Chapter 12
BAZEL
“So… one question.”
“I am astonished,” Bazel answered, his tone dry. Geri was nothing but questions. “Only one?”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, a few questions.”
“Proceed.” He walked alongside her on the sidewalk. Despite the busy hour and the crowded nature of the area, people avoided his proximity, as if they could sense death. He was alone in the crowd. It was difficult not to take it personally.
“How many of these people are ghosts? I mean, I’ve never seen one, but how do I know that? Do I walk by ghosts all the time?”
It was a good question.
“A ghost is a disembodied soul. You will notice.” They were impossible to miss.
Often, once a ghost realized they could be seen, they pestered the person with demands to deliver messages, retrieve treasured objects, or whatever petty mortal business kept them bound to this realm.
When a ghost saw Bazel, however, they fled.
A reaper would not entertain requests to complete their unfinished business.
“Why does no one notice me talking to myself?” Geri asked.
“You are not talking to yourself.”
She rolled her eyes again. Such repetitive motion could not be good for her health.
“Yes, I’m having a delightful chat with the embodiment of death who happens to be invisible.
I’m not even pretending to be on the phone and no one is giving me the side eye.
I’m sure you’re going to tell me that you don’t know, but humor me. Why?”
“It is quite simply your association with my person,” he explained. “The mortal gaze refuses to acknowledge the transient nature of their lives and does not perceive me. Perhaps you have noticed how no one stands too close?”
Geri chewed on her lower lip, as if considering his answer. There was no point in lying or giving an evasive answer. She had an uncanny ability to know when he was being less than truthful. She said, “That lady in the park saw me talking to you.”
“Indeed. She will die soon.”
“What? She didn’t look sick,” she said and it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard a mortal utter. “Oh, save the judgmental looks. I heard it once I said it.”
“Death can happen at any time. One does not have to look sick to suffer an accident or a fatal heart attack.” Bazel was multitalented. He could deliver judgy looks and a lecture if he pleased.
“Noted.” She glanced down at the phone issued by management and frowned. “The time changed again. Now we’re a little early.”
Because he was in a generous mood, he asked, “What is your second question?”
“There’s you, right.” She stepped to the side, out of the flow of traffic.
“Yes, there is me,” he answered. They stood near a subway entrance.
“And you mentioned Good Day Good Morning.”
“Humble Good Day,” he corrected.
“How many reapers are there?”
An excellent question. He noticed a distinct decline in the reaper population. As a species, they were not immortal but they were durable. A reaper simply did not vanish.
Usually. Then again, there usually was not a powerful wraith stealing scythes either. Usual was no longer the standard.
“That is three questions. You misled me.”
“I said I had a few questions, which is more than two but less than many. Now answer the question. How many reapers are there?”
“Enough,” he answered, which was not a deliberate lie. Usually, there was enough. While he might be one of the oldest reapers, there was plenty of a younger vintage.
Usually.
For all the good that did. When he lost his scythe, he sought assistance from Amais, but the younger reaper was nowhere to be found.
“Our population increases when a great death is imminent,” he said. Decreases were a gradual thing. The population thinned as reapers stepped back from their duties and laid down their scythes. They did not simply vanish.
Geri hummed, a noise he quickly learned to associate with her asking an uncomfortable question.
He did not enjoy withholding information from her but she could not know this.
Unfortunately, she was entirely too observant, and in his experience, asking the wrong sort of questions was not conducive to a long life.
“But how many are in Philadelphia? I can’t be expected to be all over the city all the time, no days off,” she said.
“Death does take the occasional holiday.”
“Really?”
“No.”
She sighed dramatically. “Questionable labor practices aside, how many reapers are there?”
“I do not know.”
“You don’t know,” she repeated. “You’re not curious? Never had a regional team meeting? No group chat?”
Not sharing information with Geri was as dangerous as spilling all his secrets. She could sense the holes in his answers and the spots of missing information. It was not maliciousness on his part. It was for her own protection. Soon she would connect the pieces and arrive at the correct conclusion.
He should not have shared his version of The Handbook with her. Now she was emboldened to ask uncomfortably relevant questions.
“It is not a set amount and I do not receive a daily population report,” he said. “It fluctuates, as I have told you. If more are needed, they are brought into being. Therefore, the necessary amount of reapers is always present.”
“Did the handbook tell you that?”
“No. When I gained consciousness, I understood that I was one of many and a necessary component.”
“And you never wanted to gather all the reapers together and compare notes?”
When he was younger, yes. He quickly learned that nothing good happened when two or more reapers gathered in one location.
“That is an inefficient use of my time,” he answered. “All the information I need to know is contained within the handbook.”
That was a bald-faced lie. There were many things—vital things—not covered in the handbook and seeking out those answers only led to trouble. It was better to focus on his duties and concern himself with the many unknowable facets of the universe.
GERI
Bazel was in a mood.
Fine. Let him. She was certainly in a mood.
The phone buzzed.
Time of Death is now calculated at 12:12 pm.
Great, now she had to hang around for another twelve minutes. Being expected to run around the city wouldn’t be so bad if the entity setting the schedule respected her time. She had no idea how this could possibly work when she went back to the office next week.
“We have another delay,” she said, slipping the phone back in her pocket.
“It can happen. Fate is not always punctual.”
“So what I want to know is how I’m expected to provide coverage for the entire city. I’m only one person. I don’t teleport or fly.”
“I do not fly.”
“Well, I haven’t seen you take the bus.” The thought of Bazel lurking on the bus, standing in the aisle, one hand holding onto the back of a seat and a massive scythe in the other, made her smirk.
He pulled his shoulder back and stood a bit taller, yet the hood and robe still managed to hide his features.
“To answer the next question you will inevitably ask— which technically makes this many questions, not a few— most souls are able to cross the veil on their own. A reap is mostly necessary for deaths that are violent or unexpected.”
That aligned with the reap yesterday.
Geri checked the time again, mainly to stress herself out. “Look, I don’t see how this is possible when I go back to work next week. Is there anyone around who can help cover?”
“Absolutely not. Your reaps are your own.”
“Oh, fate can be late,” she repeated in a mocking tone, “but I can’t get a little help? I’m on my own?”
“It is not allowed, as stated in the handbook.”
Yeah, she read that bit in her copy of the handbook. She suspected that Bazel’s copy said something different.
“But why not? Does it matter who opens the veil?” she asked.
“The appointment cannot be changed.”
“Really? Because the time keeps changing. Either death is wibbly-wobbly or management doesn’t know shit.”
A man heading toward the subway entrance gave her a concerned glance.
She rolled her eyes. Yeah, yeah. Whatever. A woman ranting to herself on the streetcorner. Classic. Now he had a story to tell at the office about his wild lunch break.
Before she could turn her ire back on Bazel, she saw the soul.
A man approached the subway entrance, his head down and eyes focused on his phone screen. A golden aura trailed after him, lingering before eventually fading.
“What if he doesn’t have to die?” Geri asked.
“The appointment cannot be changed,” Bazel repeated. “Or ignored.”
As the man passed, she reached out and brushed her fingers down his arm. He didn’t notice and proceeded to head toward the subway.
A woman pushing a stroller approached from the opposite direction. The baby threw out a yellow stuffed duck. She paused to retrieve the plushie. “You do that again and you’re going to lose your Quackers forever, and you don’t want that, do you?”
In one breath, the world slowed. The man, eyes still fixed on his phone, kicked one of the stroller’s wheels and stumbled forward. The phone went sailing. With arms outstretched, he tumbled down the subway stairs.
Geri flinched, wishing she could scrub away the sound of the man’s surprised shout as he fell.
In the next breath, the world returned to normal speed. The woman held the yellow duck to her chest in surprise. “Sir, are you all right? Sir?”
“Of course I’m not all right,” the man complained, standing next to Geri.
He was pale, like an image projected on a screen.
The once lovely golden aura was not gone.
He rubbed his hands and his wrists, as if testing for pain.
“That was some fall. I thought it’d hurt a lot worse. I don’t feel a thing.”
“It didn’t hurt because I took your soul,” she explained.
“What? Don’t be ridiculous. You didn’t take my soul.”
“Perhaps you haven’t noticed my companion.” With a flourish, she swept her hand toward Bazel. The man did a double take and stumbled backward in surprise. “You died, sweetie. I’m sorry.”
“But—”