36 Chapter 36 - Task At Hand

Mephisto

Lucifer was seated on his table in the library, sipping coffee and reading a book, Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri. He called for me the moment, Dante, my ward, left the house. It's as if he didn't want him to know we were having this meeting.

"What is it?" Courtesy is something most demons lack. We didn't see the need.

He looked up, his face a mask. "There are things we need to discuss about the future of your ward."

"What about him?" As far as I know, Dante is special, in more ways than one.

"It seems that time is running out for him." Lucifer looked me in the eyes and then I knew that he knew. "You're not surprised. You've felt it haven't you?"

"His nightmares have gone away but there's something else. I can't say what it is but it's slowly ebbing away at his soul." The connection between the two of us made me more aware of things happening to him as my ward. Whether spiritual or physical, I can already sense that he was slowly drifting away, losing himself bit by bit.

"Perhaps I've overestimated his abilities and he is still farm from a perfect vessel." Lucifer closed his eyes, deep in thought. "The necromancers will come for him."

This was news. " Don't tell me he can do some necromancer shit."

"Perhaps it won't be anything like necromancy." He rose from his seat and took out a book from his own private bookshelf, The Tome Of The Dead, he flipped through the pages and when he found the page he was looking for, he beckoned to me. "Read that."

I looked at the paragraph he had highlighted and read.

"Behold, he comes to the world, one who needs not to raise the dead to command them

In his hands he holds the power of our god

Our salvation is his coming, his call we shall answer

In his hands we shall become, judge, jury and executioner

And altogether we shall be the instrument of Reaping"

After reading it, I took a piece of chocolate bar inside my jacket and began to eat. The lines from the book almost sounded like a prophecy. "You think the one they're referring to is Dante?"

Lucifer nodded. "The necromancers of old, ancient ones who've been banished and prosecuted by the world. They've long prayed to Death as their god."

I remembered them. They were the wielders of Death, his sons and daughters. Most of them lived in Purgatory now, forever exiled from the world. It is said that Death loved them that he gave them dominion over the dead. Their purpose, to bring forth changes and keep the balance. They did this by Reaping the world of men.

There weren't many of them. Only a random few. Some of them old, some of them barely out of their bedclothes. Necromancers loved the smell, the touch and the taste of death. They were attracted to it, drawn by it. It wasn't clear who told them what their purpose in the world is, it seemed that they just knew. And so they did what they were born to do. They would reanimate the body of any creature. They would do this by spending their own life force, their very essence, pouring it into the body and keeping it animated by sheer will. They say that necromancers become enlightened the first time that they reanimate a body. And they forget the man that they were and become something else.

When Life overwhelmed the world, they came. They did not choose, they simply reaped and in the aftermath came the wailing, the cries, the sorrow and the agony. They didn't kill for pleasure. It was simply their duty.

**

"Dante is their god then." It was clear where Lucifer was getting at.

"They've already foreseen his coming." He went back to his seat and poured coffee from a pot on the table for the two of us.

"For the first time, I feel so lost." I was tired and I felt a strange anxiety, an apprehension of things to come. I took a sip from the cup I was holding and took a bite from my chocolate bar.

"Dante is far from reaching his true potential." Lucifer drank from his own cup. "He needs more work and I can't be around all the time to teach him."

I looked up. "Are you asking me to substitute for you? I'm quite busy you know."

"No, I was thinking about someone else." Lucifer smiled knowingly at me, a grin that showed who he really is. "Alucard."

"You're seriously putting Dante in his care?" It has been a long time since I've heard the name of the king of the undead.

Lucifer drank again from his cup. "Alucard has all the time and the luxury that both of us do not have."

"How do you plan to introduce them?"

He merely nodded with his eyes closed. "Leave that to me."

"What else do you want to tell me?" I could sense there was something else bothering him.

"Caroline King."

I was surprised at the mention of the girl that Dante was enamored with.

"What about her?" I asked.

"Keep her safe." He said with concern etched on his face.

"Seriously? Why?" Now I really had no idea what's going on.

"She's the only one keeping Dante tethered to this world." He brush a strand of his auburn hair away from his face. "As long as she lives, Dante remains who he is. Someone we know, someone we can understand."

"What? You think someone is out to get her?" I asked, trying to sound unconcerned but I could already sense the weight of the task. Now I had to protect both lovebirds and it wouldn't be easy.

"Assasins."