Spirit Wars (11 page)

“Hmm.
Never thought of it that way.”

Ray
has concluded early on that the man’s completely bonkers, but something also
tells him his prattle is one of those things best left alone. To me though, the
words reveal more of Death’s very human sentiments and suggest the mind-blowing
possibility that he was once a regular mortal himself.

Is
it possible that the eternal consciousness and duties of the Death Angel are
passed from one individual to the next?

Sephtimus,
still deep in thought, goes on to mumble that: “If one was stone-drunk or
bleeding through his shirt or broken-hearted…”   

“What
do you do?”  

“What?”
the head reaper hisses, yanked out of his reverie.

“Your
job. I can usually tell at a glance, but with you, I can’t come up with
anything.”

“I’m
a collector.”

“Of
what? You a bill-collector, a ticket-collector, or a garbage-collector?”

“Of
debts.” 

“Well,
you’ll have to be more specific than that. I mean…”

B
ecause no
car stays in its lane in this part of the world, a massive truck bears down
alarmingly close from our left.

“Watch
out!” Sephtimus shrieks like chainsaw biting into timber, his deadpan mask now
utterly contorted in fear.

“God!
Right in my eardrum! Lay off the caffeine, will you, pal?”

But
Sephtimus is far from calming down. Instead, his eyes take on the feverish gaze
of a drug fiend or a rabid dog. And when he opens his mouth, the sound that
comes out of it is the amalgamation of a hundred voices as deep as that of the
possessed man in the Bible when he said, “My name is Legion.”

Sephtimus
growls: “Your ear’s the least of your problems.”

So
Ray swerves and pulls the cab over, earning one angry honk in that otherwise
empty part of the road. He throws the door open, encounters resistance from his
seatbelt, unfastens it, and then flees in the form of a pro sprinter; almost
graceful.

“Tell
me you’re not gonna do that to her,” I speak out loud in my invisible fershee
form as we watch the driver disappear in a matter of seconds.

You
don’t understand
, Sephtimus answers telepathically.
If I die here in
your world, I die for real.
I am weakened in my love-affected state. And
the longer I stay in the human realm, the more permanent the consequences.

Sephtimus
snaps his
fingers and all at once the whole taxi’s transfigured into a carriage drawn by
a pair of splendid horses. As proof of his waning powers, each animal appears
to flicker like weak transmission. It’s like the two sides of a fan – one with
the real horse, the other with the gaunt, no, skeletal and horrifying imitation
of a horse – and the fan’s twirling nonstop so the two images meld. At least
this is how I see the phantasmal creatures. To the living, I hope only the
normal is visible.

Then
from the back of my hand I notice the same half-stable, half-bogus spell taking
hold. I keep switching – in sync with the rhythmic, centrifugal pulsing of
blood from my heart – between skin and scales, skin and scales. I’m both a
fershee and my old human self in a top hat and suit, sitting in the coachman’s
box of the fancy carriage that screams in bronze and gilt-lined crimson. So
much for travelling incognito.

It
occurs to me that this is like a no-curfew, less-airy-fairy-more-pedophilic
twist of Cinderella. And I say a confused prayer to whoever god cares to listen
(my moral compass is so effed up now) that no policeman impound the horses and
book us before we can carry out what we came here to do. But I’d be lying if I
didn’t confess the stolen moments when I sit back and appreciate the ride from
the coachman’s vantage.

By
a generous or cruel twist of fate, we’re now in the same city where Sam and I
met. And, with warm and welcome human blood rushing back to my veins, I’m like
a kid after a long and deathly bout of cabin fever in winter, now let loose
into the sounds and smells of springtime. 

At
closing time, after 1 botched Blended Crème Frap, 1 weak espresso, 1 forgotten
order, 5 irate customers and countless pleas from his shift buddies to go home
and rest, Chester – that is, Sephtimus – finally takes off his green apron with
the Brew Bear logo now stained with coffee from the malfunctioning ICB-Twin
Infusion Brewer.  He’s been demoted to dishwashing duties for most of the
night, not that it helped because as soon as he was he promptly broke a stack
of saucers and one really fancy, incredibly expensive cup.

It’s
strange but watching Sephtimus go through the whole thing I start to see him in
a different light. He’s like someone raised apart from other people all his
life so he has ideas of how things should be but they’re a little off from how
they are in the real world. One time the head reaper looks at my fershee form
floating by like many tiny particles in the air (just like our otherworldly
carriage which is parked at the back), and his Chester eyes behind the
coke-bottle glasses say more than his telepathic words do:
Don’t leave me.
  

I
intend to do no such thing, but it’s time for the bold to dare destiny. Lessa’s
sitting in her usual corner and the coffee shop’s now empty except for her in a
backdrop of bright orange and Day-Glo green Halloween decorations. Septimus
can’t delay it any longer.

It’s
now or never
, I communicate to him.

So
Sephtimus, in an unconscious, perfectly human habit, checks the smell of his
breath by cupping one hand under his nose and then runs the same hand over
Chester’s wire-stiff hair as if he could budge it. He musters all the courage
in Chester’s wispy frame then walks up to her spot, followed by the bulging
eyes of the rest of the Brew Bear crew.

Sephtimus
can’t understand himself. He oversees the infliction of unspeakable horrors on
a gazillion souls day in and day out, and Death is feared by everyone and
everything so it follows that Death is afraid of no one and nothing. But as he
undertakes the ten-yard walk towards Lessa, the decorative jack-o’-lanterns and
tarantulas hanging along the coffee shop walls appear to hover like vultures
over his execution. He’s surprised to find Chester’s knobby knees rattling
inside his pant legs. Every step he takes, it’s getting harder and harder to
lift those human appendages as though he was Lot’s wife who had looked back
over her shoulder at the burning of Sodom. He begins to experience that age-old
moment of the human male: the body becoming paralyzed as the heart beats wildly
and panic quickly spreads. He feels giddy and short of breath.

“Excuse
me, Lessa. I am sorry to say. Time to close.”

She
gives him a momentary look of incomprehension, a sure sign that the paperback
she’s been reading is a good one. Sephtimus has rehearsed this part with me a
hundred times.

“Oh
right! Sorry, Chester. Guess I lost track of time again.” Her hand sweeps a
stray strand of brown hair up and out her face and now Sephtimus can’t stop
staring because her eyes are these unfathomable blue lakes.

“Is
- is OK.”

She
knows my name
, he thinks.
Or his
.

She
puts the book away and fishes for her compact inside her huge designer bag. All
the while Sephtimus is left gawking by her table. Faster than a spiral of
dominoes, the moment of indecision spreads over him and takes over all motor
and verbal functions. Every instinct’s telling him to turn around and walk
away, turn around and walk away before he humiliates himself. That’s when Lessa
notices he hasn’t left.

“What
is it this time? Did I forget to get the check again?”

Sephtimus
shakes his head loudly because his tongue refuses to work. He struggles against
stage fright like a swimmer in a surprisingly deep part of the sea and battling
one overwhelming wave after another. It’s certainly a whole lot easier to just
keep his mouth shut and swim back to shore.

“I…”

Just
say good night and turn around this was nothing but wishful thinking right from
the start she’s looking at me looking at me waiting for me to say something
anything –

“I’m…”

Those
eyes of the lightest blue shade are trained on him.

“Yes?”

“I’m…”

He
takes a big gulp but his Chester throat feels parched.

“I’m…
I…

She
stares at him. His own Chester pupils are the wide apertures of a camera.

“
…hungry,” he manages to gasp out at last. “I’m hungry.”

Sephtimus
feels
like
a balloon blown up almost to the point of bursting, now deflating.

But
she’s still looking at him as though he’s a curious thing that came out of her
usual meal of sugar-free cookies. So the next thing he recites is: “How about
you?”

She
smiles. And all at once it’s like another light has been switched on in that
corner of the coffee shop. The beautiful, warm smile infects Sephtimus and he
grins like a buffoon. He’s an adult human grinning and blushing like a
prepubescent youth while all around him in various listening posts, muted sighs
of relief go off among Chester’s friends and supporters.

“As
a matter of fact, yes, I’m famished.” She has finished putting all her stuff
away in her bag.

“Are
you allow to eat?”

At
first, she looks at him as though she’s about to take offense. Then
marvelously, incredibly, she laughs. A spontaneous, uninhibited,
clear-as-crystal sound that also falls like rain after a long dry spell.
Sephtimus has made a mistake but Lessa’s brain heard his question the proper
way, which it so happens is a really clever thing to say because, being a
model, she’s unnaturally thin.

“You’re
funny,” she says. Sephtimus flashes an even wider grin.

****

Moving
in style actually means leaving behind Lessa’s red Bentley (or for that matter,
Sephtimus’ majestic-in-a-haunted-castle-way carriage). The reaper leads the
bewildered model to the back of the coffee shop and to the real Chester’s
faithful steed: a three-speed bike that’s two sizes too big for him. But unlike
Chester’s original which is often found leaning against the dumpster, this one
stands on its kickstand in the middle of the back alley, its frame polished and
gleaming in the moonlight and its rear rack and fenders evoking nostalgia.

Lessa
approaches this with eyes filled with emotion. For a moment she’s transported
back to a day in her childhood when her father presented her her first bike.
This particular scene has been clearly preserved in her memory because it’s one
of the few occasions when Mr. Conti, the overprotective single father he was
bound to be, actually lowered his guard. Lessa remembers wishing for a bike on
her eighth birthday but not having enough courage to tell her father, only to
be taught that day that fathers didn’t need to be told.

She
remembers walking to the park with him and the bike between them, which is
white with yellow fenders and streamers on the handlebars; her Papino still
giving last-minute reminders and not quite giving up the role. Afterwards,
whenever she skinned her hands and knees (there was a lot of that), he was
always there to patch her up. Each time he wondered if he wasn’t making a
mistake all along and they had more than a few fights on the subject. In fact,
on his “first” deathbed, just before his face loosened up in resignation and
utter serenity, her Papino’s parting words had been:

“
I’m
sorry I didn’t let you fall plenty enough. I couldn’t teach you to pick
yourself up; and now it breaks my heart to know that at the greatest fall, I
won’t be there to catch you.
”

Now
Chester’s handing her a bike helmet that’s the same matte white affair. The
touch of destiny is so pronounced she can’t stop the tears from welling. Of
course she’s completely clueless that everything has been researched and
orchestrated.

“Why
you cry?” Sephtimus asks.

“Oh
I just remembered something. I’m fine. Sorry I’m such a crybaby.”

But s
he isn’t.
Either way, the real reason Death asked is because he still hasn’t grasped the
concept of human tears, of miraculous water being produced by glands overcome
by stress and its protein-based byproducts.

****

To
Lessa’s excitement, Chester lets her ride the huge bicycle in her designer
leggings and stilettos while he side-saddles on the rear rack with her Bottega
Veneta bag slung over his shoulder. The truth behind this is Sephtimus’ lack of
confidence in balancing a bike, although he has spent half a human-sized day
training for this exact scene and I promised I’d literally be there for him,
holding the rear rack in my transparent hands.

Models
are simultaneously both the catalyst and the product of the world they live in.
The fashion industry which has been arousing, feeding off, and slaking the
illusions of billions and billions on the planet is a double-edged sword that
wounds even the select few who wield it.

Lessa
has seen it all: people frying their brains with drugs, an anorexic friend
starving herself to death, another slashing her wrists with a broken perfume
bottle. Countless others blindly chasing the glitter but left in the end with
lives as fake as moissanite. She has stood shoulder to shoulder with them on
the same razor-edged cliff, drunk and stoned out of their minds from all their
desperate attempts to plug the diabolical hole inside the human heart.

Despite
her young age, she has been propositioned too many times, offered deals by the
devil atop the dizzying stage. She has learned to use her body as a separate
extension of her mind and soul, passed from one stranger to another in a train
of loves without reason or consequence. And yet whenever it came time to jump
and no matter how far over the edge she was, somehow she always found the
strength to pull herself back.

She
supposes it’s because of her unique experience with death. She has watched all
her loved ones hold on to and finally give up the ghost, one after the other in
some evil, pestilential deathwatch, which was both an act and a literal timepiece
buried in every foot of wall in the house of Conti; the weakening heartbeat its
unforgiving hand. The experience rewarded her with a sort of post-curse luck.
She has confronted earlier in life the emptiness that would crush lesser people
and precariously succeeded in easing it down to manageable size.

Her
trauma was what set her apart from the other girls – all of them beautiful,
young and perfect, all of them driven by ambition and worthy of love. In the
end, she was one of the lucky few who didn’t fall in over their heads. A
survivor. She realized it was either you entered the modeling world empty,
which was tragic, or full, which was rare. But she was one of a kind in that
she came completely empty but her body rejected all the ambrosia it took. She
knew that no matter how many times they slapped and stomped it out, the hole in
their lives would always slide back on top like a shadow.

At
rare moments when she’s asleep and her subconscious is at its strongest, the
realization hits her with the full force of the obvious, that she’s been under
the wing of a supernatural benefactor all along. And her skin pricks into
gooseflesh to warn her of something her mind can never bring to light.

E
verything
Lessa has gone through in life has made her nearly impossible to seduce. If
your average female has antennas tuned in to every insecurity a man’s covering
up inside himself, Lessa’s a bloodhound that can sniff it out from miles away.
On one hand, this means dropping the tall-dark-rich-and-handsome package was a
good call. On the other, it plunged Sephtimus’ chances to an abysmal low.

****

They
end up at a well-kept diner where the waitresses glide in rollerblades, cute
majorette skirts, and the customary Halloween pumpkin hats. The milkshakes come
with tiny umbrellas and the pancakes with toothpicks stuck in them. John
Lennon, Karen Carpenter and John Denver are playing on the speakers. All these
are perfect for the occasion because Lessa has of course been wined and dined
through most of her teenage and adult life so nothing less than extraordinary
would impress her. But sitting there snug between scrubbed tabletop and
‘60s-style booth, fake cobwebs and skeletons hanging from the ceiling, she sees
everything in a special light.

“Happy
in your work?” she asks.

In
a flash, images of pleading souls being dragged into the fiery pits cross
Sephtimus’ mind and he’s gripped with alarm. “Work?”

“Yes,
at Brew Bear.”

“Ah
yes!” Relief washes over the reaper like cold water from a fire-truck after the
blaze on Chester’s cheeks. “Yes, I’m happy. Every day… but no Tuesday.”

“Except
Tuesday? Why’s that?”

The
vision of her looking at him with those large liquid eyes that have the power
to weaken men’s knees has two contradictory effects. First, he basks in the
reality of it, that he’s finally talking to such an attractive human being, but
at the same time the idea incapacitates him from uttering a word.

“Tuesday
I wear big bear costume, call customer come in from street.”

“There’s
a Brew Bear mascot?! How come I didn’t know this? Oh you’ve got to show me.”
Her eyes sparkle above the whipped cream of her PB and banana milkshake.

“Oh,
please no…” Chester groans.

“Why
not?”

“Is
so hot. People take picture and post in FB. Inside I’m sweat… like sauna.”

She
makes a small, irresistible giggle.

“After
laundry,” Sephtimus says teasingly, “you maybe want to try it?”

“ME?”
Lessa flashes her reaction at him. A cute, open look of incredulity (with just
a hint of panic) in the shape of her eyes and lips. “I don’t think so.
Absolutely not.”

“Come
on. It be fun!”

“I
don’t think that’s a good idea. You see, I have very bad coordination.”

“You
wear maybe 7 inches heels every day as model. But you are afraid of wear bear
costume… Interesting.”

“Am
not,” she pretends to glower at him and hides her smile behind an elegant sip
from the straw. “That’s different.”

“Do
model fall on stage? Is often?” 

“Yes,
more often than you think. I’m always afraid of falling down.”

“Did
you? One time?”

“Thank
God no.”

“Do
the audience, the boss be angry?”

“No,
actually they don’t. They clap when they see a model fall and get up.”

“Then…
is good you fall down more, no?”

She
smiles softly at him. She looks at the waitresses as they glide on their skates
and serve the other tables. 

“Do
you know skating?” Sephtimus asks.

“No,
no. Well, I used to. Many years ago, when I was just a teenager.”

“I
go to ice-skate with friends last week, in mall. I fall down many times so
people look at me and shake their head.” Chester laughs. “But I notice
something. I know best skaters are not people who don’t fall… best skaters are
kids. They fall down many times but they not care. Kids don’t afraid falling on
butt.”

“Hmm.
You know what, that makes perfect sense.”

“Will
you come with us sometimes?”

“Maybe,”
she answers with very fragile commitment but with a light in her eyes.

“If
you come, I promise I wear bear costume on ice.”

“Seriously?”
She grins. “You’d do that?”

“Yes,”
he answers. “Anyway, it in my bucket list.”

“A
bucket list? Isn’t that for teenagers?” Those fathomless, edge-of-heaven eyes.

“Nobody
too old for bucket list. My job in Brew Bear is in bucket list too.”

“Oh
you mean you really wanna help people by making hot cups of coffee?”

“Yes,
specially very hungry Italian models.”

“Oh
thank God,” she says laughingly.

“Yes,
I think…”

“What?”
she prompts. Dazzling. Disarming. 

“Everybody
should have bucket list. Age isn’t matter. Anyone can disappear tomorrow.”

She
looks at him, deep in thought. But her face won’t betray her feelings.  

“What
you thinking?”  

“Well,
all this talk about bucket lists. It’s too morbid for a first date, don’t you
think?”

“Oh
so sorry,” Sephtimus tells her. “I didn’t know this is date. If I know, I talk
stock market.”

Lessa
smiles. The Beatles has started playing a dark piece through the muted
speakers.  

“But
we not talk about death, Lessa. We talk about life.” Chester points to the
ceiling where the words of “
Happiness is a Warm Gun”
are wafting.
“Speaking of John Lennon, he said: ‘Life is what happens to you while you are
busy making other plans’.” Sephtimus repeats the words carefully, just as he
has practiced them plenty of times.

She
looks at him thoughtfully.

“You’re
deep,” she finally tells him. “You just keep surprising me, Chester. You’re not
what I expected you to be at all.”

“What
you expect?”

“Well,
first off, you’re clearly too smart for a
barista
. And you’re funny and
not really shy. Why, a girl can say you’re a genuine Superman hiding behind
these glasses.”

“Maybe
I’m tired of be judge. And judge other people also by what my eye can see.”

This
one is also practiced. Lessa nods and holds his gaze a while.

“Now
is my turn,” he says. “Do
you
like your job?”

“Me?
Sure. Every girl’s just dying to have my job, to be me. I’m perfectly happy.
Can’t wish for anything else.”

She
sits back and takes a sip of her drink. He just keeps staring at her.

“But…?”

“What
do you mean “but”? There’s no
but
.”

“There’s
always but.”

Now
she considers him with a cornered look on her face, wondering whether or not
she should tell him – and what exactly.

“Well…”

“Yes?”

“It’s
not easy to explain.”

“Try
it.”

She
never thought his eyes could bore this deep into her. She looks at him, unable
to decide. Finally, she lets out a deep sigh and says:

“I
think that life rarely turns out according to plan like everybody wants it to.
And those desperate to have control of their lives have it worse…”

At
least his sincere interest is encouraging.

“It
was a whole lot easier when I was young. I was pretty sure what I wanted to
become or what kind of life I wanted to have. But now, if the younger me saw
me, I don’t think she’d approve.”

She
feels like she’s talking too much, but then he doesn’t seem to mind. And she
doesn’t think she can stop either way.

“I
had a friend once who… felt exactly like this. She took the battle for control
farther than anyone else I know. You hate what you’ve become. To feel better
you borrow the life and happiness of another person. And for a while, you do
feel satisfied; but eventually you realize it doesn’t quite fit. There’s always
something missing. Something gnawing at the back of your mind. A bit like the
pea in that fairytale, you know. The one stuck under layer upon layer of
bedding, making you lose sleep, night after night, bruising your skin and
driving you mad. When it gets too bad, you start borrowing another life, another
mask. And you keep doing this, again and again and again. Before you know it…”

Sephtimus
remains quiet.

“You
don’t know who you are anymore. You lose sight of yourself. You lose your
soul.”

A
pause.

“I
think I know what you mean,” Sephtimus tells her with complete honesty.  

****

A
conversation with a girl shouldn’t be boring or fawning. What it should be is
funny, straightforward, and original; and with an attractive woman, all the
more so. She should be spoken to not as someone special but as a normal person.
This will catch her off-guard because she’s used to being treated just the
opposite way.

You
have to really listen to what she’s saying. Don’t talk about yourself but try
and make her talk about herself;
she
must work to impress you or catch
your interest. Hitting the ball into her court is both a relief and a devious
trick. All in all, an assertive, playful, and charged conversation works like a
charm.

These
were the rules I hammered into Sephtimus in between lessons on practical
communication. And yet for the most part, the ideas he has about chatting up
the opposite sex come from all the time he’s spent watching people through the
Lachesis monitors. Add to this his mind-reading ability and you have a strong
contender for Mr. Sensitive.

****

Lessa
doesn’t know what’s happening to her or what this dark horse of a man is doing
that’s making her feel this way. He’s a wild card. The wildest one in the deck.
Perhaps that’s what’s at the bottom of this strange attraction all along; all
her life she’s dated men of all shapes but every one of them cut out of the
same cloth: loaded, charismatic, competitive, deceptively perfect. Manchester –
Chester – is different from them all because he’s never made a claim on any of
that stuff. In fact, he’s an underdog but he’s also one of a kind in that
there’s something mysterious and frighteningly exciting about him.

She
hasn’t put her finger on it yet but a girl with her experience, she isn’t
clueless. Nothing makes sense though. Inside the gentle, short and laid-back
Chester is the presence of latent
danger
. Danger poised under the
surface, behind a thin veil and just waiting to gobble her up.