Death's Mantle 2 Read online

  ~Book Two~

  Harmon Cooper

  Copyright © 2020 Boycott Books, LLC

  Edited by Adam Luopa

  Audiobook narrated by Andrea Parsneau and produced by Podium Publishing

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

  Death is before me today:

  like the recovery of a sick man,

  like going forth into a garden after sickness.

  Death is before me today:

  like the odor of myrrh,

  like sitting under a sail in a good wind.

  Death is before me today:

  like the course of a stream,

  like the return of a man from the war-galley to his house.

  Death is before me today:

  like the home that a man longs to see,

  after years spent as a captive.

  --From "Dialogue of a Misanthrope with His Soul" written around 2000 BCE, also known as "Dispute Between a Man and His Ba," taken from a papyrus of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One: Grim Mecha

  Chapter Two: Happy Hunting

  Chapter Three: Life Goes On

  Chapter Four: Father of Mine

  Chapter Five: Scratched Off

  Chapter Six: Beach Bummed

  Chapter Seven: The Committee on Luminaries

  Chapter Eight: Purple Demon Bug

  Chapter Nine: Cursive

  Chapter Ten: Fifth Avenue Showdown

  Chapter Eleven: Not Alone in Kyoto

  Chapter Twelve: Potions, Potions, Potions

  Chapter Thirteen: Hallucinations

  Chapter Fourteen: Angelic Coffee Break

  Chapter Fifteen: Jellyfish in Salem

  Chapter Sixteen: Eavesdropping

  Chapter Seventeen: Chocolate and Robots

  Chapter Eighteen: Cold Day

  Chapter Nineteen: Taj Mahal

  Chapter Twenty: Boss Battle

  Chapter Twenty-One: A Metaphor for Something

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Tea with Yoshimi

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Demon Goat

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Fallen Angel

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Troubled Sleep in an Endless Desert

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Death Hunter Squared

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Violent Echos

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Mantlecore

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Setting the Stage

  Chapter Thirty: Blasted Beach

  Chapter Thirty-One: All Involved

  Chapter Thirty-Two: On a Pale Horse

  Chapter One: Grim Mecha

  The cars blazed by below, an occasional horn, headlights flashing. The clouds above were dark, the stars drowned out by the lights running along the interstate highway.

  Lucian North sat on the edge of a billboard looking out onto I-95, his crows chasing each other in circles around it.

  He glanced back up at the words above him, a smile coming across his face as he reread the advertisement: Heaven or Hell? Only You Can Decide.

  It was an appropriate billboard for a man who had taken Death’s mantle.

  It had been three days now since Lucian had gone after his predecessor at the South Wind; three days since he had found himself on a beach in Portland, Maine with the angel known as Danira, both of them watching their crows play near the shoreline; three days since he’d finally gotten the attention of his brother Connor’s parasite.

  And over the last three days, Lucian had all but wasted away at his hideaway, the place Old Death had seemingly bequeathed to him.

  He’d mostly played Zero Enigma, but he’d also read some. And feeling like he should do something, he had also created a new item that would come in handy.

  Hopefully, Lucian would be able to test it out soon.

  His Soul Points flashed before him:

  Lucian had plenty of power to work with, not that he was really planning on going hunting tonight.

  He would start back up tomorrow, feeling especially rejuvenated after his three-day staycation, a time in which he was able to zone out, to forget about everything happening in his life for once.

  But Lucian knew that he couldn’t waste away forever, that he had a limited amount of time to stop his brother’s early death. He also knew that he had enemies hunting for him now, from Death Hunters, to the Progeny of Light, to Watchers, which was the term he’d heard thrown around for fallen angels.

  It was a hell of a life he had stumbled upon.

  Wearing his black robes, his hood over his head, his cape on his shoulders, Lucian watched vehicles pass, their front windshields momentarily visible in the high-mast lighting.

  They were moving too fast, and he was at too high a vantage point, to check their drivers’ death dates.

  He couldn’t help but wonder how some of them would react had they been able to see the Grim Reaper sitting on a billboard that asked people the ultimate question: Heaven or Hell? Only You Can Decide.

  If the drivers below knew the truth, if they knew that they didn’t quite have a say in how things played out after they died, how would they react? How many people actually believed what they thought they believed, and what would happen if those beliefs were stripped away from them by a sobering truth? What if they could see the parasites feeding on them, the angels gaining strength from their hope, demonic beings like Lucian trying to set things straight, bringing order to the madness?

  What then?

  A gray bus caught Lucian’s attention.

  It was in the slow lane, and as it moved toward him he noticed white tendrils coming out the tops of the windows and curling up to the rooftop.

  “Of all places…” Lucian looked right to see his crows, Hugin and Munin, hovering in the air. The spherical devices with their sharp beaks nodded at Lucian, almost as if they were waiting for permission to go after the bus.

  “What else is there to do?” he asked them as he pressed off the ledge of the billboard, bolting into the air.

  Lucian slammed down on top of the rooftop of the gray bus, cars passing all around him as he conjured his MX-11, the green light on the side of his futuristic gun blinking, indicating that it was ready.

  His sword with a modified strip of lava in its center took shape in his free hand. He heard the whir of his shoulder-mounted semi-autonomous energy cannon letting him know it was ready.

  The bus started to switch lanes, and as it did, white tentacles careened toward Lucian.

  The parasites bubbled up on the other side of the rooftop, their cores red, pink fists pounding on the rooftop as their forms started to merge.

  Lucian was intimately familiar with this particular type of parasite, the kind that frequented mental health hospitals.

  The first one came for Lucian and he sliced through it with his sword, kicking up in the air and spinning, firing at the next one.

  A fist cracked him in the side of the head and Lucian went flying off the top of the bus. He hit the highway and started running, jumping back into the air and using the front of an eighteen-wheeler as a springboard to send himself back to the rooftop of the bus.

  The same fist came at him and Lucian cut through it with his sword, spinning and blasting another tendril. His cape bloomed with life, but didn’t separate from his body. It stayed hooked to his shoulders, batting away parasitic tendrils with razor-sharp swaths of cloth, blood spritzing the air as Lucian continued to engage the parasite.

  Hugin tore through one of the tentacles only to be caught by another parasitic limb, this one covered in lesions and sharp spikes.

  It slammed Lucian’s crow down onto the rooftop, le
aving an indentation as his shoulder-mounted weapon blasted the tentacle with concentrated bursts of energy.

  Another tendril wrapped around Lucian’s leg, which he quickly cut through with his sword.

  Everything flashed as a log-sized fist struck Lucian in the back, sending him tumbling forward.

  He landed on the highway, jumping just in time to avoid being hit by the car behind the bus. He ran for a moment, a truck passing by him.

  As he’d done before, Lucian jumped from the rooftop of the sedan to the side of the eighteen-wheeler, crawling up to the top.

  He launched himself into the air and landed on the back of the bus, immediately blasting the huge fist with his MX-11, his black cape swirling in the air behind.

  Lucian saw his other crow blaze past, tearing through two tendrils before slamming into a thick one covered in outward-facing teeth.

  Realizing that this wasn’t going to play out too well on the rooftop of the bus, Lucian aimed his gun at his feet, kicking both legs up in the air as he fired. A hole melted through the rooftop, exposing the inside of the cabin, which hosted a few patients being transported to what Lucian assumed was another psychiatric ward.

  “Here we go,” Lucian said under his breath as he dove in.

  The cabin of the bus was suffocating, the parasites all pressed together, at least four of them all gunning for Lucian at once. He tried to fight them back, but was quickly overwhelmed, the parasites grabbing onto his arms and wrapping around his neck.

  His crows burst into a few of the clear white tendrils, but they were unable to free him.

  As his shoulder-mounted weapon continued to fire, a smile crept across Lucian’s face.

  “All of you are so fucked,” he whispered as an explosion tore through the side of the bus, the vehicle careening toward the left.

  It hit the railing and flew over the side, smashing into a tributary that fed into the Long Island Sound.

  The parasites came up, hissing and screeching as Lucian also took to the air.

  “They’re all yours,” he said, turning to his newest creation. It was a mechanized version of Lucian, complete with black robes and bladed gun arms, that he’d named Grim Mecha.

  Grim Mecha was metallic, just like his crows, and as he hovered, both Hugin and Munin lowered down onto his replica’s shoulders, docking.

  The bus slowly started to sink into the water beneath them, the parasites writhing as they bubbled out of the hole in the roof, joining forces and growing stronger.

  Grim Mecha looked to Lucian, his replica’s eyes blazing purple as he turned his attention back to the growing threat below.

  Lucian’s newest creation blasted off toward the giant parasite now rising out of the water, tearing straight through its body.

  Grim Mecha exploded back out of the water, severing one of the parasite’s limbs and going straight for its vertical eye, energy pouring into Lucian, who was still floating in the air, cars blasting by on the bridge in front of him.

  “This is so awesome,” Lucian found himself saying as a clawed tendril tried to bring his replica down.

  Grim Mecha caught the stray limb and brought his hand back, snapping the sharp fingers as it circled around, using the thick hunk of parasitic flesh as a shield to block a stinger attack.

  Tendrils shot out of the water and wrapped around Grim Mecha’s throat, attempting to drag him under. A blast that caused a wave tore out of the back of his head, disintegrating the tentacle.

  With a flick of his wrist, Lucian conjured a wall of injurecrows, his blackened IEDs, all of which took off toward what was left of the conjoined parasite.

  They exploded on contact, and his replica followed up with powerful blasts from his bladed arms.

  More explosions, more lasers, more badassery.

  Lucian was goddamn proud of himself for what he had created, and even though he hadn’t been planning to use him tonight, it was good to see Grim Mecha in action.

  He felt more energy pouring into him.

  Lucian looked down to see what was left of the parasite slowly sinking into the water, everything filtering away. The bus was almost under now, and even though he knew that this wasn’t the case, that this battle was taking place on a different plane of existence, it gave Lucian satisfaction to know that he had easily bested his enemies.

  He knew there were fights coming his way that would truly push him to his limits.

  But for now, he couldn’t wait for the next competitive angel or Death Hunter to dare come after him.

  He was looking forward to the challenge.

  Grim Mecha returned to Lucian and they bumped fists.

  “That was sick,” Lucian said.

  His replica merely nodded, Hugin and Munin undocking and returning to Lucian's side.

  Rather than filter away, as many of his items did when he wasn’t using them anymore, Grim Mecha looked to the sky, a ball of energy starting to form beneath his heels. He blasted up as if he were a rocket, disappearing into the darkness.

  “Best thing I ever created,” he said as his status appeared.

  Hugin flew in front of Lucian and gave him an agitated look.

  “Let me rephrase: it’s the best thing I’ve created after you two. And don’t forget, you two can join him whenever. I thought that would be a cool feature.” He placed his hand on his crow's smooth head, Hugin nuzzling Lucian’s palm. “So take no offense.”

  Lucian glanced at his status again, seeing that he had gained ten Soul Points, which wasn’t half bad.

  Taking a cue out of Grim Mecha’s playbook, he rocketed up into the air, lowering back down onto the ledge in front of the Heaven or Hell? Only You Can Decide billboard.

  “It shouldn’t be long now,” he said, looking out to the highway.

  Lucian saw his brother’s blue truck coming down the highway, one of the headlights dimmer than the other. He spiraled down toward the highway and swooped up, landing in the bed of his brother’s truck.

  It was time to check on him.

  Chapter Two: Happy Hunting

  Lucian pressed forward into the cabin of the truck, sitting between his brother and his future sister-in-law. He looked to Connor, noticing that nothing had changed about his date of death. He then glanced at Samantha, noticing no changes either.

  Name: Connor North

  Date of Birth: 11/01/1980

  Date of Death: 06/06/2021

  Name: Samantha Reese

  Date of Birth: 07/15/1986

  Date of Death: 12/19/2072

  “This was supposed to be a vacation, Sam,” Connor said with a grumble. He was wearing a long sleeve polo shirt, his puffy winter jacket stuffed in the small cabin behind him. “Ma wanted us to get away for a few days. Let’s not fight about that. Not today, anyway.”

  “You don’t have a job; we have a mortgage payment coming up that you know my paycheck can barely cover. It’s something we have to talk about. I know that it upsets you, Connor, but without Jen around, we have more of an opportunity to actually feel these things out, to say what we want to say.” Samantha reached her hand through Lucian and dropped it onto his brother’s arm, squeezing it. “Don’t take it personally, but we’re going to be husband and wife in a month; we have to be able to talk about these things.”

  “Dammit,” Connor said, jerking the steering wheel erratically. “I just…”

  “Don’t get angry.”

  “I’m not getting angry!”

  “Relax,” Lucian told his brother, watching as he ground his teeth, a fury spreading over him.

  Lucian could see the parasite sticking out of the back of his brother’s shirt with, its clear skin and the yellow swath of flesh running through it. The parasite had definitely noticed him, and Lucian had already tried to drive his hand through it, seeing if he would have any effect on it.

  But no.

  He still wasn’t strong enough to actually engage the demon bug. Glaring at the parasite, hatred swelling in the space where his heart should be, Lucian t
uned back into what his brother was saying.

  “I told you, I’ve reached out to everyone I know; they all know I’m looking for work. I talked to a few hiring managers. Hell, there may be an opening at the hardware store up the street. The guy who has worked there forever, Greg, he’s retiring. It takes time.”

  “I know it takes time, honey,” Samantha said, her voice growing soft. “I’m just worried, that’s all. You have to understand what it feels like, this close to getting married and then having one of us lose our jobs. I just wish there was something I could have done…”

  “There was nothing you could have done!” Connor said, hitting his fist against the steering wheel. “Sorry… Sorry…”

  “Be careful. You’re driving!”

  “I am being careful! The road is too busy tonight. Sorry.”

  Lucian’s crows pressed into the cabin, hovering just in front of him. While Connor and Samantha continued to have a heated discussion, his crows bounced into one another, playfully looking at Lucian as they did so.

  “Stop it,” he told them, feeling like he was supposed to be part of this conversation somehow.

  Hugin turned its attention to the parasite sticking out of Connor’s shirt. Lucian’s first crow backed up a few paces and then took off toward the parasite, cutting straight through Connor’s body and out the driver’s side window.

  His crow returned, and for a moment Hugin was bathed in golden light from a streetlamp, Lucian recalling that Danira also had crows, hers golden with cherub wings.

  That thought made him happy.

  He didn’t know when he would see her again, nor if they would be enemies when he did, but he hoped it was soon.

  “I’m sorry, Connor, I just don’t see how going to Stamford for a couple days is going to help our situation. What if you get a callback? What if they want to interview you?”

  “Then I will tell them they can interview me in three days,” he said, his knuckles white from gripping the steering will. “Can we drop this?”