The projections of the Infernal Affairs Division charge and scatter the Crows close to the ground. Kera either slashes them apart with her overgrown talons or bites them in half with her fangs. Ankou throws a barrage of acidic blood-balls in the manner of a nonstop pitching machine. And Yama Ranger on his fearsome mount Nightmare blasts away with two six-shooters and one lever-action carbine; still not missing a beat with his portal-opening lasso in his fourth hand.
To top it off, a second group of rescuers arrives at the fateful spot. The chef from the diner and a couple of waitresses (still on their rollerblades) round the corner because it turns out that Sephtimus left a note on the table napkin before following Lessa.
The mortals approach with caution not because of the otherworldly battle taking place right on top of them but at the sight of both Chester and Lessa lying on the ground, the first bathed in his own blood and the second having fainted in terror. The gang leader responsible for everything stands transfixed above the bodies. The act of killing a man with his bare hands has finally registered and he flounders like a stage volunteer cut off from a hypnotist’s spell. One of his sidekicks attempts to shake him back to the crisis at hand.
Inside the leader’s pocket, Lessa’s watch ticks to exactly 4: 25.
The gangster crouched over Lessa is more vigilant and the oncoming mob impels him to action. In desperation and against all logic, he reaches for the folded knife jutting out of his catatonic boss’ back pocket.
Influencing the story from high above, the rest of the Crows have finished their circle. They dive towards Lessa in the aggressive shape of a kamikaze fighter plane, all in flawless synchronicity.
Sephtimus himself rises to meet this second wave. His real trench-coated form emerges, spattered with Chester’s blood, out of the mess that’s lying on the street. The battered Grim Reaper trudges to stand in front of Lessa like he’s about to greet the Crows.
In a trick that makes my heart swell, what appears to be human feet peeks from under Sephtimus’ parting coat skirt. At first the calves are stuck to each other like very cheesy black pizza but they soon cleave in the middle and the contours of human legs clad in tripp pants become visible. This single addition at once settles Sephtimus’ affinity to mankind.
Finally, the most glorious vision takes place. From Sephtimus’ shoulder blades, a pair of majestic, metallic wings extend. These wings look like phalanxes of tiny shields flashing the dazzling face of the sun.
With rabid intensity, the third gangster makes a stab to bury the small butterfly knife into Lessa’s heart.
The hands of her watch slip to 4:26.
The Crows turn the nose of their jet formation to Sephtimus. The birds of hell slam against him as a wave and his outstretched wings take the brunt so they dent and billow. I can see where the solid black deluge hits the reaper and then arcs, but the immediate spot behind him where Lessa lies remains shielded.
At the same time, Lessa’s would-be murderer is freaked out to see the knife stopped by some magical vest he can’t see. He drops the weapon, jumps to his feet and flees as though poltergeists were at his heels.
The dark tsunami then breaks into billions of locusts that cover, tear, and lash at Sephtimus and me. The Grim Reaper’s leather coat rips apart in many places and, surprisingly enough, warm human blood flows from every scratch and laceration. He grits his teeth below his Dia de los Muertos mask, which is barely holding together. I try to protect my own flesh from the razor-sharp storm.
****
Through my telepathic link to both my immediate surroundings and Spinstra’s perspective, I sense all these things: The chef of the diner is the first to arrive and grabs the rigid gangster. A rollerbladed waitress catches the shirt tail of the sidekick who has wavered between saving the leader and his own hide.
The members of the Infernal Affairs Division aren’t as lucky. Spinstra has had the foresight to steal into Death’s office and, with her vile accomplice Charon, massacres all the clueless Helter-Skeletals along the way. Upon reaching Hell’s Helm, they also ambush the preoccupied reapers, stabbing one in the back, slicing another’s throat, and impaling the third with a sword shaped like a giant insect’s mandible.
The effect is instantaneous here in the mortal realm. The reapers lose against their indestructible, self-replenishing enemies. Yama Ranger’s faithful horse attempts to take flight and is snapped up by a stream of molten Crows. Its rider catches several more birds inside his extra-dimensional lasso, banishing them straight back to Necro City and keeping them out of the fight for a few precious minutes. Then Yama Ranger is paralyzed by pain from a dagger buried in his back thousands of kilometers away. He goes down shooting, as taciturn as only a true cowboy can be.
Kera’s covered in tar-black Crow blood from chin to breastplate, from talons to the edges of her wings. She starts spinning like a top to keep back the overwhelming hordes, hissing like a feral animal in between. But when she feels Charon’s hand grab her hair at Hell’s Helm, she accepts her fate and crams as many Crows as she can into her mouth, dislocating her jaws to make even more room. She’s stuffing herself like a bulimic woman in a cake-eating contest when her eyes bulge, her distended stomach grows pointy then gets pierced open by an invisible sword.
I can hear Spinstra and Charon laughing maniacally.
But then, just when all hope seems lost, what comes crashing through the advancing layers of Crows but Ankou’s wagon. It brakes right in front of Sephtimus and me, who are both spent and bloodied.
Special delivery, boss, Ankou announces in the doll-like voice that always sounds like it’s coming from an embedded phonograph record. The only difference this time is his head with the Cheshire-cat grin has been severed and is tucked under his arm.
Spank these foul creatures back to our hole sweet hell, Ankou requests before being reduced to gurgling, as though the doll was suddenly thrown into a fire.
The death-wagon spews out Sephtimus’ guitar case, which the head reaper catches in mid-air. Ankou then stomps on the accelerator to ram the Crows’ front lines, disappearing into an uncertain fate but buying Sephtimus more time.
Sephtimus lays the guitar case on the asphalt and opens it, revealing a black electric guitar with two necks. He picks up the instrument and slings its strap over his shoulder, looking every bit the goth rock star minus the bruises and cuts. He’s the Danse Macabre reaper after all. The Pied Piper of the Black Death.
What’s the plan, Sephtimus? I ask.
I’m gonna play your and Samantha’s song, he answers as he turns to me, his Dia de los Muertos mask cracked and falling apart. His words prove it was him who paid Sam and me a visit during our breakup, probably laying the groundwork for my extraction.
Through the lopped-off top of his mask, I see that his black hair’s a mix of Mohawk and dreads, with the strip of hair in the middle hanging down in matted coils and the sides not shaven but cut short and dyed silver. Through the enlarged eye hole I also see black eyeliner that’s sharp to the point of being reptilian. Even the eyebrow is slanted and pointed upwards.
Sephtimus gives a cocky wink. Then all at once he takes off the entire mask and reveals a perfectly human face underneath.
To match his attire he has the face of an emo kid, sickly white but unmistakably human, not to mention the numerous accents of metal studs and captive hoops placed symmetrically across his face. I figure he’s of European descent and young; he can’t be more than twenty-five years old, just a little younger than me. He’s also sort of good-looking in that androgynous way that has become popular with the young generation.
“Call me Seph,” he tells me out loud.
I nod. “Call me Lachesis,” I reply.
He’s confused at first but when it dawns on him, his face breaks into a boyish grin. He starts playing the guitar.
The chords of The Right Time, the song that I wrote especially for Sam, drifts sweetly in the air amid the incessant buzzing of the Crows. The first strands of music provoke an instant reaction from the hell-birds within a ten-mile radius; the volatile mass stiffens and then shudders as though hurt.
I start singing. I can’t tell how my voice really sounds because I’m hearing it on two overlapping levels. First, in the spiritual world, my voice is reverberant and hoarse and the words are in an alien tongue, either Latin or classical Greek. Second, I’m perfectly human again and back in front of Sam’s boarding-house. And it’s this second world that I choose to believe and exist in during this moment.
When the right time comes
I shall hold you in my arms
Wrap in mine your hand
Stroke your hair, my love
Our impromptu performance drives and pushes back the Crows. We’re the last two reapers left. The only ones standing between the immortal army and all of humanity. The combined sound of Sephtimus’ playing and my singing amplifies each of our powers and creates a giant bubble of protection that the Crows are unable to penetrate.
When the right time comes
I shall whisper words of love
Shout your name out high
Let the world know why
Behind us, Lessa, as soon as she has regained consciousness, rushes to part the human crowd and cradle the unresponsive Chester.
But then all the Crows amass into one giant monster with a tapering nose that, like diamond against shock-proof glass, begins drilling through. And as the last words of the song coincide with the spending of all our energies, the monster breaks through the glass bubble to then trickle down like black sand inside an hourglass.
Lessa’s sobbing the same words over and over: “Don’t die on me, Chester! Oh God. You can’t die on me!”
Sephtimus stands up poorly to the blinding torrent of the Crows. But though his face is covered in bigger and deeper lacerations and he’s been stripped from the waist up except for a few bits of tattery coat, he still manages to turn his head to the sight of Lessa cradling Chester and, the proud Mafioso that he is, twists his burst lips into a wolfish grin.
With one last defiant laugh, the head reaper finally allows himself to be lifted just as his electric guitar snaps in two and one of his metallic wings gets ripped away. Meanwhile, I’m thrown aside by the sheer volume of Crows and disappear right under them.
The Crows take the fight higher, completely shattering our protective dome and rising all the way up to the cold night sky. Then they switch directions, turning back on themselves and creating a tornado that wraps around Sephtimus. In the center of this spiral the one-winged reaper is flung about; a ragdoll surrounded by hateful children.
The black tornado leans forward without spilling the body. It streaks back to Necro City, along the River Akheron towards the Drain of the World, where the four-eyed master plotter now waits.
Spinstra’s literally licking her chops, armed with swords and daggers in all six of her hands. Behind her, Charon stands smugly by like a dueling second.
Back in the human world, Lessa’s crying over Chester’s lifeless body.
I love you, Lessa thinks to herself. Her tears plummet and produce tiny ripples in Chester’s blood as raindrops would in mud, or on the slopes of an anthill where they would knock like tremors.
Sephtimus is bathed with glowing light. A smile lifts a corner of his mouth.
He lands on top of Spinstra and Charon like a missile, reducing the ground they’re standing on into rubble and sending two particularly large pieces hurtling all the way into Lethe, river of forgetfulness.
As large an army as the Crows, from a distance but gaining fast, a flock of colossal Storks beat their wings with a thunderous noise.