Death's Mantle Chapters One and Two (PREVIEW!)

Chapter One: The Day Death Came

Any day could have been Lucian North’s last day on Earth.

Doctor’s visits, hospital trips, constantly being poked and prodded, a few scares, a ton of scars, a couple of bouts with depression, time in a recovery ward—the doctors had given him one year to live, and it had now been two and a half.

At least Lucian North had a family that loved him. 

His brother, Connor, stopped by all the time to check on him. His mother visited daily with tupperware containers full of food, oftentimes showing up with Lucian’s favorite casserole. 

His family wanted him to move away from the dangerous neighborhood he lived in near Salem, Massachusetts, but Lucian was stubborn, insistent on living on his own. 

He liked his independence, however short-lived it may be. 

It made him feel like he’d actually make it through this, that maybe the doctors and cardiologists were wrong about his prognosis after all.

And besides that, he liked to keep his own schedule, including playing Zero Enigma until he fell asleep in front of the television.

“Here we go,” Lucian whispered to himself as the second to last bandit fell, the man’s body lit aflame. He’d been playing Zero Engima for several hours now, lost in a quest that had a ton of working parts.

Going after the camp was meant to be a palate cleanser, and as the second to last bandit died, Lucian jammed his thumb on the [X] button while simultaneously triggering the left joystick, allowing him to do an enhanced attack that finished the final enemy bandit.

He was just starting to loot the dead bodies when an old man took shape before Lucian, standing between him and the television.

Lucian dropped his controller, his mouth agape.

After a break-in while he was in the hospital, Lucian always kept a pistol nearby, especially the times he knew he was going to fall asleep on the couch.

And as the man took a step toward him, Lucian reached for his pistol.

“You can see me?” the elderly man asked, startled. 

The man’s eyes were sunk into his head, his hair long and gray. He wore dark robes, not quite black, his hands clasped together in front of his body, death radiating all around him.

“Whoever the hell you are...” 

Lucian knew his heart wasn’t going to make it, but if this was his last day on Earth, if he was approaching the last breath he’d ever breathe, Lucian wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

The desire to survive was the only leverage he had.

“I’m serious,” he said, his finger trembling as he clicked the safety off. “This is your last chance.”

A black mist swept into Lucian’s living room, seeping under the door and pooling at the corners.

The old man quickly drew a sword, seemingly out of thin air, a look of terror racing across his face.

A screeching sound met Lucian’s ears as more dark mist filled the space.

The first creature to solidify wore blackened rags, its face covered with gauze, blood seeping through and pooling around its lips, its mouth visible under a cut in the gauze.

And as its jaw began to distend, jagged teeth popping out of its rotting black lips, Lucian changed the trajectory of his pistol from the old man to the entity that was morphing into a goddamn demon.

His first bullet tore through the demon’s bandaged skull.

Lucian’s heart contracted as the terrible being fell to the floor, landing at the old man’s feet.

Panic rising in his chest, he aimed his pistol at the next demon and blew its head off too, splattering the wall with blood.

The third came, and Lucian did the same, ending the demon’s life with a single bullet.

He blew the head off the fourth as another formed in the mist. 

Lucian only had two shots left.

The next blindfolded demon came from the kitchen, and even as Lucian’s heart threw in its flag, sparking a spasm in his left arm, he still managed to fire on the creature, the demon screeching as the bullet tore through its neck.

The final demon stepped out of the mist and the old man took care of this one, cutting its head off with a swift gesture, faster than Lucian had ever seen any human move.

“Die, you foul shabbaroon!” the man said as he drove his blade into the demon’s chest for good measure.

Out of breath now, and barely able to stand in front of his couch, Lucian turned his pistol to the old man. 

He clenched his other hand over his heart, his vision blurring, the floor cascading away as the room slowly started to spin.

“One bullet left, Lucian North,” the old man said as he lowered his blade.

“How… how did you…?” Lucian gasped for air now; he could feel every blood vessel in his body crying out in pain.

He swallowed hard and licked his lips, ignoring the sense of dizziness making his head spin. And even as he felt his heart convulsing, he tried to steel himself, to stay strong, his weapon still pointed at the man in the black robes.

“You saved me,” the old man said, his face now partially concealed by his long, gray hair. “And for that, I owe you your life.”

“I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but… Stay right where you are, don’t move! Stay where you are!”

The man took a step forward and Lucian squeezed the trigger. The bullet passed right through his body, no entry or exit wound.

The old man sheathed his blade. “You cannot kill what is already dead.”  

“This can’t… can’t be real.”

Lucian choked back a sob; something at the back of his mind told him that this was indeed real, that he was dying, and that this was it.

Another look at the man in his dark robes and Lucian had a different vision, his eyes going wide. “Are you… the Grim Reaper?”

A smirk took shape across the old man’s face. “I am, and I was about to help you pass when those injuresouls came. Miraculous as it was, you saved me.”

“Injuresouls?” Lucian could barely get the words out, his heart exploding, his eyes starting to roll into the back of his head. “Did you say… help me?”

The old man reached his hand out toward him. “It is time, Lucian. You have saved me, proven to me that you are worthy of this role. It is time that you become Death.”

Chapter Two: Taking the Mantle

“Where are we?” Lucian North asked, as everything solidified around him. He took in a deep breath, blinking rapidly as he tried to come to grips with what had just happened.

There was a city below, a vast metropolis full of saber-shaped skyscrapers, flying vehicles, and an above-ground train blazing with lights. 

Flying vehicles? Lucian glanced again to confirm it. 

Wherever they were, it definitely wasn’t somewhere on Earth.

“It has become one of my favorite places to call home,” the old man said, approaching the window and looking out. His long gray hair was now in a ponytail that Lucian didn’t remember him stringing up. “Not many distractions, either. Even better, I’m safe here from Life, injuresouls and Watchers, among other things.”

The lights of the city reflected into Death’s sparse dwelling, which simply had a leather couch in the center of the room, and a bookshelf on the other side of the room which was next to a heavy wooden door, a stairwell leading down as well.

Lucian touched his chest, feeling for his heart as he often did and noticing that…

I have muscles now?

He’d never been very well built, not like his brother, Connor. 

Lucian was always thin, and he grew even thinner after the diagnosis of a rare heart condition known as Ventricular Tachycardia.

Naturally, touching his chest led him to look down at the rest of his body to see muscled biceps, his forearms wrapped in black gauze. He also wore dark robes similar to what the old man wore. Lucian felt surprisingly light on his feet, and as he took a step forward, he noticed a bounce to his gait that he hadn’t felt since he was a child.

“What did you do to me?” he asked as he examined his hands. Lucian glanced around for a mirror but couldn’t find one.

Death stepped away from the floor-to-ceiling window and took a seat on the leather sofa. “I’ve already explained what is happening here: you are becoming Death, you are becoming me, but saying that aloud makes me think this warrants more of an explanation.”

“You think?”

The two stared incredulously at each other for a moment.

The old man grinned.  “I suppose.”

“Yeah, it kind of does,” Lucian continued, “because I don’t know about you, but having a man appear in your home, followed by a bunch of demons, and this same man tells you that he’s turning you into the Grim Reaper is… how do I say this?”

“Unorthodox?” the old man suggested. “Deathly exciting?”

“That’s an understatement, and I’ll go ahead and ignore the pun. What if I say no? What if I don’t want to become Death?”

“You haven’t said ‘no’ yet,” the elderly man reminded Lucian as a glass of water appeared in his hand.

“Are you magic?”

“You mean am I a magician? No.” He took a sip from the glass. “And don’t accuse me of being such a frivolous thing. Any other questions before we begin?”

“Did I just sign a pact with the devil or something? And where are we, exactly?”

“My home. And no, you haven’t signed a pact with the devil! I’ve never met the guy, but he and his counterpart get a lot of credit for things they have no say or control over. But this doesn’t concern you, not yet anyway. What concerns you is your new role.”

Lucian ran his hand through his hair and noticed it was thicker than before, longer too. Not long like Death’s, but thicker than it had been just ten minutes ago when he was in his apartment back in Salem, Massachusetts. 

“I will make this brief because you, my boy, need to get to work.”

“Work?” Lucian looked around at the dimly lit room.

“People need Death; they need you and me. Otherwise, they can’t successfully pass to the afterlife when they should. And you need people to get stronger. So it is a mutual relationship.”

“I still haven’t agreed to any of this.”

Death nodded, considering what Lucian had said. “I wish there was a manual for this. I’ve been at it for so long that I’ve forgotten what the first days are like. Three hundred years?” He looked up at the coffered ceiling, counting his fingers. “I believe it’s coming up on my anniversary…”

“Won’t you die if you transfer your powers to me?”

“Eventually, yes, but that’s the point.” A sad smile ran across the man’s face. “A good life deserves a good death. And I’ve lived a fairly good life.”

With that, his form started to filter away, the room expanding into a long hallway with a carpet cutting straight through it.

Please, come with me, a voice said at the back of Lucian’s head. It is time for the test to begin.

The room grew even longer, the red carpet in the middle stretching into the distance, the ceiling expanding, darkening.

A white light materialized into existence, a sparkling energy oscillating around it. The light was followed by the roar of a terrible creature, its body becoming more visible as Lucian approached.

His hands tingled once his eyes fell upon a monstrous demon dog with three snarling heads, the scales of a dragon and a wicked trident on its tail. The demon dog dipped its head, snorting clouds of smoke, gnashing its three sets of teeth.

“Fuck you,” Lucian said, a shotgun taking shape in his hands. 

His mind was so focused on the terrible creature in front of him that he had no time to consider the weapon that had appeared seemingly out of thin air, nor that he had conjured it.

The weapon was simply there, and not a moment too soon, either.

The monster pressed off its back feet, its tail whipping behind it. 

Click, click, boom!

Lucian blew off one of its heads, the shell flying to the right as he took another shot, this one cutting into the creature’s shoulder.

It kept charging, blood misting out of its new wounds.

He got the notion that a bladed weapon might be helpful, and as if it had been in his right hand all along, Lucian noticed the glint of a broadsword, the hilt shaped into the face of a screaming demon.

Lucian jumped over the now two-headed demon dog, higher than he’d ever leaped before, and landed behind the monster, flourishing his blade as he sliced through its tail.

The creature roared out in pain, blood squirting from the space where its tail used to be, claws taking shape on its paws.

The possessed killer canine barreled toward Lucian in a mad frenzy, trying to swat him down with its claws. 

Lucian rolled right and came up with his sword, which he used to beat the monster’s claws away.

Wondering just how far his magic could go, Lucian ran to the right of the room and springboarded off a wall. He turned to the creature, unleashing a blue fireball filled with daggers.

The daggers cut through the beast, charring its flesh, smoke rising off its body.

The demon dog took a lumbering step forward.

It let out a final wheeze and fell to the side, its stomach moving in and out as its last breath exited its body.

“Not bad, my boy, not bloody bad.”

The man with long white hair now stood next to Lucian, as if he’d been standing there the entire time.

“What the hell was that?” Lucian asked, just starting to catch his breath, his hands still trembling. He was too shocked to notice that the weapons he’d conjured were gone, and that the two now stood in a blackened space far removed from the room he’d just been in.

“Just a simple creation; I wouldn’t let it bother you,” the old man said with a smirk.

“A three-headed demon dog? That’s not supposed to bother me?”

“What made you decide to fight in this manner? I wasn’t expecting that—then again, you are a Death of the twenty-first century.”

Lucian shrugged. “I just sort of freestyled it.”

“In my first trial, I was killed ten, no, fifteen times,” the elderly man said, his bushy eyebrows pressed together. “Maybe it was seventeen times. Old Death wasn’t very impressed, but this future Old Death, he’s very impressed.”

“Old Death?”

“Aah, he had a name, Merek, I believe. But he was Death before me, so I generally refer to him as Old Death. And soon I will become the Death before you. So you can refer to me as Old Death too.”

“I haven’t agreed to any of this,” Lucian started to tell him. 

“You agreed when you decided to fight back.” Old Death smiled at him, his teeth white and shiny. “I know you’re still processing this, but trust me, everything will make sense soon enough.”

The elderly man turned, and as he did, the background began to melt away.

Lucian and Old Death now stood in an apartment block which looked like it was somewhere in Asia, the tall buildings adorned with red characters, a haze hanging over the city. There were children playing outside, a few of the older boys dribbling balls.

“Come,” the old man said as he led Lucian into an apartment building. “This is where it gets interesting.”

A child passed right through Lucian, causing him to stop. He brought his hands to his chest, bothered and confused by what had just happened.

“You’ll get used to things like that,” Old Death said as they floated up a flight of stairs. “They are alive and you are not. There isn’t much you can do about that.”

“When you put it like that…” Lucian pressed his hand through the railing, still not sure of how he should take what he was experiencing. Part of him felt like it was a dream, an entirely surreal experience. 

He had gone from sitting in his living room to battling demons, with little time to process what had happened. 

“A lot of people have a misconception about what we do,” Old Death said as he moved into a dimly lit hallway, the stink of fried animal fat heavy in the air. “Most people don’t need guidance to die, but some people overstay their welcome through the help of a parasite.”

“A parasite?” Lucian asked him.

“Your heart condition. How long were you given to live?”

“A year. But it had been about two and a half when you came...”

“Precisely, my boy. The parasite I came for was keeping you alive.”

Lucian paused. “I didn’t see a parasite.”

“No one sees their own parasites, even those that become us.” 

“And it was this parasite that I couldn’t see keeping me alive past my death date?”

“Affirmative.” Old Death stopped in front of a large metal door with a hand-painted number on it. “Ironically, it was you who ended up saving my life in the end. But that is partially my fault: I’ve been growing weaker as of late, and injuresouls are relentless in their pursuit of weak Deaths.”

“Why are you growing weaker?”

“I haven’t always been this way. There was a time when I could take on everything from a fallen angel to a horde of injuresouls. But those times are long gone.” Old Death looked at Lucian, a dullness to his eyes. “I’ve been hunting less and less as of late. I could grow strong again if I wanted, but…” He brought his hand to his chin. “I’m ready.”

“To officially die?”

The elderly man nodded. “But that discussion can be had another day. It’s time to see what happens when you let a person’s death be postponed, when you let a parasite get hold of them.”

Lucian was expecting to see something rotting in the next room, maybe a corpse lying there, maggots crawling out of its eyes, or a person half-devoured by demons, bite marks on their ribs, discarded entrails all that remained. 

Instead, Old Death opened the door to reveal an old Asian woman sitting by the window, staring out at the courtyard below. Lucian was just about to ask what was off about the woman when something caught his eye.

An insect-like being with peach-colored skin and a pulsating stomach was attached to the woman. As it fed, dozens of eyes slowly started to rise from its body, all of them focusing on Lucian and Old Death.

“What in the fuck is that thing?” Lucian asked as he took in the monster.

“This is what we’re here to do.” Old Death drew his blade. “Kill the parasite.”

“You’re going to kill that thing?” Lucian asked.

“No, you are.”

A vein pulsed on the side of the woman’s neck as the parasite flopped onto the ground, taking the lamp and the sofa with it. 

It waddled towards Lucian, tentacles ripping out of the side of its body, centipede legs sprouting from its grotesque underbelly. 

It was one of the most horrifying things Lucian had ever seen. But rather than panic, he felt a sudden hatred for the creature, a desire to fight back.

His sword appeared in his hands.

“Good, now go!” Old Death shouted.

Lucian took off toward the parasite, driving his blade into what he thought was the creature’s face. 

A boil on the parasite’s body popped, squirting Lucian with a burning goo that seared through his robes. Circling back around, he tossed his sword aside and went with his shotgun again, the one he’d conjured earlier.

Click, click, boom! 

Lucian fired slug after slug at the parasite, shells flying all around him, the blasts ringing in his ears as the monster hissed and screeched.

An odd realization came to Lucian as he avoided the creature’s barbed tail.

He got the notion that he couldn’t die again, that he was already dead.

There was nothing this goddamn thing could do that would actually kill him.

And with this in mind, Lucian ran right at the terrible creature just as it was opening its giant mouth.

He pressed off his heels and dove straight into its open maw, two grenades appearing in his hands, the pins already pulled.

The explosion tore both his arms off and a part of his shoulder. It also tore a huge hole in the monster’s stomach. The parasite wheezed as Lucian squirmed his way out of the newly made opening. 

Now on his side, Lucian looked down to the stubs that used to be his arms. 

As gruesome as it was to see his own tendons and shattered bones, he was equally impressed when he noticed a tingling sensation at his elbow, that his arms were starting to regrow, that the only pain he felt was akin to an itch.

By the time Lucian rocked himself up to his knees, his arms had already regrown all the way to his wrists. His hands reformed and his fingers took shape.

The monster started to fizzle away, a surge of energy exploding from its core and pressing into Lucian’s chest. 

“That’s it?” he asked. “Did I win?”

“What do you mean?” Old Death asked, a look of both horror and amusement on his face. “Of course you won. And what kind of attack was that?”

“You told me to kill it; I killed it.”

Old Death shook his head. “You have a lot to learn, my boy, but… it was an interesting way to handle the task. I’ll give you that. Be careful going forward with a strategy like that; it is a surefire way to be captured by one of these creatures. Had there been another parasite lurking around, it would have latched onto you and fed off your body until an injuresoul came.”

“Really?”

Old Death nodded.

“Noted.”

“And while it is possible to grenade a parasite, it also weakens you in a number of ways. For one, you are semi-immobile without arms.”

“They grew back quickly,” Lucian said as he swung his arms.

Old Death shook his head. “Yes, but wait until there are stronger parasites. My best advice: don’t sacrifice yourself to kill one of these things.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Lucian approached the old Asian woman. There was something unsettling about the way she looked now, a glaze to her eyes. “Did I kill her?” 

“No, you didn’t kill her; you killed what was feeding off her and keeping her alive past her expiry date.” Old Death took a small notebook from his robes and flipped to one of the pages. “Her name is Zhang Wei, she was born on August 21st, 1950, and she was scheduled to die on April 15th of this year.”

“You know all of that?” Lucian asked as he examined the woman. 

“Thanks to my little book, yes. It’s a hard concept to process, but all humans have a date on which they are supposed to expire. Those that have lived past these dates are the ones that come onto our radar.”

“So I was living past my due date?”

“Correct.” Old Death ran his hand through his long gray hair and turned to the door. “And when I came to square things away, you were able to see me, which is one of the reasons you’re here now, why you deserve my mantle.”

Lucian looked to the woman again, who had started to nod off, her mouth open, rotten molars exposed. “So, I’m basically different because I fought back?”

Old Death motioned him forward. “Correct again. I wish there was a trophy for what I’m about to say next, but I didn’t plan ahead, and you probably don’t want a trophy anyway, so here goes: Lucian North, you have passed the trials. In fact, these weren’t trials, I just wanted to see how good you would be. I was pretty sure you had it in you the moment you pointed your gun at me. It does get more complicated and more challenging than what we’ve just done, but that’s the gist of it.” Old Death squinted at a space near the door.  “Now come, injuresouls may be here soon.”