This chapter is a short one, but it didn't need to be anything more. We can see that, for the two detectives, things are changing, but for Reaper himself, things are exactly the same as they've always been. I'll allow anyone who actually reads this to determine for themselves exactly what this means. Regardless, Reaper is over, and I can finally continue with the latest story of the Duel Force. I think I'll need to take a few days, though.
The Beginning
James woke up from a dreamless sleep to find himself staring up at a white, featureless ceiling. His eyelids felt heavy, and even without moving, he could feel fatigue and stiffness plaguing his limbs. To his surprise, there was no period of disorientation. He immediately recalled what had happened, where he had been the last time that he’d been conscious, and he immediately knew where he was now. He looked around, unsurprised to see other telltale details of a hospital room within his limited field of view. Outside the broad, unshaded window across the room, he could see characteristic New York buildings, lit up bright in the dark of night, and even from within the mostly-quiet room, he could hear the faint background sounds of the city streets below.
With effort, James managed to stir, and push himself up ever so slightly, until he could make out the rest of the room. He was surprised to see a figure sitting in the darkest corner of the room, which was already overall very dimly lit. He recognized the man from his silhouette alone.
“Detective Thompson,” James said, his voice hoarse enough that he barely recognized it. As usual, it was a statement, but Thompson took it as a question, and he responded appropriately.
“Yeah,” Thompson said, “it’s me. I’ve been checkin’ in on ya from time to time. I’m glad you finally woke up. I was getting impatient.”
James looked around again, a question forming in his mind, as the older man stood up and stepped closer to James’ bed, his hands in his pockets. “How did I get here?” James asked. “The last I remember, I was in Egypt, within the ruin, facing down the killer with the girl, El. I was hit, and I went down.”
“That answers a couple of questions,” Thompson told him. “Truth is, no one knows how you got here. You just showed up outside the ER a week ago. No details, no explanation, nothing. From what I understand, the department was hoping you could tell them what happened. Somehow, though, I figured that you wouldn’t know any more than the rest of us.”
James allowed Thompson’s words to sink in. He hadn’t missed the clear phrasing in the older man’s statement. “The captain discharged you,” James said, “because of what we did.”
“Yeah,” Thompson said with a sigh, “but I knew what would happen. I’m not an idiot, despite what I let you all think.”
“I’m sorry-,” James began, but Thompson cut him off.
“Forget it,” he insisted, dismissively. “I’m okay with it, believe it or not. The captain managed to swing severance, and I’ve got something else in the works already. You’re looking at Jeff Thompson, P.I., in a week once my application for a license goes through, anyway.”
James nodded. He didn’t know Thompson well enough to tell if he was sincere in how he felt about his situation, but he wouldn’t do the man the disservice of arguing the point, or prodding further. Instead he asked, “What happened with the killer? And El and the Reaper?”
“I can’t speak for the girl,” Thompson answered, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, “but as far as I know, the guy with the knife never came out of whatever ruin you confronted him in. There haven’t been any reports of further attacks, or anything like that.”
“What about the Reaper?” James asked, eager to hear word of his one-time hero.
“Well,” Thompson told James, “that’s the odd thing, sightings of the Reaper have started up again, with the same frequency as before all of this happened. The guys from the office who’ll actually talk to me confirm it, and I’ve been following his trail myself whenever I can. Surprising as it sounds, I’d like to talk to him again. But he seems to have gone right back to what he’s been doing all along, like nothing ever happened. And as far as anyone can tell, there’s never anyone with him.”
James considered this for a moment. The implications of that left him unsettled. It was possible that the killer, Charles Simpson, had been defeated without serious incident, and that the girl, with no vendetta to pursue, retired from that life, while the Reaper had not, but James had gotten a different impression from the two during their time together. He had been sure that, regardless of what the pair did next, they intended to do it together. True, James had trouble reading and relating to people, so his impression could have been wrong, but it still didn’t feel right to him that the Reaper would delve right back into that life without El at his side. He hoped that he was wrong, because he didn’t want to consider what it would mean if he was right. He hoped he wasn’t right.
James put it out of mind, unwilling to dwell too much. He hadn’t been awake long enough deal with something so unsettling, and he was still conflicted on how he felt about the Reaper. On one hand, he had pushed himself to his limits and beyond to stop a dangerous person, but on the other hand, he was just a kid, and he wasn’t infallible. In that moment, James came to realization that made him feel like he was leaving behind an important part of himself, that there might actually be no such thing as a superhero. In that moment, he decided that he could never expect anything from the Reaper, or anyone like him, ever again. He didn’t know, yet, if he was wholly against the Reaper and his methods, and he doubted that he would refuse the Reaper’s help again if it was needed, but there, on that table, he accepted the Reaper for what he actually was. It hurt him, but it was the right thing to do.
“Are you working with the department?” James asked Thompson carefully, gauging what more, exactly, to say to him.
“No,” Thompson replied simply, “not in any kind of official, or unofficial, capacity. I hope that I might be able to consult once my license comes through, though.”
“I’m not sure how much I can tell you, then,” James confessed. “I might have already divulged too much. I imagine that’s why you’re here? You’re investigating this on your own now?”
Thompson nodded a bit, “Yeah, yeah that’s why I’m here. Good call. You shouldn’t tell me any more of what happened, not until you know it’s alright.”
He turned toward the doorway, “I’ll leave you to rest. I’ll send the nurse in to check ya on my way out.”
With his hands in the pockets of his brown slacks, Thompson strode out of the room, and it was only then that James came to a realization: his slacks, his jacket, and even his shirt and tie, they were new. Gone were the ragged, faded articles that Thompson had gotten by with for years. He had renewed himself, because, despite costing him his job, this case had renewed him. In that moment, James actually wondered if Thompson had only been there to grill him upon waking, and he felt bad for making the older man want to leave. As his nurse, a Latino man in his twenties, came into the room and began to ask James a series of health-related questions, he had an idea that had never crossed his mind before, that maybe Thompson was his friend.
Outside the hospital, Thompson made his way to his car, but halfway there, he stopped. He looked around, as if he were trying to spot an onlooker. Almost immediately, a figure seemed to peel himself free of the darkness of the evening, and there was the Reaper, standing there before him in his cloak, his face shrouded completely behind living shadows.
“You spoke to Detective James,” the Reaper said.
“I did,” Thompson agreed.
“Will he be alright?” the Reaper inquired, and Thompson had to consider how to answer.
“Why not just go in a see for yourself?” He asked after a moment’s pause. “With your powers it’d be cake. No one would even have to see you.”
The Reaper looked up at the hospital building, at the equal number of lit and unlit rooms, keeping his gaze upon them for long enough that Thompson wondered if he was counting them, and he said, “Could you imagine if my power to hide myself failed? What would happen if the patients inside saw a walking, talking death omen inside the hospital?”
Thompson laughed despite himself, despite the hypothetical horror of such a situation, “Yeah, okay, I get it. Yeah, James’ll be fine. In fact, he seemed worried about you and the girl.”
At the mention of El, the Reaper’s gaze shifted. Even through his disguise, Thompson could see that he had gone from looking at the building to looking at nothing, and he made the intelligent decision not to pry. Something had happened, and it wasn’t something that this young man was going to discuss unless it were his choice to do so. Thompson could respect that.
“So,” Thompson inquired instead, unable to resist the urge to question the young vigilante at all while he had the chance, “what do you plan to do now? The police are acknowledging your existence. They might allow you to help them out, and they might be willing to help you. Do kinda a Batman thing.”
The Reaper laughed, “Yeah, I know, but I’m not some kinda Batman. That’s why I’m moving on. First thing tomorrow, I’m heading out of the city. I’ll find somewhere else to set up shop.”
Thompson didn’t know what to say to that. He looked down at his feet, and after a moment of consideration, he said the only thing that came to mind, “Okay then, well, good luck with that.”
He looked up again, meaning to press the Reaper further, and he wasn’t surprised to find that the Reaper was already gone. He took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it as he continued toward his car, muttering under his breath, “Not Batman my ass.”
The Reaper materialized from a swirling cloud of smoke on the roof of a building a block away, and he turned back toward the hospital once again. The detective is going to make it, he thought, that’s good, at least.
He waited, as if expecting someone to answer his thoughts, but as he expected, no one did. The Reaper no longer had even a voice in his head to act as his companion. As he once again dematerialized and soured once more into the sky, he realized, not for the first time, that the whisper had been right: he did long for the days when he was satisfied talking only to himself.
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