My Roommate Is a Reaper

by Andrew Peed

  Chapter 13: A Gift of Memory

  Since Waylon no longer needed to get to a job at a specific time that was sucking his soul out of his body, he lay in his bed waiting for the day to start. He wasn’t quite ready to get up before the sun, but he was finished with his sleep for the night. The night before, he had stayed up very late drawing, and yet still he felt refreshed.

  The book that he had taken from his grandfather’s library was still laying open on the nightstand next to his bed. He had read more than two thirds of it the day before. Sure, he had not read every word on every page, but he read enough on each demon so that he could refer back if he needed to in a pinch.

  Waylon was very pleased with how his work was set up. He was able to work whatever schedule that he wanted to unless there was some kind of major emergency, which had not yet happened. If something did happen, he wasn’t sure if anyone would know how to get help. It was the freest that he had ever felt in his life.

  Getting out of bed, he walked over to the closet and threw on his bathrobe. He wanted to go downstairs and get a cup of coffee before taking a shower. For a few minutes, he contemplated sitting on the back deck to drink it, but the blanket of snow that covered everything changed his mind. He decided that he might try the sunroom, where he could watch the animals around the frozen pond in the bright morning.

  When Waylon walked into the kitchen, he found Kaylie pouring herself a bowl of cereal. He was beyond happy to find that there was already a pot of coffee brewing in the maker.

  “Good morning to you!” he said, walking over to the table and sitting down to wait on the liquid gold that was brewing. It was obvious that she was in a much better mood than she had been in the night before. If left up to him, he would do his best to keep her in the cheerful mood.

  “Good morning, hun,” she said with a yawn and pulled her legs up onto the table. She put down the box. “Listen, about yesterday—” she started.

  “Whoa,” Waylon said, putting up his hand and smiling. “You don’t have to say a thing. If you want to tell me something, that is up to you, but do not feel obligated.”

  “I just don’t want you to think—” she started again.

  “I don’t think anything,” Waylon said, stopping her again. “It’s not my business unless you want to make it my business. Otherwise, I’ll keep my nose out of it.”

  With a look of relief on her face, Kaylie began to eat her breakfast. Her patient smile found its way back onto her lips. With a wave of her hand, she made two mugs fly out from the cupboard. They landed on the table in front of each of them. With her other hand, she waved again, willing the pot of finished coffee to fly over and pour itself into the mugs.

  Waylon elected to add nothing to his coffee and just enjoy it black. He smiled and hummed in delight as the liquid touched his soul. This made him one step closer to wanting to get up and really start his day.

  “I made you something last night,” Kaylie said, putting her mug down on the table. She reached into her pocket and held a small object out toward Waylon.

  “You made me something?” he asked, looking at the object in her hand.

  He took the small silk-covered object and smiled when she nodded her head. He unwrapped it to reveal a perfect glass orb. He had no idea what he was looking at. He carefully tried to figure out what to say.

  “What is it?” he asked, flushed with a little embarrassment.

  “It’s a memory,” she said with an excited tone.

  “A memory?” he asked, looking at the orb.

  “Not a memory like a single memory. A memory like your whole brain’s memory,” she said with a smile.

  “How does it work?” Waylon asked.

  “I’ve filled it with my memories pertaining to warlocks. Grip it tightly and think about a question that pertains to that information. If the answer is in there, you’ll have it.” She picked her mug back up to take another long sip. Her eyes closed in enjoyment.

  Waylon rolled the orb around in his hand and put the silk cloth down on the table. He felt on the spot at the moment and couldn’t really think of anything to ask.

  “You don’t have to do it right now,” Kaylie said, watching out of the corner of her eye.

  “I don’t even know where to start,” Waylon said. As he was holding on to the orb, it must have made some kind of association with the word start. His mind flashed to a moment in time when Kaylie was a young girl about ten years old. An older woman that he knew was her mother was gently instructing Kaylie on how to start a fire for their house with her magic. It took her two tries, but she eventually got the spell and sparks to cause a small fire to appear in the hearth.

  “You saw something, didn’t you?” Kaylie said, noticing the vacant look in his eyes.

  “Whoa,” Waylon said, shaking his head when he returned from the memory.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” she said with a nod.

  “I went into my grandfather’s study last night. I found a book named Erwin. He told me that my grandfather was a magic researcher,” Waylon said as he wrapped the orb back in the silk cloth and put it into his robe’s pocket.

  “What kind of research?” Kaylie asked.

  “I’m not sure, but he wrote a ton of books. There is a whole shelf of them in his study. Erwin also told me about the house and this whole permission thing,” he said with a frown.

  “I told you. He’s kind of an asshole,” Kaylie said, shaking her head. The sink popped, and water started to spray all over the kitchen.

  “What the hell?” Waylon asked, throwing up his hands to cover his face.

  “I told you he’s an ass.” She shook her head. She waved her hand sharply, and the water quickly subsided.

  “Do you know where I could talk to him?” Waylon asked. “Erwin said he was a trickster.”

  “He’s pretty much everywhere in the house. You should just be able to talk to him anywhere,” Kaylie said with a shrug.

  “All right.” Waylon paused for a moment, “Um, House?” he asked out loud.

  “Doesn’t this estate have a name?” Kaylie asked.

  “Dalton House?” Waylon said, unsure.

  “Try calling him DH,” she suggested.

  “Hello, DH, could I have a word?” Waylon asked, looking all around the room and at the ceiling.

  A spectral man appeared sitting at the table with the two of them and said, “Your grandfather called me Albert.” He looked like a combination of Waylon’s grandfather, Waylon himself, and the memories, few they may have been, of Waylon’s father.

  Waylon jumped and nearly fell out of his chair. His coffee mug flew out of his hand, but Kaylie caught it with a flick of her wrist. She moved her hand, and the mug floated back over to land on the table in front of Waylon.

  “All right, Albert,” Waylon said nervously and cleared his throat.

  “What is it you wish to speak about?” Albert asked, looking at his fingers. After a few moments, he laced his fingers and looked down his nose at Waylon.

  “It has been brought to my attention that I need to ask your permission for Kaylie,” Waylon said motioning toward her, “to reside in this home. I would like to do so now.”

  Albert took a deep breath, obviously for effect, because everyone at the table knew that he didn’t need to breathe. He took a moment to look at the two of them. Waylon was quickly becoming irritated by the delayed response.

  “I am willing to allow it, but I have conditions,” Albert said after he cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “And what would those conditions be?” Waylon asked. He tried to maintain an air of calm. He didn’t want the “trickster” to know that he was getting irritated.

  “The first thing that I would require you to do is replace the landline phone that once connected me to the outside world,” Albert said.

  “Who would you call?” Waylon asked.

  “When your grandfather was still here, he would allow me to maintain myself,” Albert said. “I
would like the ability to do so again. I will require that you pay for these things.”

  Waylon looked from Albert to Kaylie. She was being very quiet. Her eyes were locked on the coffee mug in her hands. She looked, in that moment, like someone who was tossed around and was used to things like this situation ending with her having to hit the bricks. Waylon worried that the house maintaining itself would cost him a lot of money, but he didn’t want to send her packing. It was not fair to her.

  “All right, Albert, we have a deal, but for the time being, I have to be able to pay for everything that you want done with a budget of Kaylie’s rent. That way you understand that if you make her leave, then your ability to do anything is gone. And I’ll have the phone removed so fast your head will spin. Got it?” Waylon said, crossing his own arms.

  “I understand.” Albert nodded. With a light pop, he vanished from their sight.

  Kaylie looked up from her mug. She wore the biggest grin across her face, one that Waylon hadn’t seen yet. For him, it was infectious, and he smiled back.

  “Thank you so much!” she said, lunging up from her chair and jogging around the table to wrap her arms around his neck in a tight hug.

  “You’re welcome. I want you to make sure you let me know if he picks on you again,” Waylon said sternly, returning the hug.

  “I will, but honestly, small pranks don’t bother me,” Kaylie admitted.

  “I heard that,” the wall beside Waylon said.

  “That’s creepy,” Waylon said, shaking his head.

  “You’re not wrong.” Kaylie returned to her chair. “I have to take the hellhound into town so that I can get the rest of your rent.” She finished her coffee and put the mug down.

  “Where do you have to take it?” Waylon asked.

  “There is a witch’s shop that acts as the broker as well. She is the one who put me on the trail of the hellhound,” Kaylie said. She was so happy that she could talk to him normally and no longer had to pretend that she was some normal stuck-up girl.

  “Do you mind if I tag along?” Waylon asked as he set down his own coffee.

  “I don’t mind at all.” Kaylie shook her head. “Whatever that I can do to help you learn or show you. I want to help!”

  “That will be immensely helpful. I feel as lost as the Easter egg that was lost the year before last year’s Easter egg,” Waylon said.

  “What?” Kaylie asked, tilting her head.

  “Exactly,” he said, pointing at her.

  They cleaned up their mess in the kitchen and then retired to their separate rooms to get ready for their trip into the city. Waylon was kind of excited to meet or even see a witch. He wanted to know everything that he could about this new world that he was a part of.

  Opting to try and make a good impression, he dug through his dresser and closet to find his best clean clothes for the day. He tossed on his nice peacoat and left his room to meet Kaylie downstairs.

  Chapter 14: A Reaper Named Grymm

  Waylon decided that he was going to try and read through at least one book from his grandfather’s library a day. He had spent many years working on speed-reading for novels. It was time to put this skill to the test with these texts left behind by his grandfather.

  As he waited on the front porch, sitting on a side concrete railing with his back against the wall, his breath filled the air around him. He kept the collar turned up on his peacoat. This did two things for him: one, it fought back the wind, and two, it made him look cool.

  Waylon was currently devouring the book he took from the shelf, called The Warlock’s First Days. The book was exactly what the title described. It was a guide to surviving the first days after a person discovered they were a warlock. The dangers that the book brought up threw Waylon for a loop. There were just so very many of them that he needed to be concerned about. The worst of which was accidentally turning himself inside out, and the weirdest was inadvertently changing his gender.

  He’d also grabbed a book called The Art of the Artificial Man. This book not only stood out to Waylon, but it actively called to him. He wanted to read it, but when he cracked it open the first time, it was all a bunch of gibberish. He figured that he would need to learn a little bit more about magic before he would really understand it. There were sections of the book that looked like computer programming code, and so he was interested in figuring that out. It used a completely different context, but there were striking similarities. He kept the book around because that was his first goal.

  “Albert is cleaning the kitchen,” Kaylie said, opening the front door and walking out into the cold. She was wearing a black hoodie that was long enough to reach down to just above her knees. She had the hood up. The rim shadowed her face. A few long strands of her blue hair were escaping from the top.

  “What?” Waylon asked, looking up from his book, thinking that he had misunderstood her.

  “The house is cleaning itself,” Kaylie said with a smile while shaking her head.

  “Well, that,” he said and jumped down from the railing, “is a refreshing change of pace.” He closed the book and slid it into his shoulder bag.

  “Isn’t it, though? I think if we had that in the last place I lived, everyone would have been in a much better mood. Instead the house was a perv that spent most of its time in the bathroom.” Kaylie smiled.

  “Liked to watch girls in the shower?” Waylon asked. They walked side by side down the stairs of the front porch. His car was parked in the front driveway.

  “No, he like to watch men,” she said, shaking her head with an amused look on her face.

  Waylon shook his head too. Albert had better not do anything like that. Or had he already? He walked around to the driver’s side of the car and reached to open the door.

  “You will not be needing your car today,” Kaylie said with a devious grin.

  “Oh?” Waylon asked, flaring his eye in anticipation.

  “I think we need to work on your porting,” she said, walking around the car to stand next to him on the sidewalk.

  “Excellent!” Waylon grinned, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

  “Porting is one of the best tools in the warlock’s tool belt,” Kaylie said. She grabbed Waylon’s hand and closed her eyes. There was a light whooshing sound, and instantly they were no longer standing in the driveway. Instead they were standing in an alleyway behind what he presumed was the witch’s shop. “Did you feel that energy?”

  “I think so. It was like a heat pulsating from my heart, or the area around my heart. It sort of felt like a panic attack for a second,” Waylon tried to explain.

  “Remember that feeling. I directed your magic. You need to recreate that when you practice. Three rules. Don’t go more than a few feet to start with. Don’t try and port through or around any kind of objects. Do not try to port to somewhere that you can’t see. I’ll let you know when you can try these things,” Kaylie said, sternly counting the rules off on her fingers.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Waylon nodded, half serious, half sarcastic.

  “Hey, I’m only giving you these rules to save your life,” Kaylie said as she shook her head. She hiked her backpack higher on her shoulder and led the way out of the alley.

  “So, where are we?” Waylon asked, following her. He closed his eyes and attempted to recreate the feeling of the energy that was flowing through him when they had ported a few moments before. Nothing happened, so he sighed loudly in disappointment.

  “This is the witch’s shop. Her name is Clara.” Kaylie stopped when they got out to the street. “It takes practice.” She shook her head, looking back at him.

  “Yeah, I’m getting that,” Waylon grumbled, crossing his arms like a child.

  Kaylie opened a large wooden door that looked so out of place on the street in the middle of the city. The building fronts on either side were sleek and modernistic with a great deal of metal and glass. The angles of the edges were sharp with little to no curves. Waylon liked things both way
s. He like new modern styles, but there was just something about the old style that sat well with him.

  Inside they found a cramped store packed full of every type of magical item that Waylon could think of and many more that he had never known. His knowledge was limited, though. They walked through the store, and it wasn’t until they were about to the halfway point that they noticed something was absolutely not right.

  There was a shelf knocked over at the counter. A couple of jars of ingredients had been smashed on the ground and mixed into a powerful acid that was eating its way into the ground. Following the chaos back to the rear of the store where Kaylie said the woman had a room, there was even more destruction. There had clearly been a struggle at the rear of the store. The door that separated the front from the back was knocked off of its hinges and was dangling.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Kaylie said in a hiss under her breath.

  “You don’t have to tell me twice,” Waylon said, putting his hands up.

  Both of their heads snapped to look at the door to the back room when they heard a slam. It was followed by what sounded like someone struggling, a woman was trying to scream, but her windpipe was being crushed sounding more like a croaking gasp.

  Kaylie did not hesitate. She ran toward the room. Waylon followed but kept his distance and gave her plenty of space to do what she needed to do. They burst through the door, which fell the rest of the way off the hinges.

  A man stood in the center of the room. He was tall with a stocky body and had short white hair that was, at the moment, whipping around his head from the forces surrounding him. He wore a green military coat with a T-shirt and a pair of old blue jeans with cargo pockets on the side of the legs. His eyes were glowing emerald green.

  He stood with his arm outstretched. His fingers were curled around the air as if they were wrapped around a neck. The man grinned the widest, most evil grin that Waylon had ever seen in his life. His face was made creepier by black markings seemingly etched into his skin.