The Scythe-Bearer

Chapter 2: “Special” assignment

Michael led Margaret through the glowing portal with a smug smile on his face. “Aargh!” How I wanted to use my scythe to carve that smugness off his stupid face. He turned to leave some unwanted and unneeded advice

“Hey Sy, better luck next time.”

He laughed and the room grew intensely bright, my eyes scrunched against it. The room turned back to normal when the portal disappeared.

“Ass…”

I turned to see the nurses place a white sheet over Margaret’s body, buried dark thoughts entered my mind.

“I wonder what it is like to die. Is it painful at first and then relief? Or just numbness?”

Funny enough, I, who works with the dead, does not know what death feels like. I walk over to her body and looked upon her face, shrouded by the thin material. Her hand was uncovered and hanging off of the bed, I took it and held it within mine. What was so full of life and warmth was now cold and lifeless.

“What is it like to die?” My thoughts echoes through my head, Saku hooted for my attention indicating that we need to leave. I placed her hand on the bed and covered it with the sheet, I bent to kiss dear old granny’s brow through the covers and whispered,

“May your body rest in peace and your soul reside in heaven.”

Saku began to become impatient and hissed

“Sy! Come on we have get moving, now!”

He pecked at my ear and I swatted at him ushering him to quit it. I turned from away from the Margaret’s death bed and swung my scythe to cut the air to open a portal to the Soul Retrieval Company.

***

“Name?”

The lobbyist at headquarters looked at me with hollow orbits; well I guess you can call them eye sockets because she is a skeleton after all.

“Sy…”

She whisked her bony fingers across the keyboard and focused on the screen.

“Position within the company?”

“Scythe-bearer”

At my answer, she looked at me and even though literally she had no eyes I could feel her gaze analyze every inch of my body.

“So young…”

She mumbled and continued with her full speed typing until she looked up again.

“Sir Lucas wishes to speak to you before your next assignment, please proceed to his office.”

I inwardly groaned but I followed the hallway to his office. The building’s interior had very modernized feel to it with high tech equipment and motion-censored lighting in every hall and there is at least one information terminal that connected to the SRC’s main archives in every second hallway. My laced up black military boots clapped on the hard wood floor, I entered the Fore-Grims hallway. This hallway contains haunted paintings of past leaders for some reason unknown to me, as I walked through the hallway their cold whispers and eyes followed me.

“This place never ceases to creep me out.”

As I reached Lucas’ door I mentally prepared myself for weirdness onslaught, the leader of the Soul Retriever Company is a bit different than one would expect. I grasped the bronze doorknob and opened the creaking door, stepped inside and closed it behind me.

“Ah! Sy...Just the person I wanted to see.”

Lucas Hailfire sat behind a dark wood desk, he grinned with various levitating knives pointed dangerously close towards me.

“Man…this is why I hate coming here.”

He stood up and walked towards me bringing his armor of knives with.

“Now, Sy I hear you haven’t brought even one delicious soul in the past two months!”

His pointed teeth flashed as he spoke and his blood coloured eyes focused directly on mine. I simply shrugged my shoulders.

“I can’t help it if you guys keep sending me to souls that go up.”

“That you can’t but you haven’t been in headquarters since the Warren Baker case.”

My body suddenly filled with embarrassment and shame, I chose to stare at my feet until I felt the air shift as he moved closer to me. I immediately looked up just as one of his knives sliced my cheekbone and I felt warm liquid leak out on my cheek and run down off my chin.

“Wha…?”

Before I could finish my word he twisted his head and licked the cut. I recoiled away from him and summoned my scythe, extended it in defense. He laughed a laugh of a mad man, cackling like a well depicted villain in a fairytale.

“Come on Sy, I was only having some fun! The air had become so depressing and heavy!”

He sat against the front of his desk and grinned like a Cheshire cat. I repeatedly rubbed my cheek in disgust. “Gross!”

“Anyways I wanted to give you a “special” assignment, one I am sure you will enjoy.”

I highly doubted that but I stayed quiet, he waved his hand horizontally and a leather bound book appeared in my hands.

“Here is a book of the most wanted sinner souls that have escaped sweet old hell and Limbo, the names contained within this book are a hundred percent rotten to the core.”

I ran my hand along the outer casing of the book and its rough pages

“And so? What must I do with it?”

“Well, I want you to start capturing these souls and you can start with this one.There is a smokie occupying a human body and we fear that it might be stirring up some trouble in the human world, I want you to locate it and give judgment so that the higher ups don’t get a whiff about us losing a soul, okay?”

I glared at him as he smiled widely

“So you basically you want me to clean up your mess?”

He grinned further and nodded. I had a strong urge to tell him to go and stuff this book somewhere where the sun don’t shine but I didn’t want to know what he would do after that. The one thing Lucas Hailfire is, is unpredictable and that is very dangerous for me.

“Fine! Where and when must I leave?”

“Great! You need to transport immediately and the location is Willberry High School in the north. It seems that one of the students is the smokie in hiding, all you need to do is, go to the school as a transfer student and flush the smokie out.”

He clapped his hands together, looking pleased with his genius plan. I, for one, am not happy with this. Not one bit…