Soul Points: 8
“Only eight?” he asked, a grin on his face. He was practically level one at this point, unless there was a level zero. If it cost Soul Points to make something, then he would need two additional details: expended and available.
These materialized before him as soon as he thought of them.
Soul Points: 8
Expended: 3
Available: 5
Now things were getting interesting.
Lucian didn’t understand how time worked as Death, but it was clearly linear in the sense that he could not move into the future. The television stations had shown him that since he hadn’t been able to watch the fourth season of Infinite Dust.
And hell, he could have had any version of Zero Enigma that would be out from now until the end of time.
But no, he had the same version he’d had back in the ‘real world.’
And to confirm this, Lucian went back inside and looked at his gaming system, knowing that it was the latest model.
He tried to conjure up the next model and failed.
Lucian returned his thoughts to his concept of Soul Points. From what Death had told him, killing parasites compounded his power, which meant everyone he killed would give him more Soul Points.
The question then became how did he move expended SP back to available SP?
To verify that conjuring things used his Soul Points, Lucian imagined a futuristic grenade launcher, one that he had once used in a first-person shooter called Dead Zone.
Sure enough, the weapon appeared, and he turned it around in his hands for a moment, noticing its weight, and instantly knowing how to use it. He even practiced by aiming it at the city below.
“Pew, pew,” he said under his breath, his lips lifting into a snarky grin.
The weapon disappeared and Lucian checked his stats again, the information materializing before him on a Head’s Up Display.
Soul Points: 8
Expended: 4
Available: 4
Perhaps less complicated weapons took less SP to create.
To test this theory, Lucian conjured up a switchblade.
Soul Points: 8
Expended: 4
Available: 4
“How’s that work?” he asked aloud, noticing that ‘Expended’ and ‘Available’ hadn’t changed.
Maybe he needed them to show decimal points as well, to really give him a sense of where he stood.
As this concept came to Lucian, the information rearranged itself before him.
Soul Points: 8.00
Expended: 4.20
Available: 3.80
He could probably go even further than that, but that was enough for it to make sense.
Lucian wondered briefly how this could be an exact system, considering he had conjured it up. But it seemed to make sense, and it would give him an idea of where he stood.
Something else came to him, something that he could test tomorrow when he went out hunting.
It would be important for him to be able to look at a person and get their details instantly, rather than referring to a small book. Maybe once he got a better grip on these parasites, and how their strength was measured, he could also conjure their stats as well and better manage what he went after.
That was one thing that he didn’t like about the Mark System. It seemed like there was a real possibility for Lucian to appear somewhere and have his ass handed to him, all because he didn’t know what he was getting himself into.
The current system seemed a bit antiquated in a way, not well thought out.
But if all the Deaths and for that matter, all the Lifes, were going off a system that had been developed years ago, it made sense that no one had really decided to dig deeper into it, expand upon it using a twenty-first-century mindset.
A couple more questions came to Lucian that he would have to test out: Were different parasites worth different points? And what about crafting something? Did that take Soul Points as well?
At least he could test the second theory.
As he turned his hand over, the sword he’d first conjured took shape.
It was a run-of-the-mill sword aside from the demon grip. Lucian decided to punch it up a little bit by making the blade black and the hilt red. Figuring it couldn’t hurt, he pressed his fingers along the center ridge of the blade, a strip of lava following his fingertips.
“Not bad.” Lucian swung it a few times, the blade glowing red. As he lowered his modified weapon, his new stat system materialized before him:
Soul Points: 8.00
Expended: 5.35
Available: 2.65
Crafting took more than he had expected, which sort of made sense considering how easy it was for him to summon a weapon out of thin air.
A new idea came to Lucian, something definitely important to test. What would happen if he used all of his Soul Points?
He quickly invoked a Glock with an extended magazine. Figuring it couldn’t hurt, he doubled up and created another one.
“Whew,” he said, noticing a weight in his chest, a hunger coming over him.
The sudden fatigue he experienced reminded him of the medication that he had taken to deal with his ventricular tachycardia.
He was tired. The Glocks disappeared and he turned back to his room, the stat system he’d developed flashing before him.
Soul Points: 8.00
Expended: 7.30
Available: 0.70
“I know, I know,” he said as he stumbled to the bed. He brought his legs around, his clothing disappearing.
A feeling of bitter coldness moved over him, a chill moving down his spine. Lucian got under the blankets, now focused on the television.
He was asleep before the remote could appear.
Chapter Six: Futuristic Grim Reaper
It wasn’t a restful sleep.
Lucian didn’t dream, or at the very least, he couldn’t remember his dream. But he had definitely recharged, evident in the fact that his available Soul Points had reset.
Soul Points: 8.00
Expended: 0.00
Available: 8.00
And while he lay in bed, Lucian figured it would be useful to create a system to recall the weapons and items that he’d already created. It made sense to make an inventory list, rather than have to constantly think up new weapons.
Lucian hadn’t created too many weapons yet, so it only took him a second to create a menu with weapons he already had.
Blue fireball daggers
Glocks with extended mags (2)
Grenade
Grenade Launcher
Lava Sword
Shotgun
Switchblade
The next test was to see if equipping any of these weapons expended his Soul Points. Propping himself up on a pillow, Lucian recalled the two Glocks. They took shape in his hands, both of them similar to the weapon he had aimed at Old Death.
He glanced at his stats once again:
Soul Points: 8.00
Expended: 0.00
Available: 8.00
“Nice,” he said as he pointed his weapons at the wall and unloaded both magazines, shells sprinkling onto his bed. Once he was finished, he noticed a small change in what he had expended.
Soul Points: 8.00
Expended: 0.05
Available: 7.95
He heard Old Death shout something.
“Sorry, just testing!” Lucian called out as the guns, bullet holes and shells disappeared
Lucian had two systems now, one to keep track of his power, and the other to keep track of what he could conjure. The only thing they needed was a facelift, and since Lucian would probably be checking his Soul Points more frequently, he figured it would be best to modify the display screen for his SP, leaving his inventory list a scrollable affair.
Using his fingers to trace a small rectangle with a black background, Lucian imagined the SP information in scratchy white writing. Once that was set, he modified the background by painting it with
something totally Death appropriate: stacked skulls. He then dimmed them to the point that the effect was subtle, not that it mattered anyway considering he’d be the only person looking at it.
Seeing his puny eight Soul Points made Lucian want to go out and hunt.
After downing a cup of coffee that he’d materialized out of thin air, Lucian stepped out of his bedroom suite to find Old Death sitting on the couch before a fireplace that wasn’t there last night, a book in his hands.
“I see you’re off to a good start this morning,” his predecessor said.
“Sorry for the racket. I was testing something.”
“Apparently.”
“I’ve developed a system that allows me to see my Soul Points and their usage in real-time.”
Old Death looked at him curiously. “Did you say, ‘Soul Points?’”
“That’s what I’m calling the energy we get from these parasites. I’ve only killed one, so I assume all Deaths start at six or seven points. We’ll see what they’re worth when I go out.”
The elderly man nodded. “It’s good that you are embracing the role.”
“I don’t know if ‘embracing’ is the right word for it, but it’s growing on me.” He glanced at the leather-bound book in Old Death’s hands. “You are always reading something, aren’t you?”
“I love fiction and nonfiction,” Old Death said. “The Book of Enoch contains both. It is glorious.”
“The Book of Enoch? I can’t say I’ve heard of it.”
“It’s a bit on the esoteric side. The first part describes the fall of the Watchers, an early group of angels that are now considered fallen angels. The rest is about Enoch’s visits to Heaven.”
“So Heaven exists?”
“I never said it didn’t exist. I only said that certain people get too much credit. And before you ask, Hell exists too. If enough people believe something, it exists. Many of the angels mentioned in these texts also exist, or did exist at one point. Some of them changed names, some were absorbed by others, others have been killed, and others have disappeared for good or become fallen angels. I try to keep track of as much as I can, but there’s too much information out there. Which I’m sure someone from your generation can appreciate.”
“You mean the fact that I’m a Millennial?”
“Take that comment however you’d like, but sure, sure. You have grown up during the birth of the Internet, in a time where almost any information to ever exist is available at your fingertips.”
Lucian nodded, noticing that Old Death wore a pair of fuzzy black slippers that he hadn’t worn the previous night. Looking out the window, he saw that it was still dark outside, the eternal night peppered by the lights of flying vehicles and the great city in the distance.
“Most of the information available to me has always been available through books, scrolls, and newspapers, those mediums. But as Deaths, we have been given this power to create anything that has ever existed, yet nothing that will exist in some unforeseen time. So if I want to read what Mohammed scratched out on a bone in a cave in the eighth century, I can read it from the source. But I couldn’t tell you what Islam would look like two hundred years from now.”
“I noticed that already. We can’t figure out the future.”
“How did you figure that out?”
Lucian grinned. “Through video games. I tried to conjure the next Zero Enigma installment and couldn’t.”
“Ah, you so are better understanding the constraints.”
“And we can understand any language, right?” Lucian asked, recalling the Asian woman they’d seen on their first outing.
“Everything is in our language,” he explained. “You and I exist beyond language, so any language you have already understood, which I’m assuming is English, is how you will understand information going forward.”
“That’s helpful,” he said, running a hand through his hair.
“Any dreams?”
“No.”
Old Death shrugged. “They’ll come, my boy, they’ll come. Now, before I bore you to death with an extended discussion of the fire that deals with the Luminaries of Heaven, tell me more about the Soul Points system you’ve devised.”
Lucian quickly explained to Old Death how his system worked and how it would allow him to keep track of what he had used. He also described the inventory list he’d put together.
“I’ve never considered something like this before,” his predecessor finally said. “I usually just use the same weapon.”
“That works too.”
“It does, but I like where you are going with this. It’s a fascinating take on the role. That reminds me.” The elderly man’s eyes lit up. “I just realized it’s my birthday.”
“Today?”
“I was born in 1695 and died on October 20th, 1720. So today is literally the three hundredth anniversary of my death.”
“But you’re technically three hundred and twenty-five…”
“Let’s keep it at three hundred, it makes me feel younger,” Old Death said with a crooked smile. A white cat with a black streak in its bushy tail took shape next to Lucian’s predecessor. “Don’t mind Ezra, he’s been with me for some time now. He has come to wish me a happy birthday, it seems.”
“Yet you created him?”
Old Death nodded stubbornly. “He’s been with me for a long time.”
The cat purred, silence stretching between the two Deaths. Lucian turned back to the city in the distance, trying to judge the distance between here and there.
“So you are going out then?” Old Death asked.
“That’s the plan. I want to put my system to the test.”
“Then I won’t hold you up. Go out and hunt. You know how to get back here. There will be more training in the future. I am hopeful for your success. It’s gravely important that you get out there and experience some of this on your own.”
“You like puns, don’t you?”
“Humor reminds me of my humanity. Without humor, I would have been dead upon arrival. Sorry,” he said as Lucian groaned. “Any idea of where you’re going?”
“Salem. My family lives in Beverly, which is right next to the city. I’d like to check in on them again, to see what there is to hunt in the area. Maybe I’ll just float around for a few hours. Who knows?”
“Indeed, who knows?” Old Death yawned, his hand falling onto Ezra’s head. “Good luck out there, Lucian. You can still use the Mark System, through the little notebook I gave you. Or you could just search around until you find something. You’ll get a sense of how it works, but I think for you especially that it’s best just to let you come up with your own system. I look forward to seeing what you conjure up.”
Chapter Seven: Date of Death
Lucian stood atop the Hotel Salem overlooking Essex Street, the city of Salem awash in red brick buildings and little recent development.
A few actors dressed in seventeenth-century garb were gathered in the street below, trying to get tourists to come into a place that reenacted the Salem witch trials. A trolley went by. A man wearing all black stepped out of a psychic parlor. A family headed toward the Peabody Essex Museum, oblivious to the fact that Death was standing on a rooftop above them.
Everyone was oblivious.
And to test this theory, Lucian actually dropped down to the street, pressing right through an overweight woman carrying a CVS Pharmacy bag.
He paused for a moment, just taking in the scene.
Lucian floated back into the air, his lava sword appearing in his hand. He flourished the weapon and struck a pose, the movement coming naturally to him.
He couldn’t help but smile; somehow all the video games that he had played had affected him in this form. That or he was just naturally blessed with combat skills, which was something that even he wasn’t about to agree with.
He started looking around, hoping to figure out a way to hunt without referring to the book Old Death had given him. Not that he was against
using something like that, Lucian just had a feeling that there might be a better way.
The only problem was that nothing seemed out of place.
He stared at people passing by, and as he looked from person to person, he started to notice a strange sensation regarding when they would die.
So Lucian went for it.
He retreated to the sidewalk out of habit, and started crafting a system that would allow him to easily access people’s death details without having to refer to another source.
His hand before him, Lucian arranged the most pertinent information in a column, foregoing a background for this one. The words floated before him:
Name:
Date of Birth:
Date of Death:
Lucian figured that this would be enough information, and he liked to keep things in threes anyway.
Besides, he didn’t need to know other details, such as family members, or gender preferences, or occupation, or where they were from, or what their favorite cereal was, or anything of the sort.
He just needed the bare-bones facts.
Once the system was set up, he glanced at a young girl walking with her father.
Name: Elizabeth Washington
Date of Birth: 11/18/2006
Date of Death: 12/02/2091
“Nice,” Lucian said as he looked to the girl’s father.
Name: Henry Washington
Date of Birth: 04/28/1973
Date of Death: 01/09/2030
Lucian felt a tinge of sadness in his chest. The man’s death was scheduled for about ten years from now; the girl was going to lose him before the age of thirty.
And as he watched the two pass, he wondered how the man would die.
It was curious that Lucian was given a date of death, but he wasn’t able to actually see or conjure anything from the future. He even tried to conjure this detail by saying, “Cause of death,” but it didn’t work.
Death's Mantle Page 4
