpson and she was on her way to a friend’s house only three houses down from where she lives. A man walking his dog found her in the bushes right about the same time the friend’s mom called Molly’s mom to say she never made it. The parents got to their daughter’s body before the cops arrived to cover it up.”

  Eli winced as he imagined what that scene must have looked like. He pulled on a pair of gloves as he walked up to the body. She wasn’t even a teenager, probably didn’t even have breasts yet. She’d probably never even kissed a boy.

  And now she never will.

  He had seen his share of dead bodies, children included, but this was worse than anything he had ever seen or, hopefully would ever see again. Her body was covered in blood and her chest cavity was opened wide, the white of her bones in stark contrast to the red-black blood.

  “It’s not just the heart and kidneys this time. Her lungs are missing.”

  “Yes. Seems the perp took a little extra this time,” Sherry said.

  Eli bent over to get a closer look at the wounds in the victim’s back.

  “Looks like this was done by an amateur,” he mumbled.

  “You noticed that too, eh? The cuts are ugly, and I mean ugly, compared to the last victim. It’s like the perp was in a hurry and didn’t do things as neatly.”

  The theory sounded good, but Eli’s gut told him there was something more to it than the perp getting careless. This looked like it was someone’s first time slicing up a body. The cuts on the previous victim had been clean, almost like the bodies he had seen Sherry handle. But this poor girl looked like she had been hacked by some freshman in an anatomy course. Pieces of the lungs had been left behind, as had most of the branches off the aorta.

  “Where’s your new partner?” Sherry asked.

  “Talking to the poor guy who found our victim. She has a niece about this age. I thought it would be easier on her not to have to see this.”

  “You’re getting soft in your old age,” Sherry said as she nudged him with her elbow.

  Eli grunted as he stood, pulling off the latex gloves. He spotted Ava under the street lamp, questioning the first witness to the scene. Eli hoped the man was able to give them more information than the previous witnesses. While he waited for her to finish, Eli wandered around the crime scene.

  The girl had been killed about as far away from the first victim as was possible in the city. Mr. Forbes had been killed on a dirty street corner near a busy university; little Molly had been killed practically on her doorstep in a nice quiet neighborhood. He walked back to Sherry.

  “I still can’t believe that no one has seen a damn thing with any of these crimes. Did you find anything on her body, fibers, anything out of place?” Eli asked.

  Sherry smiled. “I didn’t see anything. But a cop pulled a partial print on a can of soda that was found right next to the body.”

  “Do you really think the perp would be that clumsy?”

  She shrugged. “Anything’s possible. You always say killers make a mistake at some point. Maybe this is some point.”

  Eli watched as the girl’s body was loaded onto a gurney and into a waiting ambulance to be taken to the medical examiner’s office. A crime like this one allowed no one to rest.

  “You’ll never guess what our witness saw,” Ava said as she approached.

  “A bright light?”

  “You’re the big winner. Other than that, he didn’t see or hear anything. No strange vehicles in the area, no strangers hanging around. It’s like our perp is a ghost.”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts. Our perp has just been careful up to now. Sherry said they found a partial print on a soda can.”

  “Please tell me we got that lucky.”

  “We won’t know until we run it. But it’s the only thing we’ve got besides the light and that weird little stone you found.”

  “This is good news.” Ava raised her eyebrow. “So why don’t you look happy?”

  “I don’t know. Why would the killer all of a sudden leave a soda can at the crime scene? There hasn’t been so much as a hair at any of the others. So, what, the killer decides to have a drink while he’s chopping up a kid? No.” He shook his head. “Something about this doesn’t make sense.”

  “You think we’re dealing with another perp that likes to chop people up? That’s out there, even for you.”

  “All I can do is work with the evidence we got. This crime scene doesn’t exactly match any of the others. The only thing in common is the missing organs.”

  Ava rolled her eyes. “Right, the planets are all in some weird alignment that makes people go crazy and butcher bodies. The crimes have to be connected. We just have to figure out how.”

  ***

  “You clumsy fools!”

  Master Kelhar tossed the useless heart on the floor at
his feet. “How am I supposed to attach this new heart when the vessels have been damaged?”

  He stared at the pair of boys standing before him, neither one able to meet his eyes, both trying hard not to cry in front of him.

  “Get out of my sight.”

  Kelhar turned back to the body of the young girl on the table. The light from a low-hanging chandelier created an angelic halo around her corpse. In a fit of rage, he ripped the tubes from her body, the fluids splattering on the floor. He turned off the machine that had been circulating her life-blood. The gears ground to a halt, groaning and moaning a lament for the poor dead girl’s soul.

  He stared down at the girl’s face and his shoulders sagged. She would never see another sunrise, dance at the Spring Festival, know the joy of being courted, or hear the laughter of her children. Kelhar’s stomach clenched when he realized he would have to tell her parents they would never watch their only daughter grow up.

  Master Kelhar gripped his robes and swept from the room, ignoring his attendants as they followed closely behind. Lamps dotted the long hallway at irregular intervals, creating circles of light surrounded by shadows. His footsteps echoed on the rough stone.

  He arrived at General Prixa’s quarters in short order. Master Kelhar rapped sharply on the door. At the muffled invitation, he went inside. Prixa was in his nightclothes, rubbing the vestiges of sleep from his eyes.

  “Have you found them?” Kelhar asked as he poured himself a cup of black tea.

  “No sign of them as of yet.”

  “You do have all of your men out looking?”

  General Prixa raised his eyebrows. “Not all of them, no. I won’t leave the monastery defenseless on account of a couple of runaways.”

  “I need those two back here. They are the best Harvesters we have. The last pair destroyed the organs they retrieved; now a little girl lies dead in the medical chamber.”

  “I have men out looking and some are situated at the homes of their families. They are two young people with no skills. They will try to contact their families eventually. When they do, my men will bring them back here to you.”

  “You had better find them. I refuse to let more of our people die.”

  Kelhar left without a backward glance. Deep down he knew Prixa would do his job and find the deserters, but he was furious at how long it was taking. No one had ever left the monastery. Kelhar couldn’t understand why these two had left. They had had everything: plenty of money, prestige for themselves and their families, the respect of everyone in the Kingdom.

  Why would they flee?

  Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. Tani and Keena had gone against the directives of the monastery, something that demanded the highest punishment. He would regret their deaths more than that of the attendant he had had put to death for allowing them to escape.

  As he walked back to his chambers, Kelhar was intercepted by one of the physicians.

  “I have another patient for you, Master Kelhar.”

  “Tell me the details,” Kelhar said.

  “It is the son of one of the highest houses. He was brought in last night complaining of pain in his back and belly. Our devices detected imminent kidney failure, Your Holiness.”

  “Did you take a sample of his blood?”

  The man nodded and handed him a small vial. “He only has about twelve hours, a day at most.”

  “I understand. I’ll find his match and send a Harvesting team within the hour.”

  Master Kelhar left the doctor and headed for an anteroom just off the Harvesting chamber. He took the vial of blood and placed it into a small opening just big enough to hold the tube. Kelhar spun several dials, the machine hissing to life as water moved through the interior. The blood in the vial slowly disappeared into the Detector.

  In moments, a white strip of paper about a foot long and covered in black marks unfurled out of a thin slit. Kelhar took the paper and walked to a second device. He placed the strip of paper into a slot on the side of the Revealer. The paper moved slowly through the machine.

  Kelhar readied the viewing panel while he waited for the Revealer to finish working. The white strip of paper disappeared and in moments, a distorted image appeared on the viewing panel. He expertly turned some dials, the movements almost imperceptible. But the image cleared until a face was revealed. Kelhar moved the dials so that the face became an entire person. He hit a button and a piece of paper with the face of the donor slid out of a panel on the front of the machine.

  He reached down, grabbed a lever, and slid it one notch to the left. The image shifted to that of an aerial view of a city. A few more notches and the viewing panel revealed an exact location of the donor. Once again Kelhar printed the information.

  Kelhar took both pieces of paper to the Harvesting chamber. He ordered one of his attendants to summon a Harvesting pair and bring them immediately. Kelhar walked around the large circular chamber, impatience and worry leaving him unable to sit still. The only Harvesters available for this trip were relatively new. Kelhar worried they would ruin the precious organs. The newest patient had one shot. There was one exact match on Earth; if the organs were damaged or destroyed, the patient would die.

  Damn Tani and Keena!

  Kelhar wanted to hit something. Instead, he moved to the gateway. It was easily the most precious thing the monastery possessed. The history of it was fuzzy at best. Scholars had been unable to come to a consensus as to how old the thing was. Some reports claimed thousands of years old while others claimed barely ten. The oldest known writings did not elaborate on its origins, only how to use it.

  He ran his fingers lightly across the gold-engraved wooden surface. Kelhar swore he could feel divine power coursing through his body. As far back as Kelhar knew, the monastery had been in possession of the gateway. The technology was beyond anything this world possessed. He believed the gods sent the machine to aid those beyond the healing abilities of the physicians.

  Kelhar wished he knew more about exactly how the machines worked. He had used the scrolls and had the mages speak the words to bring the ancient machinery back to life. As was the case every time he pondered their inner working, his head began hurting, a pain that felt as though it would make his head explode. When his thoughts moved away from trying to figure out how the machines worked, the pain subsided. Part of him knew this wasn’t normal, wasn’t healthy, but he would do anything to avoid the pain.

  Kelhar heard the door open behind him and heard the approach of tentative footsteps. He could pick out the sure and steady footfalls of his attendants as they led the Harvesters to the gateway.

  “The patient you are Harvesting for is special. It is imperative that you do not fail.”

  He turned to face the pair and breathed a sigh of relief. Though not as talented as Tani and Keena, they hadn’t botched a retrieval for many months. He handed the eldest the printouts of what the donor looked like as well as his location. Both Harvesters climbed a set of steep stairs to stand on the slick-looking surface of the gateway pad, knapsacks over their shoulders. Kelhar turned several knobs, moved a giant lever forward, then punched the gold launch button.

  He held his breath as the machine whirred to life, great gouts of steam puffing from stacks on the top surface. The ground beneath his feet vibrated with increasing frequency. As the vibrations intensified, so did the blue light surrounding the Harvesters, until Kelhar had to look away or suffer damage to his eyes.

  In moments, the light vanished. Kelhar blinked in its sudden absence and waited to leave the chamber until his vision returned. His attendants followed him, always ready to obey his commands.

  Kelhar wanted to go back to his chambers and rest, but he knew the Harvesters would return shortly and he would be needed to operate on the latest patient. Instead of turning down the hall that would lead to bed, he walked to the operating room. The girl’s body had already been removed and the mess he had made earlier cleaned up. The new patient lay on the table, tubes emerging from h
is mouth and arm.

  Kelhar’s heart sped up when he considered the ramifications of losing this patient. The girl had been the daughter of a poor farmer; this young man was the heir to a fortune. If the lad died, his father could make things very difficult for the monastery. Without his monetary aid, the monastery wouldn’t have enough coin to pay the Harvesters, nor keep their families living in the lap of luxury.

  Damn you two! Why did you leave?

  CHAPTER 7

  “AREN’T YOU GOING to say anything about my idea?”

  Tani looked at Keena and shook his head. “You can’t be serious? We can’t look to the other world for help. Kelhar says we are to never let them know of our existence.”

  “That world has weapons, technology we don’t have. Kelhar wouldn’t be a threat if we had them as allies.”

  “You do realize what you’re suggesting? That we somehow make it back to the monastery in one piece, gather a set of gateway stones, sneak into the gateway chamber, travel to this other world, somehow convince the people there that we are from another world, and magically find a way to seal the gateway? Did I miss anything?”

  “You don’t have to be so sarcastic about it. It’s the only way to stop people on that world being killed for their organs. It’s not right and you know it.” Keena stalked off to take the lead.

  Tani reached for her, but stopped short. He wanted to tell her that he would go along with her crazy plan, but he knew it was futile. The gateway chamber was always guarded, and the only way to get the gateway stones was to take them from someone. Kelhar would have confiscated ours by now.

  He followed Keena for a time, trying to think of something to say to make her forget her crazy plan, but once she had ahold of something, she didn’t let go.

  The sound of horses reached his ears. He sucked in a breath and turned to look down the road they had been traveling.