Fate's Ripple
Chapter 2; Making Do
Harry never imagined that his first 'job' would be somebody he had only just met. The name on his list was Joshua Phillips and he had let the pull transport him to a small residential side street in Surrey. He looked around in confusion wondering why he was there until he saw a police car pull up outside one of the houses. A man stepped out and Harry almost gasped as he recognised the face.
It was one of the last things he could remember from when he was alive. The police officer who had carried him from the house to the ambulance and then watched through the operating rooms windows as he died. Harry almost wanted to run away and not take the soul as he felt drawn to the man. Harry followed him into the house slowly and into the houses kitchen.
There was a woman at the table and the police officer sat without preamble. The woman, his wife, looked up at him with tired eyes. "Why are you home so early?"
Harry glanced at a clock and saw that it was only ten in the morning and that obviously he didn't come home this early on normal occasions. "I couldn't work again." The police officer muttered sadly.
"Oh, love, it's been three days since it happened. You've seen kids die before but why is this affecting you so much?" She asked him.
He struggled to start the explanation for a while before finally settling on bluntness. "It's just that with Joshua it's hard to see somebody treating their own child in such a way." Harry was almost relieved that it wasn't his attempted saviour's soul that he was taking but then his hopes crashed into reality as he realised that they were talking about Joshua who's soul he was about to take.
The woman sighed and he continued. "I'm so sorry, Michelle. It's just I keep seeing him everywhere. The poor kid was barely an adult and beaten to death by his own Uncle."
"And with us slowing losing Joshua, it's hard to see somebody throw away a child so carelessly. I understand Nate." Harry dropped his head as he realised that it was he that they were talking about. Nate slowly stood from his seat and turned to leave. "I'm going to see him."
Harry felt the pull change, whereas before it was making him listen to the conversation it was now directing him to follow him upstairs and to do something else as well. "Take her with you Nate." Harry whispered in Nate's ear as he passed.
Nate turned to his wife with a tear in his eye. "Michelle, could you come with me?"
"What's the matter, Nate?"
"I don't know, I just have this feeling." She nodded at him and the two left the room in silence. Harry focused on transporting himself to the soul he would have to take and found himself in a bedroom upstairs. The most prominent feature was the hospital bed and the numerous machines that the boy in the bed was attached to. The boy's eyes opened and they focused on him proving to Harry that he was visible, at least to Joshua.
"I'm here to help you, Joshua." Harry whispered as he leant over the bed. The boy nodded up at him showing how effective Death's appeal was on the person they were helping.
The door opened quietly and Harry moved to the side of the room as Nate and Michelle entered the room hand in hand. They walked up to the bed and Michelle sat in the chair by the side of the bed while Nate sat on the side of the actual bed and took up Joshua's hand.
"How are you feeling, Joshua?" Nate asked in a quiet voice as if speaking any louder would disturb the order of the universe.
"I feel better." Joshua told them glancing passed Nate towards Harry. Harry walked passed the bed and brushed his hand across Joshua's forehead. He was very cold and Harry could feel his soul close to passing over.
"No pain?" Nate asked looking worried knowing that he would always be feeling cold.
Joshua shook his head and looked at Harry. "Will it hurt?" Joshua asked him.
"No, Joshua, you won't feel a thing. It'll be just like falling to sleep." Harry didn't know how he knew this but it was as instinctual as breathing, though it occurred to him that he didn't need to do that any longer.
"I don't want to leave them." Joshua told him ignoring his confused parents who were looking panicked at one of the screens in the room. Nate though turned at the statement at looked right at Harry though he didn't focus on him. He could only see a dark shadow floating in the room, barely noticeable against he natural shadows of the room.
"Who's there?" Nate asked with a frown. "Joshua, who are you talking to?"
"Him." Joshua said pointing a weak hand in Harry's direction. "He's here to show me the way."
Nate looked horrified and turned to Michelle. "Go and call the doctor. Quickly Michelle."
Michelle didn't need telling twice and she raced from the room. Harry knew then why he had appeared before Nate first and not just jumped to where Joshua was. Harry focused on appearing before the man. "Nate." Harry whispered quietly appearing as the cloud flowed to the ground and became his human shape.
"Who are you?" Nate leapt from the bed.
"Death." Harry told him quietly with a gestured towards Joshua. "I was Harry in a past life but that is behind me now."
"Why are you here?" Nate asked after gaping at him for a time. "I saw you die in the hospital."
"I did die. I became Death, it was my destiny. I had nothing left in the world to stay for." Harry told him. "I'm not just here for Joshua, I'm here to tell you that you shouldn't blame yourself. You gave me the chance to survive that I would never have had. I would have died and he would have gotten away with it."
"But I should have been able to save you. That's why I became a policeman." Nate told him crying freely now.
"You let me die in the company of people that wanted me to live, not with a man who wanted me to die in pain and despair." Harry assured him. "People die by destiny's decision. You can't fight the when and where but you can help the quality of peoples lives. You arrested that man and now he can't do it again. That makes you a hero in my eyes."
"But I can't save Joshua." Nate sobbed. Harry smiled down at Joshua who had been watching this with awed eyes. The ten year old wasn't confused in the least.
"Joshua's time in here. Even I can't prevent that, I'm here to ensure that he passes smoothly and that he finds a place to be happy on the other side. One day you'll see him again." Harry told him.
"I love you dad." Joshua told him as he grabbed at the man's hand. "Don't hate me for going."
"I'll never not love you Joshua, my son." Nate said as the monitor beside the bed began to beep erratically.
"It's time, Nate." Harry told him. "Just remember that no matter what you will always be a hero in Joshua's eyes and those that you try to help, even if they die, they will remember you."
Nate looked up at him with a determined look in his eyes but Harry was already invisible to him. Harry looked down to his side at the small boy now standing there in pyjamas. Nate looked down at the bed as the monitor went silent and Michelle ran in. Harry took Joshua's little hand in his own glad that it felt warm now. He had a good soul.
"Are you ready, Joshua?" Harry asked after letting Joshua watch his parents hug his body for a few moments. The boy nodded and it barely took a single thought for Harry to take both of them into the Ghostly plain. The blue vortex swirled into existence in front of them where the bed was in reality and Harry took a small step forwards towards it knowing that walking through it wouldn't take his own soul to the next plain. Joshua caught up with him and Harry squeezed his hand as he walked into the vortex.
Harry spent a moment enjoying the feeling of warmth of the Other Side before focusing on returning to Earth knowing that Joshua would be well looked after now and no longer in pain.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
Several years later
Elise Davies was the first name on his list and as he followed her down the road he realised one thing. Destiny had had many plans for this one but this last plan was the end for her. Harry had been hardened to watching people die, it was always easier when the person was in pain since he took that pain away from them but even when he was taking the soul of children who had had happy lives he knew that what was waiting on the other side was peaceful and far better than this world of pain and strife.
She walked into a shop and he followed but what he saw next came as a shock to him. There was another woman in there that he knew, with practice, was the second name on his list. Annabel Graham, this sort of situation had him confused since he felt a pull to both but since the one to Elise was the greater he stayed near to her.
Harry watched out of the corner of his eye as a man approached the counter of the shop while Elise started browsing for a dress. He knew he had to be here and he knew that the man was holding a gun in his pocket and planned to use it to scare the shop assistant to empty the cash machine but also that something bad would happen. He figured it would be Elise's way to die.
He watched in silence as the gun was fired into the ceiling sending a cloud of dust to rain down on them all except for Harry who was immune to physical matter. Elise dashed over and started to try to talk the man out of whatever he was doing and Harry noted that she seemed to be in her element until the door swung open and the criminal flinched. The gun went off in Harry's direction, missing Elise in the process and hitting the woman behind him.
In an instant the list was in Harry's hand but the names still claimed that Elise's soul would be the first to be claimed even though Annabel had been killed instantly. In the moment of confusion two men in the shop tackled the assailant and ripped the gun from his hand. Harry stood near to Annabel but his eyes were fixed on Elise as she crouched by Annabel's side. "Who are you?" Elise suddenly asked looking up at him. He was visible to her obviously.
"I'm Death."
"You're here for her soul."
Harry saw no reason to lie to her. "Eventually, but I'm here for your soul first." She gasped but didn't seem to think to argue with him. Both stared down at Annabel as she jerked her head around shocking Harry but not Elise.
"Help her!"
Harry was jerked out of existence and into the Ghostly plain and growled irritatingly. The dead weren't supposed to speak to the living, let alone hold onto their souls. "Death!" Harry snapped out and only a second later his mentor appeared out of thin air in front of him.
"Hello Death." Death said evenly, having made the point to keep using Harry's proper name. No matter how many times Death said it Harry still viewed himself as Harry in his own mind. "What's the matter?"
"I'm confused about what just happened." Harry told him before launching into the description of the events from the clothes store and the mix up of the names.
"Those events have not yet taken place. Just concentrate on the pull and it will tell you what to do." Death told him simply.
"That's what I did." Harry told him referring to the pull. "What do you mean by not yet taken place?"
"The woman, Elisa Davies is what we call a Ripple of Fate." Death lectured. "They fix mistakes in Destiny. There are always two in each area but they always act without training. One fights to save and the other fights to kill but both work to set Destiny in the right."
"So whichever succeeds is in the right." Harry surmised logically. It was interesting at least.
"They dead ask them for help when they shouldn't die and Elisa helps them but if they manage to ask for help when they shouldn't before we collect their souls or when they have unfinished business then the Echo deals with it." Death told him.
"And the Echo is?" Harry asked.
"Elisa's husband." Death told him.
"Does she know?"
"She doesn't but he does." Death told him. "The Echo is drawn to the Ripple of Fate and in the end one of them dies. In this case it is Elisa."
"Why did Annabel say; 'Save her!'?"
"Sometimes the dead don't know what they are asking for. They speak what Destiny wants them to say." Death told him. "In this case it is the life of Elisa's daughter and the future Ripple of Fate which is on the line. The Echo is going to have Elisa killed and that is Destiny's wish but Tru, the daughter cannot be allowed to die or the order will be set out of balance."
"What do I have to do?" Harry asked.
"That is something you will have to ask the Angels of Destiny yourself." Death told him plainly.
"How do I do that?" Harry asked.
"You won't have to do anything." Death told him. "They come to you if they want you to do something that is out of the ordinary." Harry nodded and was about to leave when Death stopped him. "Just remember, Death, no matter what just trust your instincts. You are built specifically for this task and can't get it wrong."
Harry teleported out of the Ghostly Plain into the real one but simply felt a port-key like feeling before he could even see his surroundings. He found himself in a white area where his black clothing stood out like an ink stain on a handkerchief.
"Death, I am the Angel of Destiny." A woman in flowing white robes introduced herself. "Without your action Tru Davies will be killed. We have decided to have a more active role in her survival or we will lose control of Destiny and be forced to take more drastic measures to restore it."
"Even risk exposure?" Harry asked with a frown.
"Only on a small scale. Tru can discover what you are since she won't remember given a few years. The assassin doesn't matter." The Angel told him. Harry frowned at the last part. The only way the assassin knowing wouldn't be a problem is if he died but his name wasn't on the list. Only Elisa's and Annabel's who died later in the day.
Before he could question it though he found himself standing in a small house on the outskirts of the city. He automatically knew that it was Elisa's house from the pull that was prompting him to wait there. He glanced at the clock and it read 12:25pm in red letters with the date below it though that meant nothing to him. He knew it was the same day as before and that he was technically redoing it but time meant very little to Death.
Harry stood aside as a man walked into the room even though the man would have walked through him regardless. The man, presumably Richard Davies, sat at the table and poured himself a cup of coffee at the same time that a small fourteen year old boy ran into the room with another girl. "Harrison! Meredith! You two should be upstairs doing your homework."
"But mum said we could do it when we got home!" Harrison whinged and his sister nodded her head frantically in agreement.
"Well I just got home from work and I don't have time to amuse the two of you so go out somewhere." Richard told him. Harrison got a hard look in his eyes and looked like he wanted to hit his father but Meredith, the eldest of the three according to the pull, pulled him bodily from the kitchen. Harry frowned at the man but there was nothing he could actually do to the man since he was nowhere on his list.
Harry was shocked out of his glaring when the front door slammed shut not five minutes later and a sharp crack resounded across the room. He thought for an instant that it was a Wizard Apparating in before he noticed that the man wasn't holding a Wand or focus of any kind and that instead of Apparition he had 'Blinked'. A Warlock then, a type of Demon that he had only ran into a few times whilst collecting the souls of Wicca Witches.
"I thought they'd never leave." The Warlock told Richard with disgust littering his voice.
"Tell me about it." Richard told him. "I want it done tonight. Whilst we're on a rewind day. I'm tired of waiting."
"You sure you want both dead then?" The Warlock asked, obviously he was a hitman in the employ of Richard. Harry felt slightly disgusted that a man could kill his own wife and child with so little regret though since he was the Echo it didn't surprise Harry in the least.
"Of course I do!" Richard snapped angrily. "Otherwise Tru will just inherit the power and I'll lose mine."
"That's the way it is supposed to go though isn't it?" The Warlock asked rather uncertainly. "One of you dies and the other retires to allow two new ones to appear."
"Well, I've decided to take it to the next level. We're here to put order back into Destiny's hands whilst they selflessly save people who are meant to die. It's time someone took a more active role in this fight." Richard lectured.
"If you say so." The Warlock told him. Harry smirked darkly; the warlock knew that he was attempting to change Destiny but he didn't seem to associate that with the risk it entailed. Demons didn't have souls, it didn't matter to Destiny when they died as long as it didn't interrupt somebody else's Destiny. Unfortunately, Harry realised after listening to his instinct for a few seconds, this Warlock had a purpose later in life. "Where are they?" The Warlock continued.
"Tru decided to stay home for the day with her mother." Richard told the Warlock. "You should be able to find them both at her house. Now go, I need to start packing."
The Warlock vanished with another sharp crack and Harry followed seamlessly arriving far sooner than the Warlock with his limited powers. "You again?" The familiar voice of Elisa Davies spoke to him.
He gave the slightly shorter woman a small smile. "It's time, Elisa." He spoke quietly.
She frowned at him but seemed to accept her fate, she turned to a sixteen year old sitting at the counter drinking a soda who was listening to the one sided conversation with a strange look on her face. She had brown hair and dark eyes that seemed to see and accept so much. She didn't look confused at her mother's insane actions but more amused. "Tru, get out of here. Go pick up your brother and sister."
"It won't matter where she is, her Destiny lies is intertwined with your own here today." Harry told her as Tru argued her presence.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Mom, who are you talking to?" Tru asked with a frown.
"That's a good point!" Elisa seemed to realise. "Who in the hell are you?"
Harry bowed ever so slightly before looking down at her with a kind look. "I am Death."
"Death?" She seemed shocked.
"You are wasting your chance to talk to Tru one last time." Harry told her sadly. "I'd suggest you use it."
She went pale as she finally realised what was coming. She dashed over to Tru and grabbed her in a hug. "I'm so sorry, Tru. It can't be helped." She kissed the sixteen year old on the forehead before turning back to Harry who the girl still couldn't see. "Who was the 'her' I was supposed to save?"
"Not you, Elisa." Harry said simply. "It was a message to prompt me and the 'her' is Tru."
"She's supposed to die?" Elisa whispered in horror.
"She is not on my List." Harry told her bluntly. The Warlock should arrive any second now. As if on cue there was another sharp crack and the Warlock appeared in the middle of the kitchen. He didn't seem to be bothered with taunts like Voldemort had always done and he fired a sharp spear of magic across the room. It hit Elisa like a bullet throwing her backwards into the counter before she slopped onto the floor.
Harry glanced sideways to see her soul standing next to her with a shocked look. "Wait here." Harry told her before he was suddenly on the other side of the room standing beside Tru and facing the Warlock who was smirking at the girl as she cringed against a counter.
The Warlock came up short as Harry became visible to all. Harry knelt to the side and grabbed Tru's hand. She looked up into his eyes and seemed to gain courage from his very presence. He leant closer to her and whispered in her ear. "Never cringe away from Destiny, Tru. You are truly the Ripple of Fate and no Echo will stop you from doing what it is your Destiny to do." He pulled her to her feet and turned to face the Warlock.
"Who are you?" The Warlock spat as a glimmering shard of magic appeared on his palm.
"You should know what I am." Harry said simply.
"Death is supposed to be neutral!" The Warlock spat before throwing the dart. Harry had to suppress his instinct to dodge and allowed the shot to impact right over his heart. It fizzled out with a small puff of smoke and the Warlock charged another.
"You can't harm me, Warlock. It isn't this ones time to pass on, neither should it be yours but I will take your life if you do not leave now and not return." Harry reminded the Warlock as he reached out and snuffed out the magic in his hand.
"Death isn't supposed to take sides!" The warlock stuck to his argument.
"I am not taking sides but Destiny has noted this ones life. You are well aware of the consequences for both Good and Evil if the Ripple of Fate is destroyed. The balance would be irreparably damaged." Harry told him. "Leave."
"I have orders to kill her." The warlock glared at him though he seemed to realise his mission was over.
"He is already gone." Harry told him and held the Warlocks gaze until he vanished with another crack as he Blinked out of the house. Harry turned to the girl behind her and met her tear filled gaze. "Forget about Demons and Death. Live for yourself until the time comes." Harry's words held power and it was almost as if her memories of the events were changed. It wasn't an active power but Harry knew that his very words helped people cope with situations like this and that in this case the best thing for Tru was to think her mother had died of natural causes.
Harry prepared to leave as Tru ran to her mother's side, the murder of her mother finally catching up to her. Harry gave them one last saddened look before transporting away to the Ghostly Plain thinking to himself that this wouldn't be the last time her was involved with the girl.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
End Chapter