by Jack Wallen
“Fuck you!” Jons shouted. “I am the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I am the God of chaos and strife, he who would mete out justice to the deserving.”
I continued pressing through the throng of flesh. With each step, I could feel the reaped bodies scrambling to latch onto me. Should I lose my forward momentum, all would be lost. The struggle was all too real. Tendrils of suffering licked at my soul, begging for me to stop and come play. I fought against the unrelenting tide until I found myself in the clear…heart broken, but sanity intact. Not ten feet from me, Jons stood shaking with rage. Before Mark could act, I rushed him. He raised his hands, shouting a stream of incoherent babble to seemingly invite me into the inner sanctum of his soul.
The collision bore me into a world bereft of sensation. I floated in a sea of never-ending nothing. No sound, no sight, no smell. Am I dead? I thought. It was the only logical hypothesis…that I’d passed over into the big sleep beyond. My switch had been flipped and the energy that was my existence had been terminated.
I attempted to scream, but could produce no sound. I slapped at my flesh, but could feel no pain. The one certainty I could count on was that I wept. My body convulsed with violent and silent sobs.
“Who are you?” I called out…unsure if the words formed correctly or not.
A flickering light flashed once, twice, three times. I cried my question out again; the lights fluttered in response.
“Reaper.” The word—my title—was spoken with a disdain I’d never before heard.
“Who are you?” I said without saying.
Silence.
“Answer my question!” I demanded without any level of certainty.
“Original sin,” the rumbling voice replied.
The recursion of the Scythe went deeper than I’d expected.
“Welcome to the beginning, Reaper; or, in your case, the end.”
Without conscious thought, the image of X filled my inner sight; her smile and meltaway eyes promised a world of which I so badly wanted to partake.
“Yes, Reaper, relish the last vestiges of joy. You will never experience such trivialities as pleasure again.”
“I don’t understand,” I did my best to stall until I could muster up enough energy to do…something.
“You are now a part of me, Grim. We are one and there is no escape.” Jons—or whatever this was—laughed. “How does it feel to be a part of man’s darkness? We are hopelessness, sorrow, death, and damnation. In the end…there is only loss, and we are there to fill its void with a most unimaginable nothing.”
I braced myself, knowing what I was about to attempt could very well backfire and finally bring an end to my existence.
For whatever reason, I was okay with that. Finality. After over five centuries of eating the sin and salvation of the human race, I could get used to the idea of becoming one with the infinite void.
Within the damning well inside the Scythe, I exhaled until my diaphragm ached. I tossed up a prayer to Fate, knowing it wouldn’t hear or heed my call…but needing the peace of mind that came with the deed.
My next move could be my last.
I inhaled.
The soul of Jons—or whatever it was—fought back, refusing to give quarter. I continued drawing in breath, knowing this would be my one and only chance. I drew in nothing but fetid air and was about to succumb to failure, when the first vestige of a soul—the tiniest fragment—entered my lungs. That glimmer of hope urged me on. I redoubled my effort to take down the darkness.
The scales of justice tipped my way. Jons was being unmade by the reaping. From within, his scream was shrill and violent. He knew he’d underestimated my power and persistence. The metaphor of his existence scraped and clawed at the walls of the Antirealm in a desperate attempt to remain intact. The harder Jons fought, the more his spiritual shroud disintegrated. Victory was upon me and it was a sweet reprieve.
And then it stopped. Time and breath froze. I struggled to reignite the flame of war, but to no avail. Before my eyes, a trail of shadow could be drawn from the center of the big nothing to me. Jons’ fractured soul was nearly reaped. I was so close. And yet…I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream…could only stare at my failure.
“Reaper.” A voice, deep and guttural, rattled my skull.
Who are you? I thought.
“This is not the way,” the voice skirted my question.
I don’t understand!
A pinprick of white light pulsed in the distance. Blink. Blink. Blink. My heartbeat instantly matched the slow, hypnotic rhythm. I focused every ounce of attention I had on the miniscule beacon.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
The rhythm and size of the light pulse intensified exponentially until it consumed the Antirealm and Jons…
…with white.
“Welcome back, Grim.”
Fate stood before me, in a form my mind could comprehend—a human caught somewhere between male and female, fashioned very much after a certain Swinton. “Does this visage please you?” Fate asked.
I nodded, bewildered. “Why am I here?” A surge of anger rushed to the surface. “I was about to reap Jons!” I bellowed.
Fate drew nearer to me than it ever had, forcing my body back with a field of radiant energy. “That is precisely why you are here, Reaper.”
“I don’t understand. You wanted me to bring the Scythe to you…I was so close.”
Fate shook its head. “No, Grim, you were not. Had you succeeded in reaping that particular Scythe, it would have consumed you from within. You, my soldier, would have been forever lost. Besides, I didn’t want you to bring the Scythe to me so that it could be destroyed.”
Nothing made sense. The crushing blow of confusion dropped me to my knees.
“Grim,” Fate said softly as it knelt next to me—a gesture unlike any I’d ever beheld from the being. “Do you understand what you were up against?”
I shook my head.
“That particular Scythe had borne a great many evil men. To trace its history would take you back centuries…to the original Beast.”
“Satan?” I asked, weakened from the weight of doubt and confusion.
Fate laughed. “No, Grim. The true mark of the beast was never Lucifer Morningstar. That was a construct of man to ensure a sort of universal moral compass. The Beast was real, flesh and bone…Caesar Nero. The Roman emperor’s name, written in Aramaic, was translated to the numeric value of 666.”
I glanced up to see spokes of light disrupting my vision. “That Scythe was the soul of—”
“Nero,” Fate interrupted. “At least one of its incarnations. You need not venture back in time much further to understand the profundity of evil trapped within that soul.”
“And you sent me—”
Fate stood, the sheer grace of the motion had the instant effect of silencing me. “To banish the Scythe from the firmament. Which you did.”
It was my turn to stand…and bristle. “That’s not what you—”
“Grim.” Fate’s whispered warning served its purpose well. I cut myself short, before my condemnation of Fate would turn me inside out with consequence.
“I did what was necessary, Grim. Had you remained in the Antirealm one second longer, the Scythe would have won. The fallout from that victory would have unmade reality, layer by layer. You succeeded, you survived…end of story.”
I crossed my arms like a pouting and petulant child. “No. This isn’t the end of the story.”
Fate’s form swelled. In that moment, I knew I’d crossed a line and couldn’t possibly backpedal my way out of whatever punishment Fate would summon. “Oh? Do tell?” Fate teased me.
“X,” I said without hesitation.
Fate grinned. “Your toy.”
“She’s…” I stopped myself, knowing I couldn’t possibly win a battle of semantics against Fate. “Yes.”
“What about her?”
“She successfully reaped a soul.”
Fate nodded. “Your point?�
�
“Her destiny rested in the outcome of her reaping and my bringing the Scythe to you.” I deflated slightly. “She succeeded; I failed.”
Fate floated, its feet mere inches from the floor of the NetherRealm. A sigh escaped its lips. “This was not a binary exam, Reaper. You proved yourself worthy of protecting the souls of humankind against the rising tide of evil. There has been a shift in the natural order, one which I cannot fight back on my own.”
“What are you saying, Fate?”
Fate bowed its head, allowing its attention to be momentarily drawn inward. When it finally glanced back up, it said slowly, “A war is coming, one I cannot win alone. This is a reality that has bubbled beneath the surface long before you were tasked with curating the souls of the dying.” Fate gave pause, its eyes closed as if carefully considering its next words. “The looming darkness was my doing. I challenged the Originator on the fallibility of the spirit—both human and animal. When man and woman first emerged they were without souls; hollow, sentient shells with a rudimentary self-awareness. They existed…only just. I confronted the Originator with the idea of extending their humanity beyond the flesh, insisted the creature could take on the burden of life after death. The Originator was convinced his creation would collapse under the weight of such knowledge. To prove its point, the first soul was fashioned from the combined memories of the prime. When the soul proved itself a viable means to propel the human spirit forward, the Originator lashed out at the loss and condemned the first soul to return as the antithesis of its original intent.”
“The first Scythe?” I mumbled.
Fate nodded its head. “That one Scythe has managed to perpetuate itself into a remarkably powerful force. Until now, there was no way I could take down this dark army. With you and X at my side, there is a chance. Otherwise, a legion of Scythes will overtake the firmament to bring about the end of days. I am going to need you to train X so both of you can serve as my warriors against the Antirealm. Know this, the Originator will attack without mercy. You must be prepared to fight.”
“And if we refuse?” I dared ask.
Fate cast its gaze deep within mine and said simply, “You know the answer to that question, Grim.”
We stared at one another for what seemed like hours. I’d experienced that same disconnect of time within the NetherRealm enough to know, within the incalculable multitude of hours, mere seconds had ticked by; an immeasurable incongruence of moments. Beyond the passing of time, the answer to my question became exceedingly obvious.
We would not, could not refuse.
“You understand now,” Fate said with a gentle tone.
“This is how it was supposed to be all along,” I replied. The ah-ha moment threatened to crop me at the knees and drop me to the floor. “This was your plan. My reaping of X wasn’t an accident.”
Fate nodded. “Christine was the missing piece. She was your destiny, Grim. The addition of your mortal friends was, shall I say, a happy accident.”
Of that there was no doubt…on any and all levels.
Before I could reply to Fate’s proclamation, it took the narrative to another level. “You’re in love with her.”
And there it was. I had finally reached the point where I couldn’t deny the feelings that had developed since meeting Christine. Go figure it’d be Fate to call me out on caving to the very human-centric notion of love.
A smile broke out across Fate’s pseudo-mouth. “It’s okay to admit it, Grim. You won’t have been the first of the Eternal to have caved to the fanciful.”
“The Eternal?” I asked, unsure if I’d heard Fate correctly.
Fate shook its head. “Let’s forget I said that.”
“How about let’s not. You can’t just drop a name like The Eternal and move on as if nothing happened. Is that some kind of superhero—or anti-superhero—team? And, more importantly, am I part of it?”
“It’s just a name I use for those who serve me.”
“In other words…me?”
Fate laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself, Reaper; I have more than you at my beckon call.”
“I thought I was the only Reaper?”
“You were,” Fate answered and then immediately added, “until X marked that particular spot.”
“So who else is on Team Fate?”
“That information is above your pay grade.”
“You don’t pay me, Fate.”
“Don’t piss me off, Reaper,” Fate responded with a slight grin. I was lucky to have caught the teasing nod, otherwise I would have said something to seriously regret…for eternity. I’d pissed Fate off plenty of times before; its wrath was beyond the pale.
A quick change of subject was required. “What now?”
Fate floated backward and took a seated position…without having a chair to perch upon. It tilted its head my way. “As I mentioned previously, your job is to train the beloved in the finer points of reaping. You must have her battle-ready before darkness falls.”
Panic squeezed reason from my system. “Are you fucking kidding me? How in the hell am I supposed to fully train X in a matter of hours?”
Fate raised its palm to me and laughed. “Relax, Grim. I was speaking in metaphors.”
Go figure. I called myself on the slip. “By darkness you mean Jons?”
“In a manner of speaking. Jons was only the latest incarnation of that particular Scythe.”
“What do we call it?”
Frustration seeped from Fate’s pores. “It’s Darkness, Grim. Just Darkness.” Fate rose from its seated position. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have other matters to attend to.”
Before I could respond, Fate and the NetherRealm blinked from existence.
Chapter 18
White.
The color of innocence.
At least the standard convention would say.
In this case, white meant deception.
X’s nightgown, back in black, flapped in the stiff New York breeze. She stood, arms outstretched as if reaching for something, locked in a silent scream of anguish…exactly as I’d left her upon entering Jons. Although her face was paused in an expression of terror, there was an eloquence to the scene I couldn’t quite place; a poetry to the picture; a beauty trapped in the knowledge of the horror that had been unfolding within frozen seconds. Time halted in my absence and graced X with an angelic aura.
I reached out toward X and the moment of peace was snapped. X unleashed her stopped scream at the flailing, writhing mass of black.
Only now…the Scythe was gone.
X fell silent and glanced about the pier to take us in, one by one. When her gaze met mine, a flood of tears breached the dams of her eyes. Her lower lip quivered and she painted the silence with two simple words wrapped in a blanket of sadness. “We failed.”
“What the fuck happened?” Ammy’s voice greeted me from behind.
“Dude,” Darthaniel chimed in, “one minute Jons was there, the next—poof—he vanished. What gives, poet and priest?”
One by one, I took in the unwitting warriors. “We won…for now.”
X faced me, her face a knot of emotional and mental confusion. “How?”
I offered a single nod.
“You?” X whispered.
Another nod, this time accompanied by a much-needed sigh.
Before I could speak, X launched herself at me and pulled me into a bear hug of an embrace. Not a word was exchanged; we knew…felt the silent exchange between two hearts ready to explode with an abundance of emotion.
As we surrendered to the silent promise of forever, my stomach growled, loud enough for all to hear.
“Pizza Shack!” Darth called out.
I nodded, both disappointed by and relieved for the distraction. There’d be no way to get around explaining the events that had unfolded within the two realms; but at the moment, there was no reason to not celebrate the survival at hand.
And then there was the big burgeoning whatever tying my soul t
o X’s. With every blink of the eye, with every beat of the heart, we drew closer. Soon, there’d be no turning back. Come to think of it, that event horizon had already been passed.
X leaned in and planted the sweetest kiss on my lips. I breathed in her scent before she could pull away; a dizzying mixture of euphoria and fear with a hint of cinnamon and coffee.
We returned to and piled into the car—X remaining silent the entire time—and finally sped off, as far away from the pier as the boundaries of New York City would allow us.
Ammy turned to face the back of the car, her face a puzzle of curiosity. “So? Are you going to tell us what happened? Or are we going to have to guess?”
I didn’t have the energy for a full previously on Reaper recap. To save time and sanity, I simply said, “The challenge ahead will test us to our limits. I hope you’re ready for it.”
It was X’s turn to play the curious kitten. “What kind of challenge have you volunteered us for now, Grim?”
“The kind that saves the world,” I answered simply.
“Hell, yeah,” Darth shouted, and punched the gas.
The Pizza Shack was empty…which was surprising for this time of night in New York. Louis’ had always been a hot spot at all hours of the day. Twenty-four-seven pizza was about as New York as bagels with a schmear of attitude. But tonight, the absence of a crowd was a blessing in disguise. Should someone have entered with a black aura, I couldn’t be certain I’d have the energy or the mental prowess for a reaping. I barely had enough left in the tank to eat a slice of pie—and that was saying more than I cared to accept.
X raised a cup full of carbonation and smiled. “To our very own Scooby Gang.”
The thunk of plastic drinkware was a joyous noise to me. I needed this moment of togetherness to rid me of the bleak image of Jons and the Scythe.
Ammy drank quickly and turned her attention back to me. “So, where do we fit into the grand scheme of this black veiled thing? Us…Darth and me?”
The pizza arrived just in time to aid in my ducking and dodging a question I had no easy answer for.
Halfway through my slice, Ammy regrouped. “Seriously, Grim. I have the sight, Darth has…I don’t know…the wheels. We have to be of some value to the cause. Right?”