Immortal Remains: A Tim Reaper Novel

by Sean Cummings

  “I will be,” I said as I took a deep haul on my cigarette. “What I want to know is whether or not Baptists believe in angels. I mean, Baptists take their Jesus seriously, but I just wondered if you were ever taught about angels interacting with human beings.”

  He poured himself a shot of rye and then quickly injected it with a high-pressure spray of cola. “Tim, I haven’t been to church for more than ten years. Why are you asking me this shit?”

  I flicked my cigarette in the ashtray and carefully considered how much I should reveal about the angel feather. Dane was an ally of mine. He didn’t know that I was not human, but he’d seen the kinds of things humanity didn’t believe in, or refused to. He knew that arcane forces surrounded us every day and he was fully aware of my hobby of whacking serial killing assholes because I saved him from one.

  Eight gay men went missing from the LGBT community back in 2002. Each one had been last seen at Rumours, a gay bar on Hollis Street, and each had been seen leaving with a transvestite. Stephen Dixon wasn’t gay and wasn’t a transvestite either, but he hated gay men, particularly black gay men with a passion that burned like a supernova. His modus operandi was to dress up in drag and pick up a one-night stand. For eight men, it was the last one-night stand of their lives because each of them washed up at Lawrencetown Beach with their throats cut. It took me very little time to track him down in Cole Harbour, a short drive from Lawrencetown. Dane was naked on the bed and just about to bleed out when I popped Dixon in the back of the head with my Berretta. Ever since then, Dane has locked his evening gowns in his closet in favor of Armani suits, and he’s heartily endorsed my hobby. He provided me with a constant flow of information about questionable characters that might fit the description of a serial killer waiting to happen, and he always has my back.

  “You know about demonic possession, right?” I asked as I gulped back another mouthful of Keith’s. “I mean; a person has to be dabbling in some seriously arcane shit to invite a demon into his life. But I’m wondering what religious people think about angels, you know? Lots of people believe in angels, and boatloads of them are always reporting that they’ve got a guardian angel and shit. So, what do you think? You went to church – do people have to pray to get an angel to help them out or something?”

  “Do I look religious to you, Reaper?” Dane groaned. “Shit, you could Google it and get more information than I can ever hope to provide. Look … maybe it’s all the great big ass mystery of the universe. Who the hell knows, right? People see things all the time and I usually categorize angel sightings with the trailer trash who say they’ve been abducted by a UFO. It’s all bullshit.”

  I gave a slight nod and said, “But people believe it’s real, right? Maybe by believing in angels it somehow makes them appear in the world.”

  “Maybe you need to stop drinking the Kool-Aid, honey. Why all the sudden interest? Are you thinking about becoming a born-again Christian, because if that’s your plan then I’m outta here.”

  I snorted. “They wouldn’t have me even if I wanted to – I’m a magnet for bad joo-joo.”

  “You called that one right,” he said, as he took another swig of rye. “Listen … I got a feeling that you’d better get an umbrella, because shit’s going to start falling all over you.”

  I arched my eyebrows. “Bad in what way?”

  “Bad as in there have been people asking where they can find our notorious vigilante.”

  “I do odd jobs for money, Dane – the only way people can find me is if they ask around. It’s not like I keep an ad in the yellow pages.”

  Dane lit a cigarette. “Sweetheart, you carry a nasty-ass reputation among those who know about you. Maybe it’s time to watch your back — more than usual.”

  I chugged a mouthful of beer and said, “Why? Assholes have been trying to take me down for years – it comes with the territory.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Dane in a skeptical voice. He reached into his blazer and pulled out a business card with two fingers. I snatched it out of his hand and saw it didn’t contain a name. In fact, it had no words written on it – just an image of a smiley face.

  “Charming. How’d you get this?” I asked, staring at the card.

  “A plain looking dude came in three nights ago, dressed in a grey business suit. He started asking around and Marilyn pointed him to the bar. He looked like an accountant or something – had a pudgy little face with horn rimmed glasses. He was carrying a briefcase.”

  “What did he want?”

  Dane took another swig of his drink. “Said he was looking for someone named Waxman. I told him I never heard of anyone by that name and then he pulled out a photo of you. It looked like it was taken from one of those gas station security cameras. I played stupid, so he gave me this card, and if you ask me, he probably knew I was lying. Who the hell is Waxman, anyway?”

  “It’s the name on the lease for my place. I can’t exactly use the name Reaper, now can I? Did you tell him anything?”

  Dane shook his head. “Nope. I’m thinking you might want to invest in some tighter security, sugar. That or get a new name on your lease.”

  It wasn’t the first time someone had hit up Dane for information about me, but those people were always looking for Tim Reaper, not fictitious Thomas Waxman. I had a tight list of contacts I trusted that acted as intermediaries for desperate people in need of a solution, but I always received a head’s up if they were sending me a client. I chewed my lip for a moment when I remembered in Father Butler’s voicemail he’d somehow learned I was Thomas Waxman. Maybe the pudgy little bastard was a private investigator hired by the Archdiocese to find me.

  “Thanks for the tip,” I said, stuffing the card into my wallet. “The smiley face adds a nice touch of mystery to my shitty evening.”

  Dane raised a hand. “Yeah, well I looked into the card, Reaper, and do you want to know something interesting?”

  “What’s that?”

  “There’s a bunch of unsolved murders in four countries where the killer left the same card with the bodies,” Dane said. “This guy is obviously a hired gun.”

  I shrugged. “No kidding. I’m not too worried about it, though. There’s bigger fish to fry and right now I’m reeling in a trophy sized one.”

  Dane put a hand on my shoulder. “You should be worried, Reaper. The guy had a message for you, said you’d know what it meant.”

  “Go on…”

  Dane leaned closer and gave me a worried look. “He said, ‘I’m coming’.”

  6

  Okay, so some guy in a grey suit was asking and possibly gunning for me. Big freaking deal.

  I’ve been shot, stabbed, burned, blasted and baked alive on more than one occasion since I stepped into the human world, and every single time I’ve managed to stitch myself back together to fight another day. Mind you, a bullet or a five-inch blade causes me just as much pain as the next guy, but I’m able to draw on my unnatural qualities to make myself whole again. If a body I’m occupying gets too beat to shit, then I jump into a new one and voila! A whole new me!

  I’ve been accused of being some kind of elemental version of Pinocchio and maybe there’s some truth in it. Just like the little wooden puppet wanted to be a real boy, I guess that I want to be a real human being. The only trouble is that I generally screw up in the humanity department nine times out of ten because I don’t understand what makes people tick. So while I love cute little kitties and will stomp all over anyone hurting a kitten, I really don’t lose much sleep over the plight of the working poor. Then again, most people who aren’t poor don’t care about them either so maybe I’m more human than I give myself credit for.

  The one I was currently occupying was that of a failed reality TV star who’d overdosed on crystal meth. He was persona-non-grata in the world of instant celebrities ever since a notorious anti-gay rant he’d posted on his YouTube that went viral. After being hounded by the paparazzi for two weeks he disappeared entirely only to be found in a Holi
day Inn hotel room at the Toronto airport lying in a pool of his own vomit. They got him to the hospital and discovered that he was brain damaged and getting ready to take up residence in a vegetable garden, so I just hung around and waited until he kicked the bucket. I decided to get his face altered after being recognized on the street a few too many times for my liking so if you’re in need of plastic surgery on the cheap, I can recommend a guy with bargain basement prices and reasonably sterile surgical tools.

  I’ve sort of lost track of how many hosts I’ve had over the years. When I first crossed over, I didn’t exactly have a preference for a body to occupy – hell, I could have jumped into a woman instead of a man, but it was nearly a hundred years ago and I didn’t like the fact that I’d probably be stuck in a house baking bread or knitting or leading a suffragette march instead of, you know, shooting very bad people.

  My first host oozed masculinity through his pores. It turns out that in life he was a longshoreman whose hobbies included smoking, drinking excessively, brawling and whoring, in that order. He wound flying through the wind screen of a 1923 Ford Model T because drinking and driving was legal and seatbelts hadn’t yet been invented. My second host was a button man for a certain Chicago gangster named Bugs. And just as with my first host, I partook in more whoring, brawling and generally bad behavior. My second host wound up being gunned down on Valentine’s Day in 1929. Obviously I assimilated most of his qualities. I assimilate fragments of each host’s personality and it’s the main reason why those who know me consider me to be an asshole, a loose cannon and a general scum bag.

  Surprisingly, my current host had some staying power as I’d been using it for more than a decade and that’s a new record for me because when there were times when doing odd jobs for anyone willing to pay, that I’d be going through human hosts at a rate of two a year. Over time I’ve learned how to not get shot, stabbed, burned, blasted and baked alive, and I’ve seen it all through the decades – from railway bulls in the 1930’s to flower children and free love in the 1960’s. And all through the decades there have been people willing to call on me to do any manner of nasty business that you can think of.

  This was the first time I’d been called on by anyone in the Church and I had half a mind to tell Father Butler I wasn’t interested, but that voice. I just couldn’t shake it. That and The Vatican has more money than they know what to do with, so the pay would be good. I didn’t have a clue what I was getting myself into, but I figured that He would owe me one for helping the home team and that kind of divine intervention can seriously save your bacon when you’ve run out of bullets and you’re backed into a corner.

  I climbed the steep hill in front of the Halifax Citadel clutching a large double-double I’d picked up at Tim Horton’s, a doughnut chain that I swear to shit puts some kind of narcotic in their coffee, it’s just that good. The Citadel sits on one of the highest points in the city and dates back more than two hundred and fifty years. Before office buildings obscured its view, the ten-acre star-shaped defensive position had its guns aimed squarely at the mouth of Halifax harbour and was a symbol of English military might in the 1800’s. It’s a national historic site now and each year someone falls in the moat and breaks their legs right up to the kneecaps.

  In hindsight, I probably should have gone back to my flat after Boyzie’s closed but it was a mild evening and my head was swimming with questions about how my meeting with the priest would go down. I glanced at my watch as I passed through an enormous wrought-iron gate on Barrington Street and onto the cobblestone pathway leading to the main entrance. It was almost 8:30 AM and outside of a couple of maintenance guys with leaf blowers, the priest was nowhere in sight. I sighed and strode over the wooden draw bridge until I was directly beneath the sharp stone arch and pulled a cigarette out of my over coat.

  “This is a national park, son,” a voice called out from across the courtyard. “There are no smoking signs all over the place!”

  I deliberately slipped the cigarette between my lips and then fished my lighter out of my pocket. I squinted as I glanced across the courtyard to see a grey-haired man dressed in a black clerical shirt and wearing a white Scala cotton hat stride across the loose gravel. In his left hand was a battered looking brief case and he had a large manila envelope tucked neatly under a long-sleeved left arm.

  I lit my cigarette and stuffed the lighter back into my pocket. I took a deep drag and walked across the gravel court yard to meet the priest. “I’m just a rigid non-conformist, Padre. Following instructions has never been my strong suit being that I’m a free thinker and all.”

  He gestured for me to follow so I took a slug of my coffee and strode over to a long wooden bench in front of a small stone building. The priest took a seat and slipped the manila envelope out from his left arm. He placed it on the bench beside him as I dropped my cigarette on the gravel and stubbed it out with the heel of my boot.

  I stood about five feet from the bench as my eyes panned over to the envelope and then onto the priest. He was wearing a pair of thin wire-framed glasses with small round lenses and he had rich brown eyes buried beneath a thick layer of bushy white hair that made up his eyebrows. He motioned for me to take a seat as I took another sip of my coffee, sizing him up.

  “You’re hesitant to sit with me,” he said in a disappointed voice. “And you’re wondering why I asked to meet with you this morning.”

  I snorted. “I’m pretty sure that His Holiness would frown on any kind of arrangement between you and me, Padre. You do realize the kind of sinning I’ve done is about a galaxy away from the stuff you hear during morning confession, right?”

  “All sins are equal in His eyes, my son, and all sinners are worthy of forgiveness. They need only ask for it.”

  “Yeah,” I said slowly as I studied his face. “That big black book you guys read out of doesn’t really apply to me.”

  “We’re all God’s creatures,” he said, once again gesturing for me to take a seat. “Please, there is much to discuss.”

  “Like how you were able to find out where I live or how you got my phone number? Do you cloistered types have a bunch of priests who moonlight as private investigators or something?”

  “You’re not a hard man to find – all one has to do is look at the crime statistics for your neighbourhood and they can see that it’s the safest place in the city. A rather strange set of affairs given that Uniacke Square used to be a part of town the police once described as a criminal’s playground.”

  “And they’ve never once paid me for taking out the trash, can you believe those guys?” I said as I tossed my now empty coffee cup in a garbage can and sat down beside the priest. “That envelope looks kind of flat, so I’ll assume there are stacks of cash in your briefcase.”

  “I can’t speak to that, but He offers a payment that is beyond anything you can deposit in a bank account, son.”

  “Good thing I don’t have a bank account then … what’s in the envelope?”

  “Open it and find out,” he said flatly.

  I shook my head. “Not on your life, it might be loaded. Why don’t you open the envelope and then we can discuss why you slipped a blood-covered feather in my mail slot.”

  The old priest gave me a wary look as he tore open the envelope and then he reached in with two fingers and pulled out a crisp sheet of paper. He furrowed his brow as he handed it to me and my eyes were immediately drawn to the bright red ink stamps of Saint Peter and Paul along with a name and Roman numerals that told me Butler was no ordinary courier.

  “This is serious stuff, Padre,” I grunted. “That’s the seal of your boss here on earth. Apparently His Holiness wants to go slumming.”

  “Really? I hadn’t expected that,” he said, sounding genuinely surprised. “I was simply dispatched to hand you the letter and then give you this briefcase.”

  “What’s inside of it?”

  “I have no idea,” he said, sliding the briefcase to me with his foot. “But it’s locke
d and I’m supposed to give you the key.”

  I cocked an eyebrow as I scanned the letter. “This is written in Latin, but the gist of it is that I’m to take the briefcase and review the contents … so you don’t have a clue what any of this is about?”

  “You know Latin, my son? Very few people these days understand it.”

  I grunted. “I know lots of things that might surprise you. I’ll ask you again – do you have any idea why the Church contacted me?”

  He shook his head. “I’m just an old priest with far too many miles on his brittle bones. Three days ago I received instructions from my Bishop that I was to slip a letter in your mail slot and leave a message requesting this meeting. I don’t know what any of this is about.”

  I clenched my jaw. “Interesting … you’re really just a messenger and that’s it.”

  He shook his head. “Not entirely … I’m to work with you in providing whatever support you need; the problem is that I know less than you about why your services are needed.”

  I chewed my lip for a moment as I again read over the letter from The Vatican. It was a simple contract for services and it referred to the briefcase as containing important information about what exactly I’d been sucked into.

  If I was going to take on a contract from the Church, there was the issue of Father Butler. He was assigned to assist me but maybe the Church didn’t realize that I work alone when they did a background check on me.

  I turned to face the old priest. “I don’t really need an assistant, Padre. I work on my own and- “

  “And I’m instructed not to hand over the briefcase unless you agree to my assistance from time to time,” he interrupted.

  I grunted as I glanced at the briefcase again. “You’re in the dark, The Vatican wants to hire me for God only knows what- “

  “Careful now, son,” said the priest as he raised a finger. “He knows everything.”

  “You say that with such certainty in your voice,” I grumbled.