15 The crying of the dead

Laith Tessen was most likely a criminal on the run. Should I call the police and let them take care of it?

I stopped by a phone booth, then put on my gloves, and kept walking on the snowy street.

No. After spending a year as a Cheetah, I had learned a thing or two about our society. As Ginger, the Cheetahs’ leader, used to say: ‘People fear criminals because the police always arrive after the events.’ As gangsters, we had caught more store thieves in the Old Docks than the police had. It wasn’t really the police’s fault: they just didn’t have the means to bring justice to innocent people everywhere. That’s why there were so many gangs in Farskyer. There was a saying in the Underworld: there’s no better lawyer than yourself.

I looked up at a five-story building. Number 41, 5B, Brokenlight Street, Old Docks. It was in front of a small park shrouded in darkness. The street was residential, and it was empty at this late hour.

I entered the block. It didn’t have any security system. The inside was old, and the elevator was down. I saw no one on the stairs as I climbed to the fifth floor.

I finally stopped. My killer’s door was just in front of me. Did I have a plan? Ray would have probably called me a fool for not even thinking of one. But I was really out of ideas.

I just pressed the doorbell.

For a moment, I thought he wasn’t at home. I almost hoped he wasn’t. I honestly didn’t want to see him again.

Then I heard a voice.

“Who’s there?”

The door didn’t have a spyhole, so he couldn’t see my face. Even so, I pulled my scarf up before answering:

“Someone led me here. I have a request for you.”

I actually had one. But damn… was I being a bit too confident? What if Laith opened the door, recognized me, then killed me again? Or what if he decided not to open?

I heard a click, then the door opened. Laith appeared.

My killer was a skinny, blond-haired man in his late twenties. He looked at me for an instant.

“Come in.”

So I had been right: Laith Tessen was accepting jobs from anyone as long as he got paid. Well, he didn’t even need to get paid sometimes. I was the living proof… or, more like, the undead proof.

His turf was almost empty: just a table, two chairs, a mattress, and a computer on the floor. He had probably moved on recently. As the man locked the door, he said:

“Is the VP sending you?”

The VP? I had no idea what he meant.

“Actually… I have a personal request,” I said.

“Huh. Okay, sit down.”

I took a seat. No, no, no, what was I doing? I wasn’t supposed to chat with my killer! But why did I come anyway? Did I really want to kill him? Well… I wanted him to disappear from the Earth so he would never kill anyone again, so I wouldn’t hear of him again. The only problem was… I was scared stiff.

“So you want me to kill someone,” he said.

“Yes,” I muttered.

I saw him raise his eyebrows.

“That’s surprising. My powers tell me when someone is lying. But you’re not. Still… You know?” he said, leaning towards me. “I kinda get the impression I’ve already seen you somewhere.”

I shuddered. He sat down in front of me.

“So? Tell me. What’s your business? Who do you need me to kill? The price will depend on the target. I do everything: men, women, children, salarymen, vagabonds, thugs, bullies, cats, and dogs… Mm, did I get you wrong?” he asked as he saw me trembling. His lips stretched into a hideous smile. “Or did I scare you, kid? I don’t do boring things like scaring bullies for weaklings’ sake.”

I glared at him. I wasn’t trembling because of fear. I was outraged, disgusted… His words had made me forget about my own safety. Sitting still on my chair, I replied:

“You’re the one who should be scared. Because the ‘bully’ I want you to kill is none other than yourself.” I pulled down my scarf so Laith would be able to see my whole face, and I gave him a smile even scarier than his. “Don’t you get it? I’m the guy you killed the other day.”

He blinked. Was he having trouble recognizing me even now? He had destroyed my life, cut my throat without a thought, and he couldn’t even remember me? Like I was but a speck of dust in his dreadful world…

“What the hell?!” Laith let out then, stupefied. He knocked over his chair as he jumped to his feet. “You bastard… Who? It can’t be… I’ll kill you!”

“You already did,” I said without losing my composure. I might no longer have my power to scare people, but that one year of experience had taught me a bunch of tricks, and, in particular, how important it was to keep one’s cool. And well, I knew how upsetting it must be for a murderer to meet a person he had killed. I didn’t know what kind of person was Laith Tessen. In a situation like this, he could become furious and rush at me, or scoff at me in disbelief then kill me. I wasn’t actually hoping that it would scare him. But it did: Laith Tessen was staring at me as if he had seen a real ghost.

“N-No…” he stuttered.

I joined my hands on the table and said, looking him in the eye:

“Laith Tessen. I have been sent by all your victims from the grave. They are crying. Can’t you see their tears flowing from my eyes?” I fortunately managed to force some black tears out. “Do you hear their cries? If you are thinking of killing me, you might as well give up: a ghost won’t die. You can’t fight. We will send you more people like me and make your life hell if you don’t comply with our request. Laith Tessen,” I called out to him, standing up. “Kill yourself.”

Laith Tessen had fallen to the ground, breathing hard. He panted, then snorted, then chuckled, then stood up and burst out laughing like a madman. I cursed under my breath. My little scene didn’t work, did it?

“I said: I do everything,” Laith grumbled. His eyes glinted. “Ghosts are no problem.”

He charged at me. Dammit. Should I dodge, attack, or run? On my way here, I had been wondering how I could use my telekinesis power in a fight. I had thought: what if I could use it directly on my attacker? But… I had no idea if that was possible. Could I pull it off?

I fixed his eyelids, then used my powers to shut them. I think it worked, because, a second later, I was able to dodge his punch. No, not a punch: that damn madman was holding a fighting knife. I saw him trying to recover his balance. He scowled at me.

“You…! What was that?”

“I’ve just shown you the darkness of death”, I wanted to say. But I was well aware he wasn’t going to fall for it again. I didn’t care. Now I was fighting for my life.

I tried to use my power again, but this time he didn’t give me the chance. He lunged at me, slashing with his knife. He got my arm, I think, but I felt nothing. I rolled under the table, onto the other side, and was received again by a slash. I finally kicked his knee and made him fall. He stabbed me in the heart. As he paused, waiting for my death, I glared at him. His eyes widened in fear.

“Just die!” he cried out.

“No, you die!” I screamed.

Grabbing him by the torso, I absorbed his lifeforce, ignoring his slashes. Laith was getting wilder by the second. Despite his skinny figure, he was damn strong. And it didn’t look like absorbing lifeforce was going to weaken him any time soon. I let go of him, stretched out my hand, took hold of the computer’s keyboard, and used it as a hammer. A rain of keys went flying all over the place, but it didn’t slow down the guy. It did distract him, though, and made him half slip on the keys. I took advantage of that, lifted the screen, and hit him on the head with all my might. He collapsed.

I staggered, clenching my fists. He was unconscious. What was I supposed to do now? My mind got blank. I was trying to snap out of it when suddenly I heard a thud.

I froze. Who…?

I leaped up, panicked, then saw a familiar silhouette with red hair on the other side of the window. I gasped, speechless, and hurried to open it.

“Arkill…!” How did he climb all the way to the fifth floor…?

He held onto the edge of the window, saying:

“Zeeta heard you fighting and struggling, so I wanted to see if you needed help—”

The life-reaper had only put a leg inside when his eyes grew open. I had no time to react: in a flash, Laith Tessen, who was supposed to be unconscious, attacked me from behind, pushing me against the open window. He perhaps understood that he wouldn’t finish me off by stabbing me, or perhaps he just panicked; the thing is, he seemed to have chosen to kill me by making me crush against the ground far below.

My head hit Arkill. Half of my body went outside, and for an instant, my fearful eyes only saw the dark alley a dozen of meters below… Then I realized Arkill had lost his balance too and was about to fall. He miraculously gripped something. Was it me? No: both of us would have fallen over for good if he had pulled at me. Arkill had reached the killer. That madman had launched himself a bit too forward in his rush to push me over and was now laying on me, about to slip to his death thanks to Arkill. The three of us slowly bent towards the emptiness… But who would be the first to fall?

We fell all at once.

It happened so fast that I couldn’t really fear for my life. Suddenly my fall stopped. Laith Tessen crashed into the ground with a thud. He had not even screamed once. Clinging onto whatever had kept me from falling, I lifted my eyes and saw Arkill’s hand. With his other hand, he was holding onto some sort of black rope vibrating with deathforce. Was it his awakened power? In any case, it had saved us.

I gasped, hanging in the air.

“Is he… dead?”

“Most likely.”

Yeah, no normal human would survive a dozen meters fall. I took a deep breath.

“Arkill. I-Is this… the first time you have killed a person?”

Arkill snorted in disbelief.

“What? Wait, it wasn’t me!”

“O-Of course, it wasn’t. Then, he slipped on his own?”

“… Yeah.”

“So it was an accident.”

“Yeah, it was an accident. Just… an accident. I didn’t come to kill anyone. I never killed anyone. You may have held a personal grudge against him, but I didn’t. The Lord said I died from a disease, so I don’t have any business with guys like that—”

“Arkill.” He was usually so composed… It was the first time I had seen him so nervous. “Don’t feel down. He was a really bad guy, you know.”

“So bad that it was acceptable to kill him?”

Something trembled inside me. I stammered:

“I… never said that either. But… he was a monster. He was even killing children for a living. So… I’m not sad. I-I’m actually relieved the way things have gone. So… t-thank you for pulling him down.”

“We agreed it was an accident.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

My red-haired companion groaned, fell silent, then sighed.

“It’s okay. I’m pulling us up, so stay still.”

“Ah, yeah, thanks.” Though I couldn’t really feel my undead body being stretched by gravity, talking while hanging onto a precipice wasn’t exactly comfortable.

Arkill used his black rope, and we somehow managed to regain my killer’s room. I saw his hands retract the black rope under his skin.

“By the way, Arkill, can we… die from a dozen meters fall?”

“No. You would have been put in a pretty bad state, though.”

“Oh. And… can we die from a stab to the heart?”

In the light of the room, Arkill looked at me up and down.

“No.”

I felt my heart freed from a heavy load.

“That’s a relief.”

“You look horrible.”

“Ah, that, heheh…”

I was a mess. I only had to take a look at my body to get proof of that: I had cuts everywhere. Had I been alive, I would have died from multiple fatal injuries. But anyway, what was Arkill doing here? Did the Lord Necromancer tell him to follow me?

I glanced at the window and swallowed hard. I didn’t really know what to think about my killer’s death but… in some way, in the end, he had killed himself. Or rather, his madness had killed him.

“Yeah, it wasn’t an accident,” I muttered, and I stared at Arkill intently. “He killed himself.”

“Anything you want. He won’t disagree with you, anyway.”

“That’s dark humor, Arkill,” I complained.

“You’re being the darkest one, here, I’d say. Now, let’s get out of here before someone calls the police.”

“Sure.”

I had been careful not to touch anything with my bare hands, and not even a single drop of blood had come out from my wounds. We didn’t stay behind more than necessary. Arkill said he would lock the door from the inside and go down through the window while I would go downstairs. We did that and left the block as quickly as possible, hoping that the police would think Laith Tessen had committed suicide. Outside, it was snowing heavier than before. Pacing back and forth in the park, a hooded and familiar silhouette was waiting for us. Even though Arkill had lent me his coat to hide my injuries, Zeeta looked worried.

“It’s over, Zeeta.” As I said that, my hands trembled, clenched… then loosened. It was over. It was really over.

My friend swallowed.

“I see. I was going to help you, but Arkill said you wanted to do it alone, so I watched the entrance instead. I heard a noise in the alley. Was it you, Arkill?”

Both of us life-reapers looked at each other, grimacing. I coughed.

“It kind of was.”

“What are you talking about?” Arkill grunted. “It wasn’t me.”

“I don’t blame you, Arkill, I’m thankful!”

Clearly exasperated, Arkill laid a fist on my head rather delicately, saying:

“Critical hit.”

“…?” My lips went up. As expected from a gamer freak. I lamely faked my death. “Woe is me, I died!”

“Yeah, you did two weeks ago.”

It was so unusual to see Arkill act this humanly I chuckled. Maybe he was trying to de-stress after having thrown my killer to his death? I just hoped that tonight’s events wouldn’t affect him too much.

“I…” Zeeta stammered. Lost in thought, he didn’t seem to have been really listening to us. “I-I wanted to kill that damn bastard too, Straw Head. What a shame he can’t die twice, really, I… Well, but I guess it’s all right if you took care of him. Did you… make him suffer?”

Huh… Could falling from a fifth floor be called a painful death? I had no idea, but I imagined my killer had died from the shock, so… I patted his arm.

“Thank you, Zeeta. But I didn’t want to make him suffer. I just wanted him to disappear forever. He won’t be able to kill anyone anymore.” I paused in the silence of the park then smiled at them both. “Now I can live my death in peace.”

Arkill started to walk away, saying:

“You should come along. The Lord will most likely help you heal those wounds.”

“Wounds?” Zeeta asked, alarmed. “What wounds? Did you get injured? That bastard…!”

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” I said cheerfully. “Let’s go back! But Zeeta, how did you know where I was going?” I asked as we headed to the subways.

Zeeta rubbed his cheek innocently.

“Well, you know, I was just… passing by?”

I gazed at him in disbelief. Did he mean he had been following me since I had left Ray’s home?

“Wait, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “Actually, I just happened to see you while I was taking a walk in Tiergarten. Ray’s dad must live pretty close to Loki. My host, Nick’s little brother,” he explained. “I wasn’t following you without a reas—”

“Thank you,” I cut him off gently. “For worrying about me.”

“… Well, I had good reasons to worry if you ended up injured, you moron. Does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t. It just itches a bit.”

“… You creepy monster.”

“You stalker.”

We smiled at each other, more relaxed now.

Tonight, a person had disappeared from earth because of me—and Arkill. I never thought something like that would ever happen to me. But I had never thought I would die and be revived either.

In the end, I would never know if I would have been able to kill that murderer with my own hands. However, I knew that I would never forget what happened tonight. I felt as if I were reborn. Yesterday, I was an undead who had been brutally killed and couldn’t forgive…

But now I could. I could forgive and forget my meaningless death. At last.

Only now I felt as if my new life had finally begun. The life that my best friend had given me. The life of an undead.

I wanted to make the most of it. I promised myself I would. Definitely.

Zeeta laid a friendly hand on my shoulder.

“Straw Head. Let’s go back.”