Grime and Pun-ishment

My name is Michael Alastair Reeve and I’ve been doing my job for a long time. One-hundred and seventy-nine years, to be precise. That’s one of the many perks of professional wizardry – the tenure really sticks.

But when you’re in the same position for nigh on two centuries, it’s horribly easy to fall into a rut. The surprises come fewer and farther between. The adventures grind to a halt. That’s why it’s so important to push the envelope now and then.

And so it was in the name of envelope-pushing that I found myself on the seedier side of town, in a tiny apartment, about to do something... well, arguably stupid.

The smoke faded and a shadowy figure emerged, hissing like an adder.

“Who iss it who ssummonss... oh, crud! You again!”

The figure sprang into focus, as if the universe finally woke up and put on its glasses.

“Always a delight, Emma!” I said with a cheerful wave.

She was young, with all the outward appearances of a ten-year-old girl, but there was something... wrong about her. She seemed more in focus than the world around her. Her blonde hair seemed to shimmer like sunlight, and the black of her dress was as infinitely dark as the lace on her collar was blindingly bright. She was just more... well, more real than the dingy apartment.

And at the moment, the realest part of her by far was the scowl.

“I thought I made this very clear, wizard,” she spat. “You do not get to call on me like... like I’m some pet demon! Do you remember that conversation?”

“What’s with all the hissing? That is new, right? Iss it ssuppossed to be myssterioussss...?”

Emma’s eyes narrowed further. “What do you want, Reeve?”

“Oh fine, you’re all business.” I dusted off a shabby wooden chair and flopped down. “And no fun. All business and no fun. So anyway, you recently collected a friend of mine, and I–”

“I find that hard to believe,” she snorted.

“Come again? What’s hard to believe?”

“That you’d have any friends.”

“Oh. Er... zing, I guess. So again, you collected someone a few weeks ago. Someone I knew personally. And the thing is–”

“No.”

“No? What now? No what?”

Emma sighed. “I don’t care if he actually was a friend of yours. We can’t bring people back from the dead. It’s not possible, don’t even ask.”

“Whoa now! You’re jumping ahead of me here! No one’s asking to bring anyone back to life!”

“Well good, ‘cause I–”

“I just need to ask him something.”

There was a curious glaze in those sharp blue eyes. It was not unlike a starving wolf watching a dying caribou – it was the overwhelming challenge of deciding which bit of flesh gets the fangs first.

“Now I know it’s not in the rulebook, per se,” I continued. “And I know it requires a lot of trust on your part. But Emma, dear, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t a matter of life and death.”

And there it was. It was the most infinitesimal twitch, almost too subtle to be seen. But the crease of Emma’s brow loosened ever so slightly.

“Please, Emma,” I pleaded. “You’re the only one who can help me.”

It was slow, like a sweater unraveling. The brow unclenched, the scowl softened, the eyes faded from icy storm to spring sky.

“All right,” she muttered. “You get five minutes.”

“Thank you. I can’t tell you what this means.”

She said nothing, instead tossing a curt nod towards the window. A small brown sparrow bobbed its head in reply before darting away.

“You owe me,” Emma said at last.

“I know.”

“I mean it! You’re not ducking out this time!”

“Oh me! Oh righteous indignation! Michael Reeve is nothing if not honorable!”

Emma stared.

“Nope, too easy,” she said.

“Yeah, I know I was in trouble as soon as I said it.”

What followed could loosely be described as an “awkward moment”. If I haven’t made it clear, we’ve always had a little... professional animosity, Emma and me. It’s to be expected when one person is immortal – for all intents and purposes – and the other is an official Grim Reaper. A wise man would tell you there’s no sense in provoking Death but... well, sometimes I just can’t help myself.

“So... how’re things? Keeping busy?”

Emma said nothing. She folded her arms neatly and made a good show of examining a patch of peeling wallpaper.

“Yeah, me too,” I nodded. “Always busy. Work, work, work, all the time. My schedule just looks so grim these days, I might just work myself to death. Then again, ‘reap what you sow’, they say....”

Telepathy is a rare skill in the magic community. Most vampires can detect basic emotions, like a wine connoisseur sampling the aromas of a fine vintage. And any seer worth his salt can paint a general picture of a person’s mental state. But true telepathy – the ability to read thoughts as easily as reading the Sunday paper – is damn near impossible.

Still, I didn’t have to be psychic to know exactly what was running through Emma’s head. It was loud and unmistakeable, flashing like a Vegas marquee and blaring like a bullhorn, and it clearly said: “You are the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“What’s with the look?” I said, adopting my finest poker face.

Emma stared scythes. “I bet you’re real proud of that one.”

I shrugged. “I take what I can get. It’s not often I have a live audience.”

Emma’s shoulder’s crumpled in disbelief. I guess some people just can’t take the... er, punishment.

I was spared the forthcoming acid retort by a tapping on the window. Emma’s sparrow had returned.

“Ah, saved by the bill.”

“You really are an idiot.”

“Only for you, Emma m’dear.”

The little bird tapped again on the window and bobbed its head urgently.

“I know, I know,” Emma said. “Okay, Mr. Magic, here’s the deal. You get five minutes – you get only five minutes. I don’t know what you’re up to, but there will be no funny business, got it? No resurrections, no soul-binding, no tricky wizard stuff. And if I get one whiff of mischief from you, I will shut it down. Is this in any way unclear?”

“Hand to my heart, swear to gods, there’ll be no magic from me.”

Emma scowled. “Rephrase that.”

“Pardon?”

“We’ll have none of that clever wordplay, either. There will be no magic, period. Yes?”

“Huh. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you don’t trust me. Very well, then. I, Michael Alastair Reeve, thaumaturge extraordinaire, do so hereby swear thusly-ipso-facto-habeas-corpus-etcetera that there will be no magic performed by me, prepared by me, or otherwise resulting from any action of mine throughout the duration of these here proceedings today verily-have-I-spoken-I-rest-my-case.”

Emma stared for a moment.

“Five minutes,” she grumbled before settling against a dingy wall with her arms crossed.

A white spot had appeared in the center of the room, hovering a few feet off the floor. It was impossibly white, as if someone had bleached away a chunk of the universe itself.

And then it wasn’t quite so white. Splotches of blue and green melted into view. A dab of gray appeared here or there. Large swathes of brown and orange seeped in. And some bits simply faded to gray.

And suddenly, the colors changed, like a photo negative reversing. White became dark hair. Pale orange became blue jeans. And blue-green became pale skin.

The figure unfolded from itself and stretched. And sneezed.

“Wow, there’s a lot of dust in here....”

“Blame that on the former tenant,” I grinned.

A pair of gray eyes slowly swiveled in my direction.

“Reeve? What the... how did... what’re you doing here?”

“Good to see you too, Adam. How’ve you been?”

“What, apart from being dead and all?”

“Is that what it was? I was gonna say, it looks like you lost weight.”

“Let me guess, like a hundred and eighty pounds or so?”

“Yup. Dead on.”

“Tch!”

I turned. “Something wrong, Emma dear?”

Emma rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

“I think I know her...” Adam said thoughtfully.

“Probably just a coincidence,” I shrugged. “Say, while we’re not on the subject, whatever happened to that old squash racket?”

“The... wait, what?

“Squash racket. You know, the one I loaned you.”

“You mean the one I loaned to you? And I had to steal it back?”

“That’s the one.”

Adam frowned. “Right. Well, as long as we’re on the same page. I dunno, I last saw it over there, behind the desk.”

“So,” I said as I chiseled my way through years of dust and clutter, “How’re things? Keeping busy?”

Adam shook his head. “I’m... not sure. It’s hard to explain.”

I shoved a stack of old newspapers aside. “Mm-hmm. Yeah, non-corporeal post-mortem consciousness is funny like that.”

“Yes, it... it sure is... funny....”

I extracted myself from my excavation and glanced at Adam. He was edging ever so slowly towards the bed, with all the careful intention of a bomb tech nearing his target. His breath was still, and his eyes fixed on the far edge of the bed facing the wall.

“Easy there, tiger,” I said.

Adam’s eyes were wide and panicked. Like he’d seen a ghost.

“I... remember something. I remember... red. And black.”

In my experience, there’s an odd sort of phenomenon that happens when you die. Imagine the worst experience you could ever have. Something so horrible that the merest flicker of it across your mind ices your spine and rends your heart. And then imagine forgetting it. Not all of it, mind you – just the details. You can no longer picture who was there, what time of day it was, or even the actual incident itself. All that remains is the dread and revulsion of a great and terrible something, lurking just out of sight in the shadows of your memory.

And so it seems to be after a person passes on. Somehow the act of expiring triggers a sort of numbing effect, where the rough patches are sanded off like so many splinters in a plank of wood. But the process is imperfect, apparently. The mind remembers that something used to be there, even if it can’t recall what. And when faced down with a powerful memory you can’t remember, I’m told the effect is bewildering. Disorienting. Terrifying.

Fortunately, as an experienced wizard, I know the perfect remedy.

Adam clutched his jaw. “Are you insane?!”

“Feel better?”

“I mean, what the hell’d you hit me for?”

“Just trying to knock some sense back into you.”

“Sense? Wha...?”

“You’re dead, Adam. Remember? This is where you died.”

The gears clanked back into place deep in Adam’s skull.

“Oh. Right.” Adam shook his head and plopped cross-legged onto the floor.

“Uh... and how can you hit me if I’m a... ghost? Or whatever?”

I shrugged and turned back to my junk pile. “No idea. Mysteries of the universe, or some such– oho!”

A sharp tug produced my missing racket, and I held it aloft like a hero’s blade.

“There you are, gorgeous!”

A few practice swings confirmed that it was indeed still in one piece.

“I hope you had a chance to try it, at least,” I said. “Before you lost it, I mean.”

“Eh, not much. I mean, there’s not much opportunity when you’re on another plane of existence.”

“Ahem.”

I turned. “Sorry, Emma, dear. I almost forgot you were here.”

Emma scowled. Or rather, she scowled harder.

“Time’s almost up, Reeve. Ask your question so we can get this over with.”

“Hm? Oh, that. No, we’re all good now.” I pointedly waved the squash racket a few times.

Emma stared. Adam glanced between her and me, and then whistled.

“You... the... I...” Emma sputtered.

“Well, Mr. Block,” I said. “Looks like we’re out of time. Good to see you, as always. We’ll... er... do lunch some time.”

“Uh, sure.” Adam eyed Emma warily as his edges began to fade. “If you survive.”

And just like that, Adam Block was never there.

“Should I grab my bleep button?” I asked.

“You!” Emma growled through gritted teeth. “You said it was important!”

“Well, no. I said it was a matter of life and death. He’s dead, and I’m alive. Ergo, life and death.”

I winced as an angry finger stopped mid-jab mere inches from my face. Emma’s mouth opened and shut like a landed trout, unable to formulate the appropriate words to match her fury.

“Never again!” she snarled before she too poofed out of existence.

I twirled my recovered racket thoughtfully.

“Never again,” I repeated to the grubby window panes. “Isn’t that what she said last time?”

Behind the glass, the little sparrow blinked and cocked its head before fluttering off into the dawn.

End


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See also:

STATIC

The Midnight Interview  (13+) An unfortunate journalist must come to terms with death. Literally. #1487599 by BD Mitchell

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FOLDER

Michael Reeve: The Lorelei Chronicles  (E) Meet Michael Reeve: professional wizard, wise detective, and eternal smart-aleck. #2024897 by BD Mitchell