Aragami Read online

  Aragami

  Scott Kinkade

  No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced without the expressed written consent of the copyright holder, except in the context of a review.

  Aragami: A Tale of the Previous Universe

  Copyright © 2018 by Scott Kinkade

  Cover design by Ramon Santiago MacAirap ([email protected])

  This book was edited by Cathy Lopez ([email protected])

  Digital book(s) (epub and mobi) produced by Booknook.biz.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Monday

  1

  2

  3

  Tuesday

  4

  5

  6

  Wednesday

  7

  8

  9

  Thursday: (Part One)

  10

  Thursday: (Part Two)

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  Friday

  16

  17

  Saturday

  18

  19

  Sunday

  20

  21

  Later

  22

  Back to Class

  23

  Epilogue

  Afterward

  First Look: Return of the Nine

  Also by Scott Kinkade

  About the Author

  Reference

  Prologue

  Ev and his friends were in Daryn Anders’ dorm room at Divine Protector Academy, the world’s only school for gods.

  Ev had never been in Daryn’s room before, having not spent that much time with the anger-prone ginger before they teamed up to fight Zero Grade and the Flawless Few.

  But now Daryn was gone, having sacrificed himself to stop Zeus’ ultimate weapon, the Titan. His roommate and lover Joss had recently asked them to help him sort through Daryn’s belongings.

  Ev looked around the room, unease setting in. For the most part it looked the same as any other dorm room, except for pictures of Daryn and Joss on the walls that depicted them displaying their affection for one another. Ev didn’t have anything against transcendent sexuals, but neither was he used to them. His abusive father had often gone on and on about the evils of “deviants” like them and, while Ev had made a point of rejecting everything Dom Bannen had stood for, some things weren’t so easy to dismiss.

  “I really appreciate you guys doing this for me,” Joss said.

  “I’m sure Daryn appreciates it, wherever he is.”

  “Do you believe in an afterlife?” Maya asked while sorting through Daryn’s clothes.

  Joss shrugged. “No one can say there isn’t an afterlife. If anyone could find a way to live on after death, it’s Daryn. He’s the toughest, most determined person I’ve ever met.”

  “Here, here,” Jaysin said while sorting through transcendent sexual art house movies.

  Ev suddenly said, “Let’s stop for a second.”

  Maya looked at him quizzically. “What? Why?”

  Ev turned to Joss. “You got any booze in here?”

  Joss smiled. “As a matter of fact, I do.” He went over to the mini-fridge and took out a bottle of something dark brown. He poured each of them a drink.

  Ev then raised his glass. “To Daryn.”

  They all beamed at this (especially CiCi, who beamed at most things). They clinked their glasses in a toast to their fallen friend.

  Jaysin suddenly looked at his expensive watch. “Uh-oh. We’re going to be late for Religious History.”

  “Crap,” Ev said. “I forgot. Sorry, Joss. We’ll come back after class.”

  “Don’t sweat it. There’s no hurry on this.”

  “Much appreciated,” Ev said.

  * * *

  Religious history was a class taught by Nabu. Like most of the faculty, he was a deity from the previous universe. He usually wore a horned cap and brown robes. He had a long braided beard and also wore his hair long in the back.

  Ev, Maya, Jaysin and CiCi took their seats. After the roll call, Nabu stood in front of his desk at the front of the class which was small, consisting of only fifteen students. A lot of the student body had been lost in the recent war.

  “Now, then,” he said. “I have a question. How many of you know about the Shinigami?” A few students raised their hands. Ev raised his about halfway; his knowledge of those gods was very limited. “For those of you who don’t know, the Shinigami were gods of death in the previous universe. Their job was to shepherd souls to the afterlife.”

  “Wait,” Ev said. “You mean there really is an afterlife?”

  Nabu folded his arms. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple. As you know, the Shinigami are extinct now. Now, now, hold your questions. I’m going to tell you a story which will explain a lot.

  “This is a story of love, loss, and hatred. This is a story of the previous universe. It all began in the year 2020 AD…”

  Monday

  1

  On a street in Oklahoma, almost to Oklahoma City but technically still in Edmond, was a certain company located off Memorial Road in a large building.

  The business in question was Business Scanning Systems. They specialized in taking physical documents from companies and scanning them onto computer before sending them the digital files. Sometimes they sent the physical documents back, but other times said companies paid BSS to destroy them or store them.

  At the bottom of the BSS food chain were the preppers. Their job was to prep the documents for scanning. They accomplished this by sorting, smoothing, removing staples and other obstacles that wouldn’t make it through the scanners. Great attention had to be paid when doing this; a simple error could screw up one’s whole day, and too many errors would get your ass fired.

  One such prepper was 24-year-old Martin McDonnell. He had been doing this for a few years now and considered himself experienced but hardly a veteran. No, the real veterans had been here for a decade or more. They’d seen it all and knew how to deal with just about anything.

  McDonnell was six feet tall and two hundred pounds. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair; these things just didn’t conform to his tall frame very well.

  On this particular October day, he sat at his table—one of many in the warehouse known as Records Center 2—and worked. To his left was the break area and above him was the mezzanine with its abundance of crap they kept in storage. And in front of him was the box he had pulled the documents out of—now turned on its side—with a stack of folders containing said documents. He also had his tools—staple remover, pens, Exacto knife, tape dispenser, and those rubber things that go on your fingers to help you flip through pages faster. Folder by folder, he removed the documents, prepped them and put them back into the box. Later the scan operator would scan them onto the server. Rinse, repeat, day after day. Kill me.

  He flipped through pages, removed staples, flipped through pages, flipped through pages, removed staples, flipped through pages, removed staples, flipped through pages, removed staples, flipped through pages, removed staples, flipped through pages, removed staples, flipped through pages, removed staples. Oh, a paper clip—a welcome break from staples. Hey, a sticky note covering information; better move it to a blank area of the page.

  A nearby scan operator called out, “Martin, watch your corners. We’re capturing too many bent ones from you.”

  “Yeah, sorry, thanks,” he said listlessly.

  Mercifully, break time eventually came. Betty Sodatrino came up behind him on her way to clock out. “Break time, Martin.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Me and Samantha are going to the mall after work. You wanna come?”

  He shrugged. “Sure
. I was planning on hitting the gym, but I can blow that off.”

  “Great. See you then.” She flashed him two fingers in a V-sign.

  Martin didn’t have many friends at work, but Betty was one of them. Almost as tall as him, she was a lithe bundle of energy with chestnut hair. She was the one who made things bearable for him. He liked her. A lot. Nothing had yet happened between them, but he wouldn’t be too shook up if it did. It also didn’t hurt that she always smelled sweetly of an irresistible fragrance.

  Stretching, he got up and made his way to the break room and its clock to punch out.

  * * *

  As a formerly devout follower of Shinto, Serika had never believed in the Christian notion of Hell. The whole idea of a fire and brimstone world beneath the surface of the earth was absurd.

  Too bad. She would have killed for that afterlife. No, what she found upon dying was something infinitely worse: Yomi. She could still remember the welcome speech upon arriving in this world: “Welcome, you were a good Shintoist in life and now we’re going to make you a Shinigami, isn’t that great!?”

  She hadn’t believed in Shinigamis, either, but that one turned out to be true. As a god of death, her job was to monitor the lives of everyone in her assigned district (hers being Oklahoma City) and escort their souls to the afterlife. The devoted Shintoists became Shinigamis, and everyone else just became regular dead souls. Turns out they were the lucky ones; being a Shinigami was the worst job you could ask for if you weren’t assigned to a Shinto-rich city like Tokyo which ended up having lots of Shinigamis. But, no, she had to have died in Oklahoma City, a large area with very few people assigned to it. That meant long days, assloads of paperwork, and death. Lots of death.

  Case in point: The old crone in front of her lying lifelessly in her bed in room 302 of the nursing home. The shriveled mummy was a hopelessly common sight on this job. Serika had arrived in astral form to do her grim duty. “Adele Johnson. I’m here to escort you to the afterlife,” she said in a voice that conveyed no enthusiasm what. So. Ever.

  Adele’s spirit rose from her body and hovered beside the bed. The staff hadn’t noticed her passing yet, so there was no living person in the room other than her equally ancient roommate.

  Adele stared at her. “Who are you?”

  Serika clenched a fist. “I just told you, woman. I’m here to escort you to the afterlife.”

  The transparent spirit’s eyes opened wide. “You mean Heaven?”

  Serika laughed bitterly. “No, not Heaven.” She abruptly thought better of her attitude; she didn’t want this old woman telling the higher-ups Serika had been a bitch to her. “I mean, yeah, it’s basically Heaven. It’s great. You’ll see.”

  Serika held a scythe in her free hand. She tapped the butt of it on the ground and a rift in space opened up behind her.

  “Miraculous!” Adele exclaimed.

  The Shinigami gestured towards the rift which led to Yomi. “Right this way.”

  Adele took hold of Serika’s arm, apparently not realizing she wasn’t in her weak, disabled body anymore. Serika just went with it. They entered the rift and Adele gasped as she found herself in a bright tunnel. This was the same tunnel people saw during out of body experiences. Christians mistook it as, well, Christian, but it really belonged to the Shinigami. “It’s beautiful!”

  “Yeah, it’s fantastic,” Serika said as ethereal white light shimmered all around them. She tried to sound enthusiastic but she saw this same tunnel all the fucking time.

  “Is it difficult for you?” Adele asked. “I mean, to have to be around dead people all the time?”

  You have no idea. “No, it’s fine. I take a lot of satisfaction in my job. I do important work, after all.” As if. It’s a year-round corpse show.

  “Do you have family in Heaven?” Adele said.

  “I think so, although I’ve never met them. The afterlife’s a big place.” That much was true. Most of her family lived in Japan and were strangers to her.

  “You must be so lonely.”

  Again, you have no idea. “I have plenty of friends here. You’ll make friends, too, I’m sure.”

  They emerged from the tunnel into Processing. It was a large area with brown tatami mats and brown walls. Up ahead was a wall lined with windows, and behinds each window was a Shinigami who worked to process all entries into Yomi. There were a number of lines with dozens of transparent people in them.

  “Is this everyone who died today?” Adele said.

  “Oh, no,” Serika replied. “This is just for Oklahoma. Every area on Earth gets its own area. Your last name is Johnson, so you’ll need to head on over to ‘A-J.’”

  “I see it. Thank you so much. You’re a great angel.” She headed on over to the designated line, leaving Serika thankfully done with this task.

  As she walked down the hallway of the Bureau of Post-Life Relations with its hanging red lanterns and paper walls, she exchanged pleasantries with her co-workers whom she passed. She was being completely fake, though; she didn’t give a damn about any of them. She wished they’d all drop dead—except they already were. Only two people commanded her attention, and she would deal with them both in time.

  She passed by a mirror and noted her appearance. Like all Shinigamis, she wore a black cloak over an equally black kimono. Her raven hair was pulled back into two long pig tails which ran down her back, and traditional geta footwear adorned her feet. Yes, the afterlife had a dress code.

  She soon found the room she wanted and entered. Like most of the afterlife’s rooms, it was brown with those hideous tatami mats on the floor. Unlike the other rooms, however, there was a circular metal depression in the center of the floor.

  She approached it and it lit up. “Aogami,” she said. In response, a blue light shot up and enveloped the room. Japanese characters floated about in a chaotic pattern. English was her native language, but her mother had insisted she learn Japanese.

  The characters formed words in front of her face:

  こんにちは、セリカどの。　何ですか。

  [Hello, Serika-dono. What is it?]

  The Shinigami weren’t all-powerful or all-knowing. In order to monitor every mortal on Earth and track their probable lifespans, a ridiculously sophisticated computer was needed. Thus, Aogami was created.

  She replied, “I need information on a specific person. His name is Martin McDonnell and he lives in Oklahoma City in America.”

  [Subject located. Status: 24-years-old. Formerly married, but that is no longer the case. Currently employed at Business Scanning Systems in Edmond.]

  “Good,” she said. “Based on current projections, when will he die?”

  [In 42.38 years.]

  That was no good. She wanted him dead yesterday. “Is there any chance he’ll die sooner?”

  [It is possible. He enjoys beer. Alcohol poisoning is difficult to anticipate.]

  She stood there for a moment in silence, contemplating her target’s possible demise. “Would it be possible to get a Section Six exemption for him?” In other words, would it be possible to kill him ahead of schedule? She wasn’t holding her breath, though.

  [Negative. Section Six exemptions only apply to the most dangerous individuals on Earth. It can only be invoked if said individual is about to commit mass destruction on a global scale.]

  She was disappointed, but not surprised; the Shinigamis couldn’t even get permission to kill the 9/11 hijackers before they carried out their acts. Millions of lives had to be threatened before a Section Six exemption would be authorized. If Martin McDonnell was to die, it would have to be done in blatant violation of the rules. “What would be the penalty for killing him now?”

  The characters turned red and began shaking erratically. [Warning! Pre-emptive termination is strictly forbidden! Lord First will be notified of this.]

  Unfortunately for Aogami, Serika had anticipated this. Unbeknownst to the AI, she had a friend (and she used the term loosely) named Hebimaru insert an
elusive subroutine into its program. With only a simple phrase, she could command its compliance. “Dame da.” Don’t do that.

  The characters turned back to normal. [Compliance subroutine activated. All interactions between us will remain private.]

  “Very good,” she said. “Now, then. Answer my previous question, you piece of shit.”

  [The penalty for pre-emptive termination includes extended incarceration.]

  She needed to avoid getting caught, then. Imprisonment would ruin everything. So, all she had to do was kill him within seven days. Doing it in person was risky; she couldn’t be seen with him. Therefore, she felt she should find someone or something to do it for her.

  She already had an idea. “Show me what he’s up to right now.” He should have been at work.

  The characters resolved into a 3D hologram in front of her which showed Martin at BSS. An attractive woman whom Serika knew as Betty Sodatrino walked up to him. “Break time, Martin.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Me and Samantha are going to the mall after work. You wanna come?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Great. See you then.” She flashed him two fingers in a V-sign. Serika felt flush with anger. She hadn’t realized their relationship had progressed that far.

  Serika shook her head. It didn’t matter. Martin would soon be dead and Betty would have to find someone else. Right now, Serika needed to focus. They had to have been talking about Quail Springs Mall which was just up the street on Memorial. “That’s enough.” The image turned back into kana and kanji characters. “Are there any disturbed—nay, psychotic—individuals near Quail Springs Mall right now?”

  [Yes. Robert Simons. Age thirty-four. Currently sleeping under an overpass on May Avenue outside the mall.]

  “Is he susceptible to violent thoughts?”

  [Yes. His war injury has complicated his thought processes.]