36: The State of Reapers, Inc.

“I’m off to Rome again,” John de­clared as he shrugged in­to his suit coat and but­toned it. “I trust that all will go well while I’m away,” he asked as he lev­eled a solemn gaze on Brig­it as she looked up from the port­fo­lios be­fore her. She had eas­ily tak­en over the seat be­hind his desk and re­sumed the work of sort­ing the dai­ly as­sign­ments. She had glanced up, John ob­served, just long enough to grasp the mean­ing be­hind his look.

“I’ll call if I need you,” she as­sured him qui­et­ly be­fore re­turn­ing her at­ten­tion to the files. “How long will you be gone?”

“Just long enough to in­ter­view these few po­ten­tials and to make sure all is run­ning well in the of­fice there. I shouldn’t be more than a cou­ple of days,” John as­sured her. “I was think­ing that we should be­gin sep­arat­ing the files by re­gion so that we can be pre­pared to open oth­er new of­fices.”

“That’s a good idea,” Brig­it agreed. “I’ll set Be­lin­da to it. It will be a good project for her. Some­thing to keep her fo­cused from her re­cent dis­trac­tion,” Brig­it said qui­et­ly.

She had not been the on­ly one to no­tice the bud­ding re­la­tion­ship be­tween Be­lin­da and the Irish­man Brig­it still found her­self at odds with. It seemed, how­ev­er, that she was the on­ly one wor­ried by the po­ten­tial out­come of it.

“Are you sure all will be well?” John asked.

He was con­cerned about leav­ing Brig­it alone with Sea­mus Flan­nery. John had been try­ing to make sure they had as lit­tle in­ter­ac­tion as pos­si­ble since learn­ing of Sea­mus’ threat to Brig­it. Now, how­ev­er, he had no choice. The state of the com­pa­ny de­mand­ed his pres­ence else­where. He could on­ly pray that Brig­it would keep her guard up un­til he could re­turn.

“It will be fine, John,” Brig­it said again. “I will call if I need you. I promise,” she said firm­ly.

“Very well then,” John sighed up­on the re­al­iza­tion that the sub­ject was closed. He knew Brig­it would not voice any con­cerns – if she had any at all to voice. “Good luck with the work load. The Bai­ley ap­pears to have found a way to in­crease his pro­duc­tiv­ity.”

“You’ve no­ticed?” Brig­it laughed. It was true. The Bai­ley had start­ed de­posit­ing his as­sign­ments lat­er and the Reapers had no­ticed the amounts were be­gin­ning to in­crease again. “Get go­ing, John. We’ll all still be here when you come back.”

With that, the head Grim Reaper turned and ex­it­ed their of­fice. It was theirs, in all hon­esty. Brig­it had voiced her re­quest for her own space, but John Black­wick had point­ed out that it was not nec­es­sary. As his as­sis­tant, Brig­it as­sumed his role and du­ties when he was not present. To save time, she would oc­cu­py his of­fice. Con­sid­er­ing the cur­rent state of the firm, John mused as he passed Ma­ma Dee in the hall and ex­changed a nod of greet­ing; he was go­ing to be away a lot soon. The of­fice would even­tu­al­ly be­long sole­ly to Brig­it and John would on­ly find use for it on oc­ca­sion. Brig­it had learned so much over the last cou­ple of months. Soon, John fur­ther mused as he reached for the main en­trance to 666 ½ Bleeck­er Street, she might be fac­ing a pro­mo­tion if the state of Reapers, Inc. con­tin­ued to go so well.

Brig­it sighed heav­ily as she reached for the next stack of port­fo­lios. She had nev­er tru­ly re­al­ized how men­tal­ly tax­ing it could be to sort through the dai­ly mail. She sud­den­ly had sym­pa­thy for John Black­wick and his po­si­tion as head Reaper. A move­ment at the door to the of­fice dis­tract­ed Brig­it from fur­ther thought. It was Ma­ma Dee and she looked con­cerned.

“Where’s he go­ing?” Ma­ma asked, point­ing over her shoul­der at the now gone John Black­wick.

“He’s head­ed back to Rome for a cou­ple of days. He’s found some po­ten­tial new re­cruits for the of­fice there,” Brig­it ex­plained. “How are you to­day?”

“I’m okay, I guess. I just fin­ished a hard case. Poor ba­by,” Ma­ma Dee shook her head sad­ly. “I hate when a ba­by passed be­cause its par­ents were stupid.”

Brig­it was not sur­prised by this dec­la­ra­tion. Ma­ma Dee, a wom­an who had been un­able to bear chil­dren of her own, could nev­er un­der­stand why peo­ple who had been bet­ter blessed didn’t rec­og­nize the gift a child was. Ap­par­ent­ly, this con­sid­er­ation had been car­ried over even in death for Ma­ma Dee.

“How hard did you hug the child be­fore you passed him?” Brig­it asked, hop­ing to light­en the mood.

“Not hard enough, I’ll tell you that,” Ma­ma Dee sighed. “Do you have some more for me?”

Brig­it glanced at the short stack John had start­ed. Sad­ly, there weren’t enough to there to keep her friend dis­tract­ed from the sad­ness of her last as­sign­ment. She said as much as she passed the files over to Ma­ma Dee.

“It don’t mat­ter,” Ma­ma sighed again as she scooped them up. “I’ll take what you got. So many ba­bies to take care of,” the old wom­an said.

She pushed her­self up out of the chair she had sank in­to and turned to make her way out of the of­fice. Brig­it sighed heav­ily as she watched her friend re­treat­ing down the hall. She was glad John had agreed to bring Ma­ma Dee on. So many ba­bies were wait­ing and Ma­ma Dee was the per­fect one to show them the fi­nal mo­ment of love.

Brig­it re­sumed sort­ing through a few more files be­fore a com­mo­tion seemed to erupt in the hall. The sound of the front door slam­ming open and then shut had star­tled her. Her pulse calmed, how­ev­er, af­ter the string of al­most un­in­tel­li­gi­ble curse words reached her ears. Sea­mus Flan­nery had re­turned to the of­fice and he sound­ed none too hap­py. Brig­it caught bare­ly a glimpse of him as he charged in­to the ar­se­nal room and slammed the door be­hind him. Even through the thick walls, she could still hear him curs­ing. Some words in En­glish, some words in Gael­ic – oth­er words a mix­ture of the two. Over it all, she caught the fact that his last as­sign­ment had bro­ken the Irish­man’s beloved she­laigh­ley and it had pissed him off. She could on­ly imag­ine what had hap­pened af­ter that.

She heard the door of the ar­se­nal room whoosh open again and Sea­mus re-​emerged. A new she­laigh­ley was in his hand, but his tem­per still burned. Their eyes met as he made to en­ter the of­fice but stopped short at the sight of her sit­ting be­hind the desk. A dan­ger­ous light be­gan to dance in his eyes as he re­al­ized the sig­nif­icance of her pres­ence in John’s seat.

“Where’s John?” the flame-​haired man asked slow­ly.

“He’s gone to Rome for a cou­ple of days,” Brig­it replied even­ly.

Al­though Sea­mus Flan­nery sud­den­ly looked quite the de­mon stand­ing in the door way, Brig­it knew she could not let this sight un­set­tle her. Sea­mus had been try­ing to find a way to push her but­tons ev­er since she had re­turned from sus­pen­sion. So far, she had been suc­cess­ful in ig­nor­ing him. Now that she was in charge again, she knew she couldn’t con­tin­ue to do so for long.

“Is there any­thing I can as­sist you with?” she asked.

“Ha!” Sea­mus spat. “I know how yer as­sis­tance goes. No, thank you,” he growled as he turned to leave. “I’ll man­age on me own just fine.”

“Sea­mus,” Brig­it be­gan, but he whirled to face her once more. His face was bright red with rage.

“It’s ‘Mr. Flan­nery’ to you, lass!” the Irish­man lashed out at her. “On­ly me friends call me by me Chris­tian name. You are most def­inite­ly not one of me friends.” His voice had risen in vol­ume, but Brig­it main­tained her sense of calm. It seemed to stoke his rage all the more.

“Very well, Mr. Flan­nery,” she said calm­ly. “Should you change your mind, I’m here. Now, I sug­gest that you take a break and calm your­self be­fore you re­turn to the field. I’ll have as­sign­ments ready to pass out with­in the hour.” With that, Sea­mus turned, mut­ter­ing some­thing Brig­it could on­ly half hear. “I’m sor­ry?” she asked, hop­ing he would re­peat him­self. In­stead, he con­tin­ued walk­ing away with her ques­tion quick­ly fol­low­ing be­hind him.

Be­fore she heard the slam­ming of the door to 666 ½ Bleeck­er Street, she fi­nal­ly heard his re­ply: Not as sor­ry as you’re go­ing to be…