by Cara Wylde
I scanned the room quickly, and I realized I couldn’t see Francis anymore. My brain went into panic mode first, then my body slowly followed. I made a dash for it, pushing people out of my way, my scythe slashing back and forth. I got evil Pandora in the stomach, and she howled in pain. I wonder why I’m not here… No time to ask around where my evil doppelganger was. Francis was down, and Morningstar had chopped off a good chunk of his tail. The serpent was writhing on the ground, and my father was getting ready to strike again.
“No!” I jumped to cover Francis with my own body. His big head fell on my lap, his eyes closing. “Don’t… don’t die on me!”
“It’ll heal,” he hissed. But there was a river of blood, and his spine was practically severed.
“Stop it!” I yelled at Valentine. “Why are you doing this? What do you think you’re accomplishing? And who are these people?”
He settled down for a moment, holding his scythe casually, and looked at me like I was the most disgusting creature in the world.
“Daughter, you smell like a pile of rotten corpses. And this coming from Death himself…” He laughed darkly.
“You’re not Death!”
“Soon.” He eyed the two sisters – or brothers – who were sitting helpless on their throne. There was no one left to protect them. Just me, and a dying Francis. “Once I kill Death, I will become Death.”
“That’s not how it works! You kill Death, Life dies, too. You know that! You’ve seen it before, haven’t you? Is that what happened in their universe?” I motioned toward the evil Grim Reapers.
“It is. You see, their universe was just like this one. With one single exception. Their Valentine Morningstar never met Katia and never had a daughter with her. The concept of you never even existed. So, he was free to focus on his own greatness with no one to stand in his way, challenge him, or try to ever retire him. He built an army of Grim Reapers, and together they put an end to the reign of Life and Death. They freed Time, and they freed everyone.”
“And how did that work out for them?”
“There’s a catch, daughter. It’s never that simple.” He grinned mysteriously. “What Valentine Morningstar did was impressive, but it was only the first step. He thought he’d become Death. He hadn’t. So, I found his dimension, and I found him. I fought him, killed him, and took over his army. Because I know how to finish what he started. To become Death, you see, you have to find her in all the inter-connected universes. What I’m doing here… this is the second step. There will be many more after. A life’s work, but it will be worth it. When Time is free in all the inter-connected dimensions, it will be powerful enough to flow over space and unite all the worlds in one big, eternal universe.”
“And you’ll be… what? King?”
“I’ll be the destroyer of worlds and creator of the one true cosmos where Time will do as it pleases, and space won’t exist. And in that cosmos, new beings will come into existence. Perfect, powerful, eternal beings…”
“And all that, just to prove grandma wrong,” I said as if it had just crossed my mind, knowing full well it would drive him mad with anger. “All that, just so she’ll finally admit that of all her children, you – the nephilim, the hybrid – were always the worthy one.”
My words had the intended effect. His eyes turned red with fury, and his skeletal body glowed wild and crimson. The runes on his scythe started bleeding. I stood up, ready to face him. But when he raised his scythe, he didn’t aim it at me. I was too slow. My ankle popped and gave out, and I fell on my hands and knees just as Valentine’s scythe descended upon Life and Death. He was going to cut the conjoined twins apart, and they would bleed to death, unless…
Someone blocked him.
That someone was Yolanda. With her toy scythe. My eyes widened in horror. There was no way! A little girl against the most powerful Grim Reaper in the world!
He laughed crazily and pushed harder against her, but not actually using his strength, as if he was an amused adult who was just humoring a child. She furrowed her brows in concentration and stood her ground. For her, this was not a game. She was taking the fight seriously.
“Little girl,” Morningstar said in a tone that betrayed both humor and surprise. And somehow, his words traveled through the room, catching the Reapers’ attention.
Lorna yelled something I couldn’t quite make out, and the next thing I knew, a stream of blue energy shot right out of her chest and enveloped Yolanda’s scythe. With her power, she was helping Yoli keep Morningstar at bay. Valentine took a step back. Klaus noticed what was happening. He threw a blast of green energy into his doppelganger’s chest, and the next blast he threw at Yoli. And sustained it.
I used my scythe as a crutch to pull myself up. Francis had returned to his human form. A horrible wound ran across his lower back, the blood gurgling on the floor. A mage. I need a mage, I thought. In my mind, a mage could fix him. Headmaster Colin was powerful enough to fix anything, right? I scanned the room frantically and spotted him fighting Pazuzu and Caspian at the same time. He was barely holding up. Merrit was on the ground, scrambling to get back on his feet.
“Merrit!”
He looked at me, and I waved at him. “I need your help! Francis!” My voice was drowned in the maddening buzz of a swarm of locusts. He didn’t understand what I wanted. Instead, he saw Yolanda, and Klaus and Lorna feeding her toy-lame-excuse-of-a-weapon scythe with energy. From where he was on the floor, he lifted his hand and sent a wave of yellow energy to join the blue one and the green one. While I appreciated that they were helping and protecting Yoli, and that Morningstar was slowly taking another step back, and then another, I didn’t understand what they were doing. The amusement on my dear father’s face had long been replaced by a mix of anger and dread. Some surprise was still there, in his bloodshot eyes.
With the help of the three mages, Yoli advanced. Feet firmly planted on the ground, hands squeezing the handle of her energy-shrouded scythe so hard that her fingers turned white, she let out a cry and pushed with all her might. Morningstar stumbled backwards. For a minute, he didn’t understand what was happening.
“How is this possible? Who are you?”
But he knew who she was. My cousin, Yolanda Aleksiev. Eleven years old, dream jumper. Also, his nemesis. The weapon.
The show wasn’t over. As Morningstar lunged at her, ready to cut her little body in two, Lorna, Klaus, and Merrit sent a new wave of their combined energies into her scythe. A miracle happened. It must’ve been their intention to turn the toy into a real weapon. It must’ve been Yoli’s pure desire to own a scythe just like mine. It must’ve been both. In her hands, the scythe grew in size – bigger and taller than even my own. The cheap wood handle turned into sturdy Fae’s Alder, and the foam that was supposed to be the blade turned into steel. The runes carved themselves into the top edge of the blade, and glowed red and thirsty for blood.
Morningstar’s scythe and Yoli’s new scythe met. Morningstar’s turned to pieces. Feverishly, the adrenaline of the battle raging in her veins, Yolanda stroke again and cut Valentine deep across the chest. She lost her balance and used the scythe to lean on, the blade too heavy for her to wield again. She was breathing fast, almost hyperventilating. She looked up at Morningstar, barely believing herself what she’d done.
Valentine looked around him in a daze, then down at the wound across his chest. The parchment-like flesh was torn apart, leaving the ribs underneath it bare. He touched the edges of the wound, tried to pull them back together. He wasn’t healing. In fact, the wound was growing, digging deeper inside him, tearing him open. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He couldn’t believe it. He was going to… die.
“Who are you?” He asked Yoli again. “How did you…”
He didn’t get to finish his sentence. The edges of his wound started sizzling, as if the blade that had cut him had been poisoned. His chest and stomach were an open crater, and flecks of dust started flying out one by one. He was burn
ing silently and turning into dust from the middle to his legs, and from the middle to his head, and he was aware of every second of it. He let out a cry of pain as he crumbled to the ground.
Silence fell over the room. Everyone stopped fighting. As the great Valentine Morningstar turned into a pile of sizzling dust, no one dared to breathe. He was gone.
“You did it,” I whispered.
Yoli caught my gaze. “I did it.”
The locusts were long gone, and the wild desert winds the two Pazuzus had summoned had vanished with them. One by one, the Grim Reapers that had invaded our universe teleported away, and I briefly wondered where. How did they get here from another dimension? Had Morningstar taken them with him? Had he become such a powerful dream jumper that he could move others from one universe to another? Questions, questions… Mysteries that didn’t matter anymore, because it was over.
“I killed a man,” Yolanda said, her voice trembling. The magnitude of what she’d done fell like a boulder on her shoulders. She suddenly looked years older. A teenager, at least. “I killed a man.”
“No.” I attempted to take her in my arms, but remembered I stank like a mass grave that had been stuffed full and not yet covered. “You saved the world. Yoli, he was going to bring the apocalypse. The actual apocalypse. Do you understand that? You were always the only one who could retire him, and you did.”
She shook her head. She wasn’t listening to me. “I killed a man.”
Deep down, I wondered if she was ever going to be okay again. She wasn’t a child anymore, she was a hero. But I had the strong feeling that she didn’t want any of it.
“Look what you’re holding.”
She looked at her scythe, which she was holding upside down, the blade acting as a fulcrum.
“It’s yours. And what’s crazy is that you actually made it. With your own hands.”
She lowered her gaze and sobbed. I didn’t know what to do, how to help her.
Headmaster Colin was making sure everyone was fine. GC returned to his human form, and was standing in the middle of the mess, dazzled and naked. He looked at me, and for a moment I had the impression that he didn’t recognize me. He was shaken. Paz and Sariel ran to Francis’s side. I watched them as they helped him up, and I couldn’t believe my eyes that he was alive and he could stand.
The perks of being a revenant…
I ran to them and wrapped my arms around Francis, because I knew he’d never reject me, whether I smelled like roses or rotten meat.
“Oh my God, thank you! Thank you!”
“The god you’re thanking had nothing to do with it,” Francis chuckled. I could tell he was in pain.
“I’m not thanking Yig.”
“Not even now?”
“Never.”
“You’re a Grim Reaper,” Sariel said.
I shook my head. “I didn’t retire him.”
A shuffle from behind us. The shrouded figures stood up slowly, and somewhat clumsily.
“Come here, dead girl,” Death said.
“And you, child.” Life motioned at Yolanda to step forward.
I took Yoli’s hand, and we both stood before Life and Death.
“Mila Morningstar,” Death said as she placed her hand on the top of my head. “I grant you strength, long life, and immunity.”
Long life meant that I was under Death’s protection for the next two hundred years, so Yig could suck it. He wasn’t getting any blood sacrifices from me anymore, and neither from Francis. I felt my lungs expanding, forcing me to take a deep breath. My body mended itself from the inside out. When Death removed her hand, she left me standing a different person. I was strong, healthy, and I smelled normal again – like my mint-scented shampoo and my rosehip body milk. I could swear I was a head taller, too, or maybe I just felt like it because my spine had elongated on its own. It felt amazing. In fact, for the first time in my life, it crossed my mind that I, indeed, had a spine. And with a spine came focus, confidence, and responsibility. I was a Grim Reaper.
Life caressed Yolanda’s cheek with the back of her hand, wiping her tears and tucking her blond hair behind her ear.
“Your time will come, little one.”
Yoli sighed. “I’m human. I have, maybe, seventy or eighty more years to live.”
“You’re not just any human. You’re a human with a scythe, and it wouldn’t be the first time a human with a scythe proved everyone wrong.”
Yoli shrugged. She was exhausted, and by this point, all she wanted was to go home. Life gave her a smile and a pat on the cheek.
“You’ll do great things, Yolanda Aleksiev. Greater than your cousin.”
And, I swear to God, when I heard that, a burden lifted off my heart. For the first time in what felt like forever, no one was expecting anything form me. I wasn’t the Chosen One anymore, I wasn’t the girl everyone looked up to and tried to guess how she’d pull it off in the end. I was a Grim Reaper. One of twenty-two. And it wasn’t that special, it was just right.
“Come on,” I pulled at Yoli’s hand. “I’ll take you home.”
Headmaster Colin nodded at me. He stayed back with the other Grim Reapers. Death had some strength, long life, and immunity to give away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Between reaping all over the world, Heaven, Hell, and the known pocket universes, and stopping to breathe and contemplate what had happened and how we’d gotten here, my boys and I found time to make up. I was still living with Sariel in Limbo, but when we were on the road – and we were on the road all the time – hotels were better.
A deluxe suite in Paris. I could see the Eiffel Tower from the window, but I didn’t have time to admire the view. We had to make it quick, before our scythes started glowing again, calling us away. Paz, as possessive as ever, drew me in his arms and kissed me desperately. From behind, I felt someone’s arms wrap around my waist and pull me away from the demon. He flipped me around, stealing me from a growling Paz, and my blue eyes met blue eyes. Sariel. He sank his hand into my hair and pulled my head back to expose my neck. I gasped. Since when was the Fallen One so daring and competitive? Since he’s grown dark wings and demon hooves. Paz had finally found his match. GC came to claim a piece of me, too, and soon I had three men all over me, pushing me toward the bed, pulling at my clothes, undressing me, kissing, biting, and shoving each other when one dared to try and take more than his share. As usual, Francis settled on the couch and watched us lustfully.
“I love you, goddess,” GC whispered in my ear as he entered me from behind.
“How can you love someone like me?”
They knew everything now, but not because I’d told them. Because they’d known all along. Not the details, but the general idea. They knew about Yolanda and how I’d made her map the parallel dimensions for me. How I’d sent her to find my mother, then dragged her in the middle of a bloody battle that wasn’t hers.
“You did what you had to do,” Sariel said, his hand coming to rest on the nape of my neck. He pushed me slowly toward his hard cock, and I closed my eyes and wrapped my lips around the engorged tip. “It’s not like we’re saints.” And he laughed.
Paz was stroking himself, waiting for his turn. GC fucked me hard and fast, causing me to swallow more of Sariel’s cock, until I almost choked. It was an exhilarating feeling. I could take it. We’d broken a few beds like this, the five of us. Sometimes, we forgot how strong and fast we were, and we ended up having to pay the hotel extra for the furniture we’d damaged. An unexpected orgasm shook my body, and just as I was building up for the second, GC came with a grunt. Annoyed, I sat up, pushed Sariel onto his back, and mounted him. I rode him until I came once, twice. The Fallen One watched me mesmerized, his hands roaming all over my hips, stomach, and breasts, as if he needed to touch and feel every inch of me. When he came, he pulled me down and held me to his chest.
I wanted more. Like a cat, I stalked toward Paz. The demon’s green eyes turned re
d with anticipation. We kissed, and I felt his cock rub against my stomach.
“How do you want it?” he asked.
I grinned. “Where…”
His gaze darkened with lust. He turned me around slowly, and I moved on my hands and knees, chest on the mattress. From this position, I could see Francis. The revenant never touched himself when he watched me get fucked by the other three, and patiently waited for his turn. He never asked, and he never said what he wanted or how he wanted it. He let me decide, let me give him as much as I desired of myself. This time, however, as Paz used two fingers to prepare the only place where I was still a virgin, Francis pulled his cock out and started stroking himself firmly. I couldn’t take my eyes off that big, beautiful rod. I licked my lips. Soon, he’d be inside me, and oh, Francis could fill me so deeply and fully, that fucking him was always the cherry on top.
The demon positioned the head of his cock at my puckered entrance, and I dragged in a breath. If I were still human, it would’ve probably hurt, but seeing how I wasn’t, the feeling was a mix of forbidden pleasure and complete surrender. My knees almost gave out. I felt like putty, and Paz had to hold my hips in place so I wouldn’t melt on the bed. It was like nothing I’d felt before.
“So tight and delicious,” he murmured.
I made eye contact with Francis as Paz moved in and out, slowly at first, then picking up the pace. The pleasure building inside me was out of this world. I moaned, screamed, and thrashed, moving my hips to meet the demon’s. Francis sat up, and with his pants around his knees, came over to the edge of the bed.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said. He grabbed my hair and made me look up at him as he rubbed his cock faster and harder. This was new… Him wanting to finish before me. Francis had never been selfish. “Open your mouth.”
I did, and his hot cum hit my tongue, most of it spilling on my nose, cheeks and chin. I swallowed what I could, but I was so close myself that I could barely focus, could barely breathe. I cried out when an orgasm like no other took over my body, almost making me disconnect from the here and now. Paz came deep inside me, and it struck me that I finally belonged to them, now, to all of them. Body and soul, with not a piece of me that they hadn’t yet claimed and fucked.
