XII. | 'O vigilant heart, take heed...'

Hector had been relieved to have Bohwanox help him find his way home again. The reaper knew exactly where Cedar Street was and had no trouble guiding him toward more familiar surroundings before flying off. He'd worried that Bohwanox would have trouble finding Colt again, but the reaper did not seem to share his concern.

Lying in bed, Hector awoke to Garovel floating over him.

'Best wake now,' the reaper said. 'People will start to wonder where you are if you miss more school again.'

He rolled over. His body felt like a sack of bricks. "It's the weekend..."

'Not anymore. You've been sleeping for four days.'

"Ugh... of course I have..."

'I only slept for two. You're a wuss.'

He eyed the reaper incredulously and shook his head. "So you're all recovered, I take it?"

'For the most part. C'mon, get up.'

He groaned and sat over the side of his bed. "I feel fucking terrible..." As usual, everything hurt, his chest most of all. It had a kind of burning ache to it that made him regret each breath he took. "Agh, Garovel... why...?" He gave a laughing whimper. "This sucks so bad..."

'I know. I managed to mitigate some of it while you slept, but the next few days'll be pretty rough.'

"I regret everything..."

'No one likes a whiner.'

"I especially regret saving you..."

'Right back at you, Hector. Right back at you.'

His laugh broke off into a grimacing smile. "Please...! Don't make me laugh...!"

'Sorry.'

He slowly dressed himself and half-stepped his way down stairs with wooden legs. He found his father in the dining room, overseeing a coffee and newspaper.

By appearance alone, Samuel Goffe was certainly Hector's father. They shared their slender builds, their thin noses, their prominent brows, and their slightly darker skin tones. About the only things Hector took from his mother were her eyes and hair, but as he kept his head shaved, that left only the prior.

"Morning, son."

"Morning..."

Hector made himself a bowl of cereal. And a bowl of oatmeal. He grabbed a chocolate muffin as well. Then a banana. A glass of milk, too. Some strawberry yogurt. Peanut butter on toast. And a couple waffles for good measure. He sat down across from his father.

As he ate, he kept expecting his father to bring up the subject of his school attendance, but the man seemed content for them to sit in silence. Hector could see the coffee mug shaking as his father sipped from it.

Garovel floated around the table. 'Maybe you should ask him something.'

'Like what?'

'I don't know. How his day is going? Say anything.'

'No...'

'Why not?'

'Just... no...'

The reaper made a face but didn't press further.

His father finished his coffee and moved to the living room to watch the morning news. Hector devoured the rest of his breakfast, climbed back upstairs, brushed his teeth, grabbed his bag, and shambled off to the bus stop.

Garovel was not prepared to let the topic of Hector's father go, however. 'I know you don't have the warmest relationship with your parents, but even still. You could have at least attempted a conversation with him.'

'There was no point,' he said. 'Dad's having a bad day...'

The skeleton raised an eyebrow. 'What do you mean?'

'My dad takes medication,' said Hector. 'Sometimes, he has... bad days... and... I mean, even normally, he's not very... um... talkative. But... he likes to be alone on his bad days...'

'Hmm. What kind of medication?'

'Eh... honestly, I'm not sure...'

'What?'

'My parents have always kinda... hid it from me... I think Dad's embarrassed by it. And Mom just... I don't know...'

'How could you tell he was having a bad day, then?'

'He was home when he should have been at work, for one thing. And... I could see the tremors... in his hands. They were weak, but...'

'Ah.' Garovel paused. 'Y'know, I could follow him around and probably figure it out, if you want.'

Hector's eyes widened, and he shook his head. 'N-no, that's... please don't do that...'

'Why not? You'd rather not know?'

'I just... That's, um... My parents are very private people. My dad even more so than my mom. I don't... wanna... do that to him... I mean, he doesn't want me to know, so...'

The reaper shrugged. 'If you say so. Personally, I think it'd be better to know, but it's your family.'

On the bus, Hector took the seat behind the driver and stared out the window. Garovel floated right outside.

'So do you, um... do you really not know what Geoffrey is? Bohwanox thought you might have some idea.'

'I wish I did,' he said. 'But that creature... I've never seen anything like it. It was just so...'

'So, what?'

'Wrong.'

'How do you mean...? Like, his aura was really fucked up or something?'

'Essentially, yeah. But it didn't seem like a human soul that had become corrupted somehow. It seemed completely inhuman to begin with.'

'Hmm...'

'Pure evil doesn't exist,' said Garovel. 'People can only be evil insofar as making evil decisions--possessing an intent to harm or cause suffering. Evil actions. Even people who do evil things purely for the sake of amusement are still human. They're twisted, sure. They have evil tendencies, but they still aren't MADE of evil. But... Geoffrey's aura... I can't think of any other way to describe it. It was like an evil consciousness.'

Hector raised an eyebrow. 'So... you're saying Geoffrey is pure evil?'

'No! I'm saying he's NOT! Because there's no such thing!'

'So why'd you bring it up then?! You're making it confusing!'

'Because it IS confusing! I don't know what he is yet! And seeing the way he acted, it's easy to feel like he's evil incarnate or some shit!'

Hector sighed. 'Whatever... You're not making any sense...'

'Tch. I need to find out more.'

Hector looked at the reaper heavily. 'You're not going anywhere without me. It's way too dangerous with him out there.'

'Oh, please. The odds of me randomly encountering Geoffrey are ridiculously low. And even if I did, I'd just outrun him.'

'You don't know that,' said Hector. 'If you don't even know what Geoffrey is, then you definitely don't know what he's capable of... I mean, he could still have abilities we didn't see before...'

'Hector, I've been doing this a long time. I can handle myself.'

'You're not going anywhere without me,' he repeated.

Garovel lowered his brow. 'You're being very unreasonable today.'

'I don't care... You're not gonna go out and get killed while I'm sitting through a fucking biology lesson...'

'You do realize that you are the servant in this relationship, right? I don't have to listen to you. I could put you to sleep and fly to the other side of the planet, if I wanted.'

Hector just glared at him.

'Ugh. Fine. I won't wander off, for the time being. But I will need to venture out on my own again sooner or later. You're going to have to trust that I know what I'm doing, eventually.'

The bus squealed to a stop in front of the school, and Hector exited.

'Tell me how to kill Geoffrey,' he said as he walked. 'You said we weren't prepared for that fight before. So... prepare me.'

The reaper floated ahead of him. 'You're already resolved to kill him?'

'It's him or you, isn't it? That's not a hard choice. I... I would've done it before, if I could've...'

'Him or US, Hector.'

'R-right...'

'Well. In order to hurt Geoffrey, you have to be able to break the red shadow that protects him.'

'Okay...'

'The reason it seemed like an impervious shield was because your attacks were only physical, whereas the shadow was both physical and mental. That shadow is something real and imaginary at the same time, which is why it seemed to constantly disappear and reappear.'

'Imaginary? But if it's imaginary... then...'

'How can it exist? Because reality is relative. Take me, for instance. I'm imaginary. All reapers are. Relative to our servants, and apparently Geoffrey, we exist. But relative to the rest of the world, we don't.'

'But... the powers you grant me are definitely real...'

'Those powers are the result of a marriage between something real and something imaginary. It's the same for Geoffrey's shield.'

'I think I get it... maybe...'

'So, in order to fight it, you have to add a mental--or imaginary--side to your attacks.'

'And how do I do that?'

'Oh, it's not that difficult. Because your body has already had its soul "hollowed" out, so to speak, you'll be able to gain a stronger sense of your own presence and even begin to manipulate your soul in different ways. You'll be able to get the basics down fairly quickly. It's only when you want to become genuinely proficient that things go less smoothly, but we won't be worrying about that too much yet. For now, we'll mainly focus on trying to grow your materialization ability. I expect that'll be more immediately useful.'

'Hmm.'

'By the way, in the interest of full disclosure, there are actually two ways that your metal power can grow.'

'Oh?'

'The first is meditative training, just like you've already been doing. It takes a while, but it's the more reliable of the two.'

'The other way is faster?'

'Very much so, yeah. The second method is to throw yourself into an incredibly dangerous situation, almost get us both killed, and hope that the desperation and rush of adrenaline are enough to force a breakthrough.'

'What the fuck? That sounds...'

'Reckless and stupid? Yeah. We won't be attempting that one. The almost-getting-killed part is a dealbreaker for me.'

'Huh. Okay... But, um... about this soul power or whatever. When should I, uh... start working on that?'

'We'll get to--'

"Hector? You okay?"

Finally reaching his locker, he turned and saw Micah standing there. "Uh... hi. I'm--I'm fine. Why?"

"Well, it's just, you're walking like you're half-dead or something."

"Ha... that's, um... yeah..."

"Did something happen to you?"

'Shit, what do I say?'

'Uh... You fell down the stairs!'

'That's stupid!'

'Just say it!'

"I fell down the stairs!" he blurted.

"Holy crap, seriously?!" Micah came closer, sizing him up and down. "Is that why you've been missing school? Did you break anything? Did you go to the hospital?"

"N-no... I'm okay. Just some... really bad bruising..."

"Wow, dude. Need me to carry your bag for you?"

He tightened his grip on the straps. "Th-that's alright... I'd rather hold onto it."

"Alright, well... come sit with us again at lunch, okay? We were worried when you didn't show up to school the past couple days. Sheryl thought she might've scared you off or something."

"Ah... yeah, okay..."

They walked to class together, and Hector was glad when he could sink into his chair in the corner of the room and just listen to the teacher talk. It was difficult to understand, having fallen so far behind on his homework, but he welcomed the comfortable normality of it. And the chair. Not having to walk anymore was amazing. He rubbed his chest and closed his eyes, trying not to groan.

'By the way,' said Garovel, 'are you feeling alright? In your head, that is. Not your body.'

Hector threw him a look. 'Excuse me...?'

'You're not feeling light-headed or disoriented at all? No inexplicable confusion or anything?'

'No... why?'

'No reason.'

'Garovel...'

The reaper hesitated. 'When I'm close to death, it will begin to affect you. Your consciousness will begin to... well... tear itself from your body. Perhaps even destroying itself in the process.'

'Ah... and disorientation is a warning sign?'

'Yeah. I suppose I wasn't as wounded as I thought. You'd be feeling some lingering effects, if I was.'

Hector struggled through the day. He wished there wasn't so much damn walking. A few times, he considered skipping class to go take a nap somewhere, but he knew Garovel wouldn't permit it. He tried to pay attention to each lecture, but he felt like he had missed more than a few things.

History class was the worst yet. Mr. Cormac was talking about the rise of workers' unions, and people kept raising their hands to ask questions about the royal family. Hector stopped trying to follow what was going on and just shut his eyes.

Garovel, however, did not. 'Something's strange here...'

'Hmm?'

'Raise your hand and ask why everyone is suddenly so interested in the Crown.'

'What? Why?'

'Because I want to know.'

'But... I don't like to... participate...'

'I don't care. You can be a shy bastard on your own time.'

He sighed and raised his hand.

Mr. Cormac stared at the hand a moment, about ready to lose his patience. "Yes, Hector?"

"Uh... sorry, I was just wondering... why... everyone else was asking about the royal family..."

A few laughs rang out, and the entire classroom turned to look at him.

His knuckles went white around the edges of his desk. 'Oh, fuck. What did you make me do...?'

"You're joking, right?" someone said.

"He really doesn't know?" said someone else.

He tried to melt into his seat. "D-did... did something happen...?"

"I know you've been absent," said Mr. Cormac, "but you didn't hear about it on the news or from your parents or anything?"

"H-hear what...?"

"Three days ago, someone tried to assassinate the Queen."

Hector and Garovel exchanged confused expressions.