3. Arit

Chapter three

Arit

“ W hat do you mean he saw you?” Khan asks.

One of my oldest friends, Khan, is another reaper, but he deals with the dark, the dirty, the coarse, and the grim. His charges do not get such fine reunions as mine.

Unlike me, Khan is wearing a more ceremonial robe in full black. The likeness to a priest’s robe is not lost on me. He thinks of himself as vengeance personified and takes pleasure in delivering his charges to their just rewards. Where I’ve taken to carrying a simple umbrella, Khan still carries his scythe, enjoying the human personification of our kind too much.

“I mean, I was called to his transfer. Again, I might add. He never seems to actually pass on. And when he never came, I peered into his window.”

Khan gasps, and it sounds like ragged air being drawn in by a broken vacuum.

“I know,” I placate, fiddling with the handle of my umbrella.

The thing is—something I’ve never even told Khan—before I looked in Nixon’s window, I knew who I was being called to carry. I would recognize the essence of Nixon’s soul against all others since I’ve met it so many times before.

Humans have this notion of reincarnation, where the soul lives on after the body dies. As a reaper, I can attest that this is one hundred percent true. I may not have met Nixon until he was born in this century, but I know his soul. I’ve delivered it to its resting place many, many times.

Which makes me wonder: why is it not at rest?

Why does he keep coming back?

And why does he escape death every time I come for him?

“You looked in his window?” Khan asks. “Arit, that is forbidden.”

I glare even though I know he can’t see my eyes. “I’m aware.”

“We cannot intervene. Ever.”

Gritting my teeth, I say, “I didn’t intervene. I was called to collect him, and he was saved at the last possible second.” I turn my nose up and glare in the opposite direction from where Khan is sitting perched on the rooftop. “I was merely making sure I wasn’t needed.”

“Arit. You would have felt that. As old as you are, I know you know when you’re being called and when your duty is done.”

I sniff and don’t answer, staring off down the quiet street as my thoughts betray my indifference. The truth is, more than once I’ve nudged someone off a curb, tripped them, or shoved them into someone else. Does that make me a bad person? Not hardly, when my actions saved their life. Should I meddle in what Fate and destiny have in store for my charges? I’m undecided on that front.

Perhaps if my charges were like Khan’s, foul and irredeemable, then I might never have considered the notion in the first place, content and perhaps even smug to send them on. But my charges are not at all like his, fair and wholesome as they are, that it only seems right to nudge them back before they get plowed over by a drunk driver or struck by a stray bullet while making dinner for their families.

Do I say any of that to Khan? No. He’s traditional. He’s too caught up in the gray and bleak to see the silver and spark. His world is full of the ominous. There is no hope or light for him. He would never understand, and he’d think my actions outlandish.

But none of that means anything when the majority of the time my existence is invisible and no one is the wiser.

On rare occasions, if death is imminent, if I’m merely biding my time until my charge is available—accidents and illness don’t discriminate—I will let my guard down and my mask slip because my presence can be a balm to those in despair.

Would I call myself an angel? No. But I do understand I can sometimes be seen that way.

The fact that I was not purposely revealing myself to Nixon and he saw me anyway? I don’t know what to make of it, which is why I sought out Khan.

“Anyway,” I drawl. “Why would a human be able to see me if I was masking?” I ask, looking back at one of the few men I’ve known for most of my existence. As the Homo sapiens population continues to grow exponentially, so too do our numbers, but Khan and I go way, way back, so I don’t mind seeking his opinion.

“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of such a thing.” His icy gaze and furrowed brow tell me he really is perplexed.

I nod. I’d suspected as much. In all my long years, I’ve never heard of it either. There is a reason we are who we are and have the powers we do. If everyone was able to see us, I can only imagine the chaos that would ensue.

Like me, I know Khan reveals himself from time to time, but for someone to be immune to our shields? The very idea is unfathomable.

“Well, I certainly thought it odd. I’m sure it won’t happen again since the man seems in perfect health.” Khan gives me a disapproving look at the fact that I know the state of Nixon’s health at all, but I choose to ignore it. We’ve convened too long as it is. “I’ll be going now. I’m sure you have people to save.”

Even though Khan is what some might consider dry, I can sense that he’s amused by my comment.

“Yes, you as well, though your people are fewer in number than mine.”

“It does seem that way lately. We have switched places a time or two over the years, but for now, I shall kick my feet up until I’m needed again.”

Khan hums agreeably, and I can tell by the tightening in his shoulders he’s being called. He won’t have long to linger, so I bid him goodbye and take my leave.

As a reaper, I’m a nomad by nature. I’ve traveled every inch of this world, in all its eras, and have witnessed the rise and fall of many epochs. From cave dwellings to animal skin huts, from marble palaces to squat apartments, I’ve requisitioned them all.

Never keeping a place of my own, my presence is transient and almost always unnoticed. I flit through this world like a wisp of smoke on the breeze.

I direct my chariot toward the newly renovated building I’m staying in off Broadway near the cemetery, one of the few places I can find peace in this feral city. Without the need to mask, I let myself in and do what I usually do, plop down in the overstuffed armchair and grab a book. I know it will only be a matter of time until I’m called again, so I settle in, hardly caring the book I’ve picked up is in Mandarin. It could be in Cuneiform for all I care.

That thought makes me smirk. I know more languages than currently exist on earth, which I think is both grand and disheartening at once. As a being who has been around since the earliest hominins, I’ve witnessed a great many cultures and species rise, evolve, and fade. Daunting as it seems, thus will be the path for current Homo sapiens as well.

As my thoughts wander, thinking of primitive tools and various forms of communication, I can’t help but reflect on all my long years. The very concept of a year, in fact—a single measurement of time that has only been agreed upon for roughly the last four hundred years—is in itself a supremely modern notion. For millions of “years” this world did just fine without hours and minutes.

I, myself, have evolved alongside even the most advanced civilizations, ferrying souls from this world to the next. Even now, when I look in a mirror I can still see the traces of where I’ve been and note the subtle changes of where I am headed.

The slope of Nixon’s face and masculine brow ridge, along with the placement of his high cheekbones, comes to mind, and I ruminate, staring blankly at the book in my hands. I only caught a glimpse of his mottled face as he gasped for air after his ordeal, but I’ve seen him before a time or two—okay, more than that—and always thought him beautiful. Not nearly as muscular as the men of Ancient Greece, but I can imagine Nixon would be just as glorious if sculpted out of marble.

Thinking of those perfect honey-brown eyes, those long dark eyelashes, and those ruby-red lips has a strange wave of longing pass through me, something I’ve only experienced a handful of times. And while the sensation of desire is more or less foreign to me, the feeling of Nixon’s soul is not. It’s his soul that is magnificent. And I’ve encountered it over and over again since its creation.