by Cara Wylde
Right. Because this year, we were studying the geography of Earth and our dimension, and starting next year, we’d be studying the geography of Heaven and Hell. Our Geography professor had told us as much.
“We all know Sariel’s biggest flaw. And weakness,” GC explained calmly. “He wants to be the best. He’s killing himself studying, collecting worth points, and kissing every professor’s ass in class. And on the night of Mabon, here comes the human, Mila, and brags about how she can lucid dream. Man, I wish I was there to see his face.”
“I saw his face,” Paz said. “Francis, too. If he was bothered by her story, he didn’t let on.”
“What was this dream about, anyway?” GC turned to me.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. My thoughts were a jumble. I’d almost died drowned because Sariel was jealous of my ability to dream?! He was so fucked up in the head! So fucked up! Basically, it was the same as saying that he wanted me dead because I was me. Because I was human, I existed, and I could, apparently, do something he couldn’t: dream. Like… forget that he was a goddamn archangel with wings as tall as the ceiling, he could fly, and God knew what else he could do. He couldn’t dream. And that had made him snap and plot a way to murder me. Fucking brilliant! Yeah, brilliant. That was the last thing Sariel Gracewing was.
“I need to think,” I managed. “I need to…” I finally unlocked my door and opened it. I should have gone inside and slammed it shut behind me, slammed it shut between me and the crazy people outside. Instead, I seemed to be stuck on the threshold.
“Okay, you know what?” Paz pushed me inside and followed me, motioning for GC to do the same. “If you have to think, then I’d better tell you what I came to tell you, too, so you’d do your whole thinking thing just once.”
“What the hell?” I found myself in my cramped room, with Paz making himself comfortable at my desk, and GC rummaging through my mini fridge. Of course, he didn’t find what he was looking for. A good reminder that compared to them, I was rather poor. “You didn’t come to tell me anything. You came to mess with my head, hoping GC would find us and break up with me.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Dearie, you were with us all this time, weren’t you? I mean… you were there when he specifically said that he doesn’t care and he’s fine with sharing. Not for a second did I think he’d break up with you. If I ever had a plan, it was to make you break up with him.”
“Oh, that’s cold,” GC narrowed his eyes at him. “Unlike this water. I think your fridge is broken, my normie goddess.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening anymore!” I plopped on my bed and covered my face with my hands.
“I’m trying to tell you…” Paz started again.
“You came to tell me something. Really?” I looked up at him, and instantly regretted it. He looked hot at my desk. Like he belonged there. He was playing with one of my pencils, and I felt like it was all so natural. He was taking up space in my room as if that space had always been his to claim.
“GC had something important to reveal. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Is this a competition to you?”
GC snorted, which was a bad idea since he was drinking my water. A few drops splashed out right through his nose.
“Better get used to it. It will all be a competition from now on. Like… who gets to claim your virginity.”
I groaned. This was getting worse and worse.
“Who says I’m going to sleep with either of you?”
“Tell you what,” Paz said. “Apis told you about the dream thing and how Sariel went batshit over it. If my reveal is better than his, I get your virginity.”
“What the fuck, guys?! What even the…! Ugh!” I took a couple of deep breaths. Without meaning to, I eyed my scythe, which was propped at the head of my bed. It would be easy, wouldn’t it? I was pretty good with it, too. Chop-chop, and all my problems would be gone. Two of them, anyway. Chop-chop.
“It’s on,” GC said.
I jumped off the bed. “No, it’s not on. Nothing is on! Knock it off, okay? I’m not sleeping with either of you.”
“Maybe just wait until you hear what I have to say?” Paz chuckled.
Oh my God! They were impossible!
I crossed my arms over my chest and tapped my foot impatiently.
“Spill already.”
“Actually, I’m surprised you don’t know this from Patty. Since you’re back to being friends.”
My heart sank in my stomach. What did Patty know and hadn’t told me?
“Maybe she didn’t want to jinx it. She’s superstitious like that. Anyway, after Lorna pulled that whole magic crystal ball thing at Christmas, people started talking. I mean, not the students or the professors. The kitchen staff, the maids, the janitor… You know, the lower social groups at the Academy, so to speak.”
“Don’t call them that. You dated Patty!”
“Yeah. To get your attention. Did you think I was really into the kitchen girl?”
I can slap him right now. Two steps, one blow, that insufferable smirk will vanish in an instant. I didn’t do it, though. I hated to admit it, but he’d made me curious.
“I did get something out of dating her, though.” He leaned over and placed his elbows on his knees. “She told me about some prophecy. The people in the kitchens love a good prophecy, know what I mean?”
I furrowed my brows. Prophecy? No. What we talked about at the Unholy Chapel… that had been just Patty messing with me and my inferiority complex.
“And what does this prophecy say?”
“That a human will come along and retire the only Grim Reaper in the world that has refused to be retired for six centuries. You see, when a new generation of Grim Reapers takes over, the old generation either retires willingly and goes to do something else with their lives, like teaching at the Academy, or if they don’t retire willingly, they are retired by the Grim Reaper who’s supposed to take their place.”
“Retired as in…”
“Killed. Yes. Reaped.”
I shook my head. “And who’s this Grim Reaper that no one has been able to push aside yet?”
“Valentine Morningstar.”
“The nephilim?”
“Yep. The one and only. He’s been reaping for six hundred years, when he should have been in business for only two hundred.”
“Oh, okay.” I sat down and looked at GC, hoping he’d have something more interesting to say. He seemed to be frozen with my water bottle in hand. “Right. So, why is the staff so into this prophecy?”
“It makes sense,” GC finally said. “I’ve heard about it, too, but I thought it was just some fictional gibberish. Like most legends are. You know… like what we learn in Mythology.” I nodded. “The prophecy doesn’t only say that a human will retire Valentine Morningstar, but that he or she will also build a better world for all supernatural races.” He looked me in the eye, and I shifted uncomfortably. “That’s why the staff likes you so much. That’s why they accepted you in the kitchens, fed you, and kept you away from the VDC. Because they think you’re the human that was promised.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “You started by saying that it all makes sense, and you see… You just lost me after that. Because it doesn’t. First, it’s stupid that a human would retire Morningstar when angels, demons, mages, and whatnot have already tried and failed. Secondly, how would a human make a better world for the supernaturals? I, for one, don’t even know what all of you can do. I just found out that demons have telepathic abilities.”
Paz laughed. “Well, prophecies don’t tend to make much sense. That’s why they’re called prophecies. They trump reason.”
“And thirdly,” I pressed on, “Why me? How could it be me? I have nothing to do with Valentine Morningstar. The first time I heard of him was in History.”
“He’s a Violent Death,” GC shrugged. “You’re a Violent Death.”
“Yeah, sure. If I ever gradu
ate.” I jumped off the bed and headed to the door. My plan to change before dinner had gone down the drain. Apparently, both Paz and GC liked me in my sucky clothes, so why bother? “I’m hungry. Now, who’s going to take me to dinner and protect me from Sariel and Lorna? Or, I could always eat in the kitchen and tell Patty and the rest they got the wrong human for their prophecy.”
They were at my side in seconds. As I locked the door behind me and walked down the corridor, I couldn’t believe two of the Mighty Jerks were right there, walking in step with me, acting like I was their girlfriend and most treasured possession. Joke was on them, and especially on Pazuzu. I wasn’t the kind of girl who liked to be possessed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Oh my God, semester two was proving to be quite the challenge. The finals were in April, and I was determined to smash them. Practice was starting in May, and the students were going to be assigned to one of the current twenty-two Grim Reapers, according to their worth points and results at the finals. Since we were one hundred students and there were only twenty-two mentors, each mentor would roughly get three, four, or even five students in practice. Since Paz had told me about Valentine Morningstar and the supposed prophecy the working staff believed in, I had to be honest with myself: the whole practice thing was giving me the heebie-jeebies. I still wanted to believe it wasn’t true. Come on! I mean… I was Mila Lazarov. Nothing cool ever happened to me! Not that having to retire a Grim Reaper who’d defeated at least three opponents by now was cool…
If having Paz follow me around all through the Christmas holiday had been annoying enough, now I had GC, too. Sure, I enjoyed the attention, but it felt like I could never be alone now. At first, I slept in GC’s room, as usual, then Paz declared the arrangement wasn’t fair, and I agreed to sleep in his room a few nights a week. One night in GC’s bed, the next night in Paz’s bed, with Paz sleeping on the couch. At least, he’d agreed to that. I still refused to do anything with either of them, and I was really proud of myself, since it was getting more and more difficult. Every second of every day and night, I was tempted. They tempted me. But I couldn’t give in. I wanted to sleep with both of them, of course I did! Still, pure physics said I had to choose. And I wasn’t ready to choose. I didn’t want to choose.
“Why do I feel like you got way more than you bargained for?” Klaus laughed at my misery. We were coming back from our last class for the day, and I’d been lucky enough that neither Paz, nor GC had been in it. It was one of the few instances when I could sneak around without them following my every step. “What are you going to do?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“You like it, I can tell.”
I blushed. “Okay, I like it. No point in denying that. It does make my life harder, though. If I liked one of them less than the other, I could have chosen by now and been done with it.”
“Students have started talking, you know. How you come out of GC’s room one morning, and out of Paz’s the next.”
It was true. Sariel called me kuchka every five minutes now, while Lorna was sticking to English. Slut, whore, man-eater. She strongly believed that what we’d all seen at the Yule Ball was true, and that my real mother was a prostitute. That made things way, way worse for me. Honestly, the only reason why the other students hadn’t lynched me yet was because GC and Paz sat next to me all the time. In the dining hall, in class, if they had classes with me, and if they didn’t, Klaus was there. It was getting suffocating. On the one hand, I was grateful that I had two boyfriends and one good friend to protect me at all times, but on the other hand… Oh my God, I needed some time alone so badly! If I wanted to spend time with Patty, I literally had to shoo them away and give them the talk about personal space and how I had a right to mine, at least once in a while.
“I’ll start sleeping in my own room,” I told Klaus.
“Will you, though? I saw your room.”
“At this point, I couldn’t care less about luxury, comfortable beds, and well-stocked open-space kitchens. My room might be small, kind of ugly, and uncomfortable, but it’s mine.”
“More power to you, girl. If you can start saying no to the two Mighty Jerks who, let’s face it, kind of act like they own your soul now.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “No, they don’t.”
“Oh, you are so naïve. You don’t know how they talk about you when you’re not there.”
“How?”
“It’s a pissing contest! GC rubs it in Paz’s face that you’re sharing his bed when you make Paz sleep on the couch. Paz rubs it in GC’s face that you like his bathtub better. The whole school knows that you sleep on your right side, that you have nightmares and talk about some creature with yellow eyes in your sleep, that you wake up before the alarm every day, that you like your coffee dark with one cube of brown sugar… and the list can go on.”
I was livid. I stopped in the middle of the corridor and fixed him with wide, shocked eyes. “You’re kidding me…”
“Nope.” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “They’re competing so hard, that they’re constantly trying to prove who knows you better. I don’t think they even realize the whole school thinks this is the best soap opera ever.” He chuckled. “Every morning, we’re eagerly awaiting the next episode. And it’s so cool that an episode runs, basically, the entire day.”
“Crap. Fuck. I had no idea. They act normal around me.”
“Sure. And the second you turn your back, they turn the school into a cockfighting arena. For real cocks, you know. The hard, fleshy kind.”
“Eww! Come on, I don’t need that image in my head.”
He stepped closer to whisper in my ear. “Have you seen them? I mean… their cocks. Whose is bigger?”
“Oh my God, Klaus! Knock it off! No, I haven’t seen them.” I thought for a second. “Okay, I might have seen GC’s when he shifted into a golden calf. But not up close, or anything.”
“You didn’t touch it? Aww…” He looked genuinely disappointed. “Girl, you’re not taking advantage of this soap opera. We’re all here, cheering for you, thinking you’re getting some every night, and you’re wasting your time, and ours, playing the innocent virgin.”
“Okay, this conversation is over.” I turned on my heels and headed toward the north tower. “See you at dinner.”
Those idiots! I can’t believe them! On the other hand, what else could I have expected from two popular guys, one a false god and one a demon, who were used to having whatever and whoever they wanted all the time? My refusal to sleep with either of them had taken them out of their comfort zone, and this was how they knew to react. I rushed up the spiral staircase, then down the corridor of the rich students. I eyed GC’s door, then Paz’s, and I could have gone to either dorm if I wanted to, since they had given me copies of their keys, but I was done with that. From now on, I was going to live and sleep in my own room. Some of my clothes and books were in theirs, but I could get them later. My laptop was at Paz’s, but it could wait until after dinner.
I forced myself to look away from Paz’s door as I went past it, and just as I was getting ready to turn the corner down my corridor, I thought I caught a glimpse of someone going in the same direction. Not a maid. The red and black uniform told me it was a male student. Weird. Except GC and Paz, when they feel like hovering around my door, no other students come here. I followed the figure, and the closer I got to the guy, the greater the feeling that I knew who he was. The lights on this corridor were dim, and some of them had been broken a long time ago. The janitor didn’t particularly think it was important to attend to the parts of the Academy that weren’t frequented much.
Short brown hair and a certain, familiar rigidity in his step. Francis. But what was he doing here? That was when a thought crossed my mind. I hadn’t seen Francis in class for two days, or so. He’d been at the VDC table for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but not in class. I’d been so busy juggling my two boyfriends that I hadn’t given i
t much thought, and now, here he was, walking briskly toward the end of a corridor students never bothered with. I hadn’t bothered with exploring it so farther down, either. I knew most of the rooms here were either small, cramped supply rooms, or old dormitories that had been turned into dumps for broken furniture. My bedroom was, most likely, the only one still in use.
He stopped in front of a door and produced a key out of the pocket of his uniform jacket. The key turned in the lock with an eerie, metallic sound. I stopped in my tracks. He looked up at me, and I froze when his eyes locked with mine. They weren’t the mossy green I knew. His eyes were yellow, with an elongated pupil that reminded me of the eyes of a cold-blooded reptile. It was just for a second, though. He didn’t say anything to me, didn’t react in any way. It was almost as if he looked right through me, then he opened the door and disappeared inside. He left it open.
“What the…” I looked around me. There was no one else on the corridor, and the door he’d gone through was hanging open, tempting me to follow him. “Does he want me to follow him?” And, for all that’s holy, what was with the eyes? Familiar. So familiar…
“Everyone knows you have nightmares and talk about some creature with yellow eyes in your sleep,” I could hear Klaus say.
“Francis? I’d been dreaming about Francis all along?”
Okay, that was that. Time to confront him. Determinately, I walked toward the door and stopped before the empty room. As I’d guessed, it used to be a dormitory, but now it was mostly bare, with only an old mirror on one wall, and a few chairs piled up in a corner. What I hadn’t expected to see was a tall shelf that covered the entire wall to the right, and which had been moved to reveal a dark, hidden entrance. Since Francis was nowhere in sight, it was only logical that he’d sneaked through there.
“Hidden entrances and secret tunnels?” I chuckled to myself. “My jam…”
As I stepped over the threshold, something white that floated in the air caught my attention. I narrowed my eyes, and realized it was a feather. A long, fat, white feather.
