Chapter 9
BAZEL
“What’s the reaper retirement plan look like?”
Geri’s curiosity was endless. He did not consider it a bad thing, but it was exhausting.
“I do not know,” he answered.
She snorted. “Your favorite words.”
He knew, of course, but the answer was complex and he did not wish to go into the details. Instead, he said, “A reaper’s lifespan is not like yours.”
“So you work until you drop dead?” In one hand she clutched a cup of coffee. The other held a bagel. Bones patiently at her feet, waiting for a morsel to drop.
“We exist to work. If we can no longer perform our duties, we are not reapers,” he said.
“Work until you cease to exist. Sounds terrible. Hold this for a second.” She extended the coffee to him, silently asking him to hold it, and immediately realized her mistake.
Cheeks red, her gaze bounced between the coffee and bagel.
She set the coffee down on a nearby ledge, tore off a chunk of the bagel, and tossed it to Bones who gulped it down.
“Have some decorum,” Bazel chided. Bones licked her chops, unbothered. “You are learning bad habits and it is concerning.”
“Why do you care if she has bad manners?” Geri asked, taking a bite of the bagel. “I thought she wasn’t your dog.”
“Disgraceful, the pair of you.”
Geri laughed and tossed Bones another chunk.
“But seriously,” she said, “are you and your four centuries considered old for a reaper?”
“You want to know this because…” He let his voice trail off.
“Just curious.”
Yes, Geri was a curious one. Perhaps his task would be easier if he had chosen someone less inquisitive. She was not the only person who lived close to the veil. He could have waited another day or two.
It did not matter. The deed was done and the idea of being bound to another person was repellent. He only wanted Geri.
“There are some remaining who are of the same cohort as me. Fewer are those who came before me,” he said.
There were younger reapers but they were products of a different age.
They understood the modern world. Bazel did not have time nor the inclination to form an attachment, but he had a fondness for Amais, who was only a century old.
Geri made a humming noise. He did not like it. That was the noise she made when she searched for the holes in his answers.
Too curious.
Being the focus of that curiosity was unsettling and exhilarating. He did not know what to do with that particular combination of emotions.
“What happened to those who came before you? Do they retire to Ghost Florida?” she asked.
“What comes next is unknown.”
“Do you have family? I know, you sprang fully formed from the ether, but do you? Parents? Siblings?” Geri asked. “I know it’s a silly question. Familial structures, if they existed for reapers, won’t resemble anything like human families.”
“I do not have a family.”
As such.
“That sounds lonely,” she said.
“It can be,” he said with a candor that surprised him. “My cohort was the closest thing I have to siblings.”
“Tell me all about them.” Excitement shone in her eyes.
“Seraphina was the last I had regular contact with. I am unsure of the others, if they still exist.”
The excitement dimmed. “I’m sorry.”
“Do not be. Our duties come first. They would not want me to waste time mourning them.”
Zarall would be appalled at such an emotional display.
The last time he saw Zarall, they reaped souls as a fire spread to the neighboring houses and ultimately took out half the city block.
That was three decades ago. Humble Good Day—last reported to be in Chicago—would share some wise reflections on the nature of their existence.
Even if their life was long, it was still temporary, or some such thing.
“Wow, your relationship with grief is super unhealthy,” Geri said.
“That is a mortal concern.”
“Do you miss them?”
Bazel considered the question. “I was closest with Seraphina. Zarall was the eldest by half a minute and considered it their right to boss the others. Humble Good Day—”
“Wait, explain that name,” Geri said, sounding amusing.
“It is rude to laugh at the names of others.”
“Fine, fine. You’re right. That was insensitive of me,” she apologized. “Please tell me about Humble Good Day.”
“Humble took pride in being a good friend,” he said. Then added, “We have not spoken since the Great Influenza.”
“Because they’re a little bitch?”
Her question clearly asked for gossip, which he was not inclined to share. “Because I am too busy for social calls,” he said.
“Oh, you’re the little bitch. Don’t give me that look.”
“There is no look. Do not be judgmental.”
“Yes, there is. I don’t know how you get your nose all—” She grimaced and scrunched her nose. It was alarmingly cute. “Because you don’t have a nose, but you do it all the same. And if you haven’t seen this great friend for a hundred years because you’re busy, then I get to be judgmental.”
Fair. He said, “Your temper is more volatile than usual this morning.”
She glared at him and took a final bite of the bagel. She tossed the remainder to Bones, who snatched it midair and swallowed it before her paws hit the ground. She wiped her hands on her trousers and pulled out a phone from her bag and frowned.
“We need to talk,” she said.
GERI
Nearly Departed ETA 8:25.
First, holy smokes, how disrespectful. Second, what?
“The time changed,” she said, slipping the ghost phone back into the hoodie pocket.
“That can happen. There are many moving pieces,” Bazel replied.
“But if management knows who is going to die and where, why did they get the time wrong?” What kind of slipshod metaphysical organization was she working for?
“Details change but the outcome remains the same.”
Lame. That sounded very akin to his infamous I don’t know.
“Things will balance out, given enough time,” he said, as if sensing her doubts.
“So we just wait?” she asked.
“Reaping is an exercise in patience.”
“Easy for you to say. I have a nine-to-five.”
“You are currently on vacation, and when you must return, your work is remote. No one will notice.”
Geri had no idea what her face looked like—currently a sickly green under her makeup and giving a ton of side eye—but the reaper gently added, “I am aware of how the modern world works.”
“So a couple of things. Being remote is an option and I’m on medical leave, not vacation.
Meaning I should be home, resting.” A routine of sleeping in late, making herself a little breakfast, and then taking a post-breakfast nap on the couch had developed.
It was great. Her body was exhausted. She needed the rest. However, she couldn’t deny that getting up and moving her body was beneficial.
Everything was stiff and ached, which stretching and walking could fix.
The walk around the park was good. It was just enough movement to work the stiffness out of her muscles. When she got back to her apartment, she had a quality nap with her cat. Fiddlesticks was a nap professional.
This nonsense? This was a text message at six in the morning giving her two hours to get across the city to collect a soul.
That meant showering, dressing, dashing out of the apartment with her bike, and hoping the morning rush wasn’t a problem.
She had a commute. Stopping for coffee and a bagel at Reading Terminal Market before getting on the subway was the only bright spot.
Now she lurked. She had a spot at the corner of a narrow street, within eyesight of a busy street. There was a smoothie cart on one corner. Part of the sidewalk was cordoned off for construction, forcing traffic into one lane. No one was happy about that.
This sucked. Waiting for her doomed soul to wander by needed more compensation than a bagel.
Maybe a return trip to the Reading Market for a loaf of crusty bread and a pretzel from the Amish place would even out the balance.
Geri fully believed in the miraculous properties of carbs to fix what ailed her.
“Work is going to notice if I’m away from my desk,” she said, taking another sip of coffee.
“You’re a pessimist.”
Caught mid-drink, she snorted and nearly spat out her coffee. The living embodiment of death did not just accuse her of being a pessimist. With crumbled napkins, she cleaned up her dribble around her lips. “Aren’t you a pitch black ray of sunshine?”
“I chose you because I believe in you. Now hush and do your job.”
Geri rolled her eyes. A passerby in a sharply tailored suit gave her a concerned glance.
Whatever. Lurking in an alley and talking to invisible people was perfectly normal.
“How will I know who is the nearly departed?” The handbook had been vague on that.
“You’ll know.”
So the grim reaper was vague on that too. Must be corporate policy.
“How long is this going to take?” she asked. She checked the message on the ghost phone. This was the right place and time.
“Be patient and observe.”
And just like that, things happened. Traffic appeared out of nowhere and drivers were already impatient and honking.
People on their way to work materialized, crowding the once vacant sidewalk.
Thankfully, the auras had vanished. They were regular people with no special glow.
A small line formed at the smoothie cart on the corner.
A delivery truck pulled into the narrow street and two men climbed out.
They struggled to offload an upright piano.
And then Geri could see it unfold.
The world seemed to slow down even as a cyclist zipped through traffic, weaving its way around cars and blowing through a stop light. A silver car slammed on its breaks and honked, causing a chain reaction of screeching brakes and blasting horns.
The cyclist jumped the curb onto the sidewalk, inches from Geri. He had an aura, bright and reckless. She reached out, touching him briefly as he rode past, and felt the sticky-tacky pull of taking a soul. The aura glow clung to her fingers.
The movers in the back of the truck lost their grip. The piano broke free, barreling down the ramp, through the alley, into the street. A car swerved to avoid the piano and ran onto the sidewalk, plowing into the cyclist.
Geri dropped her coffee, the cooling liquid splashing over her shoes.
Her stomach rose at the thump of impact as the cyclist bounced off the hood and onto the sidewalk. She turned away, hand covering her gagging mouth.
This was horrible. It was one thing to theoretically collect a soul. That sounded clean and precise. It was quite another to witness a death. It was gory and came with sounds…
The sounds were the worst.
She was going to throw up her bagel and coffee. She hunched over, her stomach heaving, but nothing came of it.
“What happened?” A pale man stood next to her, his image watery in the sunlight.
“You died.” She rightened, wiping her the back of her hand across her mouth.
“No. I’m fine. Look. Not even a scratch.” He held up a mostly transparent hand. His aura was fading.
Absolutely no part of her wanted to look at his mortal remains but it seemed wrong to close her eyes. The man was dead. He deserved to be acknowledged.
“Look again.” She pointed to the body on the pavement.
“I don’t understand… The car wasn’t going that fast.”
“You hit your head.” In a moment of solidarity, she added, “That’s how I died, too.”
“Oh.” The cyclist’s gaze bounced from her to Bazel, a literal grim reaper, and startled. A skeleton in a robe will do that.
Yeah, that about summed it up.
“It is time for you to move on,” Bazel said, his voice taking on a ringing quality.
Right, her job. She needed to be his hands in the material world.
With the letter opener, she slashed the air in front of her and the universe sort of… parted? Like there was a hole. A proper hole in the fabric of reality. Shifting light glowed at the edges in a soft rainbow of colors. It was lovely, really.
“What happens now?” the cyclist asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered.
The cyclist gave her a skeptical look but took a step forward, vanishing.
There was a whoosh and the popping of air pressure in her ears and the tear sealed.
She dropped the letter opener. It clattered to the pavement.
“Excellent work,” Bazel said.
“That’s it?” It had all happened so suddenly, and now that it was over, her body felt overheated and awkward. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her hoody, unsure what to do with her body. She was definitely going to be sick, though.
“A soul that would otherwise be trapped here has moved on.”
It didn’t feel like enough. It felt pointless.