Chapter 25:

Things got pretty hectic after that. Despite the fact that ghosts would consistently lose their memories the longer they remained in the living world without passing on, they all seemed to know they did not like demons. Or the demons' boss.

Long story short the Reapers had no shortage of recruits for this particular mission. Thankfully the more stable ghosts were able to manage a lot of things on their own; some of them had even taken to helping supervise their comrades.

Jack in particular was very grateful for this; he was having enough trouble both making the ghosts visible to all the humans passing by and keeping an eye out for Pitch's minions. Thankfully the Summer sprites were notably absent; undoubtedly they figured he couldn't be this close to the equator. The Nightmares, on the other hand, were everywhere.

Piscia and Aditi were helpful in that regard. Piscia had given each Reaper in her charge a patch of ground to cover, with orders to keep the ghosts visible and draw away any demons who might be getting too close. Aditi, who had been assigned to a patch next to Jack, would send a black butterfly to tell him when she'd spotted a herd of Nightmares approaching or if a spirit allied with Pitch was in the area. Which was getting annoyingly common as the days wore on.

It was about an hour after sunset on November 18 that found Jack riding Mei down the main street of a quiet neighborhood in Sonsonate, El Salvador. Despite it being late fall, the slight breeze blowing was hot and dry. Normally Jack didn't mind this; after centuries of not being able to visit the tropics Jack loved the experience of heat and humidity. But it could wear on even him after a while; he was giving serious consideration to galloping up to the mountains for a bit. According to Madrik it was slightly cooler at higher elevations.

Mei came to a sudden stop and whickered beneath him, drawing Jack's attention. She was staring straight ahead, ears pricked. Looking ahead himself, Jack blinked in surprise upon seeing a ghostly black horse, blending almost perfectly with the surrounding shadows. There was a figure astride it; not Famine, it was too tall and too broad. It was completely clad in black; black gloves, black boots, pants, tunic, coat and hat. Jack blinked when he realized that the figure had no head; the hat was floating on what appeared to be a column of thin smoke, above two pale gray-blue eyes.

"That must be the Just Judge," Jack muttered to Mei, eyeing the spirit from the corner of his eye. He'd never met him in person, but he'd heard a little bit about him from the other Reapers. Apparently he didn't interact with them that much.

It was much to Jack's surprise, then, when the spirit nudged his horse into a trot toward him and Mei.

Jack sat straighter in the saddle as the dark figure drew his horse to a stop beside Mei, at a distance that allowed the horses to sniff inquiringly at one another.

"You are the Reaper who was formerly Jack Frost?"

Jack blinked. The voice was surprisingly deep, but quiet, speaking with a noticeable Spanish accent. He hadn't seen a mouth move. Actually, he hadn't seen a mouth at all, but the words were plain enough.

"I am," Jack answered slowly, studying the Judge.

The Judge nodded, a black gloved hand reaching up and touching the rim of his hat briefly. "Good evening, señor."

"Hello," Jack responded as Mei, finally satisfied with her inspection of the Judge's horse, tossed her head and whickered her own greeting. "If you don't mind my asking, how do you know me? 'Cause I'm pretty certain we've never met."

"Many of us ghosts know of you," the Judge answered. Jack got the impression that if he had a mouth, the spirit was smiling. "Your story is quite famous to those who travel in the same circles as the Horsemen and Reapers."

Jack blinked. "Really? I mean, I knew about the Reapers, of course, and a lot of the North American and European ghosts know me, but..."

"The story of how you came to be what you were is a rather... what is the word? Spectacular example of failed necromancy," the Judge said, voice becoming low and distinctly furious at the end of the sentence. Jack felt his eyebrows climbing his forehead when the Judge's left hand fell to his hip; the Reaper nearly jerked in surprised when he saw the black leather whip coiled there. "There is a reason resurrection is considered a particularly egregious crime amongst the dead."

"Tell me about it," Jack muttered, eyeing the spirit's whip hand.

The spirit seemed to have noticed; he appeared to gather himself for a moment before his hand fell to rest on his thigh.

"I suppose I didn't realize how big a deal it was at the time," Jack said. "Not that I had any point of reference or anything, really, but if Death hadn't been there..."

The Judge nodded. Well, the hat did, so Jack assumed that was what had happened.

"Death takes his duty seriously, and he does it well. He keeps to his word. We all respect him for that," the Judge said.

Jack nodded his agreement, a small smile blooming on his face. "I remember thinking he could be harsh, when I first became a Reaper. Then I realized he was just being honest about what I am now, about what he is, about what I would have to learn to accept. And he was... before I became a Reaper, before I even knew who he was, he was so patient with me. I could rant or chatter on about anything and everything under the sun and he would just sit and listen. And then when I did find out who he was, who Famine and Solriss and everyone was, I didn't speak to him for years. I was actively avoiding all of them for a while, actually, but I could still kind of... sense whenever he was close. He never once tried to approach me, never tried to explain himself, and for a while I wondered why. Finally I realized he didn't want to push me; he was going to wait until I was comfortable enough to approach him. And he could wait forever if he needed to. Not like time's an issue for him."

Realizing how long he'd been speaking, Jack grinned. "Sorry for the rant."

The Judge chuckled. "No trouble."

"Mi amigos!" came a call from behind the Judge. The Judge turned his horse while Jack leaned to the right so he could see around him. He smiled when he saw what looked to be a large, conical straw hat with legs running at them.

"Buenos noches, El Cipitio!" Jack laughed as the hat tipped back to reveal a paunchy, dark-skinned boy who looked to be no older than nine or ten. He was centuries older, of course, and one of the more famous of El Salvador's spirits. And given the way he was grinning (and the Judge sighing), he'd just gotten through playing another joke on some unsuspecting human.

Cipitio had almost reached them when a large black shadow welled up in front of the tiny spirit. When it subsided, a large Nightmare was standing in front of him, snorting threateningly.

Jack and the Judge were immediately on alert. The Judge drew his whip from his belt, though he kept it coiled loosely in his hand for the moment. Jack summoned his scythe, holding it loosely in his right hand as he gripped the reins in his left.

Cipitio, though, just smiled and gestured surreptitiously for them to relax. They didn't, but they didn't move to attack, either.

"Buenos noches, señor caballo!" Cipitio said. "I am afraid I cannot stop to play with you! I have jokes to plan and friends to meet!"

"Well then, I'm certain you won't mind meeting with me, Cipitio."

Jack bristled at the familiar voice, as did Mei.

Cipitio turned and, presumably, grinned at the newcomer. "Ah, good evening, Señor Bogeyman!" he said. "What brings dear old Pitch Black to Sonsonate this fine night?"

Jack was wondering that, too. He was also wondering a few other things.

"They know each other?" Jack whispered to the Judge as Pitch glowered down at the much shorter spirit.

"In passing, truly," the Judge answered, also keeping his voice low. "Pitch would assist Cipitio in the occasional prank or vice versa, but the last time they truly interacted beyond the level of acquaintances was nearly five centuries ago."

Jack was about to open his mouth to ask another question, but his attention was drawn to the other's conversation when he heard Pitch say his name. Jack hadn't caught the question, but…

"Jack Frost?" Cipitio said, frowning. Barely a second later he perked back up. "Oh. He's dead."

Jack guffawed before he could stop himself, covering his mouth with the back of his right hand to muffle his snickers.

Pitch glared down at the much smaller spirit. "No, he isn't. I saw him just a few days ago, sprightly and annoying as he ever was."

El Cipitio threw his head back and laughed, loud and raucous. Pitch's glare intensified. The Nightmare pinned its ears and lunged, aiming to catch the little spirit in its teeth.

Cipitio disappeared a moment before it could grab him, his laughter still echoing around the street.

"Are you sure we are speaking about the same person, Señor?" Cipitio asked. He'd reappeared in a tree between two houses on the south side of the street, sitting on a branch, leaning against the trunk. He'd removed his hat and was tossing it up and catching it.

Pitch, meanwhile, was back to glowering.

"I am not in the mood for jokes, Cipitio. I know you still enjoy listening to all the gossip that comes down the spirits' grapevine. What have you heard about Jack Frost?"

"I just told you; he's dead."

"Cheeky little diablo," the Judge muttered, irritated but grudgingly impressed, by the sound of it.

"Really?" Pitch said, raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms. "And how, pray tell, did he die?"

Cipitio shrugged, picking a stray leaf out of his hat. "You'd have to ask him. That's a bit of a personal question; I'd hate to be rude and spill it to you if he hasn't told you about it."

Pitch snarled, stance becoming instantly more threatening. "Cipitio, I have restrained myself because of our old friendship. If, however, you continue to persist in this ridiculous…"

The Judge moved so quickly Jack didn't even see it. One moment Pitch was standing in the middle of the street threatening Cipitio, the next he was on the ground, spitting dirt out of his mouth, the Judge's whip wrapped around his left ankle. The Nightmare had already been dispatched by a lightning-fast crack of that same whip.

"You will leave this place, Pitch Black," the Judge said. Jack jumped at the change in his tone; his voice was certainly louder, but it was also… declarative, so full of authority one would just assume that what he said was so. The Judge nudged his horse forward. Pitch turned, incredulous, but his expression quickly became puzzled when he saw the newcomer. As the Judge and his horse advanced, the bogeyman rolled onto his back, bracing his arms beneath his shoulders as he pushed himself backward a few inches.

"The nights here belong to me," the Judge said.

Whatever sense Pitch may have developed in the preceding seconds vanished at those words. He glared, leaping to his feet. "Who do you think…"

Again, Jack didn't even see the Judge move. But he must have, because in the next instant Pitch was shouting in pain, pressing his hand over a bleeding cut that stretched across the entirety of his left cheek.

"Leave this place, miscreant," the Judge ordered, his horse snorting a warning. "Or you will leave at sunrise, in ribbons."

"Ooh, you'd better leave, amigo, he's serious!" Cipitio called from his treetop, somehow managing to sound both warning and cheerful at the same time. "You don't mess with the Just Judge, friend!"

Pitch's eyes narrowed, the shadows behind him lengthening and darkening.

One loomed up behind the Judge. Jack opened his mouth to shout a warning, but no sound made it past his lips before an expert flick of the Judge's wrist had the whip snapping backwards. The crack echoed all up and down the length of the street, sending a shudder down Jack's spine. To the Reaper's surprise, it seemed to have a similar effect on Pitch's shadows; they immediately shrank back from the Judge, many of them just shrinking in general. Some vanished altogether.

Jack felt his eyebrows climbing his forehead. Hearing Mei's amused whicker, he moved his eyes back to Pitch and almost laughed. The Bogeyman's eyes were so wide they looked like they could pop out of his head at any moment.

"Your power and mine are of different planes, Nightmare King," the Judge said. He moved his hand, twirling the whip casually, yet in a way that was somehow just-this-side of threatening, while his horse raised his head, ears pinned back. "Begone, lest you wish to fall under my judgement. I can assure you it will not be kind."

Jack whistled quietly between his teeth. Mei whickered her agreement, tail switching. Pitch was glaring at the Judge with such intensity Jack found himself thinking a human who found themselves on the receiving end of such a look from the Bogeyman himself would've suffered a fatal heart attack from the sheer terror of it.

Then a shadow flared up behind Pitch, and the next second he was gone.

Silence fell for several seconds.

Then Cipitio sighed. "Well, that was anticlimactic. I was hoping for a bit more… how you say, Jack, chutzpah, from our old amigo there."

Jack laughed. "Of course you did."

"Jack!"

Jack turned his head to see Piscia and Aditi galloping down toward them. The two Reapers reined their steeds to a halt shortly after landing, Piscia bringing her dun stallion down barely five feet from Mei's nose.

"Are you alright?" Piscia asked, examining Jack and the scene critically. "We heard from a couple of our charges that Pitch was in the area, and that he was near you. What happened?"

"I'm fine; I had my aspect up enough that he couldn't sense me. Besides, the Judge and Cipitio were both here," Jack said, gesturing to his two companions. Cipitio smiled and waved his hat, while the Judge simply dipped his invisible head briefly. "The Judge drove him off."

Piscia nodded. Jack smiled, then gave a whoof of surprise when Aditi leaned over and hugged him had enough he could've sworn he felt his spine popping.

"Ow! Ow! Aditi, air!"

"Why should I? You don't need to breathe," Aditi giggled, but thankfully she did loosen her grip. When she drew back a second later, she smiled at Jack. "I'm glad you're okay."

Jack smiled back, squeezing her hand. "Me, too."

"I thank you for your assistance," Piscia said to the Judge and Cipitio, before returning her attention to Jack. "Do you know what Pitch wanted?"

"Information about me. Don't ask me why, 'cause I have no idea," Jack said.

"It's true, Señora," Cipitio said from his tree. "He wanted to ask me about Jack Frost. He did not say why, but for him to come to me, and so directly, tells me he is very interested in my amigo Jack."

"He's certainly gone to a lot of trouble to speak with you," Aditi said with a thoughtful frown. "He has already demonstrated he will detain you if you will not listen willingly."

"I don't understand how I could possibly be so important to him," Jack said, throwing his hands up. "I barely ever even saw the guy when I was a spirit, and I talked to him maybe a grand total of five times in three centuries!"

"Whatever the Bogeyman's reasoning, I think it safe to assume he will continue to trouble you until you and the Horsemen bring your plan to fruition," the Judge said. Touching a finger to the rim of his hat, he said, "I will bid you buenos noches, Reapers. I must continue my own work."

And with that, the Judge nudged his horse into a trot down the street, vanishing into the shadows at the end of it.

"Ah, drama," Cipitio sighed from up in his tree.

"He has always been rather… private," Aditi said, still watching the shadows where the Judge had disappeared.

"Indeed."

Everyone spun about to face Death; he and War were both mounted side-by-side a few feet behind the Reapers. Jack blinked when he noticed War's grin.

"Our little scheme may be coming to fruition a bit sooner than we expected," the Red Horseman said when she noticed Jack staring. When the Reapers were still plainly confused, War pointed upward.

Jack looked up. Then he laughed and high-fived Aditi.

Above the roofs of the houses, small though they were, threads of golden sand had begun to flow.