The Demon's Bride

Catching a Reaper

It was loud in the night of White Mansion not from people's whispers or voices but the nature's melody. Near to the White Mansion iron gate, a long path where two divided garden stayed with beautiful flowers to adorn and abundant trees all around. But none will ever expected what the butler of the house uses to fertilize the plants on the garden. Like any other nights after Elise, the sweet child work in the White Mansion the butler had to spend sleepless night to greet the new crude guests who often arrived by the time of midnight.

He had often wondered why humans would borrow the time of the dead when they could have done their work when sun arrived so he could spend a few hours to take a proper rest he lack for days. But at the same time it save him troubles for being seen by the maids who often ran their mouths around, twisting the truth to lies and the opposite.

The moon played hide and seek above his head, hiding under the black clouds which were darker than the rest of the other nights tonight. Erasing all the shine it had with him, for a moment the place where Maroon stayed turned pitch black as the butler didn't took a lantern on his way. A man hid from behind, his body was cloaked in black where only his black eyes could be seen from the hood. When he saw the red haired butler standing to dawdle atop a freshly dug dirt with a corroded shovel, the cloaked man snickered quietly to charge toward the spot where the butler could have never seen.

The cloak man thought the poor human wouldn't be able to do anything in front of him yet before his hand could reach toward Maroon's neck he felt a pang on his head. His body was instantly thrown ten feet away from the place where he once was. Maroon dull gaze stopped at the man he had whacked with his shovel and found him still trying to move with a confused expression.

"I would greatly respect your choice if you come from the main entrance, sir." The cloak man looked at him in utter confusion. He was a dark sorcerers while the butler was a mere small mythical being with a very humane body. Where did his power came from? Just one light hit from his shovel turned his head dizzy and numb that he couldn't move.

Picking his shovel, Maroon threaded his steps toward the man when another dark sorcerer had flew behind him to attack his neck with a knife. Yet before he could, Maroon swung his shovel across his shoulder and threw the man back toward a newly grown flower. Seeing the purple flower crushed by the dark sorcerer, Maroon drew his brows in concentration. "Oh please, that is a new plant." The dark sorcerer saw the red haired butler walked toward him and winced in fear. "I hate waiting for flowers to bloom, so next time please refrain yourself from harming them."

Seeing it's fellow sorcerer were harmed by the butler, the dark sorcerers who had been hiding behind the trunks like a shadow appeared altogether to attack him at once. They could have won if they worked together, Maroon noted. That was only if he was a lower case of mythical being and if he was a human.

Once the clouds which had played to hide on its heart content passed before to glow the spot where the butler stood, almost ten of dark sorcerers had died by his shovel. Picking one body and another on both his shoulder and arm, he went to accumulate the corpses to place it beside the freshly dug soil. His shovel shone when the moonshine hits the silver tips. Taking a hold of his shovel, the man began to dug a hole enough for the dark sorcerers he had killed.

"The butler of this mansion is really amazing. Just how much he had killed this week? Thank you Mr. Butler." A voice came but not even the butler who stood right bellow him could hear his voice. The man had been sitting aloft, sitting at a crisscross position as he witness the one sided fight between the butler and the dark sorcerers. He hopped nimbly from the tree and strolled toward the dark sorcerers to count their lives bending down with a smile, he felt grateful for the butler who gave him more souls as he was hungry now.

"I just thought it is finally time you will show yourself, reaper." The reaper who heard himself called flashed his gaze behind and raised her hand to attack whoever was speaking behind him. Before his hand could reach, Ian took a hold of his hand giving a good twist to the back for the bone to cleanly break and grip the neck of the reaper.

The reaper tried to struggle out of Ian's hold. Despite being a reaper who undoubtedly have more power than the living beings, he couldn't budge an inch from his previous spot. He clawed to his hand but the firm grip and tried to kick the man but it was futile. "You! Are you not a human how could you see me?!"

"Well, you're a bright one. Correct I'm not a human, reaper." His grin stayed on the corner of his left lips, stating without a change in his amused expression as the reaper dug deeper to the skin on his hand.

"What are you? You're not a human! A vampire?" Asked the reaper, guessing as he saw Ian's blood-like eyes.

"That's false." Ian effortlessly lifted the reaper further forward and brought him near toward the tree where the reaper once stood at. "You should try and guess again."

Feeling his back hitting the tree trunk harshly, he could feel some of his ribs broke. On the edge of his surprise and shock as no beings could ever see him with naked eyes before, he quickly yelled. "I don't want to! Let me go! I don't have any business to you!"

"You don't but I do." Ian saw the reaper's eyes turning bright green in the dark, his fingers turned pitch black while the skin on his face turned into a scaly skin like those of a snake.

It took the reaper a while to notice that the man in front of him now didn't have a scent of a human or even a soul. "You don't have a smell, are you dead already?"

"Guess?" Ian smiled wickedly and hoisted his hand that made the feet of the grim reaper to hang on the air...