“Seems to me like everyone has flashing neon signs on their heads that say who and what they are. Ruthie knew who I was the moment she set eyes on me.” I jumped as it swatted at me with its tail. It turned back to my mother who was still trying to recover from the blow. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. It brought down a massive claw and I knew the blow was meant to kill. I sprinted over to them and put all my energy into throwing my hands up to block the blow.
I closed my eyes as I realized my plan wasn’t going to work and waited for the pain to come, but a familiar weight filled my hands and a pressure pushed down against it. I opened my eyes to find my scythe there. I grinned and pushed the demon back with the scythe. He stumbled backwards as I twirled the scythe and widened my stance. Fear flashed in the demon’s eyes and I knew this fight was mine. He hadn’t been expecting me to summon a weapon. He rushed me, but I held my ground. I brought the handle of my scythe around, knocking the demon in the head and throwing it off its feet for a moment. I jumped and brought the blade down across the back of its neck and the head dropped from the body.
I took a deep breath, realizing I hadn’t focused on my breathing and moved purely on instinct and adrenaline. The soul floated away and the body disappeared. I glanced around to make sure nothing else was going to appear. I let go of my weapon and it disappeared. The barrier faded and I went to help my mom off the ground.
“Ruthie knew me on sight as well.” She shook her head and dusted off her pants. “I never wanted this for you and now you’re going to fight your father’s war.”
I sighed. “Did you know that you hooked up with Death?” My voice raised in pitch.
“No, I had no idea. It wasn’t until after I got pregnant I even thought something was strange about him.” She threw her hands in the air. “He never showed back up so I figured he thought I was human or didn’t care about me being a fallen angel.”
“Yet you didn’t even think to warn me that demons could pop into my life?” I put my hands on my hips. “I’m half angel, like it or not. And how the hell did you miss that he was Death? Seems pretty damn obvious to me.” I clenched my fists as I yelled at her.
She trembled slightly. “With my abilities limited, I can’t always tell when someone isn’t human.” She snatched up her suitcase and motioned for us to continue forward like nothing happened. “Where did you learn to fight a demon?”
I laughed and it defused the situation a little. “My first night here Ruthie, Aeron, and I were attacked by one. Death summoned Ruthie one night and I went along for the ride. He’s been teaching me since.”
“Death…” She shook her head. “Many angels wanted him, but apparently he’s a one-night stand kind of horseman.”
I held my arms out. “Why didn’t you warn me about this? All those times I knew the death toll of a situation, every time I showed signs of anything odd you pushed it away. There was no Halloween, no scary movies…”
“I was trying to protect you. I didn’t want you to be raised to fight demons and be assigned a human to guard your whole life. I wanted you to have what I wanted.” She hesitated. “That’s neither here nor there right now. You’re a Child of the Apocalypse, that’s much different than being an angel.”
Had Ruthie been forced to watch over me my whole life? She had mentioned every creature held freewill, so she had to have chosen to stick with her assignment. “Either way, demons were going to become part of my life.” I pointed out.
“Not if you didn’t develop abilities. When you turned eighteen and nothing came, I thought we were safe. That’s why I let you move here.”
I whistled. “Boy were you wrong. Did you know that twenty percent of the United States population will die from the plague if we don’t find Pestilence and get him back to work?”
“You know the death tolls.” She nodded. “That’s the only thing you’ve been able to do.”
“Until now, now I can summon my weapon.” I shrugged. “From what I understand, this is what I am and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
She stopped in front of the hotel and faced me. She cupped her hands around my face. “That’s not true. You can leave all this behind you. Run from it and choose not to join the others.” There were tears in her eyes and I knew that’s what she wanted. “Come with me and I can protect you.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but spotted Ruthie behind her. “Ruthie!”
My mom kissed my cheek. “Just think about it, please. Think about those who care about you and make your choice on that.” She pulled away and turned around. “Ruthie, so nice to see you again.”
“Sorry I wasn’t there in time to help with the demon, Kaleb and I got trapped at the library by a low level one. By the time I made it, Sammy had it taken care of.”
My mother nodded. “A nasty one that was.” She sneered at Ruthie. “We’re lucky Sammy’s abilities started to shine through or we would have been dead. You should have been there to protect her.”
I didn’t miss the venom in my mom’s voice. “Okay, stand down. Let’s enjoy our weekend and we’ll work out our issues later.”
They both nodded and my mom held her hand out. “Truce?”
“For now.” Ruthie shook it. “Where’s the car?”
“It’s at the shop, it wouldn’t start.” I motioned to the hotel. “Mom, why don’t you get checked in then we can walk to the theater to see what’s playing.”
She nodded and kissed my cheek again before walking into the hotel. I looked at Ruthie and sighed. “She truly thought I was human. I got tossed around by the demon a bit, so did she.”
“You okay?” She walked around me, her eyes scanning over me and I imagined she was taking mental notes of damage. “Some dirt on you, that’s about it.”
“I’ll feel it in the morning, but I’ll be okay. I’m just glad I was able to summon the scythe. Mom can’t summon a weapon anymore because her abilities are limited.” I rubbed my head. “This just got more complicated. You said you and Kaleb had to deal with one?”
Ruthie nodded. “The demon’s dead, but that’s two in one day and we haven’t seen anything but the RA’s since the first day of school. Things are starting to heat up. I wonder why.”
Someone coughed as they walked by and a few people gave them a wide berth. The paranoia showed as the group of people eyed the coughing person. The plague was spreading and instead of media myth, the idea of catching it was becoming very real. “Because the effects are getting worse. Their plan won’t be complete until Death is locked away.”
“The Plague is spreading and it’s not pretty. War will be next, then Famine, followed by Death.” Ruthie looked around. “I can’t tell you what to expect, but…”
“A lot of people will die if we don’t figure this out.” I finished her thought.
My mom stepped up. “But you may be forfeiting your own life if you pursue this.” She spoke through her clenched jaw. “You aren’t like the others, you’re not hundreds of years old. You’re eighteen. I won’t bury my child. I won’t let these creatures,” she gave a dramatic wave at Ruthie, “drag you into a war.”
“That’s her choice to make.” Ruthie stepped up, her face a mask of calm. “The life of one is not worth the lives of many.”
“Keep your thoughts to yourself.” My mom snapped.
I held up a hand, trying to stop any further arguing. “We’re going to go see a movie and then probably hang out at the hotel. I’ll be back to the dorms later tonight. Tomorrow we’re going to enjoy the festival. I will enjoy my weekend, damnit.”
“I’m sorry.” Ruthie smiled. “You deserve a weekend of fun with your mother. Enjoy the movie, I’ll catch up with you later.”
Ruthie walked toward the parking lot and I turned to my mother. “It wouldn’t hurt you to be nice to her. She is my roommate after all.”
“That’s assuming I don’t drag you home after this weekend.”
I didn’t doubt she would try, but I knew I couldn’t just walk away f
rom this. Not right now. And I wasn’t sure if I wanted to run from demons my entire life, there couldn’t be much of an existence doing that.
I walked into the dorm room after an uneventful rest of the evening with my mother. Kaleb and Ruthie sat on the floor looking over books. “My mom is sure that I don’t belong in this world.” I dropped my bag on the bed and sat down. “My feet hurt from walking, my car better be ready tomorrow.”
“The festival is all on school grounds, so you’ll be fine.” Ruthie said without looking up. “Did you know that Texas is thinking about seceding from the U.S., or trying to at least?”
Exactly what kind of books were they reading? I sat up and looked at them. “I had no idea. I don’t follow politics much. Why on earth would they want that?”
“Stricter border control, no control from the U.S. government, so on and so forth. They want to become their own tiny country.” Kaleb said. “We need to find War so this doesn’t turn into a disaster.”
I leaned on my hands. “They’ll have a hard time fighting if twenty percent of the population is taken out by the Black Death.” I closed my eyes to focus on the numbers. “At least half the state of Texas will die in the war, the other half will be infected, and they won’t win.”
Ruthie shrugged. “It’s still the start of a war. Imagine if the tides change and Texas won, then other states would think they can start a war and become their own country.”
It sounded like something that was Aeron’s problem, not mine. “We have to figure out where the horsemen are in the first place in order to start figuring out how to free them or even if they want to come back.”
“What?” The other two stared at me.
I crossed my arms. “Has anyone considered they didn’t want to do this anymore? Fight a constant war between good and evil to keep things in balance? Maybe they wanted a vacation or something.”
Neither one of them said anything for a few minutes. They ignored my statement and went back to their books. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through social media, finding nothing that could keep my attention. “What are you two studying?”
“Whether or not you can reap souls in Death’s place in case he gets locked away.” Ruthie looked up. “You can summon a scythe now, your abilities are coming through.”
I didn’t know if I wanted the job of reaping souls. What I wanted was one night where I didn’t have to worry about demons and horsemen. Now I didn’t get that since my mother knew about everything.
Kaleb closed his book. “We’re just trying to cover our bases. None of us can take our fathers’ job. We were hoping you would be different. So far, the answer is no. Which means we need to make sure Death stays safe.”
“He’s avoided them. Have we narrowed down anywhere to look for the seals? Or the horsemen?”
Ruthie nodded. “We’re going to take a trip to Devil’s Playground over Thanksgiving.” The Devil’s Playground was a rock formation in the mountains where you could see the lightning dance between the rocks. It had a campsite at a safe distance, but I had a feeling we weren’t going to stay at a safe distance.
“I promised my mom I’d come home for Thanksgiving.” I muttered. “But I suppose now she’ll understand if I tell her I want to take a trip.” Though I doubted it. She wanted me to turn my back on all of this. “It’s a shorter trip from my side of the mountain.”
Ruthie nodded. “You’ll go home and we’ll take an overnight trip. Your mother is right, you’re still young so you should get to experience life. That means going home for the holidays. We’ll all have to study for midterms. For the next few weeks we’ll keep doing what we are doing. Research and fighting demons.”
“What if we move our trip up?” I asked. “We skip a Friday class and take a three-day weekend. Worse comes to worse we skip a Monday.”
They exchanged looks. “The mountains are easier to travel now. We go, take a look, rule it out if we can’t find a seal, and move to the next one. The sooner the better, right?”
“She’s right, if we can start ruling out local places then we can move on to those that are not local.” Kaleb tapped his knuckles against the cover of the book he’d been reading. “We’ll go next weekend.”
Ruthie frowned. “Do you think we can make it back in time? We don’t want to tip any of the Devil’s demons off. I’m sure Gypsy and Princeton will be suspicious if we’re all gone.”
“Pete hasn’t run into any of the Sins in his dorm, so I think we’ll be okay.” Kaleb smiled. “It’s a good plan, Sammy.”
A little bit of pride swelled in me at his words. Ruthie looked at her watch. “Okay, time for you to go and for us to get to sleep. Long day tomorrow and all that.”
Kaleb stood and gathered the books. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the festival since the cat’s out of the bag.” He let himself out and I fell back against my mattress.
“I know it’s not how you expected the weekend to go.” Ruthie went to her bed. “But it might be better now that your mother knows. She might be able to help us.”
I snorted. “Don’t hold your breath on that. She wants me to turn away from all this and go on the run with her.”
“You can’t outrun what you are, Sammy. It never works and there are consequences for such actions.” She chuckled. “Your mother should know that. You don’t just run from your responsibilities. Besides, I’m not going to let you get killed. It’s my job.”
I rolled over and faced her. “Because it’s your job…”
“Well, I’m fond of you too and it won’t be my job forever, because you’ll understand how to protect yourself. I like to think we’re becoming friends.”
I did too, but I wasn’t sure if the daughter of Death was allowed to have friends. I tried to imagine my father sitting down to have dinner with someone. “What happens when this is over? After the horsemen are back?”
“You return to what you’d consider a normal life, for now. There will always be demons and evil, but it’ll be more balanced and rare when you have to face one like we have these last few weeks. You’ll continue to learn to control your abilities and hone your skills. When your dad is ready, he’ll retire and you’ll take over for him.”
I frowned. “Or if he’s killed.”
“Or that,” she confirmed. “But don’t worry, that’s only happened a few times.”
Her light voice attempted to cut some of the tension and it worked for the most part. I pretended to lift a glass in a toast. “To being a college student, the daughter of Death, and a demon fighting bad ass. But even bad asses must sleep.”
“Yes, even we need our sleep.”
My mom walked with me as we made our way through the swarm of people that had shown up for the festival. She’d kept the chatter normal, talking about work and classes. She had asked about Jared several times, but I always pushed it off. She’d asked again as we approached the picnic tables.
“I told you he’s way out of my league and I’m sure he has a girlfriend. He hosts all kinds of parties out in the desert, there’s bound to be at least one girl he hooks up with.” I shook my head.
She laughed and we both froze when Professor L sat down with us. I closed my eyes and prayed nothing crazy was going to happen. She set off all my instincts. Something had changed about her though. Today there was a red haze surrounding the irises of her eyes. I glanced at my mom to see if she had noticed. If she did, she didn’t show it. She smiled at the woman. “Hi, I’m Sammy’s mom. Are you a parent as well?”
“No, I’m her college algebra teacher. I just wanted to come and see if she managed the homework assignment that’s due Monday.”
I didn’t think teachers made a habit of checking in with their students in college. Or meeting their parents. My mom looked to me and I nodded. “I did. I finished it yesterday morning.”
“Good, I look forward to seeing if there was any improvement from the last one. It’s so nice that your mother came in for parent’s weekend. It must be so hard being an only parent to
an extraordinarily unique child.”
Her words made me think I was dealing with one of the Seven Sins. Envy and Pride were already taken care of, that left Greed, Sloth, Lust, Gluttony, and Wrath. I guessed she was Lust. She smiled at my mother.
My mom shrugged. “She’s always been such a good kid, I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like if her father had stuck around.”
I could and I knew it wouldn’t have ended well between them since they both had different paths for me to take. “That’s neither here nor there. I’m glad she was able to take time out of her busy schedule to come up and see me.”
“Of course. I’ll let you two be and enjoy your day.” She stood and gave a small wave with her slim fingers. “I’ll see you Monday, Sammy.”
I watched her saunter off into the crowd. My mom put her hand on my shoulder. “You can tell that she’s not human.”
“Yes, but I don’t know who or what she is. She really bothers me though.” I shivered.
“Next time you’re in class, hang back and summon your scythe, it should reveal her to you completely and summon a barrier.”
That didn’t sound like a wise idea, but maybe it would lead me to some new information. I hadn’t gotten the chance to voice my concern with Ruthie yet, but I had math class on Monday, that was plenty of time to talk to her. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Not pushing me to make a choice right now.”
She patted my cheek. “You’re my daughter, I know when to push and when not to. When the time comes, I’ll be there.”
I nodded and looked over the sea of people moving through the courtyard. None of the humans knew about the demons, the angels, or the apocalypse. Someone with a facemask walked by and I wondered if they were really concerned about the plague, or if they were someone with a compromised immune system. Could be both. I closed my eyes and focused. A number came to my mind. Over half the student population would die from the plague if Pestilence wasn’t found.
Children of the Apocalypse Complete Trilogy Page 6
