Don't Fear the (Not Really Grim) Reaper

by Carole Cummings

  “It’s not fine, Mom.” Emery points an accusing finger at Angel-guy. “Every time he touches me, I—” He swallows it. Because his mother hasn’t killed Angel-guy yet, which leads Emery to believe no one’s told her that Angel-guy keeps killing her son, and really, there’s been enough blood for one day. “You can’t let him touch you” is all he can come up with.

  “Emmie,” Emery’s dad puts in, “calm down, it’s all right. John’s explained it to us, and we think we know what’s happening.”

  How lovely for them all.

  “Well,” says Lisa. “Kind of?” She gives Crazy Helen a speaking look, then widens her eyes at Emery.

  “What are you doing in my house?” Emery demands of Helen, then frowns at his father. “Who the hell is John?”

  “Oh!” Angel-guy straightens and sticks out his hand with a grin. The grin falls when Lisa grabs Angel-guy’s hand and shoves it back down with a roll of her eyes and a muttered “No touching, moron.”

  Angel-guy clears his throat sheepishly. “Ah. Right.” He brightens and goes on, “Hi, Emery. I’m John.” When Emery just stares, Angel-guy—John, apparently—shifts uncomfortably and offers, “You, um… have a lovely family.”

  And Emery had thought repeatedly dying and coming back to life was surreal.

  “Keep your hands off them!” Emery snaps, the little ball of energy in his hand crackling angrily and expanding to slip up over his wrist and down the tips of his fingers.

  John puts his hands up slowly, like Emery’s trying to rob him.

  “Emery!” His mother looks appalled. “Put that thing away. How many times do I have to tell you—no magic in the house!”

  Emery reflexively snuffs his ma—superpowers (damn it!). Because not even having the Angel of Death in the middle of your living room overrules childhood instinctive reaction to that tone of voice. He doesn’t even turn to glare when Lisa snickers.

  “Now, let’s everyone calm down,” Emery’s mother says reasonably. “Emery, I’m not going to die.” She holds up her hand. “I know, you want an explanation, but for now you’ll just have to trust that John is no danger to anyone but you, and that’s by accident. We’ll get to that later. Because right now, Helen here was just in the middle of informing me that she is a demon from hell and so therefore has some sort of rights to my son, and I’d really like to hear more about that.”

  Helen doesn’t hear the “Mama Bear” warning rumble beneath that last bit, Emery can tell. Mostly because Helen doesn’t immediately get up and start running.

  “Thank you!” says Helen, exasperated, like it was an honest and not-at-all-dangerous invitation.

  “Wait, demon?” Emery says. “You don’t really believe—”

  “Like I said, he’s ours.” Helen waves a chubby hand at Emery. Emery can’t help noticing the heel of that stupid red pump sticking out of the wide pocket of her dirty worn coat. “I mean”—she glares at John—“Baby Reaper here can try to—”

  “Junior Reaper,” says John, indignant, instantly mollified when Emery’s mother pats his arm comfortingly.

  Helen rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”

  “Wait, demon?” Emery repeats.

  Helen sighs like she’s the one who’s being forced to put up with insane people in her living room. She hooks a thumb at Emery.

  “Look, you’re all just going to have to get over it, because Bettina here is the antichrist, so that means he’s going to have to come with me and learn how to….” She frowns and pats at her pockets until she comes up with a wrinkled bit of paper. “Right—rain fire, pestilence, plague, yadda yadda.” She shrugs and shoves the paper back in her pocket. “Y’know—son of Satan stuff.”

  “Antichrist,” Emery’s mother says slowly.

  “I found him,” says Helen. “He’s mine.”

  Emery’s father looks traumatized. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Antichrist!” Lisa’s trying so hard to hold back a laugh her face is going a worrying shade of red. “Oh my God, Em, you’re Zuel!” She snorts so violently she almost chokes.

  Emery has no idea if he should be insulted or not. “Zuel was a god, thank you very much,” he snaps, but really he’s still stuck on “Wait, demon? Crazy Helen’s really a demon?”

  Strangely, it’s John’s reaction that sticks, that makes the absurdity of it all seem almost plausible. Because John has a surprised kind of Ohhhhh! look on his face, like he’s just found a missing puzzle piece, and once he’s set it into place, he doesn’t like the overall finished picture.

  It doesn’t look very angelic.

  “Crap,” says John with feeling.

  Helen’s curling her lip at Emery. “Did you just call me crazy?”

  And that’s about enough for Emery. Because if one accepts the reality of angels—and Emery kind of has to—one also must accept at least the possibility of demons and… so on.

  He turns to Helen and says, “Right. Um.” And then he looks at his dad. “You’re not… like… er—”

  “The Prince of Darkness?” Emery’s father huffs. “Emmie, we’re Protestant!”

  Which. Okay. Emery has no idea if one contradicts the other, but it makes as much sense as anything else that’s gone on lately.

  “Did some oat-sowing back in the day, did ya?” Helen says to Emery’s mother, with a smirk and a cajoling “Eh? Eh?” to go with the lewd waggle of her eyebrows.

  The implication—that Emery’s mother had a one-night stand with Satan—is way too clear. Emery throws up a little in his mouth. And it has nothing to do with the Satan part. Emery doesn’t even acknowledge the reality of his mother doing… that with his father, even though Emery himself is a very clear example of that reality.

  “Ewwww,” says Lisa, looking a little green herself.

  Good. Emery shouldn’t be the only one who’ll never be able to look at his parents again. Or have sex.

  Helen, oblivious, is still grinning. “Bet you were a hotty,” she tells Emery’s mother. She leans in conspiratorially. “Was it your first time? I hear He has a thing for virgins. Symmetry or some such, I dunno.”

  To which Emery’s mother narrows her eyes. Her teeth set tight.

  Abruptly on alert and all too familiar with that look, Emery and Lisa both take a step back. John, frowning warily, takes two.

  Emery’s father sits back in his chair and all but puts up his feet, all at once completely relaxed. It looks like he’s fighting a grin. Actually, it looks like he wishes he had a bucket of popcorn.

  “Helen, was it?” Emery’s mother smiles that rigid smile Emery imagines her drug-seeking patients get when she’s at the end of a thirty-six-hour shift during which she’s been thrown up on, repeatedly, by people who have no idea women can be doctors and so insist she run along and fetch them one. Preferably one whose brain isn’t hindered by its biological relation to a vagina.

  Helen nods.

  Emery’s mother tilts her head. “Helen. Dear. You seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that you—”

  The doorbell goes.

  Helen claps her hands, blithely unaware of the verbal beat-down aborning, and says, “That’ll be my new minions,” as she pushes past Emery’s mother toward the door.

  Emery’s mother looks shocked. And a little confused.

  Emery’s father looks supremely disappointed. “Christ, Diane,” he grumbles, getting up and heading for the door too. “How many times do I have to say it? Someone gives you a clear shot, you curl your fist and take it!”

  “Did I….” Emery looks around, dazed, as his mother and Lisa start an argument over Satan, sex, feminism, and what it means for the sexual empowerment of women, and “Don’t be so judgey, Lisa,” and “Gross, Mom, ew, stop talking,” and finds the only person left who’s actually paying attention to him is John. Emery watches Helen sail out the front door with a wide grin, Emery’s dad scowling on her heels, and asks John, “Did I, like… superpower myself into an alternate universe?”

  It wouldn’t exactl
y be shocking, all things considered. It’s not like Emery really knows what he’s doing in the first place, or even how his superpowers actually work, so finding out he’s somehow managed to fold, spindle, and mutilate the space-time continuum without even realizing it wouldn’t be all that staggering. Actually, it would probably be reassuring. He could grow a Spock beard, maybe, or… or call himself the Doctor and build himself a TARDIS.

  John peers at Emery with very clear sympathy in his electric green eyes and says, “Er. Um. I don’t know what that means. But that demon has a point.”

  “Demon,” Emery echoes through a worryingly hysterical little snort. “Antichrist!” The snort turns into a snigger, then rolls on up into an embarrassing spate of giggles before it launches into a full-blown panicky spool of hoots and cackles that thunder up from Emery’s chest and spill out his mouth like projectile vomit. Which probably isn’t all that far off the mark, and only makes him laugh harder, until Lisa and their mother turn to peer at Emery with matching frowns. “Antichrist!” Emery manages to shove out between breathless snorts. “I mean, come on!”

  At which point Emery’s mother starts to look a little worried. “Emery!” she snaps in a tone he well remembers from the candy aisle of the grocery store when he was little and thought a kid was supposed to throw himself on the floor and kick and scream for chocolate. It shuts him up now just as effectively as it did then. She moves in and lays a hand to Emery’s forehead. Like he’s feverish and not risen from the dead multiple times and with a horde of apparent demons on his parents’ front lawn. “Let’s try to calm down and—”

  Emery bats her hand away. “Jesus, Mom, I’m not coming down with the flu, I’m the goddamned antichrist!”

  “You are not the antichrist,” his mother says with a sigh, all long-suffering and complete with rolling eyes. “There’s no such thing as the antichrist, and even if there were, I would forbid you from being one.”

  That’s… actually kind of comforting.

  “Um.” John puts up a finger. “Actually—”

  “No,” says Emery’s mother. “I don’t think you heard me. I forbid it.”

  It’s really quite something, Emery decides, to see an angel actually cower. John drags his anxious gaze away from Emery’s mother and points it at Emery.

  “I think I need to call my boss.”

  Lisa barks a laugh. She tries to choke it back when everyone turns to look at her, but she doesn’t do a very good job of it. She holds out her hands, face red and eyes tearing up. “He has to call his boss!” She pulls her phone out of her bra—why do girls always keep phones in their bras?—and holds it out toward John. “Here. I don’t know if you’ll be able to get enough bars to reach heaven, though.”

  John frowns at her, bemused. “Thank you, but I don’t think I can reach Administrator Dagmar with that.”

  Lisa just laughs harder. “Administrator Dagmar!”

  She’s contagious. Like a turquoise-haired infection. Emery can feel her laughter teasing at the remnants of his own hysteria of a moment ago. He only manages to keep it back because his mother gives Lisa a withering look which she immediately turns on Emery. It works better on him than it does on Lisa.

  “Emery,” says his mother, calm and slow and stern, “you are not the antichrist, because there is no antichrist—”

  “Actually,” John puts in, “the rules say—”

  “And even if there was such a thing,” Emery’s mother plows on through her teeth, “you would not be the antichrist because I say you are not. Is that understood?”

  “Diane!” Emery can’t tell if his father sounds annoyed or worried. “Diane! You’d better get over here!”

  Emery shoots a glance over toward the front door, but his mother doesn’t. She keeps her even gaze on Emery and grabs his arms. “Is that understood?”

  See, the thing about Emery’s mother is this: she has the best, scariest don’t fuck with me face in existence. That face is probably the only reason Emery hasn’t used his superpowers to rob banks and take over the world. Well, that and the fact he doesn’t want to take over the world. And also his dad really would cry.

  “Yeah.” Emery bobbles a nod at his mother and swallows back any chortles that might have still been lingering at the back of his throat. “Yeah, Mom, no antichrist, I promise.”

  “Diane!”

  Emery’s mom rolls her eyes with a now what? sigh and lets go of Emery. She gives him one last stern look before heading to the door. “Lisa,” she says over her shoulder, “keep an eye on your brother.”

  Emery watches her go before he lets himself look over at Lisa. Lisa’s grinning.

  “See, this is what you get for skipping your Goth phase.”

  Emery has no idea what that means. It doesn’t matter, because there’s a bright white flash that comes from John’s direction, and when it fades and Emery can see through the green spots in front of his eyes, there’s a woman with a clipboard standing there. She gives Emery a severe look, then turns to John.

  Somehow, it’s the clipboard that makes Emery swallow and cringe just a little.

  “Well, Junior Reaper,” the woman says through the flat set of her mouth. “I see your first assignment is going well.” John seems to deflate beneath her gimlet gaze, but she doesn’t look like she cares. “So.” She eyes Emery, then Lisa with an unhappy moue that makes even Lisa refrain from any smartass commentary. “Which of you is the antichrist?”

  Lisa really is a good sister because she doesn’t immediately point at Emery. Emery can tell that she wants to, though.

  “Mom!” Yes, Emery is scared and calling for his mother. What of it? “Mom!”

  John stands a little taller and clears his throat. “Administrator Dagmar, we seem to be having a slight problem.”

  Administrator Dagmar lifts her eyebrows, bland, as shouting erupts from the yard through the open front door. “Please,” she says dryly, “do go on.”

  “Dear God,” Lisa mutters as she sidles up to Emery. “There really is an Administrator Dagmar.”

  Emery gives her an incredulous look. “That’s what you’re having a hard time believing?”

  “Em, you once made all the characters in my Curious George book come to life and act out the story for me, and all we really got for it was monkey shit on my princess bedspread and no TV for a week when Dad found out. We kind of passed ‘bizarre and surreal’ back before I turned eight.”

  Emery has to admit she has a point.

  “Mr. Sutton,” Administrator Dagmar intones at Emery. Her mouth is pulled down tight and her gaze is highly disapproving—and she’s barely even met him yet! “I’m afraid there’s been a clerical error, and we cannot permit an antichrist at this time. You’ll need to come with me.”

  There’s that white-white glow around her again, and she puts out her hand like she’s expecting Emery to just take it and go with her to… wherever, Emery has no idea. He looks at John, whose eyes have gone wide and seemingly outraged, and he’s shaking his head minutely at Emery.

  Crap. Where did that fireplace poker go?

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” Lisa is straight-backed and leaning in with a glower that would make their mother proud. “You can’t just—”

  “I assure you, Ms. Sutton, I most certainly can.” The glow around Administrator Dagmar gets brighter. “You do, of course, have our sincerest apologies for the error, but I’m afraid the only recourse we have now is to remove the problem entirely.”

  The problem.

  Remove.

  “Holy crap.” Emery’s having a hard time breathing. “I’m a problem to you, because of a clerical error, and… what, you’re going to just… kill me? Can angels even do that?”

  Administrator Dagmar’s eyebrow shoots up again. She waves toward John. “Reaper?” It’s a rather imposing duh tone, better even than Emery’s dad’s, but still.

  “Now wait just a minute,” says Lisa.

  Emery just says, “Mom!”

  “FIGURES,”
EMERY says as John sidles closer, both of them watching the rather spectacular confrontation between Emery’s mother and Administrator Dagmar. “The one hot guy I meet in ages, and the only reason he even gives me a second look is because he didn’t kill me right the first time.”

  There are so many things John needs to say to that. What he actually says is, “You think I’m hot?”

  Lisa takes a break from watching the Diane and Dagmar Show to give John an Oh my God, what is wrong with you? look.

  Emery’s look is more sour. “Oh shut up. You know you are. And I never thought I’d say this, but keep your hands to yourself or my mom will… well, I don’t know, but if there’s a way to kill angels, she’ll figure it out.”

  As if to prove the point, “I don’t think you heard me correctly,” Emery’s mother says to Administrator Dagmar. “You will not be ‘fixing’ the ‘problem’ of my son unless you’re eager to learn how a medical school cadaver feels as it’s dissected one vein at a time.”

  Administrator Dagmar lifts her chin and narrows her eyes. “Are you threatening an angel of—”

  “I am telling a threat to my child exactly what will happen if she doesn’t take her wings and start flapping them out of here, because if there is any fixing to be done with my son, I’ll be the one doing it.”

  The volume is rising, so John has to lean in—careful not to touch—to tell Emery, “It wasn’t why I gave you a second look.”

  Emery frowns then looks at John. “What?”

  “I wasn’t looking at you because I wanted to kill you. I didn’t even mean to. Actually, I don’t think I did. I think your magic kind of… backfired.”

  “They’re superpowers. Why can’t anyone ever—wait.” Emery’s frown turns to a glare. “Are you actually blaming me for this?”

  “Well.” John shrugs. “I mean, blame is kind of a harsh word, but turns out you are the antichrist, so our powers—”

  “I am not the antichrist!”

  “—instinctively reacted to each other in a sort of matter versus antimatter way, which is how you keep dying. But you’re not on any of the schedules or paperwork, so when you do die there’s nowhere for you to go, so that’s why you keep coming back.”