Reapers, Inc. - Brigit's Cross (10 page)

“I’ve read the field guide. There’s no
mention of using a sword,” Brigit pointed out as she picked up the
black umbrella and began twirling it by the curved mahogany handle.
It was a simple black umbrella, similar to the one she and Maggie
used to walk under when it would rain. It was long but lightweight;
its presence was familiar in her hand.

“Did you read the last page?” John inquired
as he watched his protégé handling the umbrella as if it were
indeed a sword.

“The last page is blank,” Brigit said quietly
as she tried to decide if perhaps the umbrella wasn’t for her. It
seemed almost absurd in her mind – to be a Reaper carrying an
umbrella. She wasn’t a flying English nanny, after all. “What do
you think of this?”

“Ask the field guide,” John instructed.

Brigit ceased twirling the umbrella and
fished the field guide from the hip pocket of her long black coat.
He was being silly, she thought as she began thumbing through the
thin square book.

“There’s nothing about an umbrella,” she
mumbled.

“Are you sure? Check the last page,” he
insisted. Brigit glanced up at him. No smile played near his lips
or in his eyes. He was serious, she realized. She looked down as
she turned to the last page and froze. In simple black text, she
read:

Take the Umbrella
.

“I guess that settles it,” Brigit said as she
slowly closed the field guide and returned it to its new home in
her coat pocket. The idea that had come to hear the night before
regarding the book and its possible magical energy had just been
verified in that instant. It was yet another thing to accept into
her new reality…

“Any time you have a question, consult the
last page. Suggestions will appear as you need them.” John revealed
as he replaced the walking stick to its place on the table. He
would wait until he actually had a good reason to replace his
current stick to retrieve this one. A little nick was not yet a
good excuse. “Shall we get busy, then?”

Brigit nodded and followed him from the
arsenal room. Together, they walked the remaining stretch of the
hall to his office. John sighed heavily at the sight of the boxes
of files lining the room and dropped his walking stick back into
the bronze umbrella stand that he had taken it from before their
field trip. There mere sight of so much work sent his mind into a
tailspin.

“Where should we begin?” he asked quietly as
Brigit looked over the wall of boxes.

“How are they organized so far?” she asked in
reply.

“To my knowledge, they are not organized. The
retirement of the world’s Reapers was quite sudden, so the files
were simply dumped into the boxes and brought here. I’ve made very
little headway, as you can tell,” he sighed, waving toward the pile
of files on his desk.

“What do you do with the completed
assignments,” Brigit asked, remembering that the contents of the
portfolio went blank as soon as the soul had been escorted to their
door.

“I’ve been filing them in the box under my
desk,” John revealed. Brigit walked around his desk and pulled the
box out. There were a handful of files there. Not much for six
months of work. She looked up at John only to see him shrug.

“I’ve been procrastinating a little,” he
admitted. “We’re supposed to log names in the black bound tomes
after we’ve completed assignments.” Brigit’s eyes followed his
pointed finger to the black leather books filling the bookcases.
There were no titles on the spines.

“Those hold the names of every person who has
ever died?” she asked.

“They do,” John confirmed. “All the way back
to 34 A.D.”

“Okay,” Brigit sighed. “Here’s what we’re
going to do first…”

As Brigit began to explain that it was best
to divide the duties of organizing, John removed his suit coat and
began to roll up the sleeves of his white shirt. He nodded in
agreement as she explained her plan to dump the boxes and start
filing assignments due by age. With in that organization system,
they would create separate categories for children and adults. With
in the adult category, they would separate the good from the bad.
Beyond that, they had to remember to look for new candidates for
the open positions within the firm.

As John lifted the lid from the nearest box
and dumped its contents on the hard wood floor under his feet, he
felt a huge weight lifted from his shoulders. He was no longer
alone in this endeavor to continue the natural procession for
souls. Even though there were only the two of them at the present,
John had the presence of mind to think that eventually, the firm
would be back to its utmost operating capacity.

Brigit watched as John dumped another box on
to the floor. She shrugged out of her own coat and began to rifle
through the files on his desk. It would most likely take them days
to go through the files. Once they had a good start, though, she
knew keeping up with the daily influx would be easy. John emptied
two more boxes before sitting in the floor, his legs sprawled out
as he began his sorting. Brigit thought the sight of him sitting
there gave him the appearance of a toddler playing on the floor.
She pressed her lips firmly together to keep from laughing at the
sight.

“I have to be home by sundown,” she said
quietly as she sank into the leather chair behind the desk. She was
opening portfolios, glancing at the assigned soul’s age and passing
date before setting it in its new place.

“I know. We’ll accomplish what we can
together and then I’ll continue sorting after you’re gone,” John
decided. He too was glancing at ages and passing dates.
Occasionally, he would scan the contents a little further for
information that might lead to a new recruit. If nothing suited his
requirements, he tossed the file into the appropriate box
designated. Children were out of the question for recruitment.

“What was your easiest assignment?” Brigit
asked as she scanned the contents of the portfolio for a Sister
Mary Kate DeMarcus. She closed the portfolio after remembering the
second rule in the Reaper’s Field Guide. A nun was probably the
least likely candidate to shed their religious beliefs in light of
a new occupation as a Reaper.

“The elderly and the children are usually the
easiest. The elderly have accepted that their time has come and the
children, well, they are just grateful to be led out of their
confusion,” John replied.

“What was your hardest assignment?” Brigit
asked next. She heard a slight snort and looked up from the file of
Leopold Gryzynzki.

“That one is a long story, love.”

“Humor me,” Brigit said. She was intrigued by
the bittersweet expression on John’s face as he mulled over the
topic in his memory.

“Have you found any new candidates?” John
asked instead.

“Not yet. Tell me the story,” she
pressed.

He looked up at her, his expression was very
serious. He understood by the look on his new assistant’s face that
he wasn’t going to escape the question in the long run; but, today
was not the day he wished to delve into that particular memory.
Finally, he shook his head and returned his attention to the pile
of black portfolios before him.

“Another day, love,” he promised. “We have
too much ahead of us at the moment.”

Brigit returned her attention to the pile on
the desk and continued to sort. There was something that had
affected him by her question. She wondered how bad the assignment
could have been that John would not talk about it easily. A silence
settled between them as they continued to organize the files. Once
in awhile, John would make a small noise when he found a potential
candidate for recruitment. Aside from that, neither Reaper spoke
out loud for hours.

When sundown finally leveled its weight on
Brigit’s internal clock, she pushed herself back from John’s desk
and stretched. Even though she knew it was not possible anymore,
her muscles felt cramped and knotted from the hours of repetitive
movement involved with the reading and sorting of the thin black
portfolios. She stretched her arms high over her head before
rolling her head in a circle to break up the imagined knots in her
neck and shoulders.

“Heading out?” John asked, glancing up from
the new pile he had created on the floor. He had already made it
through a dozen boxes from the wall. It had created a sizeable dent
in the façade.

“I am. Maggie will be home soon,” Brigit
answered as she stood and began to pull on her coat. “Will you work
all night?”

“It’s not as if I have anything else to do,”
John remarked. Brigit glanced at him to see if he was attempting to
be funny, but his attention was affixed to the task before him.

“I’ll be back first thing in the morning,”
she promised.

“I’ll be here,” he remarked.

With that, Brigit exited the office and
walked the long hall way to the main entrance. Something was
bothering her about his remark. A touch of sadness for John
Blackwick settled on her mind as she opened the main door and
stepped out onto the sidewalk. He had no one to watch over, no love
to hold him like she did. She felt sorry for him.

John sighed heavily as he reached for another
portfolio and opened the cover. He had not expected Brigit Malone’s
idle curiosity to put him in such a mood. He had hoped he could
bury that particular memory forever now that there was no one
around to remember all that had happened. Yet, she had asked a
simple question and it had brought the bittersweet memory -- and
its consequences – back to the forefront of his mind.

As he perused each portfolio and filed it
accordingly, he felt himself feeling somewhat envious of her.

She could still feel love. She possessed a
desire within her. Her lover was still present to receive that
emotion, whether Maggie Devon realized it or not.

John envied them both. It was a feeling he
had never thought he would experience ever again and it troubled
him deeply.

It had taken them a week to go through the
past due files. John worked every night reading portfolios as if
they were resumes after Brigit had gone home. When she would return
in the morning, he would hand her a pile to go through as well,
asking for her opinion in his choices. If she agreed, the
portfolios were slipped into the top right drawer. If she
disagreed, the portfolios were returned to the assignment due box.
When the last portfolio had been read and categorized, John had
looked at her with a triumphant gleam in his ice blue eyes.

“We’re done sorting,” he announced.

“Really?” Brigit looked up from the foremost
box of assignments due.

“We are,” he confirmed. “We’ve only lost a
week. Thank you.”

“Why are you thanking me?” she asked.

“I don’t think I could have gone through this
all without some sort of direction. So, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Brigit replied. “So what’s
next?”

John looked at the four separate stacks of
boxes. They had categorized the boxes by: Most Immediate
Assignments, Children, Adults and Potential Problems. Neither
Reaper was in any great hurry to begin the assignments contained
within the last stack of boxes.

“Do you feel that you’re ready to take on
some solo work?” he asked.

“Sure, if you think I’m ready,” Brigit
answered. John nodded his answer as he reached around her and
withdrew a couple of portfolios from the Most Immediate Assignments
box and extended them to her. He had observed the ease with which
she wore her new duties during her training. Eventually, John knew,
Brigit would be a first class Reaper; but for now, he would start
her out with some light solo flights.

“Try these and then return to the office.
They should be relatively easy to accomplish. You can give me a
briefing and we’ll discuss what you could have done differently if
they turn out not to be so easy,” he instructed. Brigit took the
portfolios and slipped them into the hip pocket of her coat. “If we
were operating at full capacity, I would accompany you to observe,
naturally. As the case is, I think I should be in the field as well
so we can start to catch up on this.”

He waved an arm toward the stack of Most
Immediate Assignments. Unfortunately, this particular stack was
twice as tall as the other three. Brigit nodded in silent
agreement. She watched as John turned and withdrew a thick pile
from the box. As the portfolios were relatively thin in girth, he
was able to grab fifty or more at once. He had only given her two
to complete for the moment. She hoped that soon she would have the
knowledge and ability to accomplish more.

“Take off then,” John instructed. “Be sure to
take your umbrella. Good luck, love,” he wished her as she walked
to the door of the office.

She thanked him before plucking her umbrella
from the stand where John stored his black walking stick.
Lightheartedly, she hooked the handle over her arm and began the
long walk down the hall to the main entrance of 666 ½ Bleecker
Street. She paused at the great door to withdraw the first
assignment. Quickly she scanned the location before opening the
door and exiting the building.

The assignment was located at 72 St. Marks
Place. If memory served her correctly, it was the address of an
abandoned cabaret theater. She remembered the article in the
neighborhood press regarding its closure. There had been enough
incidents involving drugs and death that the owner had finally
thrown in the towel and barred the doors forever. She remembered
how she and Maggie had expressed their dismay at never seeing one
of the shows. Their friends had all raved about the quality of the
drag queens that had graced the stage every night of the week and
that Brigit and Maggie had indeed missed out on a good time.

Matthew Swenson was the assignment. His
moment of passing had been the result of a drug overdose. Brigit
frowned slightly as she scanned the contents of his life. She hoped
that all her assignments would not be so sad, or so quick to touch
her heartstrings. Sighing, she closed the file and returned it to
her coat pocket. It was best to get on with it. Raising her hand to
shield her eyes against the bright light of the portal, Brigit
stepped out onto the street.