Chapter 4
GERI
He was back out there again. Lurking. Standing at the edge of the light with a black hoody hiding his face didn’t stop Geri from recognizing Jaxon.
But was it?
Maybe it was the weather finally turning cold, the rustle of dying leaves still clinging to branches, but doubt niggled at her.
That wasn’t Jaxon. It had no aura. It wasn’t even a person.
It was something worse.
For reasons she couldn’t explain, she was afraid. Unreasonably afraid.
Geri slammed the window shut and drew the curtains closed, hands trembling.
Fiddlesticks rubbed against her leg.
She picked up the cat, burying her face against gray tabby fur. A gentle purr helped to calm her pounding heart and steady her breath.
“Probably a burglar looking for an open window. Or a tourist doing a ghost hunt,” she said. The square had famously been a burial pit in the 18th century. Now that spooky season was in full swing, ghost tours meandered through the square every night after sunset.
Fiddlesticks made a noise that conveyed she did not believe a word Geri just said.
“Well, if you know so much, who do you think is?”
Fiddlesticks hissed and jumped down.
“Can’t argue with that,” she said, then checked the locks on all the windows.
BAZEL
This had gone on long enough. Diminished as he was, he could not afford to be patient.
Mortal doors and locks were no barrier. He slid through without resistance. Soon he stood in Geri’s abode.
She watched television while sitting on a pale yellow sofa with a cat in her lap. The glow from the television screen created a cozy atmosphere.
It was the oddest sensation. He felt an ache in his chest. In all his long life, he had never experienced such simple domesticity.
When he came into existence, the scene would have been people gathered around a communal fire to listen to the storyteller, but the spirit was the same: a story at the end of the day.
Over the centuries, he had watched mortals act out this ritual.
Never once had he been invited to sit by the fire or watch a program on the television, which was not as cruel as it sounded at that moment.
Mortals did not perceive him until they were near death.
Occasionally, the soon to be departed offered to share a hot meal or drink.
They called him friend. While he did not partake of either, he appreciated the offer of hospitality.
There had been the poet. He only perceived Bazel when he was delirious from drinking. It made for a very one-sided conversation. They were friends of a sort.
Once, a very frail child lingered on the threshold between life and death.
His soul was not yet ready to surrender and Bazel could only wait.
An entire season passed in companionship.
He had never had a proper friend before.
Finally, when autumn arrived and the nights grew long, the child left his failing body and moved on.
Bazel, who had always been alone since his creation, had never felt so bereft.
He hadn’t enjoyed the experience. Such emotions were a weakness.
He would never allow himself to grow close to mortals again.
No more listening to fireside stories. No more lingering in doorways and halls, yearning to be part of the conversation.
For more than three centuries he had kept himself removed from the messy business of mortals.
Yet now, more than anything, he wanted Geri to smile in his direction and pat the space on the sofa next to her, as if she had been saving it for him.
Friendship with mortals was a foolish business, and friendship with his own kind had been elusive.
Perhaps the personalities in his cohort were not the amiable kind.
Perhaps it was some quality Bazel himself possessed that kept the others at bay.
Amais had been the only one to ever have some regard for Bazel and they had not spoken in half a century.
Bazel drew himself to his full height. This was a waste of time. His kind was not given to sentimentality. His duty was enough. It had been enough for centuries. He could not afford to indulge in such foolish emotions now.
He stepped from the shadows into the light and pointed a desiccated hand in her direction. “You owe a debt, Geraldine Melnyk.”
The cat hissed and darted away. Geri shouted, leaping to her feet. “Dammit, Jaxon! What is this?”
She wasn’t afraid. Surprised and angry, but not frightened. This made him feel lighter, somehow.
“No. Not Jaxon.” He pulled back the cowl, revealing his face. He had given a significant portion of his life force to save her, and it showed. He was drained, paper thin skin over bones. “I sacrificed my life for yours. It is time to collect.”
Her eyes narrowed. “The mask isn’t bad, I’ll give you that, but the mouth doesn’t move right. You’re not fooling me, Jaxon.”
“I’ve had many names. Atenro. Nitis. Nekaanah. Awaheya. Leimannen. Grimmige reaper. I am not Jaxon.”
She swung a pillow at him.
GERI
There was a brief moment of resistance before the pillow sailed through the reaper. He burst into dust and quickly reformed.
“Do not do that again. It is unpleasant.” He shivered, if a skeleton could shiver.
No. No. Not a skeleton. Not a reaper. This was another stupid prank. A very elaborate prank with a Hollywood studio level budget for special effects, despite the fact that Jaxon barely scraped by. Maybe one of his videos finally went viral and he had internet money.
Okay. Fine. This wasn’t a prank, which left only one option.
“You’re not real,” she said. “This is a hallucination brought on by the concussion.”
“I assure you, I am real.”
“Yeah, well, a hallucination would say that.”
Now that her heart had settled down, she took a moment to look at him. To really look at him. A skeleton wearing a tattered black cloak. Classic grim reaper.
The hallucination was remarkably detailed. She supposed all hallucinations were. Her only previous experience had been the lights and colors, which the doctors warned her about. No one warned her about a six-foot-something grim reaper in her living room.
“Where’s your scythe?” she asked.
A light flared in the depths of his eyes. “That is none of your concern.”
“I’m sure it’s not healthy talking to you like you’re real—”
“I assure you, I am real.”
“But what corner of my subconscious did you crawl out from?” She circled around him, noting the way the light just seemed to avoid him altogether. He created a dark spot in the room.
“You died, Geraldine Melnyk.” His voice had a strange echoing quality.
“Well, obviously. You’re clearly a manifestation of my inner struggle with such a close brush with death.”
“I am an anthropomorphic personification of death and my existence has no bearing on your inner struggles.”
Geri wanted to laugh because her hallucination was funny but resisted. Laughing now would come off as unhinged. “You sound like you’re an actor in a period drama, kind of old fashioned and vaguely British. Why do you talk like that?”
“I speak as I have always spoken.”
“The grim reaper speaks as he has always spoken,” she parroted back, mocking him. “How old are you?”
“A grim reaper, not the grim reaper. I am one of many psychopomps,” he said, completely ignoring her question.
“A what?” She had never heard that word in her life. Her subconscious must have raided the dictionary when she was sleeping.
“A psychopomp. An entity—a spirit, angel, demon, or deity if you will—who escorts a soul on their journey.”
“Escort where?”
“That is not for me to know,” he said.
“So heaven and hell are real? Angels and demons. This is what you’re telling me?”
“That is not for me to know,” he repeated. “I do not judge. I simply help the soul release from this life.”
“You kill people.”
“They had an appointment with death. Most people move on without assistance. Some get stuck.” His eyes darkened, which was odd because he didn’t have eyes, just a pair of black pits in the skull. “Some souls have spoiled like milk left in the sun and are sent to the void.”
“And I died.”
“You did,” he said. “I gifted you with my life force to restore you to life, binding us together. Now I am unable to interact with this world. You will be my hands until my energy is restored and I can resume my duties.”
Geri had to sit down for this. “So I’m a reaper now?”
“Technically a revenant, but the details are irrelevant. Your function will very much be as a reaper.”
She sagged back against the sofa cushions. She had no idea what a revenant was or what that meant, but researching it on her phone felt like letting him win an argument. “No, I think the details are very important here. You claim I owe you a debt.”
“Correct.”
“I didn’t ask for this. You gave it to me willingly, making my continued existence a gift. I owe you nothing.” Carrying on a conversation with her hallucination couldn’t be healthy. Like that game Anh loved so much, Geri could feel her sanity points trickle away when confronted by a cosmic horror.
Sorry, anthropomorphic personification.
She’d have to stop before she crossed a point of no return and her brain turned into jello.
If it weren’t already.
“Death will continue. Souls will need to be released. You will perform this task.”
“Have another reaper cover while you’re out sick. I really don’t see what this has to do with me.”
His eyes darkened again. “That is not an option.”
Uh-huh. She knew a big stinking lie when she heard one. “And who decides which souls you take?”
“That is not for me to decide,” he answered, repeating his favorite phrase.
“But how do you know? Do you just randomly grab people, or does your Spidey sense tingle?”
“I receive messages.” He reached into his robe and pulled out a well-worn leatherbound book. “Names, dates, and locations. The rules. Guidance on conduct. All that is necessary for me to know is within these pages. You have one as well. Check your pocket.”
As he spoke, as if casting a spell, she felt a weight shift in her lounge pants pockets. She pulled out an older model smart phone. For a hallucination, it felt remarkably real. Like, she could believe that she held a real phone in her hands.
The screen lit with the message, “Welcome, Geraldine.”
Hell no.
Geri tossed the phone at the reaper. “And what do the rules say about reviving people without their consent?”
“Would you rather be dead?”
He was infuriating, for an anthropomorphic personification of death, but perhaps they were all infuriating. “No, I rather enjoy being alive, but I also rather enjoy being asked for permission, especially when given a gift with so many strings. I won’t do it.”
“You must,” he said, like that was a valid argument.
“You can’t make me,” she retorted, which was a perfectly respectable counterargument with a long tradition of being employed by younger siblings.
“A soul may pass onto what is next on their own. Most do, but some do not. If the death is sudden or traumatic, they can be confused. They need a guide.”
“Don’t care.”
“A newly deceased soul may try to reseat itself in its body. Their hearts no longer beat, but they rise. They are little more than ambulating corpses. It is an abomination.”
Geri’s instinct was to continue to deny him, but now she was curious. “I died. I got back up. Am I an abomination?”
“No. Your soul did not leave your body.”
Well, that was something. Her subconscious or wherever in her psyche this reaper sprang from wasn’t insulting her, just playing in her face.
Geri marched to the kitchen, opened a cabinet, and pulled down the plastic storage container filled with meds. She needed to sleep and grabbed the bottle of Nyquil. A dose usually knocked her on her butt when she was snotty.
She cradled the bottle to her chest. A solid eight hours would fix this situation. Probably. Unless her brain was bleeding and she died in her sleep.
“None of this is real,” she said. “I’ve had a traumatic brain injury. I’m stressed. I’m exhausted. This isn’t real.”
“Geraldine—” The reaper was beside her, his hand covering hers over the bottle.
Covering her heart.
His touch was cold, barely a whisper of weight but cold, like the crisp air of an autumn morning.
“What can I tell you to convince you of my verisimilitude?”
There was nothing he could say that wasn’t pulled from some corner of her mind, even a word like verisimilitude.
This wasn’t real, but it felt real. He felt real.
“Enough.” He did not shout but his voice echoed throughout her entire body. “Death has always been your close companion. Now you are its servant.”