The Girl On Victoria Road

By Sean Cummings

After saving the humanity from a psychopathic angel bent on hastening the end of days, Tim Reaper can be forgiven for hitting the bottle hard. It’s not every day that a former grim reaper gets to fall in love for the very first time only to have to kill the girl he’s fallen for or let the world burn. It’s five months since Reaper had to make that impossible choice.

Meanwhile, in North End Dartmouth, a mother has been stabbed to death in her bed and the only witness is an eight-year-old girl with a peculiar gift. She knows the truth of all things and has taken to writing the base code of the universe on her bedroom wall. She possesses knowledge no human being was ever meant to have and that means she’s got a target on her back. Angels, demons, and everything in-between want the girl dead and her only hope of survival rests with Tim Reaper who must keep her alive long enough to meet with someone Reaper calls, The Man with the Big White Beard.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sean Cummings
• Release date: Sep 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9780995844100

Sean Cummings

Sean Cummings' published works rage from traditional urban fantasy (Shade Fright, Funeral Pallor) to a blend of dark fantasy and superheroes. (Marshall Conrad: A Superhero Tale) He is a veteran, and he lives in Saskatchewan Canada with his wife, two big dogs and one cranky old cat.

Book preview

The Girl on Victoria Road

The Second Tim Reaper Novel

Sean Cummings

Back Alley Books

Copyright © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Original Edition © 2017

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 13 978-0-9958441-0-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309

Printed in the United States of America

For Cheryl.

Chapter 1

Detective Sergeant Carol Sparks wasn’t yelling at me, which is always a good thing, though it's a rare event. Of course, I hadn’t opened my mouth yet.I rubbed at my eyes with the heel of my left hand as I sat up in my bed. The clock on my smart phone said it was 1:40 AM, on the floor next to my nightstand, was an empty whiskey bottle and an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts.

I reached for my package of Player’s shit ends and lit another.

My back was killing me and I groaned as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. The used mattress I’d bought at the Sally-Ann for twenty bucks felt like it had been stuffed with rocks and a current of pain shot up my spine as I put Sparks on speakerphone.

Yeah, Sparks … what is it? I said through a phlegm-filled cough. My head felt like it was filled with lead.

Oh, did I wake you, Reaper? she replied with a flicker of sarcasm in her voice. Or a twinge of anger – it’s hard to tell with her sometimes. "I’m so sorry to disturb you what with your having exposed me to psychopathic angels, passive-aggressive demons, and a front row seat to my birth and death. I’d let you sleep, but you know … you owe me."

Yeah … she was pissed at me. I rule.

I reached to the nightstand and grabbed a half-empty bottle of Golden Wedding Rye Whiskey. I gave it a little shake and then grimaced as I gulped back a mouthful. Yes, Sparks, I owe you. I’d have thought that forty-ouncer I bought you made us square but apparently not.

Not even close. she snapped. Are you drunk again? I told you to lay off the booze. If I have to come over there, I’m going stick my boot so far up your ass you’re going to be able to taste the polish.

I might have been drunk – or maybe I’d forgotten what sober felt like over the past few weeks. I’d stopped drinking when I passed out watching a hockey game on TV – that was more than five hours ago. No worries, a few good slugs of rye would take the edge off the guilt I’d been experiencing – a new feeling for me, I might add. It didn’t matter that I’d recently prevented an all-out war in the heavens thanks to a delusional angel named Jael who’d been killing some of the Supreme Being’s senior management. More than five months had passed since the day I ended the life of an innocent young woman named Amy Curtis whose only crime was hooking up with yours truly.

Me.

She died because of me.

And there was little comfort in the fact that Amy was possessed by the aforementioned angelic sociopath when I unleashed Holy power, killing every living thing on the land and in the sea within a square mile of that windswept beach. It didn’t make me feel any less guilty about the choice I was forced to make. A choice the Almighty, in His infinite wisdom, had decided was all about my becoming human.

And I’m not human. In truth, I don’t know what the hell I am and there are times when I wish that I’d rejoined my death-dealing associates in the blissful, guilt-free existence of claiming souls.

Except they’re all assholes and they tried to kill me so that wouldn’t work.

I sloshed back another mouthful of rye and said, No, Sparks, I’m not drunk … yet. It’s nearly two in the morning and I’m not being carted away in handcuffs, so I’m going to assume you’re deeply concerned about my welfare. You know, you could have just sent a card … or a pizza.

I could hear her teeth grinding together.

All right, you know what? I’m the only friend you’ve got so just shut the hell up and listen, she snarled into the phone. I’m across the bridge from you in North-End Dartmouth.

Good for you, I gloated. If you’re going to Bedford, don’t bother cutting through Halifax – that’s the long route. Also, you know, wear a stab vest or something. You’re in a shitty part of town.

She exhaled heavily and said, Damn it, Reaper … I need your help. I’m at a murder scene so get your ass in gear and head over here. There’s something you need to see because I don’t have a clue what the hell it means.

     I arched my eyebrows. What kind of something?

    It’s the kind of something that’s beyond anyone’s pay grade at the Halifax Police Department. Look, what I see it’s … just bizarre. I’ve got the body of a woman – stabbed to death in her bed while she slept, it looks like.

 That sounds messy … it also sounds like a pretty straightforward murder to me. It’s probably the ex-husband or boyfriend. Find the guy and bring him in.

    And under normal circumstances, we’d be knocking on his door, but we’ve got to start canvassing the neighbourhood to see if anyone knows anything. We found a little girl hiding in the broom closet. She’s eight, and I think she’s the victim’s daughter but—

   A little girl killed her mother? I interrupted. That’s messed up, Sparks.

     She’d be covered in blood if she’d done it and she’s not. If anything, she’s catatonic, and we can’t get her to utter a peep, Sparks answered. I don’t think the killer knew the little girl was home otherwise we’d be dealing with two murders instead of one.

   I took a deep haul on my cigarette and coughed heavily into both hands. So, get a social worker or something, maybe they could get her lips flapping. Then ask her if she can ID the perp. After that, get her a shrink to deal with the trauma, I said, a little too impatiently for Spark’s liking. You don’t need my help for this.

    I could have sworn I heard a low rumble in Spark’s voice. She can’t talk, damn it. She can barely even move.

    Can’t or won’t?

Stop being an ignorant twat, Reaper. We had to carry her out of the broom closet – she’s catatonic.

Then call a shrink – you don’t need me for—

Listen, you supreme asshole. Six months ago, you’d have been begging for work from anyone willing to pay, and now you’re some kind of a pathetic shut-in. I know you’re hurting over what happened to Amy...

Don’t go there, Sparks, I warned in a voice that could freeze a bucket of water in about two seconds flat. I dug my fingers into my whiskey bottle. "You don’t know anything about me or how I feel."

I know you’ve probably felt nothing in your entire … whatever the hell it is that your kind calls a life, she shot back. "That’s why you’re messed up right now. And if you needed someone to hold your hand and help you through whatever it is your dealing with, I’ve always been a phone call away, and you never called me. Not once. And by the way, you think you’re screwed up? Hello … I met the Archangel Gabriel you freaking dolt; there are not enough pharmaceuticals in a Costco warehouse to deal with that kind of shit so get a grip on yourself! I’m hanging up, and then I’m going to text you a picture. When you see it, I’ll be at 228 Victoria Road – bring me a coffee while you’re at it. If you’re too hung over to drive, take a cab. Goodbye."

Well, she certainly told me off.

Okay, so yeah, Sparks did wind up on the receiving end of a shit storm of supernatural weirdness in the past few months. She’d been exposed to elemental beings that Sunday morning evangelicals on the TV claim surround us every day. (I hate those guys. I can’t stand that a bunch of trailer trash preachers with hillbilly accents know the truth of things when big-brained theologians talk about religious symbolism and ancient Aramaic scripture.)

The truth is that all those hot-gospelling preachers are bang on. An age-old battle for the souls of men exists. A war pitting demons against angels and in some cases, angels against their order. That’s when Sparks first learned the truth of life as we know it and worse, the truth of me because I’m not an angel and I’m not a demon. I’m somewhere in between because Reapers are basically celestial janitors in the great big public works project known as mortality. I’m death itself, and I live among humans because I did a very bad thing that got me thrown out of the death-dealers club more than a century ago.

I’ve led a fairly sketchy existence since then, imparting my essence into the newly deceased and using those bodies until they became too damaged to continue, (read: shot to pieces, burned, blasted or buried, you choose) and then hopping into another one after that. My latest body is that of an investment banker named Scott Richter and up until Amy Curtis came into my life, I didn’t worry too much about human affairs. But I fell in love with the girl, and she died because of me. I’d been set up by the guy with the Big White Beard. He gave me an impossible choice – kill a girl I’d fallen for or let her live and watch all of humanity burn.

The creator of all things has a sick sense of humour, by the way.

I grunted as I stubbed my cigarette into the ashtray. Then I grabbed another cigarette from the nightstand and lit it with my Zippo. I took a deep haul and stared at my phone as I waited for the text from Sparks. After about two minutes of silence, my phone vibrated, and I brushed my thumb over the text message icon. The screen flickered and then a picture of a bedroom showing a tidy child’s bed covered with a My Little Pony bedspread appeared on my screen. A small stack of books was piled neatly on a night table but what grabbed my attention was the wall next to her bed.

I was half-expecting to see a powder-pink mural filled with unicorns farting rainbows and a few posters of whatever incarnation of Barbie was currently on the kid’s hot-list. Instead, the wall was plastered with what at first glance appeared to be graffiti of some kind. I blew up the picture to enhance the image and did a double take because I could have sworn I was looking at a calculus formula.

What the hell?

Symbols the likes of which I’d never encountered were mixed in with powers and indices, Greek letters and integrals. Seemingly endless strings of continued fractions and operators radiated out, each written using what appeared to be a thick black felt marker. There was even symbols and formula written on the stippled ceiling.

Math? I whispered.

Chapter 2

I missed my old Ford pickup truck, but I had to ditch it after my previous host was destroyed by one of Jael’s button men – an angel named Sariel. There was also the matter of having been set up for the murder of a priest, so, yeah, switching bodies can save your bacon nine times out of ten.

Scott Richter did have a bit of money squirrelled away – as in nearly six hundred thousand bucks in investments. Unfortunately, I don’t know any of his account numbers let alone his PIN, so I’m poor again. Go me. I would have loved to have splurged and bought myself a gorgeous condominium overlooking the Bedford Basin and a beautiful automobile like a Ferrari or even a Bentley. Instead, I bought used Ford Explorer for about three grand on his credit card because I’m not one for drawing attention to myself. It ran for about three weeks before the engine seized so I bought a beater for five hundred bucks. It’s an old Ford Tempo, and I hate it.  

I had to find a new place to live – I abandoned my old flat in Uniacke Square furniture and all. Now I reside in a furnished two-bedroom basement flat on Chebucto Road, about ten minutes from the old bridge over the harbour and in a thoroughly respectable neighbourhood.

We’ll see how long that lasts.

My landlord is a kindly old bird named Mrs. Gillings. She's an octogenarian now, but I happen to know she’ll be sticking around until she’s 103 years old at which time she’s going to pass away in her sleep at 3:13 AM on February 6th to be precise. Frankly, that’s the best way to go. The souls of the departed are always docile instead of kicking and screaming about the fact they’re no longer alive or worse, heading for a first-class trip to eternal damnation. She makes steak and kidney pies for me, and something called salt cod and pork scraps which are quite possibly to most vile tasting dish I’ve ever consumed. I rake the leaves and tend to her property the best way I can and my rent here is only five hundred bucks a month. I always slip in an extra $100 and then insist that she take it for the power and oil for the furnace.

What’s this? Is Tim Reaper going soft? Not really, I just think it’s wrong that I’m likely the old lady’s only company these days since her no-good children live across the country and her husband has been dead going on twenty years now.

I threw on a pair of cargo pants and grabbed a clean sweatshirt as I headed to the bathroom. After liberally applying roll on to my armpits, I pulled at the bags under my eyes with two fingers and stuck out my tongue as I looked in the mirror. The face staring back at me looked like it had been dragged behind a truck for five city blocks. My host’s blonde hair hung limply over my ears, and my eyes were bloodshot to the point where you couldn’t make out the whites anymore. Four days’ worth of stubble on my chin gave me a wino’s complexion; my teeth felt like they had fur growing on them.

Classy, Reaper, I grumbled. You’re a bag of shit, did you know that?

I could have hopped in the shower, but there was an urgency to Spark’s voice that told me to haul ass over to the crime scene. I brushed my teeth, scrubbed my face the best I could and splashed enough water into my hair to run a comb through it. Then I grabbed a bottle of Visine from the medicine cabinet and emptied its contents into both eyes.

Fresh as a daisy, I said quietly as I eyeballed by shoulder holsters hanging next to my trench coat. I didn’t have a license to carry a concealed weapon, and I was heading to a crime scene that was swimming with cops. Detectives who’d probably want to know how the name RICHTER managed to make its way onto the wall of a child’s bedroom not to mention the irony of it being my host’s last name as well.

Whatever. I never go anywhere unarmed. Bad guys try to kill me far too often, thank you very much.

In minutes, I was cruising across the MacDonald Bridge and heading to North End Dartmouth. I’d grabbed a couple of coffees from a convenience store and a fresh pack of smokes. Like all convenience store coffee, the black liquid in my paper cup tasted like concentrated roofing tar, but it had enough of a kick to it that I got a sharp jolt just in time to stop at the toll booth on the Dartmouth end of the bridge. A morbidly obese man wearing a powder blue uniform shirt with the badge of the Metro Bridge Commission on each shoulder took one look at me and threw me grimaced as I handed him a five-dollar bill.

You look like shit, Mister, he said, handing me five bucks worth of bridge tokens.

I deposited a token into the toll and gave her a quick once-over. You should probably mark November 21st on your calendar. I think it’s going to be a bad day for you.

What are you talking about? he said, startled.

Nothing, I yapped. I look like shit, remember?

The barrier swung up, and I tromped on the gas pedal, leaving the toll booth guy in a haze of blue smoke. I lit a cigarette as I drove up Nantucket and then swung left on Victoria Road. I didn’t have to go very far because no sooner had I turned out of the intersection when my eyes were blinded by flashing blue lights that lit up the darkness about a block and a half in front of me. I managed to pull the Tempo in behind a florist’s van, and I hopped out, coffees in hand and a cigarette dangling out of the corner of my mouth. I padded over to a uniformed officer monitoring the police line and took a sip of my coffee.

Go home, sir. The area is cordoned off, he said.

I kind of figured that when I saw the yellow tape. I’m looking for Detective Sergeant Carol Sparks. She’s expecting me. I held up the coffee and gave it a little shake for effect.

He gave me a once over as he reached for his radio handset. Marie, it’s Steve. I got some guy here who wants to see Sparks. She around?

The radio hissed, and a woman’s voice thick with an eastern shore accent spilled through the speaker. I’ll get her, stand by.

I lit up a cigarette and drew in a deep haul as I eyeballed the officer. He looked to be in his early thirties and good shape. I glanced at his nametag and said, Officer Carter, huh? Have you been inside the crime scene?

He nodded, and I noticed some of the colour had drained from his face. I was first on the scene. A right bloody mess in there. And that poor little girl. She’ll be damaged goods for the rest of her life.

You got kids, Carter? I asked as I glimpsed into his future. I saw an EKG along with an ultrasound of an enlarged heart. A small flash into the future again and I saw him lying in a hospital bed completely flat lined.

Yeah, I got a little boy, he said with a note of pride in his voice. He’s three. My wife’s expecting, and she’s due in about two months.

I gave him a very serious look. The kind of look a doctor gives you when they’re about to drop a terminal cancer diagnosis on your sorry ass. Carter. When I meet some folks for the first time, I get a bad feeling, and I can sometimes see people’s futures.

He snorted. Loudly. Pfffft … did Sparks hire a psychic? Are you a psychic or something? That’s all bullshit.

I nodded sharply as I saw Sparks heading down the darkened front path. She threw me a small wave and then lifted the yellow police tape. The last name’s Richter, I said, taking on a tone of ominous dread. It’s your heart. See your doctor today. You have been warned.

Maybe it was the tone of my voice or the empty look in my half-drunken eyes that got the officer’s attention, but he gulped. Audibly.

I-I will, he stammered. Go on ahead, sir.

I took another haul on my cigarette. Sir, huh? Not bad … I kind of like the sounds of that. See you around, Carter. Maybe.

If you’re new to my story or you hadn’t figured it out by now, I’m a grim reaper. Or I used to be until I did a very bad thing about a hundred years ago, again, Google Spanish Flu Epidemic. And again, again, that was me. I’m death incarnate; I’m just wearing human skin Why am I not out claiming souls? Simple … I got kicked out of my order and for the past century, I’ve been wearing other people’s bodies and I’ve done everything from fighting fascists during the Spanish Civil War to slapping on the hockey skates and laying a beat down on all comers for a Stanley Cup winning team back in the 1970’s.

I’d just given Constable Carter a huge head’s up. With a little luck, he’d see his doctor ASAP, get his ticker fixed and then he’d owe me a solid. For the time being, I was going to have to work with Detective Sergeant Carol Sparks again, and I hoped for both our sakes the reason she’d called me to the house would turn out to be something as simple as a murdered mother whose only child is really great at Stephen Hawking-level physics.

And