𝙃𝙄𝙎 𝘽𝙐𝙏𝙇𝙀𝙍 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙊𝙍𝙄𝙂𝙄𝙉𝙎 𝙊𝙁 𝘼 𝘿𝙀𝙈𝙊𝙉

Chapter 23: Ronald Knox Returns

CHAPTER 23 - "RONALD KNOX RETURNS"

Ronald Knox considered himself the atypical lounge lizard when he wasn't working, and he liked to play games, too. So when other Reapers called him a Man-Child, an adult who acted like a child, he just slumped it off. But they were essentially correct. Although, he could be serious if called upon. He just took things in stride. There was enough to worry about in this world than being a grumpy goose about it, like a certain someone he knew - the Head of Reaper Affairs, William T. Spears, who never stopped frowning, and who never ceased in presenting a straight and narrow approach to Reapering. It was like William was born, not with a chip on his shoulder, but with a stick up a certain body orifice and it was wedged in tight, his butt cheeks clenched, so if anyone wished to remove it, he absolutely denied them.

There were two philosophies to Reapers: First: Were they alive or were they dead? and Two: Could they be both? This was Reaper Philosophy 101, and the answer was Yes. To both questions. Reapers were both dead and alive at the same time, as they traveled across the Astral Plain - an energy barrier intersecting realms and plains of existence - to collect souls to bring back for processing. It was a thankless job, but someone had to do it, or there would be just as many spirits running around in the world that there were people, and it was already very crowded with just the living. Albeit, there were still quite a lot of spirits roaming the world that still had to be collected, and Reapers could not be everywhere. But he never thought about it. He just did his job, did what he was told, and went where he was told. He let Processing worry about them and if he was ordered to receive a Wanderer, as they were called, he did.

As of this moment, this shift was officially over. Due to a scheduling error, he had to work a seventy-two hour shift and he didn't like that. And he was very busy. But in truth, if an emergency happened, a Reaper could be upon at any time. So did Reapers really have time off? Only if they officially requested it and file the documents for such in triplicate and then have it signed by their superior, a.k.a. Mr. Sunshine, as he jokingly called William. But never to his face. To call your supervisor something other than his official title was subordination and you could get docked for that or demoted for that, or even worse. And if you engaged in something beyond Reaper duties, or caused a major incident, you could even be relieved of your duties, or worse.

There was a lot of talk about Fallen Reapers lately since the incident considering three and a demon and a couple of humans months back. The Fallen Reapers were defeated, but only one was captured - by him, and he boasted about it every chance he got. The other two, well, he shivered to think about how they were "enjoying" Hell. The Fallen Reaper known as Mathu Kelvin joining with another was dragged into Hell after a powerful encounter with a demon in the human realm, called Sebastian Michaelis, who presently had a Faustian covenant with a human, a thirteen year old English boy named Ciel Phantomhive. Boy, that kid had it rough. To loose both his parents and his twin brother to a nefarious group of people bent on personal fancy and communication demonic forces, only to have their fortune reversed; then to have his brother return, only to almost loose him to a trio of Fallen Reapers who wished to retrieve something stored deep inside the boy's mind, which, if retrieved, would be so dramatic, it could cause the boy's death. It was only thanks to the strong covenant between Ciel Phantomhive that Lukas Phantomhive was spared.

But once again, that was a human affair. And Reapers rarely got involved in those. Although, there have been some occurrences where Reapers engaged in sinister undertakings in human endeavors. And by this fact, everyone knew about Grell Sutcliffe, the so-called serial killer of prostitutes in White Chapel in London nicknamed Jack the Ripper, along with a human female, who remarkably turned out to be Ciel Phantomhive's aunt. Now there was a twist in plot developments. Who would have thunk that? And yet, there were rumors the cause of much of Ciel Phantomhive, and much of his family's misfortune, was from a certain blue gem - the Hope Diamond, which was said to be cursed and to curse anyone who possessed it or wore it, and the boy wore this diamond embedded in a ring on a daily bases, as if it were a part of his anatomy. It was all so crazy.