Odd.
He focused on a woman with dark hair that had been dyed blonde, something agitated about the way she moved.
Name: Lisa Gedney
Date of Birth: 04/28/1990
Date of Death: 06/21/2019
Lucian watched her walk by for a moment, wondering how it was possible for her to still be alive with her date of death already passed.
It was October 20th, 2020…
This woman was supposed to have died well over a year ago.
Lucian sped over to her, descending rapidly, and as he grew nearer to the woman, just as she was turning down an alley, Lucian saw a bulge on her neck, an eyeball rising out of her shirt.
The eyeball locked onto to Lucian.
He brought his lava sword to the ready just as the tentacle tore out of the woman’s back, latching onto his throat and slamming him into a wall.
Lucian felt the impact. He wondered why no one else had seen it, considering that they weren’t very far off the main thoroughfare. But rather than focus on the mechanics of all this, and how it could have possibly played out, Lucian tossed his sword aside and equipped his shotgun.
He fired two shots, turning the tentacle into a fine mist. The parasite screeched as Lucian reloaded.
The parasite continued to tear out of the woman’s back as she moved through the alley, the creature’s skin bubbling and popping as it flopped to the ground.
Not certain what was about to happen, Lucian pumped his shotgun and aimed at the parasite’s center mass as a mouth took shape on its back. Its form bulged as a jaw moved through its body, appearing at the top of the parasite’s head.
Lucian fired two more shots.
He threw his shotgun to the side and it disappeared instantly, his Glocks taking shape. As the monster continued to try to grab him with his tentacles, Lucian unloaded both magazines, filling the creature with holes.
And he thought he had finished it too, especially once the parasite let out a wheeze and fell to the concrete.
Lucian was sadly mistaken.
The parasite’s tendrils dragged the creature forward as if it were a centipede hopped up on NOS. It latched onto Lucian’s body before he could load another magazine, slamming him into the ground.
The parasite started to tighten around him, its mouth reappearing right in front of Lucian’s face, its eyes blinking vertically, black tears falling down its cheeks.
The parasite gnashed its teeth once, and lurched forward. Lucian shoved his fist into its open mouth.
It was a last-ditch effort, but it kept the creature from tearing into his face, giving Lucian the moment he needed to come up with something else as the parasite gnawed at his arm.
An idea came.
Two long blades fired out of Lucian’s knuckles, pressing out of the back of the creature’s skull.
It wheezed, blood squirting onto the pavement as it loosened its grip. The creature collapsed, and just as he was about to attack it again, the parasite started shaking.
A burst of light fired up into the air, spiraling straight into Lucian’s body. He pressed himself up, the claws sliding back into his knuckles and disappearing.
Lucian smiled over at the woman, proud of himself.
And then he felt defeated.
The woman simply continued down the alley, as if nothing had ever happened.
“Wait,” he started to call after her. “Are… are you okay?”
He even caught up to the woman, his body still a bit sore from being driven into the ground by the parasite.
Lucian reached his hand out to Lisa. His fingers went right through her shoulder, and the woman turned onto another street, continuing on her way.
Her information appeared before him. The dates were still the same.
Name: Lisa Gedney
Date of Birth: 04/28/1990
Date of Death: 06/21/2019
Lucian floated in place for a moment, confusion setting in. The woman was supposed to die, and he had killed the parasite keeping her alive. Why hadn’t her date of death changed?
He decided to follow her, to see how this would play out.
As he did so, he checked his Soul Points to see that he had moved up by one.
Not bad, but he had a feeling that that last parasite was a little easier than some of the ones he’d have to face off against in the future. Lucian would definitely need to spend some time crafting better weapons, things that could give him an advantage in a pinch.
But for now, he would see what became of the woman named Lisa.
After all, she was supposed to be dead.
Lisa took her phone from her bag, and tapped away at it for a moment, not aware that the grim reaper was hovering over her shoulder.
She waited on the side of the street, again looking at her phone, cycling through her social media and liking a picture of a friend and his slobbery dog. Eventually, a car pulled up, and after the driver confirmed who she was, Lisa got in.
Lucian got in next to her, his form sinking into the seat.
He looked to the driver, an older man with a pierced ear, and saw his details clear as day floating over his body.
Name: Tobias Grand
Date of Birth: 06/11/1979
Date of Death: 01/07/2060
“I’m coming, Ronnie, sheesh,” Lisa said into the phone, her voice tinged with annoyance.
Lucian studied her for a moment, trying to see what could possibly kill her. She did look thinner than she should, her skin sallow, something off about her.
He wondered for a moment if Lisa was on drugs, but that also didn’t exactly make sense to him because the parasites he was supposed to kill were those keeping the terminally ill alive.
Or so he thought.
The car continued to head out of Salem toward Beverly, which was where Lucian was planning to go next anyway.
While she continued to argue with someone named Ronnie over the phone, Lucian looked out the window, to the brief view of the coastline that the trip to Beverly provided.
He saw a small public park where he used to work out before his diagnosis, plenty of sailboats in the harbor. The driver turned onto the road that led to downtown Beverly, a quaint town center with good restaurants and a couple of really old churches.
The Drive navigated one of the more expensive neighborhoods in the area, with its remodeled capes and manicured grounds, not unlike Endicott College, which was only about a mile away.
Lisa’s argument with the man named Ronnie grew even more intense, and while Lucian couldn’t exactly hear what the man on the phone was saying, he was clearly yelling at her.
“Here’s fine,” she told the driver after he pulled onto Main Street. Still talking on the phone, she looked at one of the bars across the street.
Rather than get out of the car on the curb side, Lisa got out of the car on the street side, a vehicle narrowly swerving around her, the driver honking their horn while Lisa told him to get bent.
Lucian felt a pang where his heart should be, but by the time he had floated out of the vehicle, Lisa had safely made it across the street.
A man wearing a puffy jacket and a Red Sox baseball cap stood outside the bar, smoking a cigarette, glaring at Lisa for a moment.
His information took shape before Lucian.
Name: Ronald Gedney
Date of Birth: 04/28/1985
Date of Death: 05/03/2051
“What took you so long?” he asked.
“I already told you, Ronnie, I was running late. Why are you bustin’ my balls over here?”
“I’ve been here for an hour, Leese. How hard is it to get here from Salem?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“I guess you’re right,” he said finally, putting out his cigarette. “Well, should we go there? Want a drink first?”
“I’m good,” Lisa said, “but I will have one of those cigarettes.”
Ronnie handed Lisa a cigarette and lit it for her.
“Thanks,” she said
after her first exhale. “I needed that. And don’t call my phone yelling at me like that.”
“Sorry, you know how Mom gets. She’s been blowing me up all day. You know you shouldn’t be smoking that either,” he said sternly.
“Ah, such a sweet big brother looking out for his little sis,” Lisa said, pinching Ronnie’s cheek, much to his chagrin. “And trust me, I know. But it’s just one cig, and more importantly, you shouldn’t smell like beer when we get there. She’ll kick you out again.”
“That’s what the cigarette is for,” Ronnie said, tapping on his temple. “And the mint.” He reached into his pocket and got out a red and white peppermint.
“If you think that will help…”
“Did you tell her yet?”
Lisa shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“You need to tell her. The doctor said…”
“The doctor doesn’t know shit, Ronnie.”
“Really? Why do I find that hard to believe? You really shouldn’t be out; you should be home taking care of yourself,” he said.
“I’m in remission, Ronnie. If it’s going to come back, at least let me enjoy the time I have left.”
Lisa’s brother buried his head in his hand for a moment. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that…”
Lucian would have continued listening to their conversation if he hadn’t noticed something on one of the gothic churches down the street.
Two beings had landed, their wings large and white, a shimmer of golden energy radiating all around them.
Life.
And rather than stick around, Lucian slipped into an alley, out of their view.
He knew better than to go trying to deal with the angels, not yet, anyway.
And why fight them anyway? Lucian still didn’t see why they had to battle against each other.
As he made his way through an alley that led out onto a side street, which would eventually take him to his brother’s home, Lucian thought about what had just happened with the woman named Lisa.
If the parasite was keeping her alive and she was in remission, Lucian had just killed her by taking it away.
In this way, he was indeed responsible for her death.
Why then? Why wasn’t she allowed to stay alive?
It dawned on Lucian at that moment that maybe Life had the right view on Death all along, and the way that Old Death had framed it, that he was helping these people, was incorrect.
Lisa had lived past her expiry date, but who gave her this date to begin with? And what was the damage done in allowing her to live past it? What was the point in stopping these parasites anyway?
A man stepped out of his home and dropped into a chair on the front porch. He took a big drag from an E-Cig as his information took shape before Lucian.
Name: Max Thomas
Date of Birth: 02/13/1978
Date of Death: 08/31/2052
The man exhaled a cloud of smoke, looking right at him.
It startled Lucian, and for a brief second, he thought about taking one of his weapons from his inventory list.
The man’s head drifted up and to the right, looking at a bird that had just landed in a tree, a squirrel moving to another branch. Lucian let out a sigh of relief.
He continued down the street, noticing some of the more elaborate Halloween decorations.
Beverly was a stone’s throw away from Salem, and the interest in the occult, both for touristy and historical reasons, had definitely spread through the region, most notable during Halloween.
There were haunted homes tours; hayrides where they served warm apple cider to fight off the incoming New England winter; Halloween balls; Halloween fireworks near the water; the Salem Witches’ Market and the zombie walk; a haunted magic fair and a more events than anyone could possibly attend in a single visit to the famous city.
It was always a wild time.
Eventually, Lucian arrived at his brother’s home, a small, three-bedroom cape-styled home really in need of a renovation. The siding was peeling, and the roof had been beat to hell by the sun, but the garden in the front that Samantha maintained looked nice, and there was something homey about the place, something inviting.
Lucian rose into the air just to make sure there were no angels lurking in the backyard, and once he was sure he was fine to continue, he floated into his brother’s home.
He landed in the foyer, which Samantha had turned into a pretty convincing mudroom. There was a menu on the table from a local diner, some sunglasses, a pair of gloves as well. No one was home aside from Tuck the cat, who immediately came running to the door once it sensed Lucian’s presence.
Lucian stared at the cat for a moment.
“Come here, kitty,” he whispered, sinking to one knee, his hand outstretched. Tuck ran off as soon as Lucian’s fingers passed through its body.
A loud vehicle pulled up in the driveway and Lucian heard the door shut.
And even if it didn’t matter, he still stepped aside to let his brother pass through. Lucian’s sibling placed his hand on his lower back and groaned.
Lucian’s jaw dropped.
He felt a sinking sensation in his chest as soon as he saw his brother’s details appear before him. Lucian blinked several times just in case he wasn’t reading it correctly.
Name: Connor North
Date of Birth: 11/01/1980
Date of Death: 06/06/2021
Lucian’s brother was set to die within eight months.
Chapter Eight: ICU
Lucian’s hands tensed.
He was just about to teleport away to Old Death’s home, to grill his predecessor on ways to prolong a person’s passing, when his brother dropped a white paper bag onto the table.
Connor glanced around, as if someone was looking over his shoulder.
Tuck came to him, announcing his presence with a meow and weaving through Connor’s legs until he shooed the cat away.
Connor made his way to the basement, returning with a small black kit.
After wiping his hands together, his brother opened the kit and set a small metal tray on the table. He reached into the bag and took out a long white pill. As carefully as possible, Connor crushed half of the pill into a small pile of white powder, which he straightened into a line using a razor blade.
Lucian equipped his shotgun, his finger twitching before he fired at the wall. “What are you doing!?” he cried to his brother, startling the cat.
Tuck dropped and made a hissing sound in Lucian’s direction, his ears bent back.
“Shut up, Tuck,” Connor said as he retrieved a metal straw from his black case. He bent forward and snorted the line up, taking in a deep breath as he rolled his neck, his eyes closed. “Fuck.” He bent forward again and snorted up a few remaining crumbs.
Once he was finished, Connor took the rest of the pills out of the white paper bag and stored them in an amber pill container. He started to get up, but the drug kept him down, his arms falling to his side for a moment as he breathed deeply.
Lucian was nearly in tears.
He’d had no idea that his brother was using, no indication aside from…
His eyes went wide as he recalled how his brother had looked the other day, how Lucian had noticed something floating around him just before the angel came.
It was subtle, but he knew it was there. Taking a step back now and focusing on his brother allowed him to see it again. Lucian’s nerves tensed.
A fucking parasite.
Almost clear, with a mustard yellow tint to its skin and mandibles, the parasite was unlike any he’d seen yet. No big bulge like the abdomen of a spider, nor did the parasite seem all that concerned that Lucian was standing there.
His gun appeared in his hand.
Lucian took two steps forward, a disgusted look on his face as he pressed the muzzle of his weapon to the side of what he assumed was the parasite’s head.
He fired two shots, but the bullets passed right through, the creature not at all disturbed
by Lucian’s actions. He tried beating the parasite with the grip of his gun, but his strikes went right through it.
Tossing his gun aside, Lucian even tried to pry the parasite off his brother’s body, all to no avail. He then equipped his switchblade and drove it into the parasite’s body, his hand again passing right through it.
His brother’s phone rang.
“...Hello?” Connor said. “I told you I was going to lunch. Had to run home to pick up something for Samantha. Yep. I’ll be there in twenty. Got it. Yep. I know.”
He hung up the phone, cursing to himself for a moment.
Connor stood, no longer with his hand on his lower back. He packed up the rest of his stuff and took it down to the basement, Lucian following behind him.
His older brother turned to a stack of storage boxes and reached for the highest box, sliding his black bag on top of it. He took a step back, made sure it was out of view, and offered a satisfied grunt.
“You asshole,” Lucian whispered, as Connor plopped down onto an old sofa in the corner.
His brother yawned, relaxed even further onto the sofa, and promptly went to sleep.
Lucian was powerful enough to conjure a loaded shotgun out of thin air, yet he could do nothing to the semi-translucent parasite on his brother’s shoulder.
It was infuriating to be so powerful yet so powerless, and as he watched his brother sleep, Lucian decided to do something about it.
He took out the small black book Old Death had given him, the one that contained the old school Mark System.
As he opened the first page, a splatter of ink began to spread across the paper, forming a map of his current location. He touched the ink once, wanting to zoom out, and as he did so the ink reformulated to a bird’s eye view of the neighborhood, red splotches appearing to indicate possible parasites.
While Lucian found Old Death’s little notebook to be interesting in a magical sense, it wasn’t practical.
Death's Mantle Page 5