Reapers, Inc. - Brigit's Cross (24 page)

Seamus groaned loudly as he heaved himself
into a sitting position. The gash in his side sent a sharp pain
through him with the sudden movement. It was enough to cause the
Irishman to suddenly feel nauseous. When the room finally stopped
spinning, Seamus exhaled a long breath and ran a hand through his
hair to make sure it really had been the room spinning and not his
head.

The fever had finally subsided at some point,
although, Seamus had been unable to pinpoint the exact moment. All
he could remember was that he was no longer on fire and that he
could hear her. She had been singing something. There were no
words, exactly, but he had heard her voice reaching across the
charred remains of the landscape of his mind. Realizing that the
fires were finally gone, Seamus had opened his eyes and decided it
was time to start moving again.

His sudden movement had caught her attention.
Through the blur of his focus, he had seen her rush from the office
across from his own and scurry down the main hall toward John
Blackwick’s office.
Ah, that’s right
, Seamus thought,
the
boss is back
… As the thought finished its procession through
his mind, John Blackwick appeared in the doorway, a serious -- yet
concerned -- expression set firmly on his face.

“Ah, so ye have returned. I thought me mind
might be playin’ tricks on me in me sickness,” Seamus quipped as
she struggled to focus his vision. “I think the fever burned me
blind, though. I can barely see ye,” he added.

“Just take it easy, Seamus,” John instructed.
“The blindness is only temporary. How long have you been down?”

“Since the last assignment,” Seamus groaned
as he tried to straighten his back. All the days of sleeping on the
sofa had left him feeling crumpled, like an arthritic old man. “How
long have ye been back?”

“Two days. What happened?” John asked. Seamus
snapped his emerald green eyes to John Blackwick’s face in sudden
seriousness. He noticed the glare had no affect on his mentor.

“Have ye not talked to yer lovely assistant?”
There was an edge to his voice that bordered disrespect, but given
the situation and the state of his present condition, Seamus didn’t
care. He hoped John Blackwick would at least understand the force
that would follow that edge should he have taken Brigit’s side.

“I’ve not seen her. Miss Yaris says Brigit
left the office two days ago. She has yet to return,” John
explained. Seamus eyed the other man for a second before deciding
he was being honest. “Now, tell me what happened to cause
this.”

“Ye might want to take a seat,” Seamus
suggested.

Obligingly, John Blackwick fetched the wooden
chair from the writing desk and positioned himself on it. Seamus
saw a slight movement in the office across the hall and strained
his vision for a better look at the young woman that had fetched
the boss. She had dark hair and a pale face, but Seamus could tell
nothing more than that.

“
Mr. Flannery
,” John addressed him.
Seamus quickly returned his attention to John and found a look of
slight impatience on the other man’s pale face.

“Well, ye see, it was a tough assignment ye
handed me…” Seamus began.

John watched the Irishman intently as he
launched into the telling the tale of the glorious battle between
himself and the merciless members of the Chupacabra gang. John kept
silent through the saga, noticing the slight movements that gave
away the truth of Seamus Flannery’s over-exaggeration in certain
parts. The Irish, John Blackwick was well aware, could be prone to
great confabulation when they were telling a story. Being an
Irishman himself, he knew the impulse well. His restraint of the
urge had only come from the many years under Araxius Herodotus. The
Old Man had possessed no patience for anything more than the simple
truth in any tale and John had learned early on to temper the
bardic notions that had once ran so strongly within him.

Despite his knowledge that the injured Reaper
was lying to a degree, John couldn’t help but to feel his temper
beginning to spark. It was not so much over Brigit’s lack of action
in regard to Seamus Flannery, but rather, it was more the fact that
she had remained absent from the office since her subsequent return
and deposit of Belinda Yaris. John felt slighted in the thought
that his protégé, his assistant, would not trust that he would
understand once he had heard her side of the story. Brigit’s
continued absence from the office added to the waning of John’s
understanding. His only hope, as Seamus Flannery finally concluded
his tale, was that he could regain his sense of understanding once
he did hear her side of it all.

The door to 666 ½ Bleecker Street had never
appeared so bleak, Brigit mused as she stood on the sidewalk
staring at it.
Behind that door
, she thought,
is a mess I
created
. Seamus was undoubtedly still unconscious from the
suffering of his wounds. By now, Brigit was sure, Belinda would
have run out of names to record and was possibly meddling in things
she should not. Beyond that, John Blackwick would have returned
from his trip and discovered the mess that had accumulated with
Brigit’s absence.

She had not been back to the office since
leaving Belinda two days before. Brigit had originally thought,
after leaving Edmund J. Polly at the Bleecker Street Café, that she
would head straight back and resume the break neck pace of Reapings
so that she could appear busy when John did make his return.
However, after leaving the café, Brigit had turned north and made
her way to the cemetery where her mortal body had been put for
eternal rest.

It had been quiet there. As she had walked
amongst the grave stones and monuments, she listened hard for any
sound that would indicate she was not alone. Yet, she had heard
nothing during her passage. She had found it somewhat strange that
a cemetery should be so completely void of waiting spirits. During
her life, she had always thought a cemetery would be filled to the
brim with souls waiting to meet their judgments, and as a result,
Brigit had maintained a quiet reverence for the acreages that had
been separated from the rest of the landscape by iron bars and
stone walls.

A small stone marker had been set at the head
of her grave. It was simple, bearing her name and dates as most
grave stones did. Below the dates, Brigit found the wish:
May
You Know Eternal Peace.

Brigit bit her lip as she read the words.
Maggie had picked those words, she was sure. Despite Brigit’s calm
demeanor during life, Maggie had been aware of the turmoil that
could occasionally come to Brigit’s mind. Her partner of ten years
minus one day had always been in tune enough to know when the
ghosts and demons of Brigit’s memories would rise up to haunt her.
Brigit had always thought she had let them go, blocked them from
her conscious thought so that the ghosts and demons had no hand in
defining her; but every once in awhile, she could feel their
spectral fingertips on her skin. Apparently, Brigit mused as she
stood by her grave and read the wish once more, Maggie could feel
it too.

She had remained beside her grave longer than
she had intended. Her thoughts on her own life before the accident
and after the accident had wrapped around her, holding her there to
view them like photographs. She had to remember them. She had to
honor them – no matter how painful or sad they had been. Somehow,
Brigit knew that in doing this, it would free her to continue on
with her present existence. It would free her to further open her
mind to all this side of living would show her.

Her last stop before making her way back to
666 ½ Bleecker Street had been to see Maggie. It was early enough
in the morning that Maggie would still be asleep. Brigit had stood
over her lover, watching her sleep peacefully. She wished for a
second that she could lie down beside Maggie, wrap her in her arms
and hold onto her until the end of Maggie’s days; but there was
work to be done and Brigit knew she could no longer put it off. It
was the bargain she had agreed to for Maggie’s sake. As she exited
the bedroom, she heard Maggie’s sleepy voice call to her.

“I love you, Bree,” Maggie sighed. Brigit
stopped in the door way and looked back at her sleeping lover.

“I love you too, Mags. Forever, I love
you.”

The office was quiet when Brigit entered.
From where she stood after closing the door, she could tell that
John Blackwick was present in his office. From the sound of
shuffling papers in Belinda’s office, Brigit assumed the girl was
still hard at work on her original task. Guessing that it was best
to get the explaining over with, Brigit squared her shoulders and
began her approach toward The Grim Reaper’s office. She and Belinda
had only a second to exchange a glance as she passed the young
woman’s office. A surprised, yet relieved, look emanated from
Belinda’s blue eyes. Brigit, however, had no time to interpret any
message that may have been sent her way.

John was sitting at his desk engrossed in a
stock of portfolios before him. Brigit stood just inside the door,
watching her mentor. He was usually a blank slate when it came to
expression. It was usually impossible for Brigit to determine her
mentor’s thoughts or mood. Today was no exception.

“Have a seat, Brigit,” John instructed
without looking up at her. Brigit obeyed by entering the room and
filling the chair across from the head Grim Reaper. She was not
surprised that he had known it was her. “You have some explaining
to do,” he pointed out quietly.

“Yes, I do,” Brigit confirmed. “Where would
you like me to start?”

John Blackwick looked across the massive
mahogany desk that separated them. He was expecting to see some
humor on the woman’s face. Instead, he found a seriousness to match
his own. It was as if Brigit had developed some sense of
understanding to the gravity of the situation and realized there
was no humor to be found in it. As John looked deep into her dark
eyes, he saw the seriousness planted deep within her and he
wondered if perhaps she had lost her sense of humor all together.
Quickly, John pushed past that thought and leaned back in his
chair. She had asked him where she should begin.

“Start with the assignment,” he instructed,
making himself comfortable. Although he was sure Brigit would not
be prone to confabulating the story as Seamus Flannery had, John
knew he needed to provide his full attention in order to see it
all. The sin of omission was just as bad as the sin of
confabulation in his book.

Brigit nodded solemnly and began the tale.
She explained the meeting of Seamus Flannery on Pier 13 in San
Francisco and her observance of the other Reaper’s taking of the
gold locket from the spirit he had crossed over. John acknowledged
the slight tinge of annoyance with the idea that a Reaper would be
so bold as to take souvenirs and he made a mental note to have a
discussion with Seamus regarding it. Brigit continued on with the
story of the next assignment and the details of it, John observed,
were not as glorious as the first version he had heard. He had
already guessed that Seamus’ arrogant nature had taken over the
scenario and that his hot-headed determination to over-achieve was
what had landed the Irishman into the resulting state of
non-commission. John was most interested in Brigit’s sense of
responsibility of the scene and whether she would own up to that
responsibility in the end.

Brigit explained the facts only. John could
see from her expression that she was being honest. There was
something, however, that she was omitting. John saw her pause in
her tale, as if deciding whether to admit this one detail. When he
saw her push it aside in her mind, he realized that she had deemed
it a personal issue not worth his consideration and therefore, not
important to the tale. She ended it all in explaining that she
could think of nothing else to do but to return to the main office
with the mangled Seamus Flannery and to leave him to suffer through
his infection as he would.

“I made him as comfortable as I could,”
Brigit offered quietly.

John pursed his lips as his assistant fell
into a waiting silence. She was prepared, he thought, to receive
whatever discipline he would hand her. He wasn’t ready to do that
just yet, tough. There were other things to be considered.

“Where did you find Miss Yaris?” John
asked.

“She was one of the assignments I had scooped
up. I apologize for not consulting you before bringing her on, but,
I saw potential in her. I was surprised that we missed her when we
were going through the files the first time.”

“She was a good find, Brigit. I’m not upset
with her presence. She’s been quite efficient in her work. Where
have you been since bringing her here, though? And why didn’t you
send for me when you returned?” The questions had been present
since the moment Brigit had set foot in his office, but John knew
he had to hear her side before scolding her for her lack of
forethought.

“I was unsure of how to reach you. It’s a
weak excuse, I know,” Brigit replied, “but I have learned a couple
of things these last two days that will ensure it won’t happen
again.” John met her level gaze.

“What makes you sure your employment will
continue?”

The question sounded cruel as he uttered it.
John wished almost immediately that he could take it back. Brigit,
however, did not flinch with the iciness of the question. It was as
if she had been expecting it all along.

“I have hope,” she replied.

John looked away form the dark woman as he
pondered his next action. There were many things to consider before
he could make a just decision. Finally, he returned his attention
to her and found that hers had never left him. The somber air
around Brigit was beginning to unsettle him.