Mason walked down the street at a steady gait, mind whirling as he reviewed the events of the last day and a half. He was still wondering how his cousin had managed to rope Mason into helping him. The reaper wasn't the knight-in-shining-armor type, though it would seem that Jexter was that type. Mason shook his head in wonder every time he thought it. His cousin had grown up a lot in the nearly four decades since Mason had died. The reaper had no idea how it had happened; he and Jexter had yet to spend much time talking and reminiscing. They'd split up the previous evening to quicken the search for the perpetrator. Mason checked shops that sold ingredients the thief would need to perform his chaos ritual and stopped in a few demon bars to see if anyone had heard or sensed anything, and Jexter did the same.

Their efforts weren't entirely fruitless. They were able to gather that something was 'going down', but no one they talked to knew who was responsible or where to find them. Tired, the two wizards had put a halt to the search early in the morning and resolved to continue the next day. There were only a few more places to look. Jexter had a good feeling about them and was certain they would deliver answers.

Mason had gotten in five hours of sleep before getting up again and heading to Der Waffle Haus for his assignment. He felt exhausted and took a few pills to help him stay awake. That and he was feeling a slight withdrawal after staying drug and substance-free for the better part of a day, but that was really thanks to the Sobriety Charm than anything else. It took three days for the charm to wear off, and during those three days it was nearly impossible to get stoned or shit-faced drunk.

Mason thought over everything Jexter had said they could expect from the chaos ritual. Mass hysteria was one; complete and total disorder everywhere was another; lots of people dying was another factor, but that was a given. The ritual could be performed at any time in the next few days, and thankfully it would be possible to stop it once it had been started.

He glanced around as he crossed the street a block away from the restaurant. Everything looked normal. The streetlights still worked and no one was acting strangely, from all appearances.

He didn't realize what was happening until after it had happened. As he walked across the mouth of the alley next to the Der Waffle Haus, something sharp locked onto his arm. It sunk through the leather material of his jacket and cut into the flesh of his arm with ease.

The pain was both unexpected and intense. Mason screamed even as whatever was clamped on his arm gave one great jerk, forcing the reaper to surge forward into the alley or lose an arm.

Mason blacked out for a moment. When he regained consciousness, he was lying in the middle of the alley. It took him a moment for his pain-clouded brain to realize what had happened, and when he did he sat bolt upright, staring about him in abject fear. Circling around him, snarling and gnashing their teeth at random moments, were three full-sized dog-like creatures. He recognized them as crups, creatures that, despite their likeness to Jack Russell terriers, were anything but. Their eyes seemed to blaze, and their forked tails wagged in anticipation of the feast: him.

Mason had known many crups in his life, but none of them had been this�wild. Not to wizards or witches, at any rate. Did he have a different scent now that he was undead, one powerful enough for them to mistaken him as a Muggle, whom he had heard crups couldn't stand? What they were doing there, in that alley, was another mystery, but any questions would have to be put aside until he'd figured a way out of this situation without his body being torn up and divided among the crups' stomachs.

As Mason continued to panic, he wondered why they hadn't gone in for the kill. A second later, he had his answer. A growl announced the arrival of a fourth crup. The other creatures made way for their pack leader and Mason found himself staring less than three feet away into the leader's eyes.

He saw it in the dog's eyes, the decision to pounce. Only one thought flashed through Mason's mind, Fuck!

Without thought, he jerked his wand out of his jacket, ripping the pocket and almost snapping the wand in half in the process, not that he noticed. The crup jumped straight at him, jaw opened wide.

A spell flew from Mason's wand tip, impacting almost immediately with the creature's chest. The crup let out a yelp before it dropped onto the cobblestones, landing with a thud on its side. The stupefied creature's eyes were opened in surprise, and drool dribbled off its tongue.

Mason blinked as he realized what he'd done. Unfortunately, the pause gave the other crups enough time to process what had occurred. With howls of rage, they leapt forward.

"Oh, crap! Impedimenta!" Mason yelped, shielding his face from both the crups' claws and the brilliant flash of the spell. The dogs yelped as they bounced off of the temporary force field Mason had erected above him. Two of the dogs landed on the pavement several feet away, but the third hit the far well of the alley and fell to the ground where it lay, deadly still.

As the other two lay dazed, Mason got to his feet, mind furiously reviewing every spell he'd every learned. As one of the crups recovered and charged at him, Mason yelled, "Canis Exumai!"

The spell knocked the creature all the way to the far wall of the alley. It whimpered as it slid down the wall, colliding with several trashcans before it reached the ground.

The remaining crup growled at him. It hesitated a moment before charging him. Mason used the same spell on him, and the dog joined his buddies against the wall.

The alley was sudden very silent and still. Mason was frozen in place, staring down at the unconscious or dead dogs. He was nearly panting. He wasn't surprised in the least when he jumped at the unexpected shout behind him.

Rube demanded, "You mind telling me what the fuck is going on?"

"Jexter. Who is behind all this?" Mason asked, glaring now.

Jexter grimaced. "Ethan," he answered quietly. "My son."

Mason's jaw dropped. He remembered Ethan Rayne. He remembered the slightly overweight six-year-old Squib with a penchant for getting into as much trouble as his little body could muster. Even at such a young age, he'd been a rebellious little tyke, and it would seem he never outgrew his disposition toward wrongdoing.

Jexter fidgeted and refused to meet Mason's gaze. Shame flushed his cheeks a deep red. He regarded the heap of crups. "Ethan must have begun the ritual already," he hypothesized. "Crups normally don't attack wizards, dead or alive. The ritual must be affecting animals, causing them to act bizarrely. We'll probably see the affects of the ritual in the human population soon."

"Jex." Mason lay a hand on his arm, halting the words as they spilled from his mouth. "How could your son be responsible for this?"

Jexter sighed and rubbed his eyes. He suddenly looked a lot older and more tired than he had a few minutes ago. "The same way he's always been responsible for this," he replied. "He's a Chaos Worshipper."

"Ethan?" Mason questioned. The disbelief was plainly evident in his voice. "How could Ethan be a Chaos Worshipper?"

"I've wondered that ever since I found out when he was nineteen."

"Nineteen? But that was�"

"1979. Nearly twenty-five years ago."

Mason's mouth was collecting flies. He snapped it shut and swallowed. He needed a moment to process this information. The surprises just keep coming, don't they? he thought, positively stunned. "I'm going to go get my post-it," he told Jexter matter-of-factly. He waved at the crups. "You get rid of those. I'll be back in a minute."

Without another word, Mason turned and walked out of the alley. He stopped for a moment to collect himself before pulling the door of the restaurant open and sauntering inside.

Everyone was still there. Only a few minutes had passed since he'd performed the Obliviation Charm. When he pulled up a chair and sat down, none of them looked at him like he'd grown a second head; none of them demanded explanations, either. Mason let out a relieved sigh. The charm had worked.

The bite marks had already healed thanks to his reaper metabolism, leaving caked dirt and a ruined jacket sleeve he'd forgotten to repair magically before entering Der Waffle Haus. Daisy tsked, annoyed, when he plopped his arm on the table in front of her. Other than that, though, Mason's appearance received no comment.

"You're late," Rube said without even looking at the British reaper, a sure sign that he was annoyed.

"Sorry," Mason said, scrambling for some sort of excuse. "Got caught up."

"By what? Have trouble tying your shoelaces again?" Roxy retorted with a disdainful look at him. Beside her, Daisy smirked. George, who sat across from them, smiled into her drink.

Normally, Mason took the insults in stride, but that morning he had too much on his mind to sit and put up with them. His lips pressed into a thin line as he tried to contain frustration that wasn't directed toward them. "Can I have my post-it?" Mason asked Rube as calmly as possible.

"Why?" Rube asked him. "Got somewhere to be?"

Mason bit his lip, using every bit of willpower he had to keep from bursting.

When he didn't reply, Rube only raised his eyebrows before pulling open his post-it book. He pulled off the post-its and slapped them down in front of each reaper present.

"What the-?" George began, staring down in incredulity at all five of the post-its Rube had placed in front of her. Everyone, even Rube, had as many post-its set in front of them.

Daisy checked hers. "All of these are for different locations-" she began. She glanced at Roxy's post-its. "Oh, look, we both have appointments in that park�"

"What's going to happen?" George asked, directing her question at Rube, who shrugged. Mason smiled ruefully. She should have asked him. He had little doubt that it wasn't his cousin's chaos ritual. All of these people would die in the chaos that was to come.

He glanced over his stack. The earliest one was slated to happen in the next forty minutes. "Bullocks," he said as he stood up, pocketing all of them hastily.

When he ran back into the alley, the crups were nowhere to be seen. "I banished them," Jexter explained.

"Good. Come on. I have an appointment to catch."

He grabbed Jexter's arm and hauled him after him. Jexter stared at him. "When you say appointment�"

"I mean someone's going to die, yeah," Mason said.

Jexter dug his heels into the sidewalk, causing Mason to stumble slightly before he stopped and let go of his cousin's arm. "Woah! I don't think I want to be around when you, uh, kill someone."

Mason gave him a confused look. "What are you talking about? I don't kill anyone. I'm just there to take the person's soul."

Jexter's mouth opened, closed, and opened again. "You mean�reapers don't cause the actual deaths?"

"No," Mason replied, feeling insulted. He glanced at his watch. "Now come on. I want to talk to you, but we have to be walking or I'm going to be late."

He turned and headed down the sidewalk. Jexter hurried to catch up to him. Once he was at Mason's side, he asked hesitantly, "So, what happens to a soul if a reaper's not there to collect it?"

They paused at a curb and waited for the traffic to pass, Mason fidgeting impatiently. "The soul stays in the person's body."

Jexter's brow furrowed as he tried to work out this piece of information. "Do they see what happens to their bodies after they die, then?"

Mason nodded. "Yeah. It's usually more humane to not let that happen."

They crossed the street and continued on along the sidewalk. Mason took a deep breath. "I want to know how Ethan could have become a Chaos Worshipper."

Jexter sighed. Mason glanced at him and saw him look sadly down at his feet. "I'm not sure how it happened. Like I said, I only found out about it after he turned nineteen." He smiled. "I felt for sure that it was a just a phase, a little bit of teenage rebellion. When I found out what he'd been doing, I blew up at him. It didn't go well after that. He stormed out of the house. Cheslie and I didn't see him again for months. Early the next year, though, he showed up, just out of the blue. He was a mess. He was bleeding from multiple cuts, he hadn't shaved in a week, and he hadn't bathed or changed clothes in nearly as long. He apologized for everything and wanted his old life back. We, of course, agreed."

His features turned steely. He glared ahead at nothing. "It was a ruse. All of it. He didn't want anything to do with us except my herbs."

Mason studied at him. "What d'you mean?"

"Ethan was back with us for a week. One night, Cheslie and I came back from a date to find him crouched in the living room. He was leaning over a young woman he'd tied and gagged and placed in the middle of a pentagram. He'd just been about to sacrifice her to some demon chaos lord when we'd walked in."

Silence fell for several long moments. Mason felt even more shocked than ever. "Fuck�Merlin, fuck!" He shook his head. "Shit, Jex. This whole situation is fucked up."

"Yeah. I know."

They were silent for the rest of the trip. When they finally arrived at an apartment building, Mason let out a sigh and glanced at his watch. Two minutes to go. There was no way he'd get into the building and find the right apartment before the death occurred. He'd have to wait until the dead guy or gal was wheeled out of the apartment on a gurney.

"So�now what?" Jexter asked, looking about nervously and then above as if expecting to be accosted by a Peeves-like apparition.

His cousin smirked. "Now, we wait." He explained the reasons behind this decision. Jexter's face twisted into a grimace when he realized Mason would actually have to touch the body of the dead person.

"Couldn't you stop it, since you know it's going to happen?" he asked, frustrated by the fact that he himself wasn't doing anything to stop it.

"Not a good idea." Mason explained the reasons behind that as well. "And you can't stop it, either. When a person is scheduled to die, he has to die or his soul'll rot. Trust me when I say it is not a pretty sight."

Fifteen minutes later, an ambulance pulled up in front of the building. Five minutes afterward, a cop car arrived. Twenty minutes after that, the ambulance attendants rolled a body out on a gurney. A sick look on his face, Jexter stayed on the periphery as his cousin ventured forward. Mason managed to brush his fingers over the body of R. Nathaniels before one of the cops told him to scram. He hurried back over to where Jexter waited.

"It was a dog attack," he informed his living cousin. "Looks like Ethan's spell is effecting all the dogs in town." He discarded R. Nathaniels's post-it in a trash bin and took out the next in line.

Jexter stared at the new post-it. "How many souls do you reap in a day?"

"Usually, it's just one a day," Mason replied casually. He checked the time against the ETD given on the post-it, missing completely the green tinge of Jexter's cheeks. "But Ethan's ritual is upping the stakes."

"Are�all of the souls you have to reap today victims of dog attacks?"

"Don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are."

Jexter's look turned reflective as something occurred to him. "If we could piece together where the attacks are taking place, there may be a point of convergence somewhere in the middle of the affected area�"

Mason titled his head as he considered Jexter's theory, as much as he understood it. "It could work."

"Can I see your post-its?" Jexter asked hesitantly, looking like he regretting the request. "I want to look at the addresses."

Shrugging, Mason showed them to him. Jexter memorized them before handing them back. "Right, then. I'm going to check a few places, see if anyone's lost any crups and see if their address is anywhere near those."

"Right, then I'll meet you at the hotel after I'm done," Mason said.

Jexter hurried off, eager to put as much distance between him and the business of grim reaping. Mason smiled at his cousin's behavior, then turned back around and searched the gathering crowd for the soul of R. Nathaniels. Spotting a man with nasty dog bites that had torn up his throat and half of his upper body, Mason whistled and waved for the R. Nathaniels to join him.

One of Mason's souls was a car accident victim, but the rest were prey to dog attacks. All of his reaps were isolated incidents, meaning he never met up with other reapers at the scenes of attacks. The rabid dogs ran off after they murdered their owners, no doubt searching for more victims. Mason wished his coworkers luck as he headed for the hotel, Barnub's.

Jexter let him into the room upon his knock. "Just as I'd thought. Four of them were dog attacks," he informed Jexter.

Jexter nodded firmly. He looked a little steadier than he had that morning.

He showed Mason the newly purchased map of Seattle he'd laid out on the table. He'd marked the locations of each of Mason's reaps, along with the ETD's, on the map. Each death was marked by a x. Three were in the vicinity of R. Nathaniel's apartment; the other two were a few blocks away.

"A wizard who lives here owned the crups." Jexter pointed to a place several blocks away from Der Waffle Haus, away from the small cluster of x's. "He was very annoyed when I told him that we'd killed his dogs, even demanded payment for them. Bloody pillock didn't even care that the crups were the likely cause of death of several Muggles."

"Did you pay him?" asked Mason.

Jexter scoffed. "Of course I didn't pay him. I turned tail and ran for it before he could hex me all the way back to Hogwarts."

The reaper grinned. Now that sounded more like the cousin he used to know.

Jexter pointed to the markings nearer R. Nathaniel's apartment. "Here're where the earlier deaths occurred." He slid his hand eastward to the remaining two marks. "And here are where the later deaths occurred."

"Looks like a line instead of a circle," Mason had to admit. "The spell's effect spread from the west and worked its way eastward." If they only knew where the rest of the dog attacks had occurred, they'd be able to discern where the spell's point of origin was supposed to be. That would, however, mean they'd have to get his coworkers involved, and Mason wasn't prepared to do that just yet.

"So, we've got a direction," Mason said. He traced a finger westward from the later deaths to the earlier ones. Somewhere farther west of that little cluster was the place where Ethan had performed the First Rite of the ritual.

"We've also got a tip." Jexter held up a piece of notebook paper. Two words were written on it, the phrase 'PAX PACIS'. "The bartender at the Banished Broomstick told me to go there and said we should talk to the owner. He should be able to help us."

"It's worth checking, I suppose," Mason agreed. He'd never heard of Pax Pacis. It was probably one of the demon bars, of which he'd rarely set foot in before last night.

Pax Pacis was clear on the other end of town. Mason offered to steal a car, but at the suggestion, Jexter gave him a disgruntled look and proposed that they would Apparate instead. Mason merely shrugged and agreed, amused once again at Jexter's squeamishness.

They vanished from the hotel room and reappeared outside the entrance to the bar. A voice blasted out of the speakers from inside, or they at least assumed it was a voice; it more closely resembled a flock of geese attempting to shout out the chorus of 'We Are Family'.

Mason and Jexter both stared in horror. "It's a fucking karaoke bar!" Mason said.

The two exchanged terrified looks. They took a moment to gather up their courage and then headed inside.

The karaoke bar was packed. Despite the horrid sounds the demon on stage was transferring into the microphone, no one was leaving. An assortment of beings was seated at the tables or at the bar. There were demons of all sorts of shapes and sizes, a few vampires and several humans.

There was a table stationed just inside the door. A human male looked up at them from where he sat behind it. "Weapons, please," he told them.

"We don�t have any weapons," Jexter told him.

A demon stepped over to them. "Well, I beg to differ," he informed them in a friendly manner. "I can sense you wizarding types a mile away without even needing to hear you sing. If you want to come any further into my bar, you'll have to give your wands to Rinaldo here." He motioned to the bouncer sitting at the table. "Don't worry, you can have them back when you leave."

"You're Lorne?" Jexter questioned.

The demon smiled. "That's right. I'm afraid I don't have the pleasure of knowing your name, sweet cheeks."

Lorne had to be the strangest demon Mason had ever seen. His skin was greener than grass, his eyes were bloodshot red, his hair was orange and two small horns protruded from his forehead. Those weren't the strangest things about him. What was stranger was his clothing. While most demons he'd met wore leather and metal armor or dirty rags, Lorne wore a chalk pink suit jacket and pants. Underneath it was a yellow pokka-dotted shirt.

Jexter glanced at Mason, who shrugged. Jexter replied, "Er, I'm Jexter, and this is Mason."

Recognition dawned on the demon's face. The smile faded to be replaced by weary apprehension. "Oh, I've heard of you two. You've been going around to all the bars looking for the spell caster of a chaos ritual."

"Do you know where we can find him?" asked Mason. "His name's Ethan Rayne."

Lorne shook his head. "'Fraid not, cutie. Haven't heard a thing. I might still be able to help you, though."

"How?" the reaper asked him, curious.

Lorne smiled slightly and gestured over his shoulder at the stage. "I can read people when they sing."

"'Read people'?" Mason repeated, positively alarmed by the possible meanings behind this phrase. A glance at Jexter told him his cousin felt the same way. Mason wondered if demons could learn Legilimency.

"I can see peoples' near futures," he explained. "It might show me where your friend Ethan is holed up." He beamed encouragingly. "I'm up for a try if you are."

Mason and Jexter stared at him, horrified looks back in place.

Part Four