Death's Mantle 2

by Harmon Cooper

“You destroyed her… You absorbed her!”

  Menor tackled Lucian, an injurecrow going off between both of them, Lucian momentarily blinded by the explosion.

  “How was your sister a Death?” he managed to ask, his eyes starting to heal.

  “I split…”

  Lucian felt a force against the small of his back that sent needles through his body.

  He dropped to the ground, a numb feeling coming over his limbs and quickly dissipating.

  “I split my mantle with her,” Menor said, his voice haggard.

  Lucian waited for the final blow to be delivered, but heard a blast instead.

  He swiveled around to find Grim Mecha firing at Menor.

  Lucian took this opportunity to fly into the air. He landed on the rooftop of an Art Deco building with exquisitely carved gargoyles on the parapet.

  His particle-beam cannon formed.

  His hands shook, the lights reaching the two energy packs near the butt of the weapon.

  His first blast didn’t really do anything to the Death Hunter, but as Lucian held his finger on the trigger, the concentrated energy beam bored a hole in his opponent’s chest.

  Menor’s ax came flying at him, slicing sideways through Lucian’s neck and cutting his head off.

  But Lucian’s body continued to fire on the Death Hunter anyway, even as Lucian’s head lay on the rooftop, the ax coming back around to go for his body again.

  Lucian watched a swarm of injurecrows disrupt the ax’s trajectory, throwing it off course.

  He heard a final scream below.

  A blistering blue-white light exploded all the way up to the rooftop, where it arced into Lucian’s headless body, the light so hot that it felt as if it had burned his pupils.

  Lucian’s body fell to the side, his arms taking over, dragging his body over to his head.

  Lucian had killed Menor.

  Chapter Eleven: Not Alone in Kyoto

  Once his head was reattached to his body, Lucian’s cape settled onto his shoulders. His cape gave him a firm squeeze, Lucian suddenly feeling rejuvenated, stronger than he had ever felt before.

  His stats appeared before him:

  A bit of gleaming metal caught his attention; he looked to the other side of the rooftop to see that Menor’s cannibalistic ax was still there.

  Grim Mecha landed; Lucian nodded his creation over to the ax.

  His replicant stepped over to the weapon and picked it up, the ax glowing for a moment, its teeth appearing and then slowly hardening.

  Grim Mecha walked it back over to Lucian.

  “If it’s like Thor’s hammer, then it will come in handy,” Lucian said as he took the ax, looking it over.

  The handle was made of a black wood that was as hard as steel, and as Lucian turned it over in his hands he saw something burned into the wood, the words ‘To my dearest brother’ written in a woman’s handwriting. The head of the weapon had been acid etched with an elaborate design that almost looked Celtic.

  To test how he would summon the teeth, Lucian simply shook the ax handle, the teeth taking shape and gnashing together.

  “To the inventory,” Lucian said as the weapon disappeared.

  He was just about to lower onto the streets when the rooftop entrance burst open, injuresouls spilling out, one of them immediately latching onto Lucian.

  It took him a moment to get his bearings as the bandaged demon chomped at Lucian, another injuresoul cracking Lucian in the side, both of them careening down to the street below as more swarmed over the building’s ledge.

  Lucian rolled and began punching at the first injuresoul, Grim Mecha already in the air and fighting some of them off.

  Everything was dark now, a terrible storm approaching as Lucian continued to struggle with the injuresouls on top of him.

  He wanted to fight back; with his newfound power he wanted to test just how strong he was, but he also realized that now wasn’t the time, that he should wait until he was fully charged to begin this experiment.

  He slugged one of the injuresouls in the face, his retractable claws sprouting from his knuckles just as his fist connected.

  Lucian pressed his thumb and pinky finger together, his form reappearing next to the spire of the Empire State Building, which was well over a mile away from the action.

  He dropped down to the circular rooftop just above the observation deck, away from the mayhem.

  After a deep breath out, he looked in the direction of Fifth Avenue, to see that there was no indication that he had just been fighting there, that the world was back to the way that it should be, cars moving through the streets below, a helicopter aimed in the direction of LaGuardia, a plane in the air high above the city, passing by a wispy cloud.

  Lucian sat, his legs dangling over the ledge as he looked down.

  It only took him a second to conjure Hugin and Munin, both of his crows looking to him in distress as they hovered before him, Lucian smiling at his two spherical creations.

  “I did it,” he told them. “Another Death Hunter down.”

  Hugin tilted its head at Lucian.

  “He came at me,” Lucian explained. “I didn’t go after him. Injuresouls came too.”

  Once his crows were sure that he was okay, they took off, doing spirals around the top of the Empire State Building as they chased each other.

  Lucian continued to stare out at the city, going over what had just happened, recalling the injuresoul’s face, the one that had tried to take a bite out of him.

  He was now up by almost three thousand Soul Points. And even if he hated to admit it, Lucian continued to appreciate the advantage in going after other Deaths. And naturally, as he remembered what had been written on the ax’s handle, Lucian started thinking about what Menor had said, about splitting his mantle.

  “And he gave it to his sister…” Lucian said to himself.

  If he was unable to stop the parasite that had latched itself to his brother, would he be able to split his mantle?

  This thought troubled Lucian.

  He knew his brother well enough to know his temperament, and while part of him wanted Connor to experience what Lucian had become, he also didn’t want his brother to be cursed in the same way he was. It was already tragic that Lucian would have to watch his niece grow old; he couldn’t imagine doing that if it were his daughter.

  Between Connor’s temperament, and the complications that came with being a Grim Reaper, Lucian wasn’t sure if splitting his mantle should even be an option.

  But there was still a part of him that wanted to do everything he possibly could to help his sibling.

  Lucian needed someone to talk to about this, someone that knew what he was going through, who could relate to his experience. Specifically, he wanted to speak with Yoshimi, but he knew it was going to be difficult to find her.

  “We need to go to Japan,” he announced to his crows, “but first…”

  Lucian pressed his thumb and pinky together, appearing in front of a white building that had an enormous escalator inside the front entrance floor. It was a clothing store called Uniqlo, and it only took Lucian a moment to locate his brother and his future sister-in-law in the mob of people shopping inside.

  “You know how I like sweaters,” she told Connor, placing her hand on a pink sweater beneath an advertisement claiming that all Uniqlo sweaters featured an advanced technology woven into them known as Heat Tech.

  “Thirty dollars for a sweater?” Connor asked, his hand a bit twitchy, but otherwise, he seemed fine. “That’s more like it. I can’t believe this place exists on Fifth Avenue.”

  “There are deals everywhere,” Samantha reminded him, a soft smile on her face, “you just have to look for them.”

  Lucian stood strong with his MX-11 tucked under his arm, anticipating that this may be the moment. He was already aiming it at the parasite bubbling out of his brother's jacket, an eye watching Lucian.

  Rather than let it attack him, Lucian squeezed the trigger, his b
last ripping into the demon bug, their plane of existence changing for a moment and then resettling.

  In the end, it didn’t even quiver.

  Connor and Samantha continued to discuss winter clothing, and heading back to Beverly a day early.

  Realizing that he still wasn’t strong enough yet, Lucian lowered his weapon.

  He began thinking of Kyoto, and as he did he pressed pinky and thumb together.

  Lucian appeared in front of a convenience store with a peculiar name.

  It was a hazy night, the moon barely visible.

  “Family Mart,” Lucian said as a young Japanese woman shuffled in with a man twice her age. A Japanese youth looking at his cell phone stepped out of the store, pressing right through Lucian.

  Realizing he hadn’t really been inside a Japanese convenience store before, Lucian floated through the doorway, just as the cashier finished greeting the older man and the younger woman.

  It was definitely cleaner than the convenience stores he had seen back in the States.

  Rather than pizza and hotdogs, there was a boiling vat of liquid, one of the employees pulling trays out of the hot water. Using chopsticks, he arranged what looked like dumplings, but were shaped in odd ways, on a series of plate warmers.

  Lucian gasped.

  Old Death had explained that he would be able to read and understand all languages, but he hadn’t really paid attention the last time he was in Japan. Now, floating in the middle of a convenience store between the aisle that sold candy and the aisle that sold toiletries and medical supplies, Lucian realized he could comprehend everything.

  He could even read the magazines.

  He scanned through a few of them, stopping on one with the cover partially hidden by a black bar. “Women in Uniforms, huh?” he read, realizing then that it was a dirty magazine.

  Lucian switched his focus to another one, a magazine called Atelier, which had a famous American celebrity on the cover, advertising his newest collaboration with a Japanese fashion brand. There were a ton of mangas as well, Lucian wishing he was able to actually pick up one of the books and flip through it.

  “I humbly thank you for visiting our store,” the cashier said, bowing to the old man and the young woman as they finished purchasing a bottle of water and some aspirin.

  The old man grunted; the woman made a cute sound with her throat as she hooked her arm in his and followed him out, their stats hovering over their heads.

  Name: Shoyo Kanemaru

  Date of Birth: 09/21/1961

  Date of Death: 04/30/2039

  Name: Hisako Agano

  Date of Birth: 01/15/1997

  Date of Death: 12/31/2084

  Lucian turned to the cashier and the young man dealing with the dumplings, whose hair was tied back by a bandanna, a surgical mask covering his face.

  Name: Toshiki Izumo

  Date of Birth: 07/14/1976

  Date of Death: 10/11/2048

  Name: Yukimori Hata

  Date of Birth: 08/26/2000

  Date of Death: 08/26/2079

  “Your death date and your birthday match,” Lucian told the man. “I wonder how many people that happens to.”

  He started to float up, and as he did Lucian called his crows to him, both of his spherical creations taking shape.

  Now above the convenience store, he looked to the right to see the oddly shaped buildings, some of them several stories high but smaller looking than the buildings in the West, and definitely not as wide. Most of the floors had balconies with clothing lines crossing them, and a few were being used as extra storage space at the moment, packed all the way to the top with boxes and children’s toys.

  Lucian turned in the direction of the geisha district, the same one where he had first encountered Yoshimi.

  He floated above the homes, his eyes falling upon a temple that sat on a hill, its structure well lit, and casting ominous shadows on the buildings situated before it.

  He rose just a bit higher into the sky, Lucian crossing his legs under him and sitting in the air. His crows took off; he observed them for a minute as they weaved through the main thoroughfare below, checking a few last-minute shoppers on the street with all the stores on it.

  Lucian had been meaning to explore the shops, but rather than follow his crows down, he simply took over Hugin’s pane of vision, controlling his crow as he weaved it in and out of another convenience store and into a high-end cosmetics boutique, the women inside looking absolutely pristine.

  One of the shop assistants discussed a technique for preventing wrinkles in the corner of one’s mouth with an older female customer, the older woman pursing her lips.

  “Time to move on,” Lucian whispered to himself as his crow left the cosmetics store and moved into a place that was closed.

  Lucian had Hugin back up a little so he could actually look at these handmade altars, considering for a moment the difference between how the majority of Asia honored their dead versus where he’d come from.

  It really was different when a whole group of people thought that they would be reborn versus going to heaven and never returning.

  Lucian checked another shop, this one selling souvenirs, seeing a group of loud Chinese tourists finishing up buying tchotchkes and other knickknacks. He then came to a store which used well water for filtering its coffee, the sign claiming it had been using the water in the reservoir beneath the shop since it opened thirty years ago.

  “Now that’s some coffee,” Lucian said, instantly wanting a cup.

  He opened his eyes and found a cup of coffee floating before him, which he gladly took a sip from, just a hint of cinnamon to it, a bit of maple syrup too. “Just sitting here, floating in the air above Kyoto, drinking coffee,” he said to himself. “If you can hear me, Yoshimi, you know where to find me.”

  He slowly sipped his coffee, feeling both lonely and content, hoping she would come soon.

  When she didn’t, Lucian figured he would get a nice little set up going.

  His video game controller appeared in his hands, a giant flat-screen TV now floating in the space before him.

  He was aware that he could just project the image onto the area in front of him, but he liked the clarity that the TV offered, as well as the familiarity.

  Lucian powered up Zero Enigma, nodding his head to the theme music and the big gong sound that indicated the game was set to begin.

  He recalled the last time he’d played that there had been a strange grape-onion potion, which he still needed to consume. Now standing in the countryside next to Danira’s avatar, Lucian thought about chugging it right then and there, but he figured that would be a waste. He could always save, and then chug it…

  “Where’s the fun in that?” he asked himself as he started jogging, Danira following behind him and jogging funny.

  “This is what we should do together,” he told his companion, even though she couldn’t hear him. “Next time we meet, we should play a two-player game. Maybe one of those kiddy games. You know, like one of the racing ones. Those are always fun. Maybe you don’t know how to play games, but we can find an easy one.”

  As Lucian absentmindedly ran through the countryside, he envisioned the next time that they would meet and what he would say to her. He had a feeling she would be mad as hell at him. But it was true, he hadn’t tried to set her up.

  “Not with those assholes,” Lucian said, mostly referring to Gaspard.

  He brought up the map by pressing the touchpad and went to a city known as Baryn Willow, which was near an unexplored part of the map. He had been meaning to check this part of the map out, but the world was so big that he hadn’t gotten around to it.

  [Would you like to go there now?]

  Lucian pressed [X] and the loading screen appeared, this time reminding him about how the best weapons were only available by breaking down items and then recombining them.

  “Yeah, yeah, everyone knows that,” he said as Hugin came to him, lowering into his lap. Munin
eventually joined him, settling on Lucian’s shoulder, the fabric of his cape making a small bowl for the crow to sit in.

  “Maybe we can play together sometime,” he told Hugin. “I would just give you a controller that plugs into you, or vice versa. I don’t know exactly how all that will work, but we are definitely in the right country for strange video game controllers,” he said, laughing aloud.

  Lucian kept on running through the countryside in Zero Enigma, having to recharge his stamina every now and then when he sprinted for too long. He fought off a wolf, which wasn’t very difficult, the beast coughing up predictable loot in the form of a fang and a poor quality fur.

  “Want to see something?” he asked Hugin, nodding to the screen.

  Lucian opened his menu and scrolled to the fur, equipping it. Suddenly, his avatar was no longer wearing dark robes. Instead, he wore the fur as if it were a potato sack, Lucian wishing that Danira was there so she could respond to it.

  “She would think it was funny,” he told Hugin. “Well, maybe.”

  He continued along with his companion until they came to a small farm, the farmer outside fixing his scarecrow. The man commented on Lucian’s fur, and he thought about engaging him for a moment, but decided against it, especially when he looked up to see a black mass lowering toward him.

  “Just who I was looking for,” Lucian said, smiling at Yoshimi as his television disappeared.

  “You were playing video games?” she asked, a bit perplexed by Lucian’s actions.

  “Just killing time. To be honest, I have found killing time to be an integral part of being the Grim Reaper.”

  “Why have you come here?” she asked, cutting to the chase.

  “To see you, and…” Lucian stood, smoothing his hands over his robes as if it would make him more presentable. “I have a few questions. Lots of questions, actually.”

  “We should talk somewhere else.” Yoshimi reached her hand out and Lucian softly placed his hand in hers. “I think you will like my new place.”