Chapter Seven
This was tricky. Will felt guilty about leaving for work, but Alice's sleeping schedule was far from normal. Within that understanding, he expected her not to show up to work. For those last few moments, Will slipped from her grasp, taking one last glance before preparing for the full day he had ahead of him.
The office was full of chaos, and the recent demon attacks had left many other reapers in the same condition as Alice. Grell wasn't harmed (of course), but Alan too was paying the price of crossing a demon solo. The soul collections remained as scheduled, but the accounts of demon sightings and attacks were increasing, or so it seemed that day.
Reaper Knox returned from soul collection untouched. With each reaper that came through those doors not limping or smothered with blood was a good sign for William T. Spears. It was as if a plague was taking hold of all his reapers, and it was no good at all.
"Has that demon of yours been rampant through the streets?" he asked as Grell paid his manager a visit at the end of his shift.
"Bassy? Him? No, he's a chained dog to the lucky boy Phantomhive," the reaper reported. That was one report he wouldn't lie about, so Will took the red reaper's word as he punched out for the night. For a brief few minutes, he considered making a call. He reached for the phone, hearing the dial, but he soon hung it up again.
No, there would be no calling him at a time like this.
By the end of the day, he returned to his apartment, and that was where it hit him. A smell. This had never been a scent in his apartment before. What was that? It was almost metallic, the smell of iron straight from the fire. Checking the kitchen, nothing was immediately on fire, but the smell was still strong enough to reach his nose.
It was coming from the bedroom. As he looked in the doorway, his eyes widened.
Alice hadn't moved an inch since he'd left this morning. There was blood leaking from her wounds and through to the white sheets, but Alice was unresponsive.
"Alice," he shook her. It didn't matter if she was actually asleep by now, she needed to wake up. This was coming from her. This odd, metallic smell, straight from her body that he could smell the moment he walked through the door. Was this an infection? What was this? He'd never encountered a thing like this before.
A sudden thought of Alan came to mind. Hopefully this was not his fate as well. Eric was bound and determined to keep an eye on Alan, but Alice, she really didn't have many close friends around the office just yet. Reaper Knox might check on her, but Will knew he really wouldn't trust Knox. No, not with Alice.
"Alice, you must wake up," Will said, shaking her again, and this time she moaned herself awake.
"Wh-wha-" she opened her eyes. "Why are you-ow..."
He'd begun removing her bandages while the sheets were bloody and the gauze was leaking through. He hadn't any other choice.
He wrapped her body in new bandages, but the blood seemed to keep coming. Nothing seemed physically wrong. The wounds just kept splitting and cracking. Her skin was turning dry but she was cold and sweating.
"You must sit up. I cannot carry you the entire way," Will said.
"But...you can, for most of it. Right?" she mumbled, almost to herself. "It...hurts."
Will found himself struck with guilt a worry, two emotions he'd never allow himself to feel on the clock. He watched her. This wasn't normal. Her pulse became very strong, he could see the signs of the heart beating in her chest, that was how still she preferred to be.
"Stay with me, Alice," Will said. "Please, I need you to stay awake."
Will never said please, but that was Alice's last concern. He lifted her from the bed and caught a carriage for her. Only once she was taken out of the carriage, that's when the blood became visible again.
The little bell tolled, the sign of a customer, but as the man walked forward, his fingernails touched his cheek.
"Hmmm, what that's certainly a problem," he said. Will looked him straight in the eye.
"I almost called," he replied, setting her on the table in the front of them. "What can you do?"
"Hmmm," he brushed aside her hair. "Nice girl. Her death scythe was most fascinating."
Will kept silent, but he was annoyed with the way the matter was being handled presently. He sat down as the Undertaker shuffled around her for a few moments. Alice was somewhat awake, opening her eyes, seeing Undertaker first.
"You..." she said, knowing exactly who she was.
"Tell me dear, what kind of demon were you dealing with?" he asked right away.
"I don't know," she replied. "They all look the same, red eyes, black everywhere, feathers and shit...sharper grip than I expected."
"They all are," Undertaker replied, getting the feeling she'd only begun her training in the supernatural soul collections. He reached through his shelves, retrieved a few things and pouring a liquid into a rag.
Turning her around, he leaning closer to her ear.
"Trust me, this will hurt. Don't move," he said, and he was rather surprised when she didn't finch an inch. Will told Undertaker she'd always been that way, and he was asking what could have caused this.
For the time being, Undertaker believed the demon was stricken with an illness that was causing her to react in a rather strange fashion. Her heart raced unexpectedly, her wounds kept splitting, and the blood seemed to be flushing itself from her system.
"If it did this in the demon, emotional rage and odd sleeping patterns would only be a beginning," Undertaker replied, looking at her closer. "They're desperate, whoever has this illness."
"Mortal?"
"No, I don't think so," Undertaker said. "I don't think a mortal could house such a thing. Oh, what's this?" He pulled something from inside one of her wounds. It was a white substance that once he set on the table, turning a brown color.
"A parasite?" he asked himself, looking for a few more, pulling them deep from within her bite wounds and the scratches. They all did the same thing. He took a blade and split one open, finding nothing but blood and the make up of an odd looking parasite with a reaper as its host.
"We are neither dead or alive, maggots cannot claim us," Undertaker said. "This looks like a mutation."
"Can you get rid of it?" Will asked. "I fear others have fallen to this as well."
Undertaker took another bottle of liquid he used on his guests to protect from maggot manifestation, at least for a week.
"Let's see if they hate the same things," he said, tapping a few drops onto her back. The blood fizzled, and Alice finally flinched, and Will even squirmed a little bit. That was just gross.
A bunch of the crawlers emerged from her system, all lying themselves down and turning brown.
"Well then," Undertaker said, repeating the process. "It seems to be a strange maggot of some sort. This must come from an exotic place, you think overseas?"
"Maybe," Will said. "It's not completely out of the possibility. Demons are everywhere after all."
Undertaker flushed her system of the parasites, gathering a few and then taking a sample of her blood, capturing a live one. It fed on her system that was for sure, but her system was living. Will told Undertaker about her strange sleeping habits all last night, and that's when he placed it together. She breathed while she slept because of the pain, but the maggots must have gotten to her when she fell completely asleep to attack what they thought was dying tissue.
This was most troublesome. Maggot lice for grim reapers, great, Will was telling himself. Once it seemed Alice was clear of the parasites, Undertaker re-bandaged her wounds, and William fell asleep in the shop. Over the next few hours, Undertaker watched her and within the third hour, Alice regained most of her consciousness.
"It's you," was the first thing she said. "The Undertaker." She felt humble before him, as this was the legendary grim reaper, the very one who'd sent Marie Antoinette to hell.
"You've got a rare condition," he told her. "The last time a demon bit you, you contracted his disease. I've ridden you of that illness and I might just help the others."
Alice looked over at Will who was sleeping the chair.
"He brought you in, but you probably don't remember that," he said.
"I remember pain," Alice said. "It still stings."
"It should," Undertaker replied. "You blood was literally boiling." Alice's eye narrowed in shock when he said that, but William wouldn't be here if it weren't an emergency.
"You do him some good," Undertaker said suddenly.
"Excuse me?" Alice said.
"You do him some good, I say. That man is constantly working, he needs something else to worry about."
Alice remained silent at that point, not wanting to respond to this conversation. Undertaker laughed to himself, watching her feel uncomfortable about the situation. He told her of the antidote, and he spent the rest of night working on multiple copies for anyone else in William's staffing association. Alan might be relieved to hear about that.
She watched him sleep before she too fell asleep in the back room of Undertaker's shop.
