Page 1 of Destined to the Reaper

Chapter 1

Pharos

Afamiliar rage simmered deep within me as Cornelius took malicious pleasure abusing yet another poor sod. The elder necromancer thrived on throwing his power around, crushing those weaker, and reminding them that they were beneath him and only lived by his mercy. In many ways, it was true. Worse still, he only wielded such tremendous control over life and death thanks to the powers I had unwittingly bestowed upon him.

Hermes, a petty trader way past his prime, shrank in on himself as Cornelius showered him with a plethora of insults. Bony, with withered skin heavily tanned by frequent exposure to the sun and the elements, the older male clutched the canvas fabric upon which sat the source of the necromancer’s ire with both hands.

“Do you take me for a fool, you wretched scum?” Cornelius hissed. “Did you really think you could pass off this trash as a manticore bone?”

“It… it does come from a man… manticore,” Hermes stuttered.

Even trapped as I was inside the necromancer’s body, I could access all his senses. And right now, the acrid stench of the old man’s terror permeated the room.

With a single flick of his hand, Cornelius invoked his Bone Magic to snap the man’s wrist. Hermes shrieked, his knees buckling as he held his damaged arm pressed against his chest. If not for the dirty counter he partially leaned on for support, he would have collapsed onto the dust covered wooden floor of his shop.

Then again, calling this pigsty a shop was overly generous. The small rectangular room would qualify more as a storage area or warehouse. Boxes and crates haphazardly positioned alongside the walls, and a few more piled in the center contained the devil only knew what. Half of them were contraband, counterfeits, or cheap alternatives to premium reagents the various mages and dark art practitioners of the city required. Dust and cobwebs claimed ownership of the goods that had never found any takers. Why he hadn’t gotten rid of them by now boggled my mind. But then, what else would one expect from a hoarder?

The shop possessed a single other room at the back that served as both Hermes’s office and residence. A moldy brown curtain left wide open hid nothing of the just as disastrous space. A cot with a soiled mattress occupied the left corner of the back room. The gray blankets covered in yellowish stains had once boasted a pristine white color. The toilet and sink sat next to a small wood stove which he used both to cook and heat the room during chilly winter days. It expressed all one needed to know about the old trader’s understanding of basic hygiene. As did the total absence of a bath or shower.

The old man’s blubbering pleas utterly failed to mollify Cornelius. Why in the nine hells would he have assumed it might? My host—although jailer would be a more appropriate term—had no sense of compassion or empathy. To him, everything and everyone was merely another tool to help him achieve greater power.

“Lie to me again, and the pain you feel right now will be but a gentle tap in comparison to what I will do to you next,” Cornelius warned in a dangerously low voice. “Where are the manticore bones I requested?”

Eyes bloodshot—likely due to an overindulgence in hard liquor—Hermes blinked away the tears trying to well in his eyes as he sniffed back the snot glistening at the edge of his veiny, bulbous nose.

“I swear I didn’t try to trick you, Master Cornelius,” Hermes said in a shaky voice. “I searched high and low for what you requested. The hunter from whom I acquired this swore it came from the offspring of a manticore.”

“Sired on some random lesser other creature, you worthless toad!” Cornelius spat. “I need a pureblood, not some fucking mutt!”

“I’m sorry, Master. I thought it wouldn’t matter…” Hermes said, his hand tightening beneath his damaged wrist where the skin had begun darkening as the broken bone pressed against it, as if attempting to pierce through. “I will set out again and find a pureblood this time.”

“All Hallows is almost upon us, you wretch. I gave you strict instructions, and you yet again failed me. You have nine days to make this right.”

“Nine days is impossible!” Hermes exclaimed with a crestfallen expression.

“Nine days!” Cornelius shouted. “And here’s a little incentive.”

Another wave of fury surged within me as the necromancer invoked my plague powers to initiate necrosis at the tip of the fingers of the same hand with a broken wrist. Hermes cried out as his nails darkened. The spell had been of low intensity, which made it even crueler.

“For every hour and every day you make me wait, the necrosis will spread,” Cornelius said with pure malevolence. “Deliver it in time, and I might consider reverting some of the damage. Fail me again, and we’ll see how well you will take to a mechanical hand instead.”

Ignoring the trader’s begging and pleading, Cornelius stormed out of the shop, leaving the door wide open. The wave of fresh air that hit us did little to wipe away the lingering stench of old sweat, dirt, and rot from Hermes’s place. It also did nothing to appease the fury raging inside me. Despite hiding those sentiments from my host, he knew exactly how his actions affected me, and he reveled in it. Even now, his entire foul being vibrated with smug cruelty. He loved reminding me that he owned me, that he could use my powers however he saw fit, and that my self-righteous indignation would only backfire against those I wished to protect.

I could count the extremely rare times I had used my plague powers against mortals. It was not something I enjoyed. For centuries, I dedicated my reaping abilities to easing the passage of the dying into the afterlife in the gentlest fashion possible, only reserving the most brutal approach to fiends and truly malicious people. To see my powers thus desecrated was an even greater torment than the loss of my freedom.

I immediately cast out those somber thoughts. Dwelling on the miserable fate that befell me would only send me further down the spiral of despair that constantly skirted at the edge of what was left of me.

As much as the pain Hermes would suffer over the next couple of weeks saddened me, I couldn’t help but rejoice that Cornelius had not received what he had been hoping for. I didn’t know what new evil plot he had in mind. The necromancer had been unusually secretive with me of late. Just like I could block my thoughts from him, he could block his from me. Most of the time, he took immense pleasure in making a display of informing me of his latest scheme for the mere pleasure of getting a rise out of me. That he didn’t want me to know meant he was up to something dreadful that would have long-lasting and maybe even catastrophic effects on a large segment of the population.

Despite being his prisoner, I had some limited ways of thwarting or messing up his plans when they were too extreme. I didn’t know what he wanted with a manticore’s bones. Although long-lived and an adept magic user, I never dabbled in the arcane arts, let alone in the type of dark magic Cornelius loved. In the past 498 years as his coerced servant, I’d learned far more about it than I cared to. I only knew that bones and organs of those mythical creatures could be used for the type of rituals no one but the most powerful arcane users could hope to successfully accomplish and live to reap the rewards.

As was common, the countless passersby along the wide streets of the district immediately swerved away from us, giving Cornelius a wide berth. Saying people feared him would be quite the understatement. Everyone knew of his great wealth and the ruthlessness with which he leveraged it to bend others to his will. Much fewer knew of the darker dealings he was involved in. But all understood that steering clear of him and avoiding his notice was the safest way to go.

Over the years, the citizens of Willow Grove grew to embrace witches and peddlers of assorted services related to the occult. The arcane practitioners repelling the demonic hordes that hadthreatened the small town they used to be certainly played a large part in that. And yet, the locals still deluded themselves into thinking that monsters only lurked in dark forests and cursed lands.

If only they knew how many demons, vampires, doppelgangers, and countless otherworldly beings walked alongside them daily, they would lose their minds.

With All Hallowtide only a few days away, an even greater number of shadowy beings flocked to the city. As the citizens of Willow Grove observed the ancient tradition of Souling and Guising, beings from the netherworld would be able to strut about in their true form. Not only would they do so without raising much suspicion, but they’d also likely earn tremendous praise instead for the realism of their costumes.

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