by Cara Wylde
“If dream travelers can’t see the future, and what they see is just a parallel world where things are similar but slightly different, then it means that whatever they see doesn’t have to necessarily happen in their own world. After you were born, I came across one of these timelines. In it, I was dead, retired by my own daughter when I’d refused to surrender my scythe and my career. I was an inexperienced dream traveler back then, just like you are now, and I believed that would happen in the future if I didn’t stop it from happening. I didn’t come up with the prophecy, mind you, I just saw what other travelers had probably glimpsed too, because even before I saw it, the word was already out there, in the supernatural community. My own dream only confirmed it. That was when I sought you out and tried to kill you. That was when my scythe broke.”
“You don’t regret it one bit…”
“No,” he said in a cold voice. “Because I still believe you’re going to be my undoing.”
I nodded. “You got that right.” Shit shit shit. Why did I leave my goddamn scythe in my room? Maybe I could subtly ask Corri to bring it? She could’ve done it with a snap of her fingers.
“Mila, you’ve been clearly working against me this past year. May I ask you something? How do you think you’ll retire me?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. Was he trying to intimidate me?
“Year three is almost over. We’ll graduate, and twenty-two of us will be chosen as the next Grim Reapers. Everyone knows by now that I will take your place. I’m meant to. So, if you don’t retire willingly, I will…”
“Kill me with your scythe?”
I cocked an eyebrow. “You think I’m not good enough of a fighter to do it? I trained with an Unseelie soldier last semester.”
“Oh, it’s not that. You’re a brilliant fighter. Another reason why I’m proud of you.”
I chuckled sarcastically. He kept saying those words… That he was proud of me.
“But if I can’t kill you with my scythe because it literally breaks like glass the second it touches you, how do you think you’ll be able to kill me with yours?”
My blood froze.
He grinned.
“That’s right, daughter. It’s not about the weapon itself, it’s about who wields it. You’re blood of my blood. I can’t hurt you. I don’t know why… It’s just an unwritten rule, I suppose. The same applies to you.”
Well, crap. That tiny, little detail hadn’t been in the prophecy that was actually not a prophecy but a creative, highly manipulative, misunderstood gibberish of a lie. And I wasn’t sure my own thoughts made sense anymore.
“However.” He took a step back, pulled a drawer open, and took out what looked like a pretty heavy leather baggie-thing. He undid the knot and turned it upside down. A stream of precious stones that sparkled green, blue, red, pink, and black poured onto his desk. “If I were to hire someone to end your life for me… I wonder if it might work.”
My eyes went as wide as saucers. Any wider, and they would’ve popped out of my sockets. Slowly, without taking my eyes off him, I started walking backwards. My shoulder blades hit the door, and my hand tried to find the doorknob. I was shaking so badly that I failed to grasp it…
Corri started flying all over the place, her wings making that incessant buzzing buzz buzz that I actually found soothing for the first time in my life.
“Mistress…”
Valentine cut her off my grabbing the bell on his desk and ringing it three times. Poof! Corri was in the Blank.
Yeah. He had a bell just like mine.
Was I trapped just now? I felt like I was trapped. My hand found the doorknob. Good. But why wasn’t I turning it? Why wasn’t I running? I guessed it was because I didn’t believe he would actually do it. I didn’t believe my own father, as shitty as he was, would give the order, and my Unseelie bodyguard, who’d been my friend for a second in semester one, would carry it out.
I’d stormed into his office and now I was going to run? I was either very brave, or very stupid.
Morningstar looked at Crassus, and Crassus looked at the gems.
I was very stupid.
“We’ll sign the contract later,” Valentine nodded toward the Unseelie.
“Wait a minute, this isn’t…” But Crassus already had his hand on the hilt of his sword and was moving toward me. “You’re not gonna…” He pulled his sword out. “Crassus…” And the cold, sharp edge was now pressed against my throat.
I looked into his eyes, and he looked into mine. This man had followed me around the whole summer, and then the whole school year. He’d stood guard by my door. He’d slept on the hallway, right in front of my room. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Not even if he was paid a fair price.
The sword moved away from my throat, and I sighed in relief. Too soon. He hadn’t changed his mind, he’d just changed the place where he wanted to strike.
Crassus plunged the sword in my chest.
I opened my mouth to scream, and nothing came out.
The last thing I saw with my human eyes were his lips moving in a quiet whisper: “It’s the way of the Unseelie.”
* * *
Pain. Sharp. Unforgiving. Darkness. Light. A blade glowing red.
“It’s okay, honey,” the Grim Reaper said. “It’s your time to go.”
“N-no.”
I was only twenty years old. I was in love with four boys, and I’d only gotten to tell two of them. I hadn’t fulfilled the prophecy. No, that last part didn’t matter. There had never been a prophecy.
“N-no.”
I recognized my Grim Reaper. She was VDC. A beautiful sphinx with golden eyes and skin as black as the night. GC and Pazuzu had been assigned to her for practice.
“I’ll be gentle,” she whispered.
“Please, it’s not my time…”
“Aww, I’m sorry, little one. It is.”
The blade pulled at my string of life, loosely coiled around my chest and shoulders. It gave in on the first tug. The next thing I knew, my soul was violently pushed out of my body. It rose for a few moments, up up up toward the sky, stopped to look at the walls of the Academy from above, then plunged into the earth.
I was going to Hell. Not a metaphor.
I was dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
As I descended toward the gates of Hell, my soul took the shape of who I used to be. It had been attached to my body for so long, that it was all it knew how to do – be Mila. My nonmaterial feet touched the ground. The more I walked, the more my destination seemed to move farther and farther away. The path turned narrow and dusty, and visions of a life once lived and lost started popping out here and there, showing me scenes in which I was the protagonist. Here was me on my first day of school, when I punched that kid who was laughing at my old, worn-out clothes in the face. There was me telling the Math teacher that she had a stick up her ass and needed a man to go in there and get it out. She’d failed me in a test, and I’d studied my ass off for it.
Me screaming in my mom’s face that she was useless. Me reassuring my desk mate in high school that she looked great, when in truth, that dress made her look like a potato. Then, there I was, making my scythe act up in Sariel’s grip at the Yule Ball in year one. Telling Lorna she was stupid if she believed he’d ever want her in year two…
I hadn’t been a good person. I hadn’t been evil, either, because most of the bad things I did were to take revenge on people who’d hurt me, but that meant nothing when it came to the final judgement. And this was it. This was my final judgement. Yep, I was going to Hell. And I deserved it, because when I was supposed to forgive and turn the other cheek, I cursed my life and everyone in it, and threw a punch instead.
Whatever. Heaven is boring anyway. And I like pain. Pain makes me feel alive. A part of me still couldn’t process that I was dead, apparently. I wondered what Circle of Hell I’d end up in. Visions were still dancing before me as I walked walked walked. When they’d be done, I�
��d reach the gates of Hell and find out.
There was me learning about the monster under the Academy and doing nothing about it. Doing nothing to stop evil was a sin, too. This particular vision lasted for a long time, and I had a feeling it was the one to decide my punishment.
I was getting to the end of the road. The gates were wide open before me. A few more steps…
Something grabbed me by the throat. My first instinct was to wrap my fingers around it and pull, but then I realized that I was nonmaterial, so I could just change my shape and escape. It didn’t work.
If I don’t have a body, if I’m just a soul right now, then how… why does it feel like I have a rope around my throat?
It didn’t make any sense. And the more I pulled at it, the tighter it coiled around my throat and chest. I stopped struggling. Maybe this was my punishment. To feel like a rope was crushing me and suffocating me forever and ever. The moment I stopped fighting it, it wrapped around me from my neck down to my waist. I looked down, and something shifted inside me when I realized that the thing was not a rope at all, but a… string of life. My string of life. Longer, thicker, stronger… more possessive than ever, desperate to attach itself to me. It had a will of its own, and its will was to... keep me alive.
It pulled me up through the earth, through damp darkness and places no man had ever seen, and dumped me in a pile of broken flesh. It felt cold, painful, and disgusting. But I had no other choice. The string of life forced my soul to mold against the body, fill every cranny from the inside, and expand around it in a field of renewed energy. I recognized it as my old body, the one I’d just left behind when the sword pierced my heart. I thought I would’ve wanted back, but I didn’t. Hell would’ve been easier to stomach. This thing was dead, cold, and unwelcoming. It smelled foul, too. But there was no way back now.
Something or someone had decided that I wasn’t done yet.
It was so bad, that once my soul and my body were back together, I lost consciousness.
* * *
It was cold. So cold. I stirred awake, my hands reaching around, trying to find something to cover myself with. I was naked. I opened my eyes, but only saw darkness. I finally found something, wet and slippery and disgusting, but at least it was warm. I pulled it over me, and realized it was moving, breathing. It had the texture of rough skin, and it was covered in small, round suction cups that oozed something nasty. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. I had to get out of there.
My senses were coming online, and the first one was my sense of smell. It hit me hard. If I had anything in my stomach, I would have vomited. Rotten flesh, stale water, dried blood.
Water. Stale water.
And I suddenly knew where I was.
I scrambled to my feet, my hands feeling for things I could use for support. Vines, more slippery, moving tentacles, and a wall, the rock warm and sharp under my fingertips. I moved around, my bare feet slushing through rusty water mixed with blood, sweat, and God knew what other fluids. Everything that was down here, in this pit of death and terror, was on my body too, in my pores, in my hair, in my eyes and my mouth, under my fingernails. I was drenched in it. And it smelled awful.
“I have to…” I croaked. Good, my voice was working. And I did sound like me, like the old me, like the Mila I used to be. Was that a good sign? A bad sign? Too soon to tell. “I have to get out of here.”
I don’t know how I did it… The old Mila wouldn’t have been able to climb the wall of the well with just her bare hands. But I did. My feet searched for nooks and crannies in the stone, my toes digging deep inside them and using them to propel my body upward. Up up up, and I could finally see light. I grabbed the edge and pulled myself over it, falling on the floor like a ragdoll. I stayed like that for a while, eyes closed, naked body shaking, nails scratching at the white stone. Candles flickered all around me.
“Mila?”
That voice. I knew that voice. I couldn’t look up yet. No, not just yet. I focused on my breath. In and out, in and out. My lungs were working properly, and I knew that my heart had been mended and my blood had been returned to my veins. But how? Through what ancient, dark magic? Through what horrendous act? Through whose sacrifice?
“Mila, you’re alive…”
Another voice. And I knew that one, too. It was time to confront them.
I pushed myself up on my hands and knees, then with extreme effort, to my feet. My blue eyes rose to look at the circle of people with black cloaks on their backs and candles in their hands. Through long eyelashes that dripped someone else’s blood, I stared at them in silence before I remembered how to use my voice again.
“What have you done?”
“We had no other choice,” Francis said. He looked at me like a lost puppy who knew he’d done something bad and was hoping I’d forgive him. “You were dead.”
“Goddess, he killed you,” GC’s voice trembled. “He murdered you in cold blood, and then he hid your body deep in the forest.”
“It took us three days to find you,” Pazuzu added.
“It took us hours to dig you up,” Sariel whispered, still in shock at what they’d all had to do.
Klaus was there, too. Joel, and Patty. Lorna…
“I’m a mage, not a necromancer,” Lorna said. “I would’ve… but my magic has limits. Francis said he knew a way.”
I straightened my back, moaning in pain. To move was to hurt.
“You brought me back,” I managed. “No, you asked your Great Old One to bring me back in a body that had been buried for three days!”
Francis whimpered. I threw him a death glare, and he immediately realized all his moaning and whining annoyed me. He gathered his courage and did his best to hold his head high.
“Your body will be back to normal in a few days. You’ll be stronger and faster, you’ll be able to do things you could never do before. Your senses will… sharpen.”
I looked at my hands, arms, legs. I touched my face, my neck, my chest, my sides… Every scar, every cigarette burn, every tattoo. It was all there. The map of pain that covered my skin. Most of it was my own doing, some of it… It didn’t matter anymore.
“What am I?”
“Revenant,” Francis said. “It’s what we call those who die and come back to life by the power of a Great Old One and through…”
“Blood sacrifice,” I finished the sentence for him. “Who did you kill to revive me?”
“It’s better if you don’t…” GC tried.
“The Unseelie’s daughter,” Lorna said, and I could hear the anger in her voice.
I looked at her with renewed interest. I looked at all of them with renewed interest.
“Crassus had a daughter?”
“Klaus and I teleported to the Unseelie Court and found her,” Lorna explained. “We wanted to sacrifice him at first, but Francis insisted his god prefers women, and we needed this to work. So, I figured… what would hurt him more? His daughter sacrificed to save your life. She’s gone, you’re here. Mission accomplished.”
“Lorna, you are…” I couldn’t even find the words. “Crassus was just doing his job. Morningstar paid him. It’s the way of the Unseelie.”
She took a step forward, her brows furrowed and her eyes seeping with blue energy and pure rage. “If that’s the way of the Unseelie,” she said in a booming voice that echoed down the tunnels and filled the empty space, “then this is the way of Lorna Chiaramonte. No one touches my friends and gets away with it. No one.”
“... loyal,” I finished my sentence when I finally got the right word. Initially, I’d wanted to say “Lorna, you are evil”, or “Lorna, you are a murderer”, but no. She was all of that, of course, but she was also loyal. They were all murderers, and they were all loyal. The two weren’t mutually exclusive.
“So, you’re okay,” GC let out a breath of relief, smiling. “You’re back, and you’re okay.”
Was I okay? I couldn’t answer
that at the moment. My body still felt dead here and there, and I smelled like shit. Now I knew I was covered in three things: the god’s poisonous ooze, the guts of the sacrifice, and my own blood. Oh, not to mention the rusty water that seemed to be a leitmotif in this hellish cavern, and the mud and worms of my grave in the forest.
My grave in the forest…
He’d done it. He’d killed me. Valentine Morningstar, my own father, had killed me.
“Revenant,” I whispered. “That means… I’m not human anymore. I’m… immortal.”
Francis nodded. “You’re just like me.”
“Mila,” said Patty. “I’m afraid the prophecy was never about you. I see it now. A human will retire the most powerful Grim Reaper alive. You’re not human anymore.”
“Patty, the prophecy isn’t real.”
She swallowed heavily. “Don’t say that. Someone must do something about him.”
“I’ll do something about him right now.”
I was naked, covered in blood and tattoos, and I looked more like a zombie than a revenant. Maybe they were the same thing. I knew what I had to do, and I had no intention of taking a shower first. That would’ve been pathetic.
If he could see me dead, then he could see me naked and undead.
I teleported away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Headmaster Morningstar wasn’t in his office. I took my time to look around, touch everything, smear his chair, desk, and papers with stinky blood. I sat behind his desk and waited for him.
I felt at peace now. As I stared at the door, I let myself sink within and feel my own body. My organs were waking up, one by one, healing themselves, the degraded tissues stitching themselves up and becoming stronger. My muscles already hurt less when I moved, and my lungs filled up with air greedily. As for my aura and my string of life… I couldn’t see them, but I knew. Gone were the days when my aura was clear and beautiful. It was the color of mud and poison, it had the weight of a thousand bricks, and it reeked of pain and nightmares. My string of life was tied around my torso like a rope, coiled over and over, determined to give hell to any Reaper who would’ve approached it with his scythe. I remembered that time when Francis and I were partners in the Anatomy of Souls class, and we were practicing seeing each other’s auras and strings of life. His had been coiled around his neck, like a stubborn snake. Mine was the same, maybe even more stubborn than his.
