Chapter 7
GERI
A simple touch did nothing.
The barista threw her head back and wailed. It was soul shattering.
Bazel said a touch. They were definitely touching. Geri couldn’t be not-touching if she wanted. Clearly the reaper lied.
“Why isn’t this working?” Fear snuck its way into her voice, which shouldn’t have surprised her because she was holding onto a wailing… something. She tried to shake off the barista but her grip was too tight.
“You must open the void,” Bazel replied from the other side of the counter.
Was he bored? He sounded bored.
“How the hell do I do that?” She shook off the barista.
“I use a scythe.”
Yup, bored.
Geri turned to give him a glare. “Do I look like a seventeenth century farmer to you?”
This job really was the worst: no training, just panic and screaming and a boss telling her to use the flibbertigibbet like she should have known that.
The barista grabbed her again, yanking her arm. Geri flinched, expecting a bite or searing pain. Instead, she found a frightened woman clinging to her, wordlessly asking for help.
Geri grabbed the cake server from on top of the pastry case. She slashed the air in the barista’s direction.
A long sigh escaped Carrie’s lips and the light left her eyes. She crumpled to the floor.
Geri dropped the cake server and it clattered to the floor.
“Lady, what did you do?” the guy with the mop asked—and not in a nice way.
“Nothing. She just fell.” Geri cradled her arm to her chest and rubbed where the barista had gripped her. The skin felt cold.
When the paramedics arrived, she used the confusion to slip away. Bazel and Bones followed, of course. She tried to ignore the way they simply melted through the crowds as she pushed her bike along the sidewalk.
She couldn’t see Bazel’s face but she just knew he was about to say something.
Holding up a finger to silence him, she said, “Not now. Just… just be quiet.”
She walked in silence, gathering her thoughts. It was a lot. The last week had been a lot.
The phone in the bike’s basket—which had not been there five minutes ago—vibrated with another message.
Geri reached over and tossed it to the ground.
“It will return,” Bazel said.
“No shit. I wish my latte would magic its way back to me. Fuck.” She clenched the handle bars, wishing she had a horn to honk or a steering wheel to pound. The bike had a little bell and that was not the same thing at all. “That was an eight-dollar latte.”
“It would be more affordable if—”
“Don’t you fucking dare lecture me about avocado toast, you ghoul.”
“If you did not ask for oat milk and a double shot of caramel.”
Mr. I’ve-Never-Had-Cake had opinions about coffee.
“What was that?” she asked, ignoring his boomer take on her order.
“A wraith, a zombie, a shade. There are many names.”
“Will that…” She tried to formulate her question. Part of her was worried that people would freak out about her talking to herself, but no one seemed to have noticed. The other part was stunned and still processing. “Will that happen to me? Am I going to zombie out?”
“No. As I attempted to explain earlier, your soul never separated from your body. You are resurrected. A revenant,” he said in a calm tone. For the first time since this mess started, he sounded gentle.
Kind.
That seemed right to her. Death should be kind. Life was too difficult to face cruelty at the end.
Or whatever happened next.
She entered her building and steered her bike toward the storage room.
Sweat rolled down her back from the brisk walk.
The air in the storage room was stuffy and too warm, yet she couldn’t take her hands off the handlebars.
Locking up her bike felt impossible because the moment she was done, she’d have to deal with him.
If anthropomorphic personifications have a gender.
“You’re real,” she said, not asking a question but needing to say the words to process.
“Vividly so.”
“And just because this keeps tripping me up, are you a man? A male. I mean, your voice. Why is this hard? You give off that vibe, but you’re currently a skeleton, so—”
“Gender is a mortal concept, and I am not a man,” he said. The kind, gentle tone was gone and replaced with a teacher prepared to deliver a lecture of metaphysical biology. “However, if it makes you comfortable, then you may think of me as a man. It is no skin off my nose.”
Awkward silence filled the storage room.
“You don’t have a nose,” she said.
“That was humor to help you cope with a reality with which you are clearly struggling.”
Geri pinched the bridge of her nose. That was a terrible joke. Her reaper was as old as time—presumably—and bungled the comedic timing. “So, if you’re real, then what about heaven? Hell? Angels? All that?”
“You asked that before.”
“And I’m asking again because before I thought I was crazy,” she said. Because she believed him to be a delusion, she demanded answers but hadn’t really listened.
“I do not know.”
“You don’t know.” She let go of the bike and turned to face him. “How can you not know?”
“I am a psychopomp. My duty is to accompany a soul as they transition into the next phase of existence. I do not judge, nor do I know what will happen next. I have never met an angel or a demon. I’ve witnessed particularly vile mortals, but they managed that evil all on their own.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice growing quiet. She was reaching her limit on weird.
“Mortals have also embodied such goodness and compassion to move even a bitter soul like mine.”
That was comforting but that wasn’t what caught her attention. “You have a soul?”
His shoulders drew back, as if offended. “Yes, I have a soul. All living creatures have a soul.”
“Dogs and cats?”
“Especially cats. They have an abundance of soul.”
“Does that mean there’s little kitty reapers? Do they chase mouse reapers?”
“You are being silly rather than confronting uncomfortable truths.”
Accurate.
The day had been trying and weird. So weird.
She needed a bit of peace. Not a lot, just a few hours of not holding a conversation with a skeleton who was completely real but only she could see.
“Look, I need time to think and I can’t do that with you lurking.
So much lurking. Can you go home? Do near-immortal beings have houses? ”
“I have a home,” he said, his tone sounding offended for reasons she could not grasp. He must not like her kicking him out.
“Yeah, just fuck off for the night. Give me some space to process.”
“Very well, but you must read the handbook,” he said and tapped the phone that miraculously appeared in the basket.
“Homework. Yipee,” she said in the driest possible tone. Fine, she’d read it since she obviously didn’t have a choice.
* * *
Welcome, New Reaper*
*The term reaper refers to your duties and not your state of being. Due to the circumstances of your resurrection, you are technically a revenant.
She needed wine. Chocolate. A pizza. That latte she paid for but left behind at the café. Something. She couldn’t face reading the dead girl handbook completely sober and without greasy carbs. A frozen pizza would have to do.
Geri made herself an iced latte and used a heavy hand with the caramel. A splash of pumpkin-flavored syrup and a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice and her homemade brew was almost as good as the café’s. Almost. The spices clumped together and clung to the side of the glass. Whatever. It tasted amazing.
Caffeinated and pizza in the oven, she turned her attention back to the ghost phone. Reaper phone. She was working on the pithy nickname.
The phone was a basic smart phone with the standard apps. Email. Text messages. Maps. Weather. At the bottom of the screen was a black box with a skull and crossbones.
Classic.
She opened the only email in her inbox.
On your device, you will find The Handbook for Mortal Souls. The original content has been modified to reflect your unique situation.
An emergency protocol has been activated by Reaper 8423 L0d3u5, endowing you with limited reaper abilities in exchange for resurrection.
Your twice-mortal body may feel strange and you will discover new senses. That is to be expected. However, do be careful! You cannot be resurrected twice. Any further deaths will be permanent.
Geri had to pause because wow. This email felt like when her parents scolded her for playing too rough and giving herself a constellation of bruises.
She hadn’t been playing rough. She was in that awkward fast-growing phase and tripped over her own feet. Twenty-five-ish years later and she was still sore at the injustice.
Emergency protocols will remain in effect until you have paid off the debt incurred from resurrection.
Your duties include reaping souls, escorting them to the next phase of existence, and opening the veil for tainted souls. The handbook will outline the details of your duties.
You will receive communications with the time, location, and name of the soul you are to collect. Do not miss your appointments! Do not try to intervene and subvert the death. Fate cannot be changed.
Reaper 8423 L0d3u5 will assist you until able to return to their duties.
We anticipate no complications as long as the rules as outlined in the handbook are followed.
Kind regards,
Management
Geri worked for a large hospital system, billing insurance and processing payments.
It was tedious, her supervisor a micromanager, and the daily grind was something she learned to tolerate.
Nothing in her years of corporate job experience prepared her for that email.
It was cold and sounded as if Management found the very necessary act of communicating with her offensive.
Honestly? Same. Geri could have happily gone the rest of her life without learning about reapers and whatnot.
The oven timer dinged and she pulled out the pizza. With a slice in hand, she scrolled through the handbook.
Nonexhaustive List of Psychopomps and the Undead.
Well, that sounded like fun reading.
Portents: aya-aye, bats, black dogs, black horse, butterflies, cicadas, crows, jackal, magpies, moths, owls, raven, white deer, and xoloitzcuintle.
Psychopomp, Anthropomorphic entities: reaper, angel, demon.
Undead, Corporeal: mummies, revenants, zombies.
Undead, Incorporeal: ghosts, wraiths…
Geri went a little cross-eyed scanning the nonexhaustive list. Maybe later. She skipped to the next section.
Essential duties for a reaper.
Now that seemed relevant to her interests.
Essential duties include reaping souls, escorting them to the next phase of existence, and opening the veil for tainted souls. A simple touch will reap a mortal soul. Prolonged contact is not necessary.
Which was a wonderfully vague statement that raised more questions than it answered. All the questions were gross. She skipped to the next section.
Code of Conduct.
Yawn. Skip.
Duties cannot be transferred to another.
That seemed misleading. Wasn’t that exactly what Bazel did to her?
She rubbed the bridge of her nose. Staring at the screen was not doing her head any favors. She’d finish reading later, after she gave her eyes a rest.