Reaper Theory #1

[PoeTheWriter, Creator of Many / Father of Multiple]

[PoeTheWriter, Creator of Many / Father of Multiple]

Prologue
“There are some in the world that will seek to destroy you utterly and completely, my dear boy,” said the boy’s father, “And you must not let them near your heart, block them out completely, never let anybody in if you have the slightest suspicion about them.”
It was a lesson that had been taught over and over again, don’t do this, don’t do that, but it never gave the boy a chance to explore his options in life. It had always been that he was supposed to be a doctor, like his father. But being a doctor like Dad was boring in his mind, always sitting around and doing nothing, just waiting to be called into town. He wanted to be something greater, more successful, more… powerful.
He wanted to be a hero, just like Heracle and Achilles. The boy loved his Greek stories, spending nights on end poring over old tomes and novels when he should be studying his subjects. He would close his door and bring a lantern under his blanket to read by.
Of course that strategy was soon smited when one of the maids caught him in the act and informed the boy’s parents of his late night adventures. After that he was banned from having books in his room, they were all kept in the large library.
Sure, he could just sneak down to the library at night, but that didn’t work either, the library was always tended to by at least one maid, or butler. Even if he was as quiet as he could, the house keepers were trained to listen for even the slightest creak in the boards that might signal a child being naughty and exploring.
But on one particular night, the boy found a small booklet lying on the ground under a tree in the courtyard. He had decided to take it inside, and see what it was about, and since it wasn’t registered in the library, the house keepers had no say in the matter if it wasn’t in the library by dinner.
So he snuck it into his room, and sat down at the large desk near the back, lit a candle and slipped the booklet out of the inside collar of his vest.
“The Reaper Theory…” He whispered to himself, reading the title, his voice barely audible, “Huh… I wonder what that’s all about.”
The cover of the booklet was a simple rough black leather with a strange symbol scratched onto it and then painted in white, it looked like a family crest, but it had it’s own unique twist. The white twisted and danced over the cover, in the middle there was a blank space in the shape of an eye and rings coming from the center of the eye, as if it were trying to hypnotize somebody. Above the eye there was a depiction of a skull with a dangerous looking scythe behind it, and below the eye in one corner there were scrawled the initials “AKT.”
Who could this have belonged to? And why is it here in the first place? The boy thought to himself.
“Young Michael!” A masculine voice called from the bottom of the stairs. “It’s time for dinner, please come down before Master Quinn gets angry.”
“I’m coming, Oliver!” Michael, the boy, called, and then whispered under his breath, “Blasted butlers… always ruining the best moments.”
He shut the booklet, leaving it laying on the desk and ran to the dining hall. His father was seemingly waiting for him at the door, his hands clasped behind his back.

[PoeTheWriter, Creator of Many / Father of Multiple]

“Michael, you are late, again,” snapped his father, “You must stop reveling in these frivolous expeditions in your room!”
Michael averted his gaze from his father, could his dad have really figured out about the booklet so quickly? He thought he had hid it so well, none of the house keepers had seen it. Or maybe he was mad about something else, maybe he had dressed improperly and his father was just taking it out with the excuse of his “expeditions.”
“I apologize, Father,” Michael said under his breath, “It will not happen again, I promise.”
He knew it was a lie, but his father didn’t have to know that. He was good at lying, after years of sneaking things in and out of the mansion to play with, and nobody had found them until months later.
“This promise better be legitimate this time,” His father said, his tone suggesting a threat of punishment if the promise was not fulfilled.
Michael was all too familiar with this tone, it was one that had been used on him and the house keepers multiple times before when he got angry. The harsh words barely stung the young boy anymore, as if he were used to being verbally threatened by the larger man.
In response to the threat, he simply nodded and brushed past the tall male to get to the dinner table, he didn’t really want to eat. He wasn’t hungry, surprisingly.
What wasn’t surprising was what his mind was on, he kept thinking about the booklet. He wondered what it was about, wanted to find out how it got into the mansion’s courtyard, and figure out who it belonged to. The initials on the booklet were strange, what names could started with A, K, and T? Andrew Kade Torrech? No, that didn’t sound or feel right.
As he revelled in the mysterious thoughts, he barely noticed the food that was being put on his plate. A large slice of a medium rare steak with the chef’s special seasoning, with greens on the side and mashed potatoes next to the steak.
“Young Michael, is the meal not to your liking?” Oliver, the butler, questioned.
“Huh?” Michael snapped back into reality, not realizing he had zoned out, “Oh, no it’s good, thank you, Oliver.”
He picked at his food, not really interested in sustaining himself at the moment, he kept glancing out the window to the large willow tree in the courtyard, right underneath the lowest branch was a patch of wilting flowers, that had been where Michael had found the booklet. He realized now that the flowers hadn’t begun to wilt probably until he had gone back inside. They hadn’t been wilting when he found the booklet, or when he picked it up, so it had to have begun after that event.

[PoeTheWriter, Creator of Many / Father of Multiple]

The gardeners were already working hard to remove the dilapidated flowers. Michael could see their lips moving, and it seemed they were whispering to each other. He thought nothing of it, the gardeners always gossipped while they worked, it was as if it were in their nature. Maybe they were discussing the weather, but as Michael squinted a bit to see them better, he saw their backs were hunched in a tense manner.
They were confused, just like him. Why were these flowers dying? It was still the middle of summer, and they had plenty of water, they made sure of it themselves.
But what nobody else seemed to notice was a figure at the hedges that lined the outer edges of the courtyard.
The figure was a tall, slender figure, its skin seemed to be almost pure white, like a vampire, but this figure didn’t burn up in the sun. It sat at about 193 centimeters in height, or atleast, that was the height Michael perceived it at. It wore pitch black robes that hid every part of it’s body, except for it’s head and hands, but it’s face was shadowed by a large hood.
Even through the shadow of the hood Michael could’ve sworn he saw a pair of glowing white eyes staring directly at him. The glowing orbs under the shadow seemed to go right into his soul, unlocking his deepest secrets and fears, his interests and intents.
He blinked once and suddenly the figure was gone, as if it had been just a trick of the mind.
I’ve been thinking about that book too much, he thought to himself, One of these days these imaginary entities are going to get me killed.
He was all to right, but little did he know, his end was coming sooner than intended.
Michael wolfed down the rest of his supper before excusing himself, hastily walking to his quarters to study the mysterious book again.
Little did the poor boy know, this was the last meal he would ever eat, and he should’ve savored it.
He was about to open the door to his room when he heard a gravely voice speak behind him.
“Your time has come…” the voice muttered, its words piercing his heart and soul like a dagger in the shin, “Rest easy, dear child.”
Michael tried to turn around to face the speaker but a simple glimpse at a blade suddenly at his neck was the last thing he saw, a sharp sting on his jugular vein and everything was gone.
The boy was no more, the figure had finished its job and could move on from this place, but not before it slipped inside the room and nabbed the book from the desk, placing it in a pouch and seeming to disappear in an instance.

[PoeTheWriter, Creator of Many / Father of Multiple]

Chapter 1
When Robert opened the door he was appalled by the scene he saw. He had been called in for a simple investigation, not a full blown murder scene. The sight was so gruesome, he couldn’t bare putting it into words, but it was required to fulfill the investigation.
The young child who he was investigating was laying in a bloody mess in the middle of a long hallway. It looked like it had been a quick and merciless killing. But it wasn’t the gore that made him uneasy, it was the bright crimson writing on the wallpaper, it was small, but very noticeable against the soft gray of the wall.
It was the initials on the very book that had gotten Michael killed, but he didn’t know that, not yet, he simply thought it was a coincident. There had been multiple generations in the family that had lived in this very mansion, it could’ve been an old initial that a previous tenant had written.
Even as he thought of this possibility, a feeling settled in his gut that it was going to be way worse, the wallpaper looked new, as if it had been only installed a few days ago. There was no way it could be an old initial if his guess was correct, and that made his stomach queasy, the thought that even through the death, the killer had the nerve to write his initials in the child’s blood.
Robert approached the child’s body, but stopped dead in his tracks when he felt bones crush under his boots, he lifted his foot up a bit and looked, it was a dead rat, obviously poisoned by one of the house keepers.
This is just making me feel like this place was abandoned ages ago, why didn’t they clean up the body? Robert thought to himself.
It was then he decided it was time to ask the father, Master Quinn as the house keepers had called him. He had heard from the butler that he wasn’t grieving, as if he had hoped his son would die. Robert didn’t under stand the reasoning of it but simply assumed it was because Michael was a trouble child.
It seemed obvious, the boy’s room had been a mess, maps and notes strewn across the walls, it was like his own room at home, where he had done all his investigation research before arriving at the scenes. Almost as if Michael was planning an adventure.
Robert traversed the hallway to the stairs leading to the second floor, his steps cautious as to attempt not to disturb the scene of the death. His boots were already covered in blood and grime, and he grimaced as he heard the wet sound of it slapping against the floor.
Entering the second floor, he located the dining room, and he strode across the dining room until he reached the door leading out into the courtyard. He opened the door and exited the building into the courtyard.
The figure he was searching for was at the large weeping willow tree in the center of the courtyard. He was a white-haired middle aged man who seemed to be about 5 foot 4 inches, with piercing blue eyes and a black suit.
“Sir Quinn?” Robert asked, approaching him, “If I may, I have a few questions I would like to ask you in relation to your son’s death.”

[PoeTheWriter, Creator of Many / Father of Multiple]

The man turned his head at a slight angle to glance at Robert, his eyes catching a gleam of recognition..
“Ah! You must be the investigator.” He said, his voice was gravelly, as if he had been ill recently.
“Yessir, I am.” Robert spoke softly,
The man Robert could only assume to be the father of the poor child didn’t seem really bothered by his son’s death. That thought made Robert uneasy about asking questions but he knew he had to.
“I apologize if this will be disturbing, but did you know of anybody who didn’t particularly like your son?” he asked tentatively, “These questions are crucial to finding the murderer.”
“Nobody that I know of disliked my son…” the man sounded thoughtful as he spoke, “Though I know some of the house keeping found him to be an annoyance, he truly didn’t understand the rules.”
“I see…” softly muttered Robert, “Thank you, sir, for your acceptance of this investigation, we promise we’re doing everything we can do to hunt down your son’s killer.”
The old man only shook his head a miniscule amount in response, and Robert took it as an acknowledgement to his contribution. Upon closer inspection, he noticed the other male’s expression looked almost… haunted. Like he had seen something he shouldn’t have. Of course at that point Robert began to wonder about what possibly old Mr. Torrech had been hiding for his fifty-six years of life.
Not that it was any of Robert’s business, and it definitely wasn’t part of the murder, or so Robert hoped with all his life. If what Quinn had seen was bad enough to traumatize the old war veteran, he didn’t want to encounter whatever it was in his life. He dealt with disfigured and mauled murderers before, although those usually didn’t strike fear into a veteran. It was obvious Mr. Torrech had met something far worse.
Quinn dismissed Robert with a harsh wave of the hand, a gesture he was all too familiar with in the world of law enforcement and investigation. Robert had been waved off rudely by even the most open witnesses. He guessed everybody had a secret to hide and never bothered pushing the investigation too hard on the victims.
The only thing the investigator was for was to find the killer and get this over with, not to learn everybody’s life stories and the mass of their hidden truths and lies. It wasn’t like their pasts would help him in his investigation anyways.
If what the master of the house had said was true, the murderer was not anybody they had encountered in their previous trips into the city and towns surrounding them. Meaning this creature, or person, was a complete stranger.
Since no living thing had been around at the time of Michael’s death, I had no way to find a description of the figure who had taken the life blood of somebody so young. That single fact troubled me more than anything else, knowing I couldn’t bring justice to such a precious heir of a dying father. But he wouldn’t let that stop him, not when he was so close, and yet so far away from figuring this enigma out, even if it meant putting himself in danger, even if it meant dying himself.

[PoeTheWriter, Creator of Many / Father of Multiple]

But the young investigator didn’t know he was being watched, and by somebody nobody would ever want to be watched by. When he glanced out the windows, the figure watching him disappeared in a split second, as if it were just a spectre of his imagination.
The figure was a tall male with a slight build, but you could easily tell he had muscles if you looked at him close enough and he actually stood still for it. Midnight black hair spilled down the person’s back, half pulled into a braid, the rest was let to run wild. He had skin like that of a vampire, a milky white color with very little life to the coloration, as if he might fry with even a small beam of sunlight. His face was fair, from a distance at the very most, seeming to not have a single dent or blemish, but the truth shone through if somebody approached him.
In simple explanation, his face was strewn with strange black marks that seemed burned into his very being, not even smearing if anybody tried to wipe them off. But it was not his face that would throw somebody off, it was his eyes. They looked like seas of starless night, an eternal black that should’ve easily stolen somebody’s soul, those cursed looking eyes weren’t human, not in the nearest sense.
In the middle of those haunting eyes, two glowing white irises shone like mini suns, the figure didn’t seem to have pupils. Around the eyes were more of those same black markings, almost like they were tears, but once again, they would not budge an inch.
His ears were of the utmost fascination to any of the human realm, they seemed soft at first sight, thinning to sharp points at the tips, and able to swivel to pick up the miniscule sounds much easier than any mortal man.
His fashion of dress was, indeed, out of date. A long black cloak of what would seem to be satin hung loosely over his shoulders, and underneath it, a dark grey military outfit. Like that of a general, but not quite of English standards. There was a belt strapped across his chest, assumed to be for weapon sheaths, though he did not have any instruments of war upon him. He wore simple cotton trousers were the deep color of a smoke cloud rising up into the air.
This mysterious figure was somebody, at the very most a person just dressing up to scare people, but he was not focused on Robert. No. This creature of other heritage was focused on one thing, and one thing only.
His missing heart, the one thing that was keeping him from tearing reality apart string by string.
He stood up from his perch on the edge of the roof of the garden’s shed, where he had been crouching. Already, a plan was forming in his mind. He would go into town, disguise himself as one of their own folks, and search there first. If that didn’t succeed, he would hunt through the forests.
He wasn’t from this realm, not one bit. That being said, he didn’t know the culture of the area, nor how they dressed. From what he had observed from the two humans conversing below his hiding area, they spoke a different language, this would be a problem.
The only language he was fluent in was one of his own species, a language that the people of this realm called “Celestial.”

[PoeTheWriter, Creator of Many / Father of Multiple]

Chapter 2
Alexaires strode through the village, the hood of his cloak up and over his elven features, the only part of his face that anybody could see was his nose and mouth. It was a defensive measure, knowing how these humans were with mythical species. He would probably be accused of being a wizard or a demon and they would attempt to execute him. The black braid was poking slightly out of the hood, giving to the mysterious look.
The townsfolk around him stopped whatever they were doing to stare at him, of course they did. They didn’t know this strange visitor, and were probably surprised at his height. Some whispered to each other, and others jeered at Alexaires.
But even with that, Alex didn’t speak, he didn’t understand the words being thrown at him, and he didn’t want to bother trying to translate things, so he just kept walking. His cloak rustled with each step, and though people tried to approach him, they seemed startled by the weight of his hidden gaze and ended up scurrying off.
Normally he would revel in these reactions, get drunk on the knowledge that he could cause such a reaction to mere humans. But he didn’t let himself, he had to focus.
A citizen came up to him and asked him a question in their language, “Sir? Are you searching for something?”
He didn’t respond, his white irises gleaming through the shadows of his hood with a silent question. The citizens seemed not to realize that Alex couldn’t understand them.

[PoeTheWriter, Creator of Many / Father of Multiple]

The citizen stared up at Alex, being slightly shorter than the figure, a question on his lips but still, the words did not seem to reach his ears.
Alex brushed past the person roughly, his arm pushing the woman’s shoulder out of his arm with a nominal movement. He had no time for these idiots, or so he thought they were idiots.