Reapers, Inc. - Brigit's Cross (9 page)

“Has anyone ever
not
survived the
injury?” Brigit pressed further. John pursed his lips in thought.
He wouldn’t lie to her. She had to have answers to her questions if
she was to evolve.

“There have been a few that have met their
final demise without knowing their true fates. The incidences are
far and few between, however.”

“Where did their souls go?”

John shrugged as he sipped from his tea. He
had only heard the tales from the Reapers that had been present.
The souls that had met their ends without passing through a door
had merely disappeared on the winds of Limbo, carried away to that
place where there was no beginning and no end for all eternity. The
shrug seemed to satisfy Brigit’s curiosity for the moment.

“So, tell me about the assignments,” Brigit
said as she finally picked up her own coffee and blew across the
surface. It was a habit as well, of course.

“Right now, everything is a bloody mess,”
John said. Brigit heard the note of frustration in his voice.
“Nothing is as organized as it used to be and they keep adding up
everyday. Especially with the wars that have been going on. It’s
senseless, all this fighting, if you ask me; but, I’m not here to
offer opinions – am I?”

It was rhetorical question, Brigit knew. She
kept her silence and waited for the rest of the explanation.

“Anyway,” he continued, “it’s not as if we’re
on a time schedule to accomplish the work. We have all of eternity.
It’s always been a matter of kind consideration that we work in a
timely manner. It is a principle I’ve always supported. It’s just
that, right now, I’m so back logged…”

“The Sarah McDowell’s of the world happen too
often,” Brigit interrupted.

“Exactly,”

“So, what is the plan to fix this?” Her mind
was beginning to work, searching for the plan to clean up the mess.
Being adept at organization was one of her many fortes, after all.
It was what had made her such a successful assistant to her
employers when she was alive.

“I think, logically speaking, it would be
wise to organize the files currently waiting.”

“What about the ones coming in daily? I
assume they do come daily…”

“They do. One of the problems to that
particular issue is The Bailey,” John sighed.

“What is
The Bailey
?” Brigit asked.
She remembered John mentioning the name before.

“The Bailey is the actual entity that
delivers the mortal to the moment of their passing, separating the
soul from the body, if you will. He was present the day you died,”
John explained. “Right now, he is on the loose and burdening my
work load even more. He is unaware that the firm has
restructured
, and he is continuing on with his duties
without instruction. I was trying to collar him the day we met
because I really need for him to start reporting in for daily
briefings. He’s part of the reason I didn’t cross you
that
day
. I didn’t have your file. I didn’t know your fate. I only
knew your name because I heard him chanting it like some kind of
mantra until he completed his task. I’d been chasing him for days
at that point,” John explained. The frustration seemed to mount in
his voice as he spoke. “If it weren’t for the Bailey, people would
go on living forever. At the rate some people continue to produce
offspring, there would eventually be no room left on Earth if it
weren’t for the Bailey. He ensures the continuous cycles of life
and death.”

Brigit searched her memory of the day she had
died. She had remembered looking up to the top of the building and
seeing the pale, bald man in black robes peering down at her. She
had thought that he was seeing a sight so horrendous that his soul
might be damned forever. She now realized that he was only making
sure he had completed his unassigned assignment. Brigit shook the
image from her head and refocused her attention on John
Blackwick.

"Beyond that, what are our options?”

“Well,” John began, setting his teacup in its
place on the saucer. “We have two options. We can go and reap
immediately the files that come in, or we can put them to the
bottom of the pile and make them wait until we can get to them.
Considering the pace that they are delivered to my desk, we would
be constantly be reaping the fresh souls. We’d never get to the
over due.”

“Who delivers the files?”

“Unseen hands. All I know so far is that they
are placed on my desk every morning whether I’m present or not. I
just look up and they’re there. I suspect it is the Bailey, but I’m
not completely sure.”

“How many reapings can we do in a day’s
time?” Brigit asked, wondering how many she could fit into the
hours that Maggie was awake. Today had been a training day, she
knew. By her internal clock, they had only been out for a few
hours. John simply shrugged his shoulders in reply to her
answer.

“There are too many facets to consider that
makes it hard to calculate an average. Until six months ago, there
were thousands of Reapers in the firm. Work loads were not measured
and we had no quotas to meet, no deadlines. Today, there are only
the two of us to do the work of thousands,” John pointed out.
Brigit detected the note of bitterness in his voice but decided not
to dig to the source of it. “Besides, I’m not a mathematician. It
would take me years to provide you with even a decent
estimate.”

“So, maybe,” Brigit’s fingers began to drum
on the counter top as her mind began to churn quickly. “Our first
step is to organize the files by priority.”

“And the second step?” John asked as Giuseppe
stepped up and whisked away the Grim Reaper’s empty teacup.

“The second step would be to recruit some
help.” John shook his head against the idea.

“We don’t have the time to interview for
every position,” he pointed out.

“How did you come to the decision to offer me
a position?”

“Three reasons, really,” John sighed as
Giuseppe returned the teacup with a fresh brew steaming from
within. “First of all, I knew there was something special about you
when I met you. Once I read your file, I discovered that you are an
accomplished assistant. You’re highly organized, logical in thought
and process. Thirdly, there was the fact that you had not fulfilled
your oath to Maggie. You had not completed your reason for living
before you died. The Bailey took you before you had fulfilled your
vow. I believe in love, Brigit, and I could tell that you were
determined to fulfill your purpose even in death. I’d rather have
you working by my side than spending my time in a stalemate with
you until Maggie’s time comes.”

Brigit stifled a smile as she listened to his
explanation. He was right. She was determined to fulfill her
promise to Maggie. His efforts to pass her would have ended in a
long running stalemate until Maggie was ready to go as well.

“I have an idea,” Brigit finally said. “As we
organize the files, we should peruse them as we would resumes. If
we find the right candidates, we can offer them the opportunity to
join the firm,” she suggested.

“That’s bloody brilliant,” John said. He
looked pleased by her suggestion. “I don’t know why I didn’t think
of that myself.”

“You’ve got a lot on your plate,” Brigit
offered as an excuse.

“You’re right,” John agreed. “If you’re
ready, let’s go back to the office and see what headway we can make
on the files.”

“Sounds good. Can I take my coffee?”

Giuseppe the smiling waiter moved from his
place and immediately set to preparing her a fresh beverage in a
paper cup. The sight of his actions made her wonder momentarily
whether paper cups could actually exist in the spirit world or if
this, like everything else she had encountered so far, was just a
twist on what she used to know as reality. There was so much she
was still getting used to, still attempting to take in as a form of
the new reality she now faced. As she took some new facet of the
spirit world, there was something of her mortal life she had to
morph into fitting or totally let go as no longer relevant. It had
only been two weeks since her passing. She could only imagine what
her reality would be like as time continued to pass.

Brigit hoped that, one day, she would be as
knowledgeable as John appeared to be. She hoped that she would gain
his patience but not his sense of humor. From what she had observed
of him, he seemed to lack a sense of humor. She had loved to be
able to laugh about things – especially with Maggie. Laughter
healed her soul. She couldn’t lose that, especially since she only
lived within her soul now.

Brigit nodded her thanks to Giuseppe and slid
from her seat at the counter to follow John. A silent smile was all
she received aside from the coffee to-go. The paper cup containing
the coffee was warm in the palm of her hand as she walked to the
door. It was a feeling that caused her to think of Maggie
momentarily and she smiled. Her sight settled briefly on the old
man with the sad blue eyes as she passed toward the door.
Somewhere, Brigit guessed, he had lost his reason to laugh and heal
his soul.

Brigit followed John back to the office in
silence. She waited patiently as he unlocked the main door and
opened it, wondering why he would even need to lock the door to
begin with. The address was a phantom address. She was sure there
was no chance of someone entering the building by accident. As they
entered the main entrance, she said as much.

“Actually, you’re wrong,” John told her.
“There have been a few occasions in the past where a ‘gifted’
mortal has found the place and entered. Araxius considered it a
security breach and, after the third ‘incident’, demanded that the
main entrance be locked when there were no Reapers present to
ensure the safety of the firm’s data.”

“What do you mean by ‘gifted’?” Brigit asked
as John walked a few paces ahead of her and stopped at a door to
his left. He searched the key ring still in his hand for the key
that fit that particular lock.

“Clairvoyants, Witches, people who easily and
naturally walk between the two realms. Contrary to popular belief,
such mortals do exist. Aleister Crowley once entered the offices in
Britain and I heard tale that Araxius had a devil of a time getting
him to leave. After a week of his lurking on the sidewalk, Araxius
had to close the office in London and relocate it to Dublin. That’s
where I came on,” John explained. Brigit noted there was a note of
amusement in the telling of the story. Perhaps John Blackwick did
possess a sense of humor after all.

“So, you’re Irish?”

“Aye, lass,” John replied as he fit the last
key on the ring into the lock and turned it. He looked at Brigit
and smiled. There was a gleam in his eye that Brigit had not yet
seen since making his acquaintance. He had relaxed his accent and
she could tell without further doubt that he was indeed from the
Emerald Isle. “Come; let’s choose your weapon before we start with
the paperwork.” John said as he pushed open the door.

The arsenal room was not much bigger than
John’s office. Its walls, however, were covered in every type of
weapon Brigit could ever have imagined existing.

“Which would you recommend?” Brigit asked as
she eyed the assortment of clubs, staves, and walking sticks lain
out across a wide table to the left of the room. On the wall above
that, there were mourning glories, spikes, and some very dangerous
looking hammers hanging from hooks affixed to the dark wood. She
noticed the collection of knives and swords on a table directly in
front of her, and, the large scythe hanging on the wall behind
it.

“Any of these will do,” John replied quietly.
“It’s dependent on what you are most comfortable with.”

Brigit looked to the third table and found an
odd assortment of items. They were items she would never have
really considered a weapon, but as she eyed them carefully, she
imagined that, in a spot, anything could be a weapon if one had the
presence of mind to use it as such. There was a black umbrella, a
lead ball on a thick chain, a chain by itself and an assortment of
hatpins displayed into an ornate fan. John went to the table
holding the clubs and walking sticks. He lifted an ebony walking
stick very similar to the one he still carried under his arm and
eyed it fondly.

“This is usually my first choice,” he said,
holding it gently between his opened hands. His ice blue eyes
slowly traveled the length of it, looking for any flaws that might
appear along its ebony finish.

Brigit studied each of the implements on the
tables. The clubs looked almost prehistoric, and very
uninteresting. It seemed to scream ‘ogre hunting’ at its finest.
There was another walking stick, almost identical to the one John
favored; but Brigit had never been one to copy the fashion of
another. The collection of staves held her eye for a moment. She
had done well with the bow staff during her
Kung-Fu
weapons
training, but she had been better with the sword. She glanced over
her shoulder with that thought.

“What about a sword?” she asked quietly as
she eyed a samurai sword mounted carefully on a short wooden
stand.

“I would be careful about that choice, love.
You could condemn a soul to eternal limbo,” John replied. He was
still studying the walking stick. He was sure he had nicked his
present one in the last scuffle. It wasn’t enough to warrant
replacing it, although he did so love the look of an unblemished
walking stick.

“So, I would become a judge at that
point?”

“Yes, and, no,” John replied evenly.

“Let’s
not
be specific, John,” Brigit
quipped as she brought her eyes back to the table with the odd
assortment of instruments least likely to condemn a soul.

“Sorry, love,” John snapped from his study of
the walking stick. “It can be complicated. It’s best to consult
your field guide regarding that question.”