A Tale Of Two Reapers

by Jack Wallen

  “I assumed.”

  X sighed and wrung her hands. “She picked up the nickname do to her fondness for memory-altering drugs.”

  “And?” I prodded.

  “She has a problem, Grim. Amnesia is an addict. With a little help from a few very close friends, Ammy has been sober for nearly six months. I don’t want to be responsible for ending that streak.”

  The answer, at least the one in my head, was simple. “Do you have any controlled substances in your home?”

  X shook her head. “Not since I grew close to Ammy.”

  “Good. Then we lock her in, do our thing, and come back.”

  “No way, Grim!” X growled. “I’m not locking that girl in my home. What happens if there’s a fire?”

  Before X could get too wound up, I brought her to silence with a raised hand. “We don’t have a choice, X. We can’t take her with us. We were lucky once…that luck won’t hold for a second round.” An idea occurred to me. “You don’t happen to have a babysitter, do you?”

  X’s eyes and smile lit up. “You’re brilliant, Grim. I may not have a babysitter, but a lot of people are in debt to me for serious favors. What say I cash in on one now?”

  I nodded slowly. X picked up the receiver of her phone and dialed a number. After an instant, X finally said into the mouthpiece, “Remember that favor you owe me? It’s time you paid that back. Be at my place as fast as you can or the interest triples.” X placed the cradle into the base and nodded my way. “Done. What’s next?”

  “We leave and begin a long day of reaping,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “I’m very down with that,” X replied as she crossed to the door of the room, a toothy grin spread across her face. “But first…breakfast.”

  We ate in relative silence, fearful and mindful of not waking up the sleeping princess. With every bite X took, her nervousness was on full display.

  “There’s no need to be scared, X.” I did my best to comfort the frightened prodigy. “You know what you’re doing, and I’ll be by your side the entire time. Besides, Fate won’t tolerate you putting this off any longer.”

  Before X could reply, an all-too-familiar atonal melody chimed. The pulse of fear kicked my heart back to nightmare pace as I waited for chunks of flesh to fly from the woman before me. When that didn’t happen, I realized the fear-inducing notes rang out from the door.

  “That’ll be my favor.” X smiled and excused herself from the table.

  “Grim,” X called out. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

  I shoved one last forkful of waffle into my mouth and made my exit from the breakfast spread. In the television room, X stood beside a gangly man in a kilt with the biggest waterfall of dreadlocks I’d ever beheld.

  “Grim,” X presented her friend. “This is Darthaniel.”

  “Nice to meet you, man.” Darthaniel spoke with a thick Jamaican accent.

  I nodded. “Likewise. Star Wars fan?”

  “Excuse me?” Darth asked.

  “Are you a fan of the films?”

  Darth shook his head. “Not especially. I think I’ve seen one of them. Maybe. I’m not so sure. The only movies I do are the cinema of the mind.”

  “I just assumed…never mind.” I brushed the obvious aside.

  “So all I need to do is the usual? Make sure Ammy doesn’t leave or do nothin’ stupid?”

  X nodded as she handed a piece of paper over to Darthaniel. “That’s exactly right.”

  “I think I can do just that,” Darth confirmed.

  “I’d hope so, considering how much you’re—”

  X and Darth shot dangerous looks my way. I raised my hands in surrender. “Ignore the idiot behind the velvet curtain.”

  “We have no idea how long this will be, D. Make yourself at home. You know where everything is, and you have my number.”

  Darthaniel nodded and made his way to the couch, waving his arms to bring the TV to life. “Enjoy the date, you two.”

  “No, it’s not like…” X checked herself before she could embarrass or hurt me. Instead of dining further on filet of sole, X grabbed my arm and led me out of the townhouse.

  “You’re ashamed of me.”

  X continued onward in complete silence.

  “J’accuse, Xtine,” I called out, mostly in jest.

  Christine didn’t find my attempt at levity successful. She stopped in mid-stride, released my hand, and turned to face me. Instead of speaking a word, she pulled me to her and sealed her lips on mine. We stood in the center of the hallway, locked in an epic war of the tongues, unsure if what we were doing would ever come back to haunt us. To be honest, I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was the kiss.

  “What will Fate say—” X mumbled during a mad scramble for air.

  “Shut up,” I whispered. “Kiss me.”

  To my great relief, X complied with my command.

  We managed to pull ourselves apart, breathing like we’d just completed a marathon between us.

  “Did that really happen?” X asked.

  I nodded.

  “Should it happen again?”

  Another nod.

  “I agree.”

  X came in for another round. I shrugged off my overactive hormones and raised a hand to stop her. She immediately stomped her foot and huffed.

  “The reap waits for no one,” I said with a half-smile.

  X snapped her fingers, placed the tip of her right index finger under my chin, and guided my head forward until it was inches from hers. “Fine. But I expect an encore when we return.”

  “You leave me no choice…” I stopped myself. “I don’t even know your last name. Was that intentional? Are you keeping me in the dark so I’ll remain distant?”

  X simultaneously shook her head and rolled her eyes—an action that might topple lesser creatures. “You’re insane, Grim, you know that?”

  “It comes with the territory.” I tapped the button to call the elevator. “Shall we get to work?”

  X blew a kiss to me. My breath caught.

  “By the way, what was that paper you passed to Darth Aniel?”

  “Good one. Seriously, he’s not a Star Wars fan.”

  “Note to self,” I said with a bit of snark. “The paper?”

  “A little assurance he can use against his slumlord that I had procured a while back. I knew it would come in handy someday.”

  The street was bustling with human activity. The energy given off by the mass of New Yorkers was palpable. Auras of every hue milled about the sidewalk.

  X scanned the area. “Does each color mean something different?”

  “No. The only thing that matters is the one color. Orange, red, mauve, chartreuse, purple, green…they’re all the same.”

  “I so badly want to dig a deeper meaning out of that…but I’ll not. If you think about it, that’s kind of a waste, Grim. Wouldn’t it be, I don’t know, better if each color represented a different personality type, or mood? Imagine being able to see exactly what emotional state someone was in before you had that first interaction. Damn, that would prevent a lot of awkward silences and miscues.”

  I couldn’t possibly disagree with X on this front. But Fate never saw to it to create a color coded legend for auras. This was a black and white issue, with no room for variation on the theme.

  “Was I really your first mistake?” X dared ask.

  The question caught me off guard. I stuttered and stumbled over my answer. “I think you know by now you weren’t a mistake.”

  “Come on, Grim. Let’s not fall back into that vomitus pit of romance. I was a mistake that happened to work out very much in your favor. It’s okay to admit that. I’m not some delicate flower that’ll wither and die if I find out that you didn’t consider me the one the second you laid eyes on me. Remember…pragmatism?”

  I stopped in mid-stride, my arm extended fully to point across the street. “Over there,” I said just loud enough for X to hear. She followed my index finger
and spotted the aura in question.

  “Wow,” X exclaimed.

  I needed no further explanation from my cohort. The man within the blackened aura was the very definition of creep. He stood on the corner, glowering and glaring at every woman to cross his path, his beady eyes looking over coke bottle glasses, his pencil-thin fingers nervously smoothing back oil-slick hair.

  “Please don’t tell me you’re going to—”

  “Make you reap that guy?” I interrupted. “You’re damn straight.” I patted X on the back. “Don’t worry, he’s harmless.”

  “So says you!” X huffed. “Look at him! The second I get near the guy, he’ll club me over the head and drag me into an outcropping of trees to defile the innocence out of me.”

  I stopped X short. “First off, do you see an outcropping of trees nearby? I’ll answer that for you…no, you don’t. Second, the man’s just standing there like he has very little in the way of higher brain functionality.”

  “Looks can be deceiving, Grim.”

  “Not this time, X. You’ll just have to trust me. Think you can do that?”

  X hesitantly nodded.

  “Atta girl.” I offered X the slightest nudge to get her moving toward the mark. She staggered at first, but eventually managed to gather her wits and plod purposefully across the street. I opted to follow close behind. I’d promised to keep watch, and there was no way in hell I’d go back on my word.

  X made a wide arc around the glowering man and stopped in her tracks when she stood directly behind him. She tossed a glance my way. I nodded. X returned the gesture, exhaled the stale air from her lungs, and fell into the disturbed and disturbing mark.

  Everything came to a stop. I wasn’t certain if it was my state of being or Fate playing the dirtiest of all tricks on me…but time paused long enough for my nerves to tighten and snap. It was everything I could do to not dive into the man and pull X out myself. I had to think that would be a costly mistake…one from which she may or may not recover. This was like tossing your child into the deep end of the pool for an instant lesson in sink or swim. Most often they figured out how to reach the water’s edge on their own. But every parent knew to stand close by on the off chance it was their child who couldn’t come to grips with idea that water and lungs did not go well together.

  As my nervous energy reached a pulsing climax, X stumbled out of the man and fell to her knees. She coughed and cried out like her life had been forfeit to the reap. The man’s aura seeped from between her lips. “Close your mouth!” I shouted, but it was too late. No big deal, I reminded myself—I’d just have to inhale the aura before it resettled around the guy. But the aura rose upward, not shifting to white.

  Behind X, still standing on the sidewalk, the mark nodded and walked away as if he’d recalled the school bus schedule just in time to hang out and leer. I turned my attention skyward, hoping to see a trail of white aura. No such luck. The small black cloud writhed in the air as it took on a shape I’d hoped to never see again.

  “Scythe,” I whispered. “Son of a bitch.”

  “Grim,” X wailed out my name, still at my feet.

  I knelt next to X and pulled her in tight. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

  X shoved me away. “No, Grim, it’s not okay,” she choked and coughed.

  I grabbed X’s hand. “What the hell happened?”

  She turned to me, her eyes rimmed with abject fear, and blinked a river down her cheeks. “That bastard…the last memory…” X struggled to draw in a single, life-affirming breath. I rubbed her back to calm her. She finally managed to draw in just enough air to finish her thought. “He has a woman trapped in his house. He’s been…oh, God…abusing her, raping her. We have to stop him, Grim.”

  “We have bigger problems than that, X.”

  X shoved me away and stood on wobbly legs. “Did you hear what I said, Grim? That man—”

  I grabbed X by the shoulders. “You released his aura before he died, X. Very bad things happen when auras of the living escape.”

  X shook her head and wiped at her eyes. A thick smear of eyeliner and mascara streaked across her face. “I don’t understand. Isn’t that what happened to me?”

  “No. Yes. Sort of. That man is going to die…soon. His aura was black. The color of your aura was hidden by that angsty cloud you carried around. You’re still alive, so you and your aura are still tethered to one another. When a black aura is released from the reaper before the mark dies, it morphs into a malicious entity I call a Scythe—we’re talking pure evil. It very rarely happens, but when it does the Scythe has only one purpose…to find another host. If you really want to know how fucked up this situation is, a few notable madmen who possessed the souls of Scythes were Hitler, Pol Pot, Hirohito, Vlad Dracula, Osama Bin Laden…need I go on?”

  Something came over X. I wasn’t sure how to define it, other than to say the look on her face scared the shit out of me. When she finally spoke, her voice ventured into husky depths I couldn’t believe she was capable of producing.

  “You owe me this, Grim. If it weren’t for you, my biggest concern would be planning my outfit for a night of clubbing. If you don’t humor me on this now, you will spend the rest of your eternal life regretting your choice.”

  I was damned from every conceivable angle. My only consolation was knowing how long it generally took a Scythe to locate a suitable host and that the process of merging usually took some time to complete. My best guess was around forty-eight hours. Beyond that and I risked bringing the next Josef Mengele into the world.

  “Fine. But we don’t have much in the way of time. So whatever it is you want us to do, we have to take care of it now.”

  X closed her eyes. “I saw a dilapidated house.”

  “You’re going to have to give me more than that, Christine.” I had no idea why I opted to use her full name. “There are probably a million and a half run-down houses in the state of New York.”

  She stood, eyes still closed and arms raised high, swaying on the sidewalk…looking, for all intents and purposes, as if she were about to break out her best modern dance moves. Any second, Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” would spill from some hidden loudspeakers and a flash mob would arrive to stop New York traffic. X continued. “An elementary school. A nursing home. A bus stop.” X opened her eyes wide. “Queens. St. Mary’s Elementary school. His house is directly across from that.”

  Without hesitation, I spun on my heels and hailed a cab. To my shock, one pulled up immediately and flipped on its light. We slid into the back of the cab and closed the door. I did my usual thing of scanning for the driver’s license to ease my paranoia about being scammed.

  “Ranjeet,” I said after spotting the necessary credentials. “Queens. St. Mary’s Elementary. As quickly as you possibly can.”

  “Yes, please,” Ranjeet said, and punched the gas.

  I never liked Queens much. My Manhattan snobbery tends to rear its ugly head anytime I venture beyond the one true New York City. X’s adventure wouldn’t do much for my attitude toward the borough. The saving grace was I could turn and spy the world’s greatest skyline any time I fucking pleased.

  We stood on the street, staring at the house X was certain contained a bound and gagged woman.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked calmly.

  “Break into that fucker’s house and free the woman I saw in his memory…that’s what,” X growled, her fuse shortened to a dangerous length. “Tell me you have experience breaking and entering.”

  “Why in the hell would you think I have—”

  X stopped me cold. “Because you’ve been around for centuries and your slight of hand picking pockets would rival the best magician on the goddamn planet. That’s how the hell. Care to refute my assumption?”

  I stood silent, fear of the woman before me sealing my lips tight.

  “I didn’t think so.” X stormed off toward the house. “Come on, Houdini. You have a lock to pick.”

  X pi
cked up the pace. Without so much as chancing a look either way, she rushed up the stairs to the door of the house, turned, and waited for me.

  “Did you try the door?” I asked.

  “Did you see me do that?”

  “Point taken,” I mumbled, and pulled the tattered screen open. I took in a deep breath, reached out for the handle…to find it locked tight. If X was right, and this house contained a woman being held against her will, every door and window would be barred from unwanted entry. I had to think fast on my feet to figure out away in.

  “Hold this,” I offered the handle of the screen door to X. She begrudgingly held it open as I dropped to my knees and pulled out the leather wallet containing my picks. I learned, long ago, to not let a door stop me from saving souls. It took me a few years to master the technique; but at this point, no lock could hold me back.

  I slipped the tension wrench into the lock and followed it up with the correct rake for the model. A quick twist, and lock gave up the ghost. The handle turned and the door swung open.

  “Oh, my God,” X gagged. “What is that smell?”

  “Bad meat or good cheese would be my guess,” I answered.

  X ignored my smart-ass comment and rushed off into the darkened house. I did my best to follow close behind as she scrambled about, desperately searching.

  The last door we approached was covered in peeling beige strips that revealed a blistering red beneath the aging skin of paint. I had never been one to believe in signs, but if I were, I was fairly certain we were staring straight into the metaphorical eyes of ominous.

  “Open it,” X whispered, her soft voice shaking.

  I couldn’t argue with a woman on the verge of losing it. My heart danced a pitter-patter rhythm that threatened to undo me from the inside out, so I could only imagine the shock flooding X’s system at the moment.

  “Maybe you should wait in the—”

  “Maybe you should go to Hell…by way of that door,” X replied.

  She was right. If anyone were to venture into the mouth of danger, it’d be me. Why? Probably because I’m death. But in my heart—where it counted—chivalry was far from dead.

  With that thought bolstering my courage, I reached out and twisted the handle. Nothing.