The Reaper In Black -- Chapter Two

"Last call, ya' beggars! She's goin' down whether ya' like it or not!"

The Queen shot a glare at the man who was screaming, arcing an eyebrow. The man swallowed and nervously adjusted his previous statement.

"The bridge is going down, so if ya' ain't gone, then move yer' butts!"

She decided to give up on teaching the man respect and proper grammar, and opted instead to ignore him. If it were up to her, she'd just call out the announcements herself. But the cool morning air wasn't good for Her Majesty's lungs. Her Majesty might catch a cold or something. Her Majesty disagreed. She was sick of being treated like some weak damsel; how do these people think she got the throne in the first place? Did they think the former King had just up and disappeared? No. She had watched her Reaper finish it. All of it.

"My Queen, I think I've called enough; should we blow 'er?" The man addressed her. His kind, middle-aged eyes had wrinkles around the edges. Though he had likely tried to 'dress his very best', he still had grime and evidence of hard work all over him. His black hair was slowly turning gray from age, every strand thick with mud and soot. He seemed patched up and yet ready to break at any moment. He must have been twins with the rest of the city.

"Go on," she sniffed, waving her hand at him as she glanced over one of her guard's shoulders. The grime-covered man nodded and jogged over to three equally-filthy, somewhat younger men dressed in blackened overalls. He talked to them for a moment, then pointed at a fuse ignitor at the top of a hill in the distance. The man--a demolition expert, apparently--had insited it safest to set up a distanced explosive. Basically, lots of dynamite on the bridge, and a fuse to activate it nearly two-thirds of a mile away in the city's only park.

From her viewpoint on the side of a hill in said park, the Queen had the perfect seat for watching the bridge go down. It was about time, too. They had been waiting for the demolition experts to wrap everything up for at least an hour. Her guards were getting restless as well; she heard their metal chainmail grate as they shifted from foot to foot in near-unison. It was rather irritating.

Despite the fact that the Queen was escorted by her butler and two closest advisors--Madam Viasra and Doctor Akdel--the captain of her royal guard had instisted she travel to the park with a large collection of guards. Thirty-two in total, by the time all was said and done. A ring of twelve a few yards away from her and another twenty scattered about farther away. Usually she wouldn't have allowed such drastic measures, but her Reaper was absent, so the certainty of safety wasn't as sure.

It had already been two days since her Reaper had left her... What was taking him so long? It was only Gladys; she was skilled mentally, but the Queen had never taken her for the athletic type. Even jumping deminisions shouldn't have bought her this much time.

A massive boom startled her, turning her full attention to crumbling stone and wood. The Queen watched as a 500-year-old monumental bridge collapsed into the mile wide river. The charges had been set near the center and on the support beams, so they went first. Everything else was sloppily dragged behind like a reluctant child after it's mother. The water roiled as thousands of tons of rubble settled at the bottom.

"So unceremonious... it just isn't right, destroying a precious monument like that."

The Queen's head snapped around to search for the woman who had uttered the words. That comment was near treason, something she--as a Queen--refused to tolerate. Her butler noticed his Queen's sudden alerted state and leaned his face close to her ear.

"Would you like me to seek out the source, my Lady?"

The Queen kept her expression rigid and emotionless as she grabbed her butler's hand and discreetly pressed it to her forehead. A splitting headache hit her like a stagecoach, causing her to let out a small groan. The butler's gray eyes flashed, and he moved past the guards and into the crowd.

The Queen found herself feeling particularly exposed now. No Reaper, no butler... just human guards. Unfocused, weak, flimsy human guards. The Queen grimaced in disgust at the very thought. She hadn't worked this hard to get here just to be cut down by an enemy. And while guarded by mere humans, no less. The outrageousness of it all!

A hand touched her arm gently, causing her to look up. Madam Viasra, with all her bright red hair and stern demeanor, had placed a black-gloved hand on her Queen. Not in any violent way, of course; merely a sign of sympathy. Something the Madam had only ever shown her Queen.

Madam Viasra was indeed a peculiar woman in her time; the gossip hounds in both the castle and in common civilization often chit-chat about how it seemed she lived by a different set of customs than they. Though the Queen had tried to teach her as much as possible, Madam Viasra barely accepted the manners of the castle, and had opted against dying her hair a darker shade. These days, if you had hair as bright as the Madam's, you were considered too "manly and unsophisticated". The Madam disagreed, and had once 'sophisticatedly' thwacked a woman who was bad-mouthing her upside the head. Quite the show.

Dr. Akdel, in his own way, showed his respect and sympathy from afar. He, too, was considered eccentric--at best--by society, though no one dared say it aloud. Many a lady swooned over the man, but would turn around and gossip him into the dirt when suspected of being attracted to him. The Doctor kept his shimmering blond hair very long; just at the middle of his back. His skin was pale a fair, and his eyes were a strange, ice-white blue. He had mastered every instrument known to the Queen, and then a few more. He studied the science of the Rifts--rips in the time-space continuum that made other Times and Places accessible--and was well know for his hundred-some awards on the subject. He was a tall and imposing figure at one second, but frivolous and bubbly the next. Such an attitude could get irritating from time to time, but the Queen chose to ignore it. After all, he did give exccelent advice.

"What with the bridge coming down," the Madam whispered, glancing over her shoulder with her eyes, keeping her head still and turned tactfully away from the Queen, "we ought to consider a temporary means of getting across the river. Heavens knows the townsfolk will be all abuzz at not being able to get to the other side."

"Keeping each side inaccessible to the other will create unrest, indeed," Dr. Akdel agreed from the Queen's other side. He kept his head angled away from his Queen's as well, his eyes scanning the crowd for any gawkers. Or for any attackers.

"I feel ill." She said suddenly, waving her hand at the head of the guarding platoon. Madam Viasra and Dr. Akdel both nodded slightly at each other, following the Queen as she began to walk up the hill. "We need to return to the castle,"

"But, my Lady," the guard protested nervously, rubbing the back of his head to distract her from the fact he avoided looking at her. No one looked at her anymore. "The people--see, they were expectin' ya' to address 'em and all... ya' know, all speeches and stuff."

She stopped walking to smile brightly at him, showing her teeth.

"There's plently of left-over dynamite, you know."

"Pardon?"

"Come on, Johnstyl," she chuckled, elbowing him light-heartedly. Turning away from him, she began to trudge up the hill to her horse once more. "You and I both know all they'll do is whine. 'Oh, boo-hoo, there's rats in my poorly-built barn' and 'Woe is me, there's too many cracks and potholes in our streets' and goodness knows what else. Every time I make any sort of speech, that's always what I hear. So," she smirked, flicking her hand at the large stack of remaining dynamite, "let them fix it up. Like I fixed the bridge, see?"

"My Lady--with all due respect--you just destroyed the bridge."

She turned her head to glare at him. He was startled by the unearthing coldness in her gaze.

"My point exactly." Mounting her horse, the Queen directed her attention to her returning butler. "Now, be a doll and--what is that?"

Her butler grasped the collar of a 14 year old blond girl, who was struggling heartedly to escape. The butler sighed tiredly, not wincing even when the girl landed a knee in his thigh and an elbow in his side. In fact, he looked like quite the statue. Quite the exhausted statue.

"The girl who uttered the words that irked you so, my Lady."

"Ah. Kill her. Now, as I was saying, I need you to find Evora and haul her back here. Or find someone that can find that impossible woman. The plague has spread into the middle-class district, and wouldn't you believe the upper-class is whining themselves silly over it."

"Yes, my Lady," the butler smiled weakly. The Queen leaned over her saddle to pat his cheek a few times in understanding. The butler, in return, briefly touched his Queen's hand before swiveling on his heel and dragging the girl off.

The girl, who had been frozen in shock and fear at the Queen's words until this point, began to scream uproariously.

"My Lady, I didn't do it, no! It was that filthy dark-haired Madam, indeed! She ain't quite friendly, I tell ya'! I don't see why I should'a have ta' get punished fer somthin' I didn't do!" With her panic, the girl's street accent began to bloom. Any othe time, the Queen would have ignored her. But something about that accent...

"Wait a moment," the Queen said, rasing her hand. By now a big chunk of the crowd was gawking at the interaction between peasant and royalty. Despite this, the Queen continued on indiscriminantly.

It was to everyone's shock when the Queen bent over her saddle and backhanded the girl.

"Why, ya' filthy dirty-playin' piece a garbage! What the heck I do ta' you, eh? You're the one who tried ta' kill me, anyways!" The girl continued on her rampage, kicking and hollering in the butler's grip.

Where the butler only looked at the Queen with faint curiosity, Dr. Akdel and Madam Viasra observed with knowing smiles. Any in the crowd who caught those smiles found themselves shuddering involuntarily; those were the toothed grins of masterminds in their craft. What craft that was exactly, one couldn't be sure.

"Let her go." The Queen sighed, pulling on her horse's reins to turn the beast to the left, toward the castle. The girl stopped struggling, and there was a common intake of breath from everyone except those closet to her. "If she had made the comment earlier, and been upset about the goings-on--which is how it sounded to me--then her accent would have been strong. There was no accent at all. She's innocent, and I'm not one to kill any who don't threaten me."

Everyone was acutely aware of the fact the Queen didn't quite say she wouldn't kill an innocent. Just another reason to fear her, she supposed.

"Now, seriously; back to the castle. My tummy is grumbling, and there's turkey and lemon pie waiting for me."

"Yes, my Lady," Dr, Akdel, Madam Viasra, and the butler all said in unison.

From afar, some two miles or so away, another woman watched through sight amplification goggles. Pulling the device away from her face, dark forest green eyes observed the horse black as night as it carried the Queen up the rest of the hill and back to her home. What a show Her Majesty had put on... what a show.

*****

He ran through the woods, his feet crunching on dead leaves and gravel mixed in with dirt and clay. The humid air was thick as he sucked it into his lungs, the leafy foliage catching on his coat. He discarded the item of clothing when it snagged on a particularly stiff branch, and continued his chase. She couldn't be this fast. Not on her own. He was, on his own two feet, gallumping through the jungle at nearly fifty miles an hour. No human could hope to either reach nor maintain such speeds on their own. No horse could go that fast, especially through such thick plant life. Nothing could go that fast, unless it wasn't human at all. Nothing natural.

"Blasted woman," he muttered, falling on his bum to avoid an overhanging branch. Not to his surprise, he rolled harshly down a steep decline in the land, hitting a rock at the bottom of the hill. He got up and wiped away the blood that had gathered on his neck and side, beginning his sprint once more. Thick, cold raindrops began to fall for the third time since he had entered this Place, making him grimace. Pushing slick white hair out of his eyes, the Reaper scanned the jungle as he ran.

All was still, signaling she had stopped. Whoever had been aiding her was now exhausted and could run no longer. In the end, Reapers always won. He had learned that a long time ago; they had the cunning, the endurance, and the intelligence to always come out on top. It made all other species of their kind furious, but the Reapers had never tried to sympathize. Only gloat in their superior abilities around anyone who would listen.

His vision focused on the source of a low growling noise. The rumbling sound was nearly an angry purr, sounding as if it came from a large being crouched low beneath the ferns. He flexed his fingers before taking his gloves off and walking toward the sound.

"Don't try and run, now, Gladys. You've committed a dangerous crime; something was taken, so now something must be given. That is the law of our society, surely you know that." He chuckled, hardly wincing at the reign of pain in his fingertips as his fingernails elongated into silvery, partially-transparent claws. Soul-Stealers is what their species called them. All that knew what they were hated them; them and the Reapers that beheld their power. The ability to pull a being's soul right out of their body. The ability to murder by drawing just a single drop of blood.

"You're a fool, Reaper," came the laughing reply. He stopped short at the sound, realizing quickly it was Gladys, but not quite Gladys. Could she possibly be...? But how?!

A massive wolf-like animal pounced out of the foliage, it's arcing black feathered wings spreading out to support a minor glide. The beast slammed into his body, shoving him backwards down yet another hill. He was doing a lot of tumbling these days; it was rather embarrassing. The bruises and cuts he must be gathering upon his person would hopefully heal before he faced his Mistress; he preferred for her to never know he ran into any problems.

"Gladys!" He called up the hill, getting up from the jungle floor and peeling off wet leaves and various beetles. The winged wolf--which was roughly the size of a small carriage--barked harshly, baring its large fangs. Its bright silver eyes shone against fur black as night. White speckles dusted its snout and its paws, the only solace from the piercing tar color. A long, sweeping tail elegantly wagged back and forth as the wolf prepared to fight. "You... you dog! You hid your Morphing abilities even from me! And please, don't excuse the obvious wolf-referenced pun," he laughed, shrugging of his now-shredded shirt. Since it was now a pointless accessory, he also removed his scarf. He would have to invest in a new hunting outfit when he returned to his Lady.

You wouldn't understand, Reaper. You don't see what kind of web she's weaving around you. You're a fool for staying with her; I beg you break your pact with her and leave. I don't wish you death. The wolf spoke with him telepathically, her eyes begging. The Reaper only shrugged.

"Is that why you didn't destroy the bridge yourself? You knew I'd go after her first. You were hoping I would kill her and end it for both of us."

There you go again, all the fool. You and I both know there is more to that woman than meets the eyes. Sometimes it seems like she has every pawn right beneath her fingertips, even while she tries to play innocent. Why are you living like this? You might be her favorite now, but just wait. A new, stronger Reaper will come along and you'll be just another drone in that hive from Hell.

"I've been her favored Reaper for many years now; she gives me her control over her mind, and I give her eternal life. It's a bargain, really. Some Reapers ask for more. Now," the Reaper glared up at the wolf, his lips tightening into a thin line. "If you're going to run, I won't stop you. I heal fast, but I don't heal all that fast."

I think I'll run this time around. The wolf huffed, turning to leave. Just remember this, Reaper: If you couldn't detect me, who else are you not detecting? And... never trust a scientist.

With that the gigantic wolf trotted off, breaking into a full on sprint after she had gotten a few yards away. Soon she would be at the edge of the jungle and would take flight; from there it would get increasingly hard to track her.

The Reaper briefly considered her words.

"Never trust a scientist? What could that outrageous scientist woman have to do with anything...?" He trailed off, his mind whirring. Now that he thought of it, the scientist was often gone on unexplained trips. Could she be planning something?

The Reaper felt an instinctual urge to get back to his Mistress; the very thought of her being in any kind of danger made metaphorical hackles rise and a fury begin to roil in his stomach. Touching his hand to a nearby sapling, the Reaper thought of the Queen. As he felt his body begin to slip through a Rift that would lead him to her, he watched the life getting sucked out of the sapling. The price to pay for jumping dimensions was a steep one; he was only glad it wasn't he who had to pay the price.