by Cara Wylde
“If you’re not with me,” I told them, “then who is?”
“Valentine Morningstar,” said Headmaster Colin in his calm, measured voice. “The students who will practice under his guidance are: Mila Morningstar, Sariel Gracewing, Francis Saint-Germain, and Merrit Castegny.”
“Oh, come on!” I covered my face with my hands. The entire VDC table was looking at me now, and I just wanted to hide. What the fuck was my father thinking?
“He probably doesn’t want you distracted by us,” said Pazuzu. I’d let my guard down, and he could access my thoughts. I immediately shoved him out of my head. Since I’d learned that demons were decent telepaths, I’d learned to be careful around Pazuzu. It wasn’t that hard. I just had to contract my energy to keep him out, and he usually didn’t insist, either. The only time when I let my energy expand and allowed him access was when we had sex.
I sighed, and finally looked up. Sariel was grinning at me. Idiot. Francis was doing his best to look as impassive as ever, but there was something in his mossy green eyes that said he cared. He cared a lot that we were in the same practice group. Merrit Castegny? I didn’t know him that well.
A human, an archangel, a mage, and a… Francis walked into a bar. Because I still had no fucking clue what Francis was.
* * *
PE uniform, check. Long leather boots, check. Leather wristbands, check. Black, cartoony cloak, check. Scythe, check. Pixie, check.
I was ready to reap.
Monday. A fresh new week, a fresh new start. All the students gathered in the inner courtyard to wait for their mentors. I was with the VDC, GC and Paz glued to my sides. They didn’t want to let me go, and I didn’t want that, either. Two whole months of being apart. The thought made me slightly sick to my stomach. My bladder started doing that thing I hated when it was trying to convince me I needed to pee. I didn’t. I don’t need to pee, I don’t need to pee. My new mantra.
I was nervous. I’d skipped the year one practice, so I was way behind my classmates. Was Valentine going to go easy on me because I was his daughter? Was he going to go hard on me because I was his daughter? He was so unpredictable that I’d stopped guessing a long time ago. Or tried to, at least. What had I missed? GC and Pazuzu hadn’t told me much. Last year, practice had been all about assisting and not doing any actual reaping. They’d shadowed their mentors and taken notes on their methods, techniques, and how they adapted to difficult cases. GC had been in Valentine’s group, and he said my father had one hell of a work ethic. He was emotionally detached from the violent circumstances he had to reap in, compassionate when needed, cold when it served him better. He didn’t talk much, didn’t preach, and didn’t give advice. His students had to figure out what to keep and what to leave themselves, because Valentine never told them what notes to take. If he, indeed, was like that, I was on board with his mentoring method. Like father, like daughter, and all that.
The twenty-two Grim Reapers materialized in clouds of black smoke.
“Their cloaks do that,” GC whispered in my ear. “This year, we’re going to learn how to teleport like that, too. Last year, they teleported us.”
Cool. I didn’t miss that. I was good.
The smoke cleared and the women and men stepped forward, their black cloaks magically whooshing behind them for added effect, their scythes glowing faintly. They looked impressive, I had to admit. The ones who had wings wore them spread wide on their backs. Morningstar was one of them. His wings were tall, reaching two inches above his head, but not as long as those of an angel. When he tucked them down his back, they didn’t touch the ground, like Sariel’s did. After all, he was only half-angel, and it had to show somehow.
He came over to me, kissed me on the forehead, and looked for the others in his group of students. GC and Paz joined their own group. Their mentor was a beautiful sphinx lady. I waved at them and mouthed “I’ll miss you.”
“Ready, daughter? Nervous?”
“A little.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll catch up in no time. Though I’m still not happy you skipped practice last year. You’ll have to work extra hard.”
“I will, I promise.”
He smiled down at me and pinched my chin playfully. “My good girl.”
I winced. I’m not a damn puppy.
“You’re not taking your pixie with you.”
My heart sank. “Why not?”
“Reaping is a reaper’s business. No pixies allowed.”
“But she won’t tell anyone a word.”
“It’s okay, Mistress. You can send me away.”
“I’m not sending you away,” I growled.
Morningstar shot me an impatient look. Sariel, Francis, and Merrit had joined us, and it was time to go. The other Grim Reapers had already showed their students how to teleport, and they were zapping away one by one.
“Mila, we don’t have time for this. You have one second to figure it out.”
“She’ll be trapped in the Blank for two months,” I whined. Not that I believed whining worked on him.
“So?”
“I don’t want her to be caged and alone.”
“She’s a pixie, Mila.”
This wasn’t helping. I wasn’t going to change his opinion about pixie slavery in the next five minutes, so I needed to find a better way to make sure Corri was safe while I was gone.
“Can I leave her with someone?”
“She’s not a pet.”
“Okay, then can I gift her to someone else for a while?”
“I guess. I’ve never heard of anyone donating their pixie before, but fine. She’s yours. You can do whatever you want with her.”
While I didn’t like the way he’d put it, he’d agreed, and that was all that mattered. I told him it would only take a few minutes and ran to the kitchen before he could stop me. Whether he liked it or not, he was going to wait. I rushed in with Corri flapping her wings at lightspeed behind me, found Patty, gave her the bell, and asked her to keep the pixie safe.
“She’ll help you around the kitchen.”
“I love baking!” Corri chirped.
“Okay,” Patty looked at the bell in her hand reluctantly. “I never thought I’d have… a pixie.”
“Just for two months, so don’t get used to it,” I laughed. “Promise me you won’t ring the bell and send her away, okay?”
“Oh, God no! I wouldn’t send my worst enemy to the Blank.”
I sighed. “You know about the Blank?”
“Everyone knows.”
Great! That was so like me. To be the only stupid human who’d locked her pixie up in a cage in the darkness for weeks without knowing. I thanked Patty and rushed back to the courtyard.
“Good luck,” my best friend yelled after me.
I ran so fast that when I had to stop, my feet slipped on the gravel, and I almost knocked Sariel on his ass. He caught me and brushed my blue hair out of my eyes. Was he getting better at flirting?
“You’re late,” Valentine said in a cold tone. “You missed the teleportation training, so I guess you’ll just teleport with me, and then one of the boys can show you how to do it.”
Oh wow! He’s not kidding around. He was definitely not going to go easy on me because I was his daughter.
He gave me something that looked like a gold, swirly pin, and I looked at it with wide, confused eyes.
“It goes in your pocket for now. Someone will show you how to place it on your cloak later.
Sariel leaned in. “It’s a teleportation device. Don’t worry, I’ll help you activate it.”
“Teleportation device?”
“We’ll need them until we learn how to teleport without them.”
“Time to go,” Valentine announced. The blade of his scythe started glowing red. “Death doesn’t wait for anyone. Mila, come here.” I went to him, and he threw the side of his cloak over my shoulders. “The rest of you, set your devices and follow the glo
w.”
Follow the glow… Maybe it was better that I’d missed the training. It all sounded so complicated. Before I could ask him where we were going, we swirled inside a cloud of black smoke, and all I could see was a vortex of lights. We were traveling. How far and how fast, I didn’t know, but it felt so sudden and unnatural that my stomach twisted and knotted, and when I felt solid ground beneath my feet again, it did a somersault and bile rose in my throat. I gagged, covered my mouth with my hand, and swallowed heavily. No matter what, I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself. I opened my eyes and shielded them with my arm from the scorching sun. We were somewhere in the desert.
“Are you okay?” Francis asked me, concerned.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” Probably because my face was green. I felt so sick and I needed to throw up so badly… No. I was Mila Morningstar, and I was supposed to teleport like a pro. Fake it till you make it. “Where are we?”
“West of the Sahara Desert,” said Valentine. He started walking purposefully, and we followed him. “Behind that dune.”
What dune? There were dunes everywhere! His scythe glowed redder and redder as we approached our destination, and two silhouettes appeared in the distance. A man and a woman. He was dressed in white from head to toe, with a turban wrapped on his head. She was dressed in long, gray skirts, and her long black hair was loose on her back. He was pulling her by the hand, and she was trying to resist him, fight him, make him let go of her. He was stronger.
The handle of my own scythe started vibrating in my hand, and I stopped in my tracks. I looked up at the blade and saw the runes glowing red for the first time. It was as if a mysterious power had activated the scythe. It responded to the scene before me, it knew that the woman’s time had come, and the blade ached to cut her string of life, to detach her soul from her body.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered. It was a good thing Sariel, Francis, and Merrit had followed Valentine and were too far away to hear me. I was way behind them, frozen in place, and they hadn’t even noticed. “Oh fuck, I can’t do this,” I mumbled again, my voice a bare disturbance in the stillness of the desert.
She was going to die. He was going to kill her. Why? She didn’t want to die. She was young, and beautiful, and her body was strong and healthy. This couldn’t be her time. Yet it was.
“Mila?” Francis had noticed my absence.
I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this. Despite myself, I moved. One step at a time, and I was at Francis’s side. No one had to know what I was thinking. I was VDC. I am VDC. I am a Reaper. Reapers reap.
The man threw the woman to the ground. She screamed and begged in a language I’d never heard before. He took out a curved knife, grabbed her by the hair, and…
Valentine swung his scythe swiftly. With infinite precision, the blade cut the woman’s string of life, and her soul separated from her body. The brown and red energy field that had been vibrating and shaking all around her from sheer terror gathered into an oval shape and started changing its color to light yellow. The pain was gone, and so was the fear. She was free.
I blinked away tears, then rubbed fiercely at my eyes before Morningstar turned around and saw me.
“You were paying attention, right?” He said in a stern voice. He looked up at his scythe, which was glowing again. He grinned and finally looked at us. A fleeting gaze at Sariel, Francis, and Merrit, then his blue eyes focused on me. “Your turn, my daughter.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
We teleported again. Black, moonless night. Gunfire all around us. A grenade exploded in the distance. War.
Valentine released me from his strong embrace and pushed me forward. He wanted me to lead the way. My scythe hummed in my hand, and I clenched my fingers around it until the tips turned white. I stepped over mutilated bodies, soldiers crying in pain, and soldiers who cried no more. I swallowed heavily and tried to keep my eyes ahead. The scythe was leading me, and all I had to do was follow its glow. It came naturally. I didn’t have to think about it, I didn’t have to ask myself who my victim was. I didn’t have to understand the situation, know what war these people were fighting, find out their names before I reaped their souls. From the way my scythe was buzzing, I knew I’d have to cut more than just one string of life here. And I knew Morningstar wasn’t going to step in and ask the guys to help me. This was a test. He wanted to know if I was, indeed, blood of his blood. If I was Reaper material. If I was a danger to him.
Well, guess what. I am. I am a danger to you. I am your worst nightmare, Valentine Morningstar.
I could feel something change inside me. The more I advanced on the battlefield, the stronger my scythe glowed, the faster my heart beat, pumping adrenaline through my veins. There was this rush… Rush of blood, rush of thoughts, rush of emotions. Fear, power, disgust, compassion, excitement. My first soul, my first job. My foot caught on something, and I looked at the ground. I hadn’t tripped on anything; a man had grabbed my ankle. He was looking up at me, his eyes pleading. There was a gash on his head, and his teeth were stained with blood when he opened his mouth to say “please”.
“This one’s not yours,” Morningstar pulled me away, and the man let go of my ankle.
“He can see me.”
“Because he’s half dead, waiting for his Reaper. But his time hasn’t come yet. He’ll suffer for another hour, and then a Merciful Reaper will come to cut his string.”
I didn’t feel a thing. I should have. Back in the desert, I’d felt for that woman. My heart had ached for her, and I’d wanted to take that man’s dagger and drive it through his chest. I looked away from the man and kept following the glow, laser-focused on my task. I stepped over a dead body and caught the gaze of a Neutral Reaper. Pandora was with him, but I didn’t have time to wave at her or anything. It wasn’t like we were real friends. My victim… There he was, a few feet away.
He was on the ground, recharging his rifle. Once he was done, he jumped to his feet, and I knew… I knew half a dozen bullets would hit him right in the heart. I swung my scythe back and waited. His string of life was floating around his shoulders, his energy red and vibrant. He was scared, but he was determined. He was terrified of death, but he charged anyway. The first bullet hit him, then the second, and I aimed the blade at his string. A perfect cut. His soul left his body, and before his eyes closed, he stared at me in shock. I watched his soul rise to the heavens, for two seconds only. My scythe buzzed and glowed again, and I turned to the man who’d shot him. It was his turn. I stood between him and his enemy, and the bullets that hit him went through me first. The cloak wasn’t just for fashion, or to make us look like the Grim Reapers in children’s cartoons. They made us invisible and untouchable. This one didn’t see me. He wasn’t ready to die, and he didn’t even believe in death. When I severed his string of life, his body fell to the ground, and his soul bounced around for a while before it found its way to the dark sky.
My blade glowed once more. I turned to my right, walked a few steps, and detached the soul of a soldier hit by a grenade.
Glow. Slay. Glow. Slay.
I was drenched in sweat. It was half an hour later when I felt Morningstar’s hand on my shoulder.
“Our job here is done. Let’s see what’s next.”
“Next?”
I was confused. My head was pounding, and when Valentine took me under his cloak and teleported us to a new location, I fell on my hands and knees the moment we landed. I needed a minute, but my mentor wasn’t going to give me thirty seconds. I pulled myself to my feet and followed him into a rundown house, into the basement. It was early morning here. The house was empty, except for the cluttered room down there, in the damp semi-darkness. There was a woman on the floor. She was in her forties, thin, almost malnourished, with brown shaggy hair, dressed in rags that hung awkwardly on her bony structure. There was an empty pack of cigarettes at her feet, and a bunch of crushed pills on a book, next to the foot of the bed.
“
Sariel, you’re up.”
Sariel took a reluctant step toward the woman. His hand trembled on his scythe, and I realized that if I had barely been able to stand the scene in the desert, if I had barely been able to do what I just did in the deep of the night… I couldn’t even imagine how he was feeling. He wasn’t made for this. Compassion filled my heart, and I stepped forward. I wasn’t supposed to do this. Morningstar had said it was his turn. Still, something wasn’t right. Maybe he could give Sariel an easier job later, because this woman… My shoulders tensed and my fingers gripped the scythe harder. As the sun rose in the sky, its light filtering through the dirty window, there was a flash of metal. This woman was holding a tiny blade.
I reached Sariel, pulled him by the arm, and stepped between him and her.
“I’ll take this,” I said.
“Mila, this isn’t your…” Valentine started, but I cut him off with a gesture of my hand.
“She’s not supposed to die.”
“Exactly.” He sounded annoyed. “It’s a suicide case, and I want Gracewing to show me how we handle suicide cases.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Mila!”
I sighed. I threw the flaps of my cloak over my back and removed my wristbands. I turned to him, arms outstretched, palms up. He paled at the deep, white scars running from my wrists, up the inside of my arms, almost to my elbows.
“I think I have more experience than Sariel, and we don’t want this woman to die today, do we?”
“Do you expect Sariel to fail?”
The archangel clenched his jaw. In other circumstances, he would have protested. He would have pushed me away and taken over, determined to prove himself. Not this time. He knew, and I knew, that he wasn’t ready for this.
“Of course I don’t expect him to fail,” I said. “But if he does, if he can’t convince her to put the blade away, then will you take over?”
