i_avoidliving Reaping Awry [ Lusiphur Malache ]
Perhaps if George had been expecting company she might have cleaned up the apartment she was illegally staying at a little bit more. Chances were, she would have gotten distracted with whatever was on public television and left things the way that they were.
It was a studio apartment, with a bed that folded down from the wall, a dresser and a couch somehow crammed into the tiny space. There was a vague kitchen area and a small closet with made up the bathroom. Roland, and George being the late daughter of an English professor quickly thought of Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", seemed interested with all the mundane quirks of modern living.
George introduced Roland to ramen noodles. He had beef flavored noodles and George had oriental. Then George had to leave. For her appointment. It was hard convincing the gunslinger that he couldn't go with her, but after promising that she would only be gone for 20 minutes tops, he relented.
The mayor of this strange City had given Luse a nice apartment. Luse busied himself playing with indoor plumbing and growing accustomed to modern living. He hadn't known what to make of the dishwasher or the washer/dryer. Eventually, the elf became bored. This wasn't the sort of arrangement he'd had in mind.
Until he got notice of his first target. Crow. It was about damn time. He wore black, studded leather armor and left the sword at home in favor of the hook knife. As always, the rune gun with the uncanny ability to never run out of ammunition was strapped to the small of his back. A bored elf was quickly replaced with the assassin, and Luse put the trench coat on over his unusual attire.
George had the foresight to pick up an empty box from the street and a few candy bars from the nearest gas station. The post-it had the same neat handwriting as all the other post-its from the City had.
Her next reap was rich. George was stopped by a large iron gate that cut off access to the long driveway up the house. She pressed the intercom button.
"Hello? My name is MIllie? I'm trying to sell some candy bars for the swim team so that we can go to.. uh.. regionals? ......Hello?"
There was a woman's reply over the intercom, "Oh, please come in! How exciting!"
The voice had an uncanny similarity to Deloris Herbig, George's overly friendly and well meaning boss at Happy Times Temporary Employment Agency. The reaper felt a sudden lead weight in her stomach and this suddenly made her very uncomfortable.
Having no choice, the front gate opened with an automated creeeeeck and George took a few lonely steps up the front to the very large house.
Inside, George learned that the voice over the intercom was in fact the sole lady of the house, and was in fact the name on her post-it note. George guessed accident, so she felt comfortable in sticking around until after it was done.
After all, who would want to hurt Mildred Parks? She was a nice older woman, slightly plump, who because of her loneliness was very interested in politics and spent most of her time at fancy black tie social gatherings, donating to charity. Her favorite events were run by millionaire Bruce Wayne, but the name didn't ring a bell with George.
Mrs. Parks, who was a widow, gladly bought George's last three candy bars for three dollars a piece. George felt guilty over charging her for candy that was only a buck-fifty, but nine dollars could buy a lot of ramen and she was going to be dead soon anyway.
Modern alarm systems were no match for the elf, who'd dealt with enough wizards and sorcerers to know his way around a few simple electronic traps. At the last moment the trench coat had been abandoned, and a black leather mask had been pulled over the elf's face.
Rich old bitch. Luse had his own rather horrible experiences with fat, rich women and so his conscious was virtually silent as he scaled marvelously over the tall iron gate easily.
He'd been so quiet, and George had completely let her guard down with her dropped pants. It wasn't until she flushed the toliet and walked back toward Mrs. Parks with a, "Well I really should be...."
George stared at the body of Mrs. Parks and her assassin.
He'd gone a little bit over board. His hook knife bloody, he'd stabbed her several times over after she was already dead until one could hardly recognize her face which looked akin to spaghetti.
Without much thought, Luse pulled the gun from behind him and began shooting. Some other dumb bitch. Oh well, crow happens, and Luse didn't have a problem with a little extra killing.
She should have just fallen to the ground dead. Luse had put at least fifteen rounds into; a few into her head and several in her torso.
As George stared at the barrel of the masked killer's gun she heard the reaped soul of Mrs. Mildred Parks scream something. George wasn't sure what. She only saw the gun, and she knew what was about to happen.
She'd been impaled before and she'd accidentally cut off one of her fingers. She'd healed perfectly from both those incidents. Once, one of her fellow reapers had been shot before and though it hurt a lot, he still recovered.
George would be pretty sure after all of this that there was a big difference between being shot with one bullet versus seventeen bullets. Had George been capable, she would have played dead. Instead she was busy screaming and gagging on the blood from one of the shots having torn through her neck.
Completely conscious through it all. Completely aware of what was happening.
The elf approached George with a cautious glare. This wasn't the kind of shit he wanted to have to deal with, and as he got closer he noticed that the bleeding had slowed and a few of the rounds were slowly being pushed from her body as her flesh healed.
He searched her as she, incapacitated, writhed in pain. He found a yellow post-it note. It had the name, time and location of his hit.
"....crow! Crow! Crow! Crow! Crow! CROW!"
The elf was not happy.
He shot George a few more times to express this and her screaming renewed. So now what to do? She wasn't going to die. She was only going to heal. He couldn't leave any witnesses and he needed to find out how'd she'd known about about the hit.
His boss was not going to be happy about this.
Luse holstered his gun and pulled out the hook knife.
Maybe if he cut off her head? Decapitation killed just about anything.