9: Organizing the Organization

Brig­it fol­lowed John back to the of­fice in si­lence. She wait­ed pa­tient­ly as he un­locked the main door and opened it, won­der­ing why he would even need to lock the door to be­gin with. The ad­dress was a phan­tom ad­dress. She was sure there was no chance of some­one en­ter­ing the build­ing by ac­ci­dent. As they en­tered the main en­trance, she said as much.

“Ac­tu­al­ly, you’re wrong,” John told her. “There have been a few oc­ca­sions in the past where a ‘gift­ed’ mor­tal has found the place and en­tered. Arax­ius con­sid­ered it a se­cu­ri­ty breach and, af­ter the third ‘in­ci­dent’, de­mand­ed that the main en­trance be locked when there were no Reapers present to en­sure the safe­ty of the firm’s da­ta.”

“What do you mean by ‘gift­ed’?” Brig­it asked as John walked a few paces ahead of her and stopped at a door to his left. He searched the key ring still in his hand for the key that fit that par­tic­ular lock.

“Clair­voy­ants, Witch­es, peo­ple who eas­ily and nat­ural­ly walk be­tween the two realms. Con­trary to pop­ular be­lief, such mor­tals do ex­ist. Aleis­ter Crow­ley once en­tered the of­fices in Britain and I heard tale that Arax­ius had a dev­il of a time get­ting him to leave. Af­ter a week of his lurk­ing on the side­walk, Arax­ius had to close the of­fice in Lon­don and re­lo­cate it to Dublin. That’s where I came on,” John ex­plained. Brig­it not­ed there was a note of amuse­ment in the telling of the sto­ry. Per­haps John Black­wick did pos­sess a sense of hu­mor af­ter all.

“So, you’re Irish?”

“Aye, lass,” John replied as he fit the last key on the ring in­to the lock and turned it. He looked at Brig­it and smiled. There was a gleam in his eye that Brig­it had not yet seen since mak­ing his ac­quain­tance. He had re­laxed his ac­cent and she could tell with­out fur­ther doubt that he was in­deed from the Emer­ald Isle. “Come; let’s choose your weapon be­fore we start with the pa­per­work.” John said as he pushed open the door.

The ar­se­nal room was not much big­ger than John’s of­fice. Its walls, how­ev­er, were cov­ered in ev­ery type of weapon Brig­it could ev­er have imag­ined ex­ist­ing.

“Which would you rec­om­mend?” Brig­it asked as she eyed the as­sort­ment of clubs, staves, and walk­ing sticks lain out across a wide ta­ble to the left of the room. On the wall above that, there were mourn­ing glo­ries, spikes, and some very dan­ger­ous look­ing ham­mers hang­ing from hooks af­fixed to the dark wood. She no­ticed the col­lec­tion of knives and swords on a ta­ble di­rect­ly in front of her, and, the large scythe hang­ing on the wall be­hind it.

“Any of these will do,” John replied qui­et­ly. “It’s de­pen­dent on what you are most com­fort­able with.”

Brig­it looked to the third ta­ble and found an odd as­sort­ment of items. They were items she would nev­er have re­al­ly con­sid­ered a weapon, but as she eyed them care­ful­ly, she imag­ined that, in a spot, any­thing could be a weapon if one had the pres­ence of mind to use it as such. There was a black um­brel­la, a lead ball on a thick chain, a chain by it­self and an as­sort­ment of hat­pins dis­played in­to an or­nate fan. John went to the ta­ble hold­ing the clubs and walk­ing sticks. He lift­ed an ebony walk­ing stick very sim­ilar to the one he still car­ried un­der his arm and eyed it fond­ly.

“This is usu­al­ly my first choice,” he said, hold­ing it gen­tly be­tween his opened hands. His ice blue eyes slow­ly trav­eled the length of it, look­ing for any flaws that might ap­pear along its ebony fin­ish.

Brig­it stud­ied each of the im­ple­ments on the ta­bles. The clubs looked al­most pre­his­toric, and very un­in­ter­est­ing. It seemed to scream ‘ogre hunt­ing’ at its finest. There was an­oth­er walk­ing stick, al­most iden­ti­cal to the one John fa­vored; but Brig­it had nev­er been one to copy the fash­ion of an­oth­er. The col­lec­tion of staves held her eye for a mo­ment. She had done well with the bow staff dur­ing her Kung-​Fu weapons train­ing, but she had been bet­ter with the sword. She glanced over her shoul­der with that thought.

“What about a sword?” she asked qui­et­ly as she eyed a samu­rai sword mount­ed care­ful­ly on a short wood­en stand.

“I would be care­ful about that choice, love. You could con­demn a soul to eter­nal lim­bo,” John replied. He was still study­ing the walk­ing stick. He was sure he had nicked his present one in the last scuf­fle. It wasn’t enough to war­rant re­plac­ing it, al­though he did so love the look of an un­blem­ished walk­ing stick.

“So, I would be­come a judge at that point?”

“Yes, and, no,” John replied even­ly.

“Let’s not be spe­cif­ic, John,” Brig­it quipped as she brought her eyes back to the ta­ble with the odd as­sort­ment of in­stru­ments least like­ly to con­demn a soul.

“Sor­ry, love,” John snapped from his study of the walk­ing stick. “It can be com­pli­cat­ed. It’s best to con­sult your field guide re­gard­ing that ques­tion.”

“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.