Valeria Brinstrone stared at Ari the injured Reaper who had just told her to kiss him on his lips while sitting on the back seat of her car. She gaped at him in surprise.
Yes, she, admittedly, was admiring his handsome profile earlier but to kiss him, here, now, with him injured from a stab wound she gave him? Besides, she is a married woman!
"Are you crazy?" she blurted out.
He rolled his eyes.
"No, you wanted a guideline so you need to kiss me to get the guidelines transferred to your consciousness," he explained.
He tapped his luscious, oh so deliciously enticing, lips. She couldn't help but stare at his enticing lips and licked her own lips in anticipation.
Wait, woman, what are you thinking? You are married! Stop it! She admonished herself.
Then she snapped herself out of that line of thought. Oh dear fish sticks and all things fishy and unholy.
He is a reaper.
She is half-swooning over the thought of kissing a reaper, for fish sake. A handsome, gorgeous reaper. But still, a REAPER and she is a married woman!
"Oh woman, stop it, you are making ME blush!" Ari said. He reached out, grabbed her by her neck and then planted his full luscious lips on hers.
At the first touch of his soft warm lips against hers, she almost sighed in rapture. His lips aren't even cold and he doesn't smell like death, at least that's a plus point there.
Then the images and information started swarming into her brain, crowding into it, squeezing into every little space, thousands, no, millions of images and information on ways to reap souls, what to do with the souls, the past experiences of how Ari reaped souls, the millions of souls he reaped, everything he experienced for thousands of years, crowded into her brain. When he released her, she was gasping and a vicelike headache gripped her head.
She grabbed her head and screamed, curling up on her seat in excruciating pain. Through the haze of pain, she heard him say "Give it time, the pain will go away".
Easy for him to say. He's not the one curled up in pain as if her head is going to explode in any second. It's what one would call system overload with all that information being uploaded - no, forced - into her brain at the same time.
If this is the result of kissing a reaper, no matter how innocent the reason, then she would give it zero rating - highly do not recommend. The pain was so overwhelming that she must have blacked out for a few minutes. Or maybe it was a few hours. She wasn't sure.
When she opened her eyes, everything looked different. It was as if she had been going through life with uncorrected myopia and now suddenly, she has full HD, super clear eye sight.
Everything was super sharp, crisp and clear. She can see very far into the distance or zoom in very near to the most tiny of things. She can even see the individual dust motes dancing in the air. The pain has thankfully cleared off.
She turned to look at Ari and she can see every plane on his face, every sharp edge, every pore and he has such tiny pores that his skin is flawless. His grey eyes are not just grey. They are a mix of silver, with minuscule gold, blue, green specks, like a gorgeous dazzling colourful opal.
"Are you done? While I am flattered that you like my looks, we have to get to work," he said.
An image of an old man came to her mind.
[ He is 80-year-old Albert Chan and he is about to get a heart attack while sitting on his armchair, watching his favourite true crime documentary. ]
The information appeared in her mind automatically. She tried to think of his location and immediately, like an auto-GPS, the location appeared in her mind, along with an image of his house and the name of the street.
His time slot was 11pm and it is now 10pm. She has an hour to get to his house, which is plenty of time since it is quite nearby by car.
"Okay, let's go kill an old man," she said, almost too gleefully for someone so new to this, as she put her car into gear. The man is old, she probably can live with reaping him.
This is just another job, isn't it?
"For fuck's sake, it is NOT killing!" Ari told her. She rolled her eyes at him.
"Killing, reaping, it's all semantics, don't be so anal," she told him.
They drove in silence after that. Ari probably regretting recruiting his almost-killer-turned-saviour to be his substitute while Valeria thinking if she could use her newfound powers to kill her annoying monster-in-law.
"No, you can't reap souls that aren't on the list, that's a rule," Ari told her.
Fish sticks. She keeps forgetting that he can read her mind.
"Yes, and what's the deal with your fish sticks? Can't you swear like a normal adult? Say it with me, fuck," he said.
She ignored him. Who is he to tell her how to swear. She will use whatever swear words she likes.
"Fish sticks are technically not swear words," Ari pointed out.
"Come on, say it with me, FUCK," he prompted her again.
"F"
"U"
"C"
"K"
He spelled it out.
"Fuck! Say it, say it, say it!" he prompted again.
"Oh shuddup already you annoying demon," she growled at him. She doesn't need him to teach her how to swear.
"Hey, you were using fish sticks as swear words, that's pretty lame if you ask me!" he pointed out.
"Fuck you, shuddup," she relented.
It wasn't as if she couldn't use the word fuck, it's just that she had trained herself not to use it so that she doesn't accidentally say it out loud to any of her in-laws. It would mean certain torture if the word fuck is every heard in the Brinstrone house.
"Annoying evil in-laws eh? Can't say I understand though, never had any," Ari shrugged.
Thankfully, they have arrived at their destination. It was a nice middle-class suburb with rows of cottage-style houses.
"Okay, now what? I have another 30 minutes before collection time," she asked him. There was no information whatsoever in her head of how to enter the house. In all of Ari's memories, he merely had to appear where he needed to collect the souls and then wait for the moment and use his instrument of choice to reap the soul.
In her case, she can't just disappear and reappear somewhere. She has a fully human body made of flesh and bones.
"Wait, can I just disappear and appear inside the house, like teleport, just like you?" she asked him.
He shook his head.
"Nope, sorry, you are human after all, even though you are my substitute and you have been given some powers, you do not have the power to travel through time and space freely like me," he said.
"Oh great. Then what am I supposed to do? Ring the doorbell and say, hello Mr Albert Chan, it is time to go now, come along, and then brandish the knife at him like what you did to me?" she asked him.
He shrugged.
"You are smart, improvise. You can do it any way you like actually but if he refused to go with you, you will have to convince him to go with you, you can't forcibly take his soul though, it might turn bad," he said.
She searched Ari's memories in her head. In all his reapings, Ari had never forced a single soul. He had gently led them along and they had willingly followed, somehow. Except for her case. He had brandished a knife at her like a robber.
"Why were you forcibly taking mine then?" she challenged him.
"Hey, I was desperate and out of time and you came at me with your car!" he replied defensively.
Her implanted memory told her that Valeria Maeve Aurelaire Brinstrone was supposed to have died from an embolism while driving at exactly 9.10pm. The exact time that she almost hit him with her car.
"Wait a minute, my car can't possibly hit you anyway!" she said. Ari can disappear at will so why didn't he?
"What is this? An interrogation? Go do your first reaping, I am still in pain and I need to rest after this until the next reaping," he ordered her.
Great. As if she didn't have enough people to order her around at home. Now, she has a reaper to order her around too.
FML, she thought.
She decided to just go up to Albert Chan's door and ring the bell. Might as well reap him at the front door. The implanted guide from Ari did not state that exact location of the death of the person can't be changed slightly.
So, instead of dying on his armchair, he dies on his front door step. No biggie, she thought.
She looked at her watch. It is 11pm. Time's up Mr Albert Chan, she thought. She rang the door bell. There was a slight shuffling sound and then suddenly a loud thump as if something dropped and then silence.
A few seconds later, Albert Chan's soul came through the door and stared at her in surprise. His soul was his exact image except it was shiny and bright, unlike those transparent hollow images shown on movies.
"Come along Albert, I am here to accompany you to the after life," she told him. He nodded and waited for her. They looked at each other for a moment. He waiting for her to make a move. She waiting for him a move.
"…." Albert Chan.
"…." Valeria the noob substitute reaper.
There was an uncomfortable silence as they stared at each other. If there are crickets, this would be the perfect time for crickets to make their annoying chirping sound.
Then she realised. Right. The reaping instrument. She took out the switch blade, turned it into a silk designer scarf and tied it around his wrist.
In a flash, his soul was absorbed into the scarf. She tucked the soul into her tote bag and hurried back to the car.
Now, she needs to deliver the soul to the after life.