In chapter one, we got the backstory of this book, the setup, and we were introduced to the concept of Reaper, his reputation, the viewpoints regarding him, and met two of the main characters. In this chapter we actually get to meet Reaper, to know him as a person. We're introduced to his methods, his intention, his limits, and his...quirks. Next chapter we will get to the story proper.
Chapter Two
Gone Hunting
Dark smoke rolled along the ground, like thick, dark mist, along the old worn road for several yards before swirling upward into the sky and pouring through the air. Despite the fact that, in this form, the Reaper still couldn't move much faster than in his corporeal form, it was still convenient to be able to "smoke out" and move over the tops of buildings. After a couple of months he'd even finally gotten used to finding locations in the city from high above, something which had taken almost a month longer in Chicago.
I'm still not sure what the point was of witnessing that meeting, the Reaper thought.
He waited for a moment, as if expecting an answer to his thought, and then he got one. A whisper in his mind replied, Now you know that they are looking for you.
I left a note for them, complete with a literal calling card, Reaper thought back, of course they're looking for me.
And you, the Whisper countered, know exactly how they are proceeding, and who exactly is involved. From this point forward you'll know just what to avoid to protect your identity. After all, that was the entire point of recording your last bust and leaving the message for them in the first place I believe.
On his half-formed, misty face, behind the smoke which obscured it still, the Reaper scowled as he wondered if that was really the reason why he'd left that note and the 'Grim Reaper' Duel Monsters card from his own collection, or if he'd done it for a simpler purpose. He'd have liked to think that he'd sent the disk and the note to be clever and catch his adversaries in the NYPD in some kind of trap, but really, deep down, he'd done it because he was tired of no one knowing that he was there, risking his life. Even if it came in the form of an active investigation into his actions, he just wanted a little recognition, even if recognition wasn't the reason why he did what he did.
Not for the first time, the Reaper wondered about the Whisper in his mind, which he'd begun hearing after a few months of doing this, of moving across the country by night, completely alone, only ever making contact with other humans if it was to scare them off, or use his powers on them. He knew that the Whisper was just a part of his mind reaching out to provide him companionship in his companion free lifestyle, as a way of preserving his sanity. Humans, after all, are first and foremost social creatures, even if the Reaper did hate that fact almost more than the scum that he sought to punish and expose. He didn't mind the existence of the Whisper, though. What he wondered, and worried, about was the Whisper's tendency to rationalize the Reaper's actions. Was his subconscious just seeking to glorify the Reaper's self image, or was he really losing the ability to rationalize his plans and actions without carrying out a literal inner dialogue with himself first?
Either way the Reaper decided that he didn't much care. He found his dialogues with the Whisper to be helpful rather than a hindrance, and he was still far too elated since his last bust for his worries to matter.
He had a lead. It wouldn't lead him to the ones he really wanted to punish, the ones who deserved it the most, but it was a lead to someone worth the Reaper's time. Finally, after two months of intimidation and investigation, the Reaper would be able to find the man who, for so long, had been responsible for so much of the drug trade in New York, who had ruined the lives of so many people, and dispense the justice that the man deserved. Nothing fatal. While the Grim Reaper is a symbol of death, and the Reaper, the vigilante, was certainly more than capable of killing, he believed that only someone who survives their punishment has truly suffered it.
Due to this belief, among other things, the Reaper sought to find as many people as possible who had, knowingly, taken action which endangered the lives of others and bring them the Experience of Death. The illusionary power feeds on the darkness in the heart of the one inflicted with it and shows them punishments suited to their sins. The worst of the worst could still die from it, or at the very least their minds could break under the strain, but in it's essence it was proportionate, and appropriate, and caused no lasting physical harm.
The Experience of Death. It was something which the Reaper had never experienced for himself, though one of his other powers gave him the ability to look into other peoples' minds and see their fears. With this power he had, on a few occasions, experienced a few moments of his victim's illusionary punishments before their minds shut down. This had been purely by accident, it had been terrible, and still Reaper knew that those people deserved it.
Reaper flew over the city, swirling around the tops of skyscrapers, weaving along currents, until, after an hour, he found himself spread in his non-corporeal form across the top of a building in east Manhattan. He coalesced, forming the small-framed young man in the cloak from the video footage, though he didn't have smoke billowing from below his cape or swirling around his face. Despite how often he'd come to use his powers on a daily basis, they still tired him out over too much time, and he tried to use them as little as possible. So rather than use his powers to blend in with the darkness, or to become dark mist, he crouched down in the shadows of the building's upper edge and gazed two blocks south at an apartment building that was just a bit shorter than his current perch.
That's the building, Reaper thought, but I have to make sure that I have the right person. The goon in the warehouse said that I'd find this man on the eleventh floor, on the north side of the building.
As Reaper counted floors from the first to the eleventh, the Whisper replied in his head, Are you curious how that man knew so specific a location?
No, Reaper thought back, it doesn't matter. His will wasn't strong enough for him to be able to lie to me.
You don't even know this man's name, the Whisper countered, searching for holes in the Reaper's plan.
That won't be a problem, the Reaper thought back. This drug ring is large enough that there have to be some members left. By now they'll know that I caught up to someone who knew this man's location, they'll alert him, and he'll make a move. When I see him make it, I'll confront him, and I'll pluck his name from his mind along with his fears.
Unless his will is strong enough to resist you, the Whisper remarked.
The Reaper paused to consider this. He took the opportunity to smoke down to a lower building closer to the apartment building where the Reaper's quarry lived, where he could see through the eleventh floor windows. The Reaper had recently encountered someone who had been, at the time, unique. Someone strong-willed enough to resist the Reaper's power to pluck the basic fears from a person's mind. It had almost cost Reaper the chance to punish the man, as the way into a person's mind to implement the Experience of Death, or any of the Reaper's other Penalty Games, was through their fears. It was the core of all of the Reaper's most powerful abilities.
Then the Reaper had encountered someone else with a similarly strong will, and another. Soon he learned two absolute truths about his abilities: that his ability to pull information from peoples' minds could fail, and that no matter what, no one could fail to tell the Reaper their greatest fears if he met their eyes, and asked them. That was where the Reaper's true strength came from. Despite his moniker, the Reaper was not death, but fear itself, and everyone is afraid of something.
Then I'll skip his name, Reaper thought, ask him his fears, and I'll show them to him, and use his weakened psyche as an in to play a Shadow Game with him. I'll weigh his heart, and when he fails, I'll give him the Penalty, just like I always do.
You've taken down most of this man's empire. Aren't you worried he'll be prepared for your arrival?
I'm sure he will be, Reaper replied, but I'm sure I can handle it. After all what can he do against my abilities? In all of the months that I've been doing this, the only Shadow Magic users that I've come across have been nothings compared to me.
You're getting cocky, the Whisper said in a matter-of-fact way.
The Reaper considered this for a few minutes, and finally replied, Maybe, but I don't care. I'm too close to turn back now. This guy will be on his way out of town any time now. If I don't catch him tonight, I might not ever catch him at all.
There was a pause, and then the Whisper, more faint and quiet than ever spoke Reaper's mind, You could just kill him. He would stand no chance if you caught him off guard. Maybe it's what he deserves. He's just like them, and you know it's what they deserve.
Reaper didn't respond. This was the aspect of the Whisper that unsettles Reaper the most: it had a nasty habit of voicing his deepest, most hidden thoughts. Not for the first time the Whisper suggested the Reaper simply kill a villain, and this man had certainly done enough to warrant such a reaction. Reaper considered it, really considered it, for the first time since he'd begun doing this, but then he remembered a conversation that he'd had many years ago, and he knew he couldn't
No, Reaper thought back simply.
The Whisper didn't reply. Reaper barely noticed. He was used to the Whisper disappearing from his mind unexpectedly by this point, and quite frankly he was happy for the relative silence as he staked out the row of apartment windows before him. It was still early in the night, for Reaper anyway, and he didn't mind waiting, not for this kind of prey.
After a wait of nearly two hours, one of the rooms which had been empty suddenly found itself with an occupant. A middle-aged man rushed into the room and began shoveling random essentials from around the apartment into a suitcase. Reaper focused on him. He could taste the desperation rolling off of this man. He was definitely the one that Reaper was waiting for, but you would never peg him as a criminal mastermind. In fact the only thing that anyone might peg this guy as was exactly what he was, according to his subordinate from the previous night: an accountant. In fact, according to the profile which Reaper had spent the last two months building of this man it was his role and his skills as an accountant which had given him the opportunity to do all that he had done. Once he'd worked his way up the ladder in the accounting division of a large enough company, he had free reign enough to doctor the books a bit at a time, funneling the start-up money to begin his little side business from company accounts into his own.
From there, Reaper had learned, this man used considerable strategic and calculatory skill to divide his budding empire into cells, which could grow almost independently, preserving his anonymity, as few in each cell would even know of his existence. This would ensure that the police would almost certainly never find him, as the various cells of his empire appeared from an outsider's perspective to be completely separate from one another. No one would ever suspect that they were connected, let alone that a single man presided over them all, almost entirely on his own. Now this man, who had accumulated enough wealth to live out his days anywhere on Earth, had been forced to make his final possible move: to utilize that wealth and build a new life for himself somewhere else where he could never be connected to the crimes of his people, or, he surely hoped, found by the man who he knew was coming for him.
Steeling himself up, Reaper dissolved into dark mist and poured forward, through the air, toward the man's window. The window itself was too tightly weather sealed for the Reaper to squeeze in through it. Even in his smoke form, he still wasn't entirely non-corporeal. He still had to have room to move, and he could sustain harm. So instead of the window, Reaper wove toward an exterior vent and found his way into the building that way. He curled through the metal tunnel until he finally poured out of the ventilation system in the man's room, completely silent, just as the man turned toward the exit. He reached for the door knob, but just as he was about to touch it, he recoiled. Black smoke had curled around him, rising up between him and the door, and he was too afraid to reach through it.
The man turned and looked back into the apartment. Towering over him was Reaper, standing atop a billowing pillar of dark-colored smoke, smoke pouring from beneath his cloak and hood. Using magic to deepen his voice, and to pull basic information from his the man's mind, Reaper spoke.
"Martin Smith," Reaper said, his voice so deep that it shook the walls, "you have trespassed on the souls of millions of people by spreading drugs throughout the city, endangering their lives for your own personal gain. For this I will show you death."
Smoke rose up around Martin, curling around his arms and legs. He retreated and spun around to loose his limbs from the misty grip, but he only found more smoke behind him. He stumbled back as the smoke took form, showing Martin old and weak, wearing tattered cloths, begging on the streets: his greatest fears projected onto the mist for him to see played out before him. He saw himself sick, in pain, destitute. With a sharp, quick scream he fell back, toward Reaper, his suitcase falling from his grip and coming open at his side.
"Open your mind to me through fear," Reaper said. The crystal in his clasp began to flicker with amber light as he prepared to make the final move. And then something unexpected happened. Martin rooted through his spilled belongings until his hand fell upon a metal object. In a moment of surprising will, the middle-aged man sprung to his feet and took aim at Reaper with his gun. With no time to move out of the way, Reaper instinctively dissolved into his smoke form as a pair of bullets were let fly, passing through him and dispersing his body. Martin took the opportunity and gathered up what he could of his things, threw the door open and ran outside and toward the elevator. Slowly, the Reaper began to come back together, mist building in one place, swirling together, and slowly but surely assuming the solid form of the cloaked young man, fallen to one knee, clutching his stomach. His entire abdomen felt bruised, and he was sure he had at least one cracked rib. Despite this, after catching his breath and picking himself up, Reaper smoked out again and poured back outside through the vents, as Martin had certainly reached the street.
Sure enough Reaper spotted Martin almost immediately, ducking into an alleyway. Reaper bore down on him, but this time Martin was prepared. He had his weapon ready. He turned to take aim and fire again as Reaper approached, but this time Reaper was ready, too. Before Martin could get off a single shot, Reaper swept up one of the knives hanging from his belt with the smoke billowing from below his cloak and thrust it forward, lodging it in the gun's barrel. Martin tossed the gun away as smoke billowed around him once more. He looked around desperately, and reluctantly he reached behind his back and removed something from a pouch at his waist. Reaper assumed it was another gun and threw another knife to disarm him, but the knife was deflected in a flash of silvery light. In Martin's hand was a small gunmetal-colored chalice, encrusted with small blood red jewels, with silver Egyptian symbols etched into it in a band around the outside. Martin smiled, "I cant believe that actually worked. The guy I bought this thing from said it would react to another magic item and give me powers, but I didn't believe him. Let's see just how powerful this thing really is."
The Reaper was surprised to encounter a Shadow Item so powerful that it could work so effectively even in the hands of an amateur. He'd dealt with Shadow Items before. They were charms, trinkets, and even weapons, forged with inherent magical ability by ancient cultures. Designed to tap into and amplify a form of fate-bending spiritual energy that exists in some quantity or another in the soul of every person, they allowed their bearers to cast spells. Some, like Reaper's amber-colored charm, even bestowed more specific and intuitive abilities on those who wielded them. Suddenly Reaper came to startling realization. A man who, like Martin, had lived such a dangerous second life without coming to any harm, must have quite a large reserve of this magical energy. In his hand any Shadow Item would be a dangerous implement of destruction, and Reaper could feel that this Item was quite powerful in its own right as well.
Lost in thought Reaper didn't react in time when Martin, high on his new-found abilities, lashed out. He was inexperienced and unfocussed, but he had raw power on his side. Soon Reaper found himself expelling dense streams of black smoke from beneath his cloak, pushing back against a wave of red light from the Chalice's gems. He pushed against his target's magic with the force of his will, edging ever closer to his full strength, looking for a way in, to reconnect with Martin's mind.
Do not hold back, said the Whisper again in the back of the Reaper's mind. Rip his spell apart, even if it means ripping him apart in the process.
Straining and desperate, Reaper almost listened. The flashing of amber light from the charm in his clasp grew even more intense, and the smoke from beneath his cloak began to overwhelm the other man. Any moment his spell would break, and there would be nothing left of him at all. Then Reaper remembered again, a voice and a face of someone important to him many years ago, and of ideals shared, and he pulled back. In that moment the Reaper's spell was broken. He might have died himself, but at the last moment he dissolved into smoke again, and his form was only blasted apart temporarily. His vision was overloaded, and his head began to spin. Reaper wasn't sure how long it took him to recover, but in that time, Martin escaped. There was no way to know where. Defeated for the first time since he had began fighting this fight, the Reaper had no choice but to give up the chase. He fell to his knees again, allowing himself to feel the full impact of his injuries. He remained that way for several long minutes before standing tall, dissolving into smoke, and curling upward into the air, leaving the site of his failed confrontation behind.
Several streets down, Martin Smith ducked into another alley between two dilapidated buildings and turned a corner, pressing his back against a wall. He stopped and took the opportunity to look back the way he'd come to make sure he wasn't being followed. He let out a relieved laugh as he realized that he'd managed to escape the inescapable. He kissed the Chalice still in his hand and turned toward the exit of the alleyway, ready to step out onto the street, blend in with the late night crowd, and make his way to the airport where he would catch a one-way flight to his new life. Instead he found himself face-to-face with a figure in the darkness. Even shrouded, it was clear that this figure was significantly different from the Reaper. He was taller by several inches, his head framed by the silhouette of long, ragged hair, and in his left hand he carried something that glinted like metal. Martin moved to lift his Chalice to defend himself again with its magic, but there was a flash of movement at the mysterious figure's left side, and suddenly Martin's hand simply wasn't there anymore.
"You have something that I need," the figure said in a raspy, maniacal voice. He stepped forward, the object in his left hand raised. In the moments that followed, Martin Smith's screams could be heard echoing several streets away, until they suddenly died. In the ever-present din or city noise, no one took much notice, and the Reaper was already too far away to hear.
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