Reapers, Inc. - Brigit's Cross Pro­logue

Where it End­ed, Where it Be­gan

He en­tered the café qui­et­ly and scanned the room. The usu­al in­hab­itants were there: do­ing the same things they would do un­til they de­cid­ed it was time to go. Some of them were rel­ative­ly new to the scene while oth­ers had haunt­ed the joint since its demise in ar­son back in 1939. His ice blue gaze met the jovial eyes of Giuseppe Cin­cot­ta, the un­for­tu­nate soul that had al­so met his demise in the ar­son. Giuseppe nod­ded and turned to be­gin prepar­ing his reg­ular pa­tron’s cus­tom­ary cup of tea.

Slow­ly, John Black­wick’s gaze moved to the left and came to rest on the rea­son he had ar­rived so ear­ly in the af­ter­noon. ‘The Old Man’, as John called him af­fec­tion­ate­ly, was wait­ing pa­tient­ly – his own gaze deep in­to the glass of red wine be­fore him. Silent­ly, John ap­proached him and slid on­to the stool be­side his men­tor.

“You called for me, Arax­ius?” John asked as Giuseppe slid the cup of steam­ing tea be­fore him. John nod­ded his thanks be­fore pick­ing it up and blow­ing gen­tly across the sur­face.

“I did, John. Thank you for mak­ing haste,” Arax­ius replied solemn­ly. John sipped from his tea while wait­ing for an ex­pla­na­tion. Arax­ius would take his time with it and the lack of ex­pres­sion on his sunken fea­tures did not sur­prise John at all. Over the last fifty years, he had be­come over­ly ac­cus­tomed to the fact that Arax­ius – one of the found­ing mem­bers of the firm – lacked any sense of emo­tion or ex­pres­sion. Af­ter all, Arax­ius was one of the orig­inal Grim Reapers. He had a rep­uta­tion to up­hold.

“The time has come, John,” Arax­ius sighed as he cir­cled the rim of his wine­glass with an ex­treme­ly long and boney fore­fin­ger. The Grim Reaper’s eyes re­mained sunken in­to the depths of the red wine he had loved so dear­ly as a mor­tal man so very long ago.

“Time for what? Am I be­ing fired?” John asked even­ly. He had learned, since join­ing the firm, to con­trol his emo­tions as well as Arax­ius could; but the oc­ca­sion­al urge to wit­ti­ness could still rise up in him.

“No, not at all,” Arax­ius coun­tered. “In fact, I would con­sid­er it a pro­mo­tion of sorts.” A slight smile tugged at the cor­ners of the old man’s mouth, but was not al­lowed full ex­po­sure.

“Oh?” John swiveled on his stool to face his men­tor. This was a sur­prise in­deed.

“I’m re­tir­ing, John. I’ve had enough. I no longer wish to reap souls. I’m turn­ing the reins of the firm over to you.”

For the first time in fifty years, John Black­wick felt a sud­den surge of pan­ic with­in his gut. Al­though he was sure the ex­pres­sion was not vis­ible on his face, he was sure he must have paled even more than his nor­mal com­plex­ion. A slight icy smile fi­nal­ly sur­faced on Arax­ius’ thin lips.

“We’ve all de­cid­ed to re­tire,” The Grim Reaper added. “Ev­ery­thing is yours.” Arax­ius fi­nal­ly turned his head and lev­eled his icy gaze on his com­pan­ion as if to fur­ther the grav­ity of the sit­ua­tion.

“Why me? Wait, what do you mean by “all” of you?” John swal­lowed hard as his thoughts be­gan to give in to the pan­ic ris­ing fast from his gut.

“You’re the last to know be­cause some­one must con­tin­ue on with the work, and some­one must open the door for me. The oth­er con­ti­nen­tal of­fices have al­ready closed their doors. All the files have been re­lo­cat­ed here for you to com­plete. I dare say I do apol­ogize for such a late no­tice to your rise in rank; but it has been a de­ci­sion we’ve all been con­sid­er­ing for quite some time,” Arax­ius ex­plained.

“What about the field agents? Are none of them more qual­ified than I am to car­ry on the firm’s work? And what about the Bai­ley? Has he re­tired as well?” John could feel his palms be­gin­ning to sweat; but he knew that was mere­ly a phan­tom sen­sa­tion. The dead didn’t sweat. That had been a fact to him since day one.

“They’ve all gone, John. They were giv­en their op­tions this morn­ing. The Bai­ley, I’m afraid to ad­mit, is un­reach­able – off on one of his lit­tle so­journs, I sus­pect. It will be up to you to find him and give him his op­tions.”

“Oh, I see,” John man­aged to say as the re­al­ity of the mo­ment sank in on his mind like a ce­ment block dropped from the top of a skyscrap­er. John watched Arax­ius slow­ly pick up his wine­glass. He lift­ed it in a silent salute to Giuseppe be­fore down­ing the con­tents in one long swal­low. The Old Man sighed in deep and fi­nal sat­is­fac­tion as he set the glass back to the counter and stood from his seat. John watched his men­tor reach in­side his black robe and with­draw a fa­mil­iar long black fold­er. It was Arax­ius’ own file.

“You’re leav­ing now?” John asked as Arax­ius ex­tend­ed the fold­er out to him.

“This is my file, John,” Arax­ius said qui­et­ly – ig­nor­ing his ap­pren­tice’s ques­tion. “I’m ready to face my fate,” he an­nounced. A gen­uine smile fi­nal­ly came to his face as he stared at the dark haired man be­fore him. Arax­ius could see the shock (or was it fear?) on the young man’s face as he stared at the black fold­er be­ing held out to him.

Slow­ly, John man­aged to raise his hand and take the fold­er from Arax­ius. In si­lence, he opened it and read the con­tents as he stood. From the cor­ner of his eye, John saw the door ap­pear to his left. Arax­ius turned to face the door, tak­ing a deep breath in an­tic­ipa­tion. It was to the left of the Reaper who stood be­fore him. Bet­ter than he had hoped for af­ter all this time. Per­haps there was some re­demp­tion to be found be­tween the cross­ings af­ter all….

John grasped the han­dle of the door in his hand and gen­tly pulled it open be­fore look­ing his men­tor ful­ly in the eye.

“Arax­ius Herodotus, may you find eter­nal peace,” he cit­ed with a solemn gen­tle­ness that sug­gest­ed he cared for the soul about to cross the thresh­old. Arax­ius lay a boney hand on John’s shoul­der. It was the last rite be­fore pass­ing. John had learned it beau­ti­ful­ly.

“Well said, my boy. Good luck and thank you.”

John Black­wick could on­ly nod his re­ply be­fore Arax­ius stepped through the door to ac­cept his fi­nal judg­ment. Soft­ly, John pushed the door shut and stared blankly at the floor as he tucked the now blank fold­er of Arax­ius Herodotus, for­mer Grim Reaper and orig­inal found­ing mem­ber of Reapers, Inc., deep in­to the in­ner pock­et of his black suit coat. A new era of reap­ing was about to be­gin. John Black­wick sud­den­ly had no idea where to start.