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Chapter 17: A Glimpse of Fate
Last Updated:
2023-10-30 11:40:16
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The Reaper's Pet Chapter 18: Homeschool Hell
“Good evening,” I greet, walking on my hocked hind legs into Death’s office. Septimus utters a stream of obscenities in classical Latin and ancient Greek. If sentences could consist entirely of abuse, he’s producing exactly those. I can tell even if the ubiquitous skeletons (My Helter-Skeltals, as Septimus fondly calls them) hadn’t erupted in braying laughter. I feel like an exorcist about to face the biggest demon-possession case of all time, but then it’s probably no more than what inner-city school teachers face every day, I try to reassure myself. As soon as I think this, Septimus generates a ball of fire and flings it straight at me. I scream and escape incineration by the skin of my teeth. Probably not. I’m hissing and spitting like only an actual threatened feline can. Then I notice my backside has been charred and there’s this small matter of a flame on the small tip past my ball tail. A hyperactive skeleton races to put the tremulous fire out. It runs screaming and dragging
Last Updated : 2023-10-31The Reaper's Pet Chapter 19: Infernal Affairs
First, a short history lesson from the Lachesis monitors: {In the beginning was darkness. From it, light and life were born. Light was varied, free and unpredictable as embodied by the Spirits of Creation, the Storks. On the other hand, darkness was clean, still and barren as embodied by the Spirits of Destruction, the Ravens. {Between these two camps, a pact was made to govern the comings and goings of life into the mortal realm. The Fates, or the Wyrd Ones, arose upon the principle of three counter-balancing forces: {First was Clotho, who spun the thread of life, the Umballicus, to grant entry into the world by birth or reincarnation. {Second was Lachesis, who calculated and measured that which was duly apportioned and owed. {Third was Atropos, also called the Grim One, who inflexibly cut the thread of life to bring forth death.} I recognize the three characters from Greek mythology and again marvel at how close the ancient Greeks got to actual fact. I assume Septimus is Atro
Last Updated : 2023-10-31The Reaper's Pet Chapter 20: Dark Horse
Once in your life you’ll find the perfect love and it’ll be everything you imagined, whether or not you stayed a believer. You’ll find it at the most unexpected time and in the most unassuming place. It masquerades as something commonplace, neither remarkable nor memorable. It just happens. This is the beauty of the whole thing because later when you look back, there’s no landmark by which you can say, “Here it is. This is where love started.” Just this faint recognition of a dream you forgot you ever had and an inescapable, almost frightening sense of rightness, like the softest scrape of tumblers shifting into place as the key fits the lock. This is what Sol and I had. We WERE soulmates, and it pains me now to think I had to lose her for good before I would start believing. Worse, this is the same effect Septimus and I aim to recreate and trap Oriana Conti with. I don’t intend to teach Septimus any of those reverse-psychology seduction techniques that are peddled by pick-up artists
Last Updated : 2023-11-01The Reaper's Pet Chapter 21: The Proposition
In the middle of our training, as the deadline draws inexorably closer but Septimus seems to be getting farther and farther away from readiness, he makes a proposition. As per usual, he’s sitting on his throne of bones atop a pedestal minus the ebony desk, and I’m kneeling in front of him in my half-human half-reaper form. {Wampus, hasn’t it occurred to you that there’s a faster and more certain way for me to get what I want?} My furry forehead knits. “There is?” {It is only a possibility, mind you. My need for love may well be a one-off deal, an… urge that I need to get out of my system. In such a case, any human female would suffice. A single experience of human coitus could return me to the very equilibrium we seek. A quick in-and-out operation, so to speak.} As he says this, Septimus isn’t ordering or scheming as is his wont. He isn’t the slightest bit malicious. If anything, he’s embarrassed and nervous. This is the impression that I sense from him and glimpse through
Last Updated : 2023-11-01The Reaper's Pet Chapter 22: Above Ground
With a light, reverent touch, the man’s fingers catch and rub the oscillating crucifix of the rosary hanging from the rear-view mirror. This cabbie should be both a religious and superstitious man; in other words, your typical Filipino. Apart from the steadiness of his hands and the deftness with which they weave the taxi in and out of traffic, his aura tells me he’s seen a lot of crazy accidents on the road but never once felt anything because of them – at least nothing weird enough to freak him out and stop him from delivering a fare to their destination. But years of driving a cab sharpens a man’s intuition of people, of the different strangers he picks up on the road. Plus he’s listened enough times to stories of that “psychic” feeling that forebodes a really bad accident or a violent holdup, what the veteran cabbies are fond of sharing. The cabbie (Ray, as introduced by his ID hanging with the rosary) has had his own psychic moment tonight for the first time ever. It came with th
Last Updated : 2023-11-02The Reaper's Pet Chapter 23: Picking Up Rina
At closing time, after 1 botched Blended Crème Frap, 1 weak espresso, 1 forgotten order, 5 irate customers and countless pleas from his shift buddies to go home and rest, Chester – that is, Septimus – finally takes off his green apron with the Brew Bear logo now stained with coffee from the malfunctioning ICB-Twin Infusion Brewer. He’s been demoted to dishwashing duties for most of the night, not that it helped because as soon as he was he promptly broke a stack of saucers and one really fancy, incredibly expensive cup. It’s strange but watching Septimus go through the whole thing I start to see him in a different light. He’s like someone raised apart from other people all his life so he has ideas of how things should be but they’re a little off from how they are in the real world. One time the head reaper looks at my Wampus form floating by like many tiny particles in the air (just like our otherworldly carriage parked at the back), and his meek Chester eyes behind the Coke-bottle g
Last Updated : 2023-11-02The Reaper's Pet Chapter 24: The Model
Models are simultaneously both the catalyst and the product of the world they live in. The fashion industry which has been arousing, feeding off and slaking the illusions of billions and billions on the planet is a double-edged sword that wounds even the select few who wield it. Rina has seen it all: fellow models OD’ing on coke and heroin, an anorexic friend starving herself to death, another jumping from the infinity pool of a high-rise and landing smack dab on the hood of a classic silver ’51 Jaguar. The press called it “the most beautiful suicide of the twenty-first century” and three more fashion models followed suit by jumping from the exact same infinity pool all through the following week. Countless others blindly chasing the glitter but left in the end with lives as fake as moissanite. She has stood shoulder to shoulder with them on the same razor-edged cliff, drunk and stoned out of their minds from all their desperate attempts to plug that insidious, indelible hole inside t
Last Updated : 2023-11-03The Reaper's Pet Chapter 25: The Change
“Yes, I think…” he starts. “What?” she prompts. Dazzling. Disarming. “Everybody should have bucket list. Age isn’t matter. Anyone can disappear tomorrow.” She looks at him, deep in thought. But her face won’t betray her feelings. “What you thinking?” he asks. “Well, all this talk about bucket lists. It’s too morbid for a first date, don’t you think?” “Oh so sorry. I didn’t know this is date. If I know, I talk about my pet cat.” “You have a pet cat? What kind? Or was that just a joke?” “Is true. I have pet cat. She a rescue cactus cat.” “A cactus cat? I don’t think I’ve heard of that one before.” “Cactus cat? Wild and spiky. She no let nobody inside.” Rina smiles uncertainly because she isn’t sure if Chester is describing a cat or her. He in turn studies her as though trying to tell if he can push the envelope of the touchy topic further. “Death. Life. Same thing,” he says empathically. “Like van Gogh last painting. Wheatfield with Crows. Paths not go nowhere. But bir
Last Updated : 2023-11-03
Latest chapter
The Reaper's Pet Epilogue: The Bureau of Transmigration
Everything fades into regular, high-pitched beeping. I open my eyes to the disorienting sight of tubes snaking from my body. {Where in God’s name am I?} I sit bolt upright and tear some of the tubes off my chest. This starts a rapid alarm from the machinery next to the bed I’m lying on. {Sol’s at the park,} I remember vaguely. {No, that can’t be right. Sol’s visiting me…} {…at the beach house…} All the memories of the past week come flooding back; a literal information overload. The surrealism of my experiences strains my grip on reality and triggers an alarm on the EKG monitor. But thankfully, incredibly, my brain succeeds in reducing everything to a manageable size. Nurses rush into the room with their mouths hanging open. “I know everything,” I whisper to myself. “I know who I am now.” **** The rebellion that spilled over to the surface world shall be known forevermore as the Battle of the Bolgias. A great number of Death’s loyal guards, the Helter-Skeltals, have shed ma
The Reaper's Pet Chapter 39: Unholy Alliance
{Special delivery, boss,} Ankou announces in his doll-like voice which always sounds like it’s coming from a phonograph record embedded in him. The only difference this time is his head with the Cheshire-cat grin has been torn off and is tucked under his arm. {Spank these foul creatures back to our hole sweet hell.} Without warning, Ankou’s voice is reduced to gurgling, as though the doll had suddenly been thrown into a fire. At Hell’s Helm, Spinstra has just sliced his throat. Ankou’s death-wagon springs out Septimus’s guitar case and the head reaper catches it in mid-air. Ankou then stomps on the accelerator to ram the Ravens’ front lines, disappearing into an uncertain fate but buying Septimus a little more time. Septimus lays the guitar case on the asphalt and opens it, revealing an orange Gretsch Chet Atkins whose front pickup has been replaced with a black Gibson P-90. He picks up the instrument and slings its strap over his shoulder, looking every bit the goth rock star m
The Reaper's Pet Chapter 38: The Massacre
The projected Transmigration Bureau agents charge and scatter the Ravens attacking close to the ground. Kera either slashes them apart with her overgrown talons or bites them in half with her fangs. Ankou throws a barrage of acidic blood-balls just like a rapid pitching machine. And Yama Ranger, on his creepy steed Nightmare, blasts away with his two six-shooters, a lever-action carbine in his third hand and his portal-opening lasso in his fourth. A second group of rescuers arrives at the scene. A few residents from the tenements round the corner and approach with caution not because of the invisible battle taking place right on top of them but at the sight of both Chester and Rina lying on the ground, the first bathed in his own blood and the second having fainted in terror. The gang leader responsible for everything stands transfixed above the bodies. The act of killing a man with his bare hands has finally registered with him and he flounders like a stage volunteer cut off from a h
The Reaper's Pet Chapter 37: World's End
At this point, I finally get either close enough to the scene or far enough outside Spinstra’s control. I manage to reestablish two-way psychic contact with Septimus. {Fight back,} I tell him. {Use your powers and defend yourself. You’re dying out there!} {Wampus, you came back for me...} Septimus’s voice is filled with genuine relief as though loyalty and friendship are such luxuries to him. And I’m ashamed to think his suspicions haven’t been entirely misplaced. The thought of abandoning him has in fact entered my mind. {There is nothing we can do,} Septimus sends back faintly. {The moment we crossed over to the mortal realm, we passed a point of no return. In the abattoir, everyone is bound to get eaten, even wolves in sheep’s clothing.} {Fight them! You’re the Grim Reaper for Christ’s sake. Show them who you are!} {It is over. I have already lingered too long on this side. Listen, Wampus, there is something I need to tell you before it is too late.} The leader’s on Chester
The Reaper's Pet Chapter 36: The Mutiny of the Ravens
“Come on,” one of the muggers coos in the local language, so close to Rina’s face her senses are invaded by the sight of rotten teeth and the smell of sour milk mixed with cigarette. “Give us what we want, doll, and we’ll be outta your hair.” “Yeah,” whispers another with pupils dilated by lust and methamphetamine. “We’ll be outta here before you know it. You won’t even notice we were here.” “You have my bag, my watch, my phone,” Rina says in English through her tears. She hates herself for being this afraid. She’s just so damn afraid. “Take all of them. Just please let me go.” “You know what else we want,” the nearest one coos again and a third leers. The one who has her, apparently the leader, starts groping her. “No, please don’t…” They’re all perfectly oblivious to the swarm of weird, shape-shifting Ravens overhead, so thick now that they blot out the night sky and the top of the two rundown tenements sandwiching the half-lit and desolate street. The birds of Hell are mak
The Reaper's Pet Chapter 35: Master Hand
{Who are you?} I ask. {Are you certain you do not know the answer to this question?} It’s true. I feel like I’ve known all along; this rumbly yet feminine voice with its many layers overlapping. Its owner is a shadow that has constantly loomed over us, moving the pieces across the board with her three pairs of hands. She was the one responsible from the start, orchestrating all the events with cold calculation. She had created the Lachesis computers in Death’s office and sent the Raven Man, none other than thinly disguised Kharon, to the young me at the children’s home. She convinced Septimus to adopt me as his tutor and gave me my second form as a Wampus Cat. She was there too on the banks of River Akheron the moment I arrived in the underworld. She probably even influenced Sol to be at the park this very night. Spinstra. The Fate Weaver. The last piece of the puzzle, the third of the Wyrd Ones. {… she will understand the implications,} Septimus continues orating on the other en
The Reaper's Pet Chapter 34: The Monster
Everything becomes so mesmerizing it’s hard to tell if they’re actually taking place. Chester rises in a fluid and graceful movement but, in reality, his body’s cutting through time like a hot knife sliding through butter. The whole place, the small universe of the band rehearsal studio – from the twitchy second hand of a wall clock to the dog-ears of facial tissues pressed in a holder as they’re cowed by the ceiling fan – all these freeze in mid-action. Or not so much freeze as slow down into a clotted tempo. Rina’s facing forward on the sofa now, stark naked and sitting primly like a very realistic wax sculpture except for her eyes, which glimmer with awareness and concentration. It’s like an isolated object (Chester) is moving at hyper-speed while leaving the rest of the room behind. Like a character in dreamland doing away with the line between point A and B while the sleeper’s mind fills in the gap. The effect is both spell-binding and dizzying. One moment Rina’s sitting on his
The Reaper's Pet Chapter 33: Hell-breaker
{WHERE ARE YOU, WAMPUS?} There’s this strange feeling welling up inside Septimus’s chest. An ominous rhythm like a hundred war drums beating all together. He wants to thrust his hand inside his chest and pluck the feeling out, to stop the hurt. This pain is very curious. It borders the physical, something he can perhaps knead smaller with his hand. It makes it hard for him to breathe, makes him feel sick. He can’t understand it but he keeps recalling a scene he witnessed once on the Lachesis screens: a man getting drenched in the rain and shouting to the heavens while pounding his fist against his chest. Wampus has explained to him once that love in the human world makes someone a gentler, happier and better human being, but the sudden absence of it makes the same person feel small, turns him into something dark and nasty. Because love’s a drug and sooner or later its effects are going to wear out. Then you’ll be down on the cold, hard asphalt like an angel with sheared wings. You’
The Reaper's Pet Chapter 32: The Jam Session
Although I’m away from the band rehearsal studio, I’m still psychically connected to Septimus. It’s like having a baby monitor in the back of your skull. There’s occasionally some signal interference but you’re lulled into a false sense of comfort. For instance, I’m aware that Septimus is playing the electric guitar and performing in front of the starstruck Rina. {“Holy shit”} is the thought that keeps recurring in her head. Holy shit is right because, even though I myself failed to see it, it’s possible that Septimus is a music prodigy; that or just a hardcore OG metalhead. The promised one song has stretched into an entire repertoire because of Rina’s endless cry of “Encore!” Septimus is going through my Eve Serrated covers setlist, which is the same playlist that served as the acoustic backdrop of our lessons in Soul City, plus a slew of other songs from bands I didn’t think he knew: Scorpions, Dio, Twisted Sister, Motley Crue, Metallica, Slayer… As it is with most cover band m
