When the world turned solid once more, Kevin found himself back in Billy’s bedroom, standing in the exact spot where he’d watched the previous reaper—and Nella—die. Billy’s body, however, was long gone, as was the shattered fish tank and a good chunk of the garbage that had once covered the floor. A motley collection of stains speckled the newly exposed carpet like a camouflage pattern, its original color long lost to time and the terraforming powers of takeout grease. He blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted to the light emitted by the recessed fixtures in the ceiling.
“Welcome back, sir,” Mr. Pemberton said from Kevin’s left. The old Brit, wearing blue latex gloves, shoved a pile of pizza boxes into a big black garbage bag already half full of crap. “I’ve taken care of the corpse.”
Kevin wasn’t sure he wanted to know how. “Thanks. This is… uh…awkward.” He’d completely forgotten that his new gig came with a permanent assistant.
The reaper keeper sighed. “It always is, sir, but it will pass. Won’t be long before you realize how quaint it is to have a British manservant of your own and ordering me about becomes second nature.”
A wave of guilt washed over Kevin. He’d just killed Mr. Pemberton’s master—no, Mr. Pemberton’s friend—and the reaper keeper was duty-bound to accept Kevin in Billy’s place. “I’m sorry. I…didn’t mean to.” His words felt useless, however, and his face turned crimson with embarrassment.
Mr. Pemberton paused, pretending to examine the black mold on the end of a formerly white sweat sock. “You gave Master Billy something he’s wanted for years, something he couldn’t bear to request of anyone else. Can’t hold that against you.”
Kevin was afraid of the answer to his next question. “Do you still want to retire?”
“More than anything,” Mr. Pemberton replied immediately. “Unfortunately, my chosen successor found other employment.”
“I’ll get you out of this. I promise.”
The reaper keeper wrinkled his nose. “I’ve no doubt you will, but there’s no need to get annoyingly melodramatic about it.”
One of the stars in Kevin’s mental constellation of souls began to pulse wildly, stifling his response. Someone needed—no, demanded—his attention. The intense sensation overwhelmed and dulled his other senses, rendering him incapable of focusing on anything else.
“Someone’s dying,” he said softly, in awe of the feeling. “What do I do?”
“Let it take you,” Mr. Pemberton replied, not without pity. “As for the rest…that’s up to you.”
Relaxing, Kevin let death’s summons take control. A new scene overlaid itself atop his view of Billy’s former room: a narrow forest trail, still muddy from the earlier rain, worming gently downhill between old growth and thick trees. It was like watching a 3D movie that had fallen woefully out of sync. When he closed his right eye, his view of the forest solidified; when he closed his left, the cool night breeze disappeared and all he could see was Mr. Pemberton busily cleaning the floor. He shut his right again and examined his surroundings.
To his left, Sweatpants Bob sat propped up against a fallen log, leaning heavily on his right elbow. The homeless old man’s chest rose and fell with ragged, gasping breaths. Blood oozed out of his mouth, trickled down his beard, and pooled in his shirt. If he knew Kevin was there, he didn’t care.
The cancer, Kevin thought, his heart heavy. He kept his distance and watched, the memory of Sweatpants’s rock-hard knuckles connecting with his jaw still fresh in his mind. He didn’t doubt that his new reaper powers had given him a distinct advantage in any fight, but he was in no hurry to pop his pull-someone’s-soul-out-through-their-nose cherry.
Sweatpants Bob coughed up one thicker gob of blood and then fell still. His eyes remained wide open, staring into the distance at something only he could see.
Kevin took a step forward and then hesitated. Was he supposed to do something at this point, or was there some other signal he needed to wait for? Not understanding his exact role here made Sweatpants’s death all the more depressing. If Kevin fucked up, would it hurt the old man? Would his inexperience make Sweatpants Bob’s final moments more excruciating than they needed to be? He shook his head and sighed, resolving to suggest that the Three create some sort of new reaper training program if he lasted to the quarterly pancake social.
Sweatpants’s soul appeared beside his corpse, a spectral reproduction of the man’s physical form. He looked down at his body sadly, his gray eyes full of longing and regret. Kevin knew he had to do something before Sweatpants returned to his flesh.
“Um…Sweatpants Bob?” he stammered.
The old man didn’t even bother looking at him. “Felton. Looking for another knuckle sandwich?” Though his words were threatening, his tone couldn’t have been gentler.
“I’m…uh…here to help you move on,” Kevin replied through the lump in his throat. “It’s over, Sweatpants.”
“I know,” he replied, biting his lip. “It’s been over four times already. Barely made it ten miles. It’s for real this time?”
Four times. How many others had died over and over again because of Billy’s negligence? Kevin supposed he’d be finding out soon enough. Some maladies, it seemed, were too much even for the healing power of the human soul to completely expunge. A bullet to the head was surprisingly simple in comparison to terminal cancer. If the demon lord Axzar had truly intended to transform death into a gift, there could be no better case for it. “It’s for real this time.”
Sweatpants Bob finally looked up at him, the relief clear in his face. “So, what’s the deal? Finally getting around to it now?”
“Just got the job a few minutes ago. My predecessor…had some performance issues.”
“Whatever. Kind of glad it’s someone I know and generally tolerate. Sorry I punched you in the face.”
Kevin blushed. That made him feel a little bit better, but not much. “It’s all right.”
“I really wanted to believe Spuddner’s bullshit. Anyway. How do we do this?”
Kevin felt the sudden urge to take Sweatpants’s hand. “Something tells me we just shake on it.”
“That simple, huh? Say…where’s your cloak and your scythe?”
“Left ’em at home. Casual day.” He offered his hand. “Any last words or…anything?”
Sweatpants Bob scratched his chin. “Seems like I should have something profound to say. I mean, this is one moment we all look forward to in our own way, right? But I’ve got nothing.”
He closed the gap between them with two long strides and grasped Kevin’s hand in his own huge palm and fingers. “Thanks, Felton.”
As soon as their hands made contact, the old man’s soul began to dissipate. It was like watching the image in a TV screen fail one pixel at a time. Tiny specks of Sweatpants Bob simply ceased to exist. Horrified, Kevin took a step backwards and tried to open his hand, but the muscles wouldn’t respond.
“Good luck, kid,” Sweatpants said, his voice garbled. Most of his lips and his right eye were already gone, along with a wide slash of his chest. “You’re gonna fuckin’ need it.”
Moments later, Sweatpants Bob was no more. Kevin’s body called his split consciousness back into Lordly Estates. Overwhelmed, he fell flat on his ass and banged the back of his head against the desk behind him.
“How was it?” Mr. Pemberton asked as he knelt down beside his new master. He gently set a steaming cup of black coffee on the floor by Kevin’s left hand.
“Intense,” Kevin replied, his entire body quivering. “Beautiful and terrible at the same time. That—that’s not the way things should be.”
The old Brit nodded sadly. “No, it’s not. But it’s the hand humans and elves have been dealt. It doesn’t matter that the game’s been rigged.”
Kevin took a tentative sip of coffee and reflected on what he’d done. Sweatpants Bob, a fixture in Harksburg for longer than Kevin Felton had been alive, was deceased, gone, because Kevin kept the man’s soul from returning to his body. The fact that Sweatpants couldn’t completely fix his own cancer anyway was little consolation. What if things had gotten progressively better every time Sweatpants Bob died and came back? What could modern medicine have done for him with the knowledge that killing the patient didn’t mean the end? There were far too many unknowns in this situation, and Kevin hated every single one of them. He felt like he’d put down the family dog and hadn’t told anyone how the dog had passed. That was the real kicker. Everyone in Harksburg would know that Sweatpants Bob had died, but no one would know that Kevin Felton had really killed him. The lack of responsibility felt somehow damning, like he was getting away with something—even though no one in town would ever believe him if he ever outed himself.
That right there was the thing that scared Kevin the most about being a reaper: the lack of immediate responsibility. Would the power go to his head? Would it twist him into a maniac in the mold of Griggy Rasputin? Would it wear him down slowly, like flowing water carving out a new canyon, until he became something completely unrecognizable? To say he’d already begun to dread the future was an understatement. Life as a reaper held far too many terrible possibilities and not nearly enough happily-ever-afters.
And it would only get worse. Sweatpants Bob had made things easy for him. The old man knew it was time to go, regardless of how tightly his subconscious clung to life, and he just needed a little help getting there. Billy had shown him just how difficult the job could get when he’d streamed his own memories through Kevin’s soul while collecting hostages. He wasn’t looking forward to doing the deed with someone who wasn’t ready for the end, and the thought of working with children sent a shiver down his spine.
Another soul went haywire in Kevin’s mind. This one was a lot closer and somehow different from Sweatpants Bob’s. “I think…I think an elf is dying.”
“Ah,” Mr. Pemberton replied, “that’s likely the result of the hullabaloo on the front lawn.”
“The…what?”
“Miss Nella is none too happy with that Driff fellow. I daresay I wouldn’t be either if I’d spent the last few hours confined to the toilet tank in one of the spare bathrooms upstairs.”
Kevin couldn’t believe his ears. “Wait…Nella’s not…”
Mr. Pemberton shook his head. “Master Billy filled that fish tank using the kitchen sink. You’ve been boondoggled, Master Kevin.”
Several moments of rapid blinking and heavy mouth breathing later, the reaper keeper’s words finally sank in. Nella was alive and well—and Kevin had killed Billy in a futile attempt to rescue a few gallons of Harksburg’s skunky tap water. The latter would’ve made him feel hopelessly stupid if the former hadn’t already set his heart on fire.
He leapt to his feet and sprinted into the foyer. Several familiar voices cried out from beyond the front doors.
“Nella, let’s talk about this!” Ren Roberts shouted. “It’s not Driff’s fault!”
“Ah, don’t listen to that rich pussy!” Abelia Felton growled. “Drain the motherfucker!”
Kevin whipped the glass and gold doors open and hurried out onto the porch. He found his loved ones—and Driff—to his right, gathered on the grass. Nella, naked and blue, loomed over the elf, who lay prone on the ground. A thin tendril of water connected Driff’s green right hand to the water nymph’s fingers like a liquid leash. Ren and Abelia stood to either side, watching the proceedings intently. Ren’s beloved Jag was parked on the lawn behind them.
Abelia spotted him first. “Well, fuck me,” she muttered as her pinched scowl spread into a wide smile. Opposite Kevin’s mother, Ren’s jaw just dropped.
Kevin tackled Nella before she had a chance to turn around, dragging the water nymph to the ground and spinning her in his arms so he could press his lips to hers. Stunned, Nella hesitated for a moment, apparently unable to believe what was happening, and then she responded in kind. Her gills fluttered wildly on the sides of her neck.
“Get a damn room,” Abelia snapped. “And then I suggest you make an appointment at the clinic. Lord knows what kind of shit you can catch from fucking a fish lady.”
He came up for air briefly before diving right back in. “Nice to see you too, Ma.”
“Hey, reaper,” Driff croaked, his voice dry and scratchy. “I’m dying over here.”
Kevin pushed himself up onto his elbows and turned his attention to the elf. Driff was impossibly pale with bloodshot eyes and cracked, bleeding lips. He didn’t look like he was going to last much longer.
“I couldn’t feel you anymore,” Nella said sheepishly, caressing Kevin’s cheek. “I thought you were gone. I thought he had broken his promise to keep you safe, so I took his water xd like I said I would.”
“Can you put it back?”
“I can. Let me up.”
Kevin rolled off of Nella and rose to his feet. Freed, the water nymph scooted across the grass and took Driff’s green fingers gently in her right hand. “This is gonna hurt,” she said.
“Of course it is,” Driff mumbled.
Nella’s entire right arm liquefied, from her fingers up to her shoulder. Driff gritted his teeth and arched his back in pain as water flowed back into his body via his hand.
“So, you’re really a reaper now?” Ren asked casually. “How’s that going?”
Kevin brushed himself off. “So far, so good. Got the job done with Sweatpants Bob.”
“Dude, don’t you think that’s overkill? All he did was punch you in the face. You ended his entire existence.”
“Thought my street cred could use the rub. Gotta lay down the law, make sure everybody knows there’s a new sheriff in town.” It still hurt, but joking about it helped a little.
Nella stood, pulling the wobbly Driff up to his feet as she did so. A healthy tone had returned to his skin, but he still seemed a little weak and out of sorts. His right hand was no longer green. Nella had released the hex joining his water to her own.
“Good, so it’s all over, then,” the elf said, trying to come off as official and in charge but really just sounding like he was about to vomit. “Mission accomplished. I’ll put out the word to get the dust back into the water supply. Give it a few days, and it’ll be like nothing happened.” His eyes darted anxiously between the four people standing around him. “Well, mostly.”
Driff pushed his spectacles up on his nose, shoved his hands into his pockets, and stumbled forward, nearly colliding with Kevin before righting himself and continuing on. That was it, then: no good-byes, no jobs-well-done, no pleasures-working-with-you, nothing. Classic Driff, really. Expecting more, Kevin realized, would’ve been foolhardy.
But there was one last piece of unfinished business Kevin felt the need to address before the elf disappeared forever. It was something he easily could’ve kept to himself and yet, out of some potentially misplaced sense of loyalty, he made the split-second decision to open his mouth and say something he’d been very, very explicitly instructed not to say.
“Rotreego was here,” he blurted out. “His sword wouldn’t catch on fire.”
Driff tripped over his right foot, caught himself, and then stood still as a statue. He turned his head to glare at Kevin in confusion, but his expression softened as he worked to figure out what was going on. Then his jaw dropped, his eyes closed, and his entire body tensed in on itself. Whatever conclusion he’d come to was apparently far worse than Kevin had expected. He faced forward again, shaking his head as he resumed walking away, and he muttered something that sounded kind of like “fucking witch” as he magically hid himself from view.
“Who’s Rotreego?” Abelia asked. “Another one of your ‘professors?’” She punctuated that last bit with melodramatic air quotes.
“Just some asshole,” Kevin replied. Nella leaned in close as he wrapped his arm greedily around her midsection. “Mr. Gregson locked him in the basement and…ah…apparently took his favorite toy away, or something.”
“I suppose you’re all going to want a ride home now,” Ren groaned. “Bunch of freeloaders.”
“As long as I don’t have to get back in that bucket,” Nella snapped, slipping out of Kevin’s grasp to sprint for the front passenger seat.
“Don’t complain, honey,” Ren snapped, following close behind. “That bucket was downright roomy compared to sharing a fucking travel mug with two other people.”
“Where is my mug, anyway?” Abelia asked as she and Kevin headed for the Jag. “I won that fair and square in a baking competition and I want it back.”
“I’ll ask Mr. Pemberton,” Kevin replied. An interesting idea struck him then. “Hey, Ren: do extra awesome at getting everybody home and there just might be a brand new job in it for you.”
“You couldn’t possibly afford my services.”
“I’m not sure what the position I’m thinking of pays, but the benefits are great. Full immunity from Tallisker’s meddling, for one.”
His friend opened the driver side door and looked back at him over the Jag’s roof, clearly intrigued. “That might be worth it. What exactly did you have in mind?”
Kevin grinned from ear to ear. “Every reaper needs a keeper.”
“I have no clue what the hell you’re talking about,” Abelia interjected, “but it sounds pretty fucking stupid.”
Nella flashed Kevin an amused smile and winked.
“At this point, I’m used to pretty fucking stupid,” he said, “and I think you guys can help me deal with the worst of it.”
His mother sighed. “You are such a pussy.”