“We have a Reaper,” I said flatly, causing Caleb to curse inventively.
“Reaper?”That was Dimas, his olive skin a little paler than usual, but otherwise looking strangely undisturbed by the state of the body.Possibly because of his days as a street kid in Guadalajara.He looked like a scrawny fifteen-year-old, but he was tough as nails.
“It’s a term for a dark mage who harvests body parts from people with abilities they want,” I said shortly because I didn’t want to go into it, and he didn’t want to know.
Really didn’t, as he and the rest of my students were precisely the sort Reapers would love to get their grimy hands on.They all had traits deemed undesirable by the magical community that had been “weeded out” of the gene pool through dubious means over the centuries, or at least that was the idea.But genetics weren’t easily contained, and the “bad blood” kept popping up.
And its lethality made it profitable, which was probably why it frequently ended up in a Reaper’s display case.
“What kind of traits?”Dimas persisted.
“Anything somebody might find useful,” Caleb answered, shooting me a look.We were supposed to be training, and this was a teachable moment.“Reapers run underground parlors where people who want a certain trait can come and get a… graft.”
“A graft?”That was Kimmie.
“Grafts of body parts,” I clarified.“Vamp eyes go for tens of thousands, and Were pelts for many times that.They get the pelts and other stuff from Hunters, who track down and kill the donors, although they aren’t above doing a little harvesting themselves when they get a chance and cutting out the middleman.But despite the name, Reapers mainly do the implantation, like evil Dr.Frankensteins.”
That last word slipped out before I could stop it, and I winced, hoping Caleb would just let it go.
But of course not.
“Frankensteinwasevil,” he said.
“We aren’t having this discussion again.”
But we were, because it was one of his favorite soapboxes.The kind of thing he could go on about for hours on a stake-out, until I threatened him with some really nasty spells to get him to shut up.And because, I strongly suspected, he needed something to ground him, too.
“The bastard was a raging narcissist driven by scientific curiosity, ego, and the hope of fame and fortune,” he explained, although no one had asked.“While being devoid of any ethical considerations.It was all about whether hecoulddo something, rather than whether heshould.And when his crazy experiment somehow worked out, what did he do?Immediately abandoned his creature because it didn’t look to suit him, leaving it to fend for itself in a hostile world that hated and attacked it!What happened next was both predictable and tragic, and completely his fault.He may not have killed anyone, but the monster’s actions were one hundred percent—”
“Yes, thank you, Professor.”
“—on him.I mean, if not evil, what do you call somebody who deliberately makes a creature with zero chance of ever fitting into the world it has to live in?”
“Mom?”Kimmie said, expressionless.
Caleb stared at her for a second, and then the implication hit.“Shit.Shit.Look, I didn’t mean—that is, you guys aren’t—it’s not the same—”
The puffballs tilted.“How so?”
“Well, well, for one thing, Frankenstein carved up dead bodies.His monster wasn’t alive—”
“Smooth,” I told Caleb, who started to look panicked.
“—not to imply that you are monsters!Frankensteinwas the monster.I didn’t mean—”
“Then why were we locked up?”she asked simply.
“Uh, well, there are different opinions on that—”
“Yes, none of which think we should be out in society because we might go on a rampage, just like in the book.Isn’t that right?”
“I—well, yes, but—”
“We read it in school, you know.They made us.”
“It—it’s a classic—”
“The teacher had me read some in front of the class.The end part where Frankenstein dies, and his monster decides to kill itself.She said that was her favorite.”
