Chapter 5

I've been glued to my computer all week. Normally I'm writing, but right now I'm lesson planning. It's exhausting and Summer School hasn't even started yet. Yawn. Oh, and I'll be moving next week. I haven't done anything but take care of the boys, work, and sleep (when Ben allows), but I've been dying to work on this book. And the other book. You know, the real one that I'm under contract for. Have mercy! But I can't let my five fans down. I've got to get this book written for them. Please, overlook the typos.

                                                Chapter 5

The Reaper has no black flowing robes, no fog surrounding his feet, no long scythe in a skeletal hand. He’s the boy I’ve been seeing. For a moment, his eyes are as black as the forgotten pits of Purgatory, but then change back to a pale grey, almost colorless.

“Cassandra,” he says.

The way he says my name is like a caress and I close my eyes and lean toward him even though I shouldn’t. I can’t help but want to touch him, just to see if he’s real.

“You have been Marked.” His voice is rough, like hot gavel beneath bare feet, but somehow soothing like the summer sun after a thunderstorm.

“Come with me,” he says. “The Afterworld waits for you. I wait for you.”

“No,” I say, backing away. 

He gives me a sad smile. “You will love me,” he says, but his tone isn’t arrogant. His words are steady and sure, like he’s seen the future. “Let me show you what awaits you.” As he moves toward me, I notice the small brand of a black sickle on his inner wrist. It matches mine. He doesn’t touch me, but he waves his hand over my face, taking me to another time and place.

 

I walk through a shear gray veil into deeper darkness, my bare feet sinking into the fine, black sand. The smell of ash and blood tickle the back of my throat. The buzz of lost souls swells as I continue down a path lined with twisted, barren trees. Like I’ve been here before I know where I am going, and I know I am myself.

The path opens up to a dark room. At first I see nothing, but blackness. For a moment, I think I am alone, but then I hear him. “Cassandra.” His voice surrounds me, beckoning me forward. Even though I can’t see him yet, I know where he is, and I fight the urge to run to him.

The pit at the middle of the room and it ignites, filling the room with a bluish hue. I look around and see that the walls are bear and the room is empty except for a black throne that could seat two people and a bed filled with lush black velvet linens that remind me of cooled lava. Just seeing at the bed makes me nervous, so I look away.

As the Reaper turns to me, the light of the flames flicker across his pale skin, giving him a false glow of life. “Reiner,” I say as I run to him and he catches me in midair as I leap for him. He lifts me higher as he takes ahold of my waist, and he smiles up at me as he spins me around. He sets me down, but keeps his arms encircling me. I lean into his chest. My eyes are level with the thick pink scar across his throat. I nuzzle against his neck, breathing in an ancient scent of soap and cigarettes. He kisses my forehead and then leads me over to the joined throne make of curving black wood and metal. I sit, expecting the seat to be hard and uncomfortable, but it cushions me like I’m sitting in a field of soft grass.

“I told you we would end up here.” He places his arm with his Mark right next to mine. When his skin touches mine, I feel a little shock in my chest, a pulse of energy. My entire body buzzes to life, like I’m being reborn.

“You were Marked because you are meant for me, meant to share my life,” Reiner says.

“The dead will rise soon, and when the world goes still, I will be there with you. We will fight and we will win. Then we can be together as we were always meant to be.”

I lean into him, and just before we kiss, I’m pushed out of the vision.

 

Reiner the Reaper is gone.

“Cass?”

            Mom stands above me, shaking my shoulders so hard that it feels like my brains are rattling around inside my skull. I blink into the darkness, and feel an ache in my chest, an emptiness for a love that will never be, a love I don’t even want.

            “What just happened?” My voice is raw, like I’ve come back from the dead. “Where is he?” I ask.

            “Who?”

            “The Reaper.”

            Mom’s eyes widen even more. “No Reaper here. Just us living.” She kneels beside me and brushes some of my blond hair from my face and kisses my forehead. “I thought you were a goner. You passed out after that showed up,” she says, pointing to the black sickle on my wrist. “I yelled your name, over and over. You wouldn’t respond. I slapped you across the face, trying to get you to wake up. Sorry”

I touch my cheek and discover it’s tender. “Ouch,” I say.

“They are always slapping unconscious people in movies. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I didn’t know what else to do.” As her eyes sweep over me, the moonlight catching on the tear tracks on her face. I must have really scared her.

As I sit up, the blood rushes to my head. Everything goes dark for a moment as I reorient myself. Once I can see straight again, I look at my inner wrist. The ugly Mark of the Reaper is still there. It looks like someone used a Sharpie and a stencil of a little sickle. I rub my thumb over the mark, like I can wipe away, but it’s permanent.

It can’t be me. There’s no way I’m supposed to be the girl who will save the world from Abaddon. I’d always hoped that once I graduated from high school, I could leave home and also all this necromancy behind. With the apocalypse chasing me, there’s no way I will get away from the dead. There must be some sort of mistake.

I crawl over to the Grimoire of the Dead, flip it open to the last page, and the words appear. Mom leans over my shoulder and reads, “The dead will ascend. The living will fall.  The broken sun will end, when Abaddon rules all. When everything falls away, only sacrifice can win. Her gift will bring day to night, and erase the first sin.” I glance back at Mom. She’s crying again, but I ignore her tears.

“I didn’t write that,” Mom says. “Did you write it?”

I shake my head. “It just appeared.” She nods her head slow, like it weighs a hundred pounds.

“What does it mean?” I ask.

            Mom shrugs. “I should have paid more attention in all those Sunday school classes my mom made me go to, but I remember a little bit. When the world ends, Abaddon will rise from Purgatory, brining all the dead with him. He will rule us all. Hell will be here on earth. I’m talking fire and brimstone. Torture. Swarms of locus. Plagues. Disease. And you think you’re life sucks now. You ain’t seen nothing yet, honey.”

“You aren’t forced to go to high school every day. It’s own kind of hell on the earth.”

She chortles, but then says, “It’s not a joke.” Mom is rarely serious, so it makes me shut up and listen. “The whole world will be writhing in pain and torment. That is until some fights Abaddon and wins.” She holds up my wrist with the black sickle mark on it. “I never thought this would happen.”

            “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I mumble, snatching my arm away from her.

            “That’s not what I meant,” Mom says. “I guess I hoped the end would never get here. We’re having such a roaring good being alive.”

            “Being necromancing weirdoes.”

            She sighs. “You don’t get it, do you, Cass? How incredibly boring it is to be normal? People dream of being special, and you are.” She takes my hand again, turning my wrist until my forearm is facing up, and we’re both are forced to stare at my new black tattoo again. “I take it all back. I’m not surprised. You’re the most powerful one of us in generations.”

            “I’m not,” I say.

            “I know you don’t like talking about any of this, but, yes you are. You can control the dead. They listen to you when they won’t listen to anyone else. You have a natural gift. You bring life to the dead. You bring peace. You read the prophecy with me. One day, you will bring light to the darkness.”

            I think of a hundred different sarcastic remarks, but all I can picture is the Reaper and what he’s shown me. How it natural it felt to be with him in Purgatory.

            “There’s more to the prophecy,” I say. “I saw it in my book this afternoon.” I take the book up and flip to the very back page. The words are back again. “With the Reaper’s Mark, she will gather the dead. For in Purgatory the army will be bred. The Reaper she will love. The Reaper she will hate. The world’s balance hangs on love’s fate.”

            “You’re going to fall in love with a Reaper!” Mom exclaims as she paces in front of a tombstone. “Well, isn’t this every mom’s dream?” She throws her hands up. “Not a bad boy or a chauvinist or a sadist. A Reaper. Fantastic! Will you have little demon babies with him? Can I visit you in hell?”

I grab her shoulders, trying to force her to stay still. She pushes past me and keeps moving. “I’m not going to fall in love with him,” I call after her

She striding down the line of graves, turns on her heels, and walks back up the row again. “I said the same thing about your father. And look at me now! A thirty-nine-year-old divorcee with two kids, a fulltime job that barely pays the bills, and no romantic prospects. I saw the look on your face when you talked about the Reaper. I can tell he’s hot.”

“How handsome he is doesn’t matter.”

She stops so short and she almost trips over a grave marker. “Cassandra Marie Charon, you’re a strong independent woman—I raised you to be one—but you’re a sucker for a pretty face.”

“I’m not a sucker,” I say.

“Oh, you’re a sucker, alright. If Blake’s drunken mother wouldn’t have come out onto the front porch tonight, you would have kissed that boy. You probably would have let him get you into the backseat of his BMW and have his way with you, even after he never called you after last summer.”

“I never told you what happened,” I say.

“Cass, I was there to pick you up. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw you two kiss. You got grumpier and grumpier. I’m not as dumb as you think I am. I put it all together. I figured he never called. Blake Harrington is a beautiful human specimen, but he’s also a conceded jerk.” She glanced back at my sickle. “Maybe you should go for the Reaper instead. He might not break your heart.” She starts pacing again.

“Mom! We’re not talking about my love life anymore.” I stop her and force her to look at me. “What about me gathering the dead? What about the army being trained in Purgatory.”

She shrugs. “I have no idea. None. All I do know is that I need cake. A lot of cake.” She picks up the pink pastry box from the tombstone.

“Me, too,” I say. I take the cake from her, and I don’t bother with cutting or plating it. With a fork, I dig in, and a moment later, Mom does the same. We sit on the marble slab of a mausoleum, setting the cake between us, and eat it until it’s gone.

When I stand up to leave, I feel the rush of the sugar high and the rise of nausea. I ate too much, too fast. And all I can think about is the Reaper, Purgatory, and the end of the world. All of the sudden, it’s like I’m back in the Afterworld with him. The cries of the damned ring in my ears, and I gag on the scent of flesh burning in fires. I try to run out of the graveyard, but don’t make it before barfing on a marble angel and all over a freshly dug plot. This is the second time I’ve tossed my cookies today. That can’t be a good sign.

Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I straighten up and look at what I’ve done. “I guess I’m already going to hell with the Reaper,” I say. “So it doesn’t matter if I desecrate human remains, too.” I bite my lip, thinking of the mourning family coming to visit their dearly departed, only to find throw up all over the new grave. “Should I get a garden hose and wash it off?”

Mom looks from me to the angel, and then back to me. The crease in between her brow seems deeper set tonight. “Are you okay?” she asks.

“I’m wonderful,” I say. “The best I’ve ever been. I’m responsible for the rise or the fall of the living. It took me three tries to pass the driving test. I’m sure I’ll ace the end of the world.”

I look at my mother. Even through her heavy covering of makeup, I can see that she’s paled.

“It’s okay, Mom. I’ll make the end of the world my bitch.”

“Don’t swear,” she says. “Just because the apocalypse is nigh, is no excuse to forget your manners. You are after all a Southern lady.”

“Yes, Mother,” I say, rolling my eyes.

As we pack up our belongings and head to the car, rain drizzles down, and then gets heavier, pelting the bare skin of my shoulders. We rush down the row of tombstones and jump into the purple pimpmobile. After I buckle up and Mom starts the engine, I say, “I guess I don’t have to feel guilty for puking on that grave. The rain will wash away all evidence of my vandalism.”

“Thank goodness for that.” We drive for a little while and she catches me examining my sickle mark. “You might want to cover that up,” she says. “I’m not sure the PTA would think too highly of me if they think I let my youngest daughter get a tattoo for her birthday.” She leans across me to open the glove box, fishes around for a moment, and then comes up with a blown bracelet, a much thicker version of my other bracelet. Instead of one strand, there are five stacked on top of each other. I slip it on and it’s large enough to cover up the sickle mark.

“Thanks,” I say.

We’re at a stop light, so she leans over and brushes the wet strands of hair from my face. “It’s going to be okay, Cass. We’ll get through this.”

I nod and turn my attention back to the rain falling on the windshield. I should tell her about the strange visions, but it’s too much for tonight. She just found out that her daughter is signed on for the freaking apocalypse. The visions can wait.

The light changes back to green, and as she rolls through the empty intersection, she says, “What was his name?”

“Reiner. Reiner the Reaper.”

            Mom gnaws at her lip, getting red lipstick on her teeth. “What did he look like?”

            I don’t want to answer because even in my subconscious, I am drawn to him. “Tall, blond, pale grey eyes, about my age, and dressed like he was in the military. He’s ripped the swastikas off his uniform, but he was definitely in Hitler’s army.”

“I’ve heard of him. He’s new, but very powerful, already the second in command in Purgatory. They say that this Reaper is more brutal than any other.”

“Yippee.”

I lean my head against the passenger window. The drive home isn’t long, but I’m so

exhausted from the last twelve hours that the second I close my eyes, I fall asleep.

 

            The rising sun, filters through the shabby curtains covering a small window above me. I lie on my back, a lumpy mattress beneath me. When I attempt moving, I discover my ankles are bound to the foot railing and my arms are tied to the headboard.

            “I thought I heard you.” His voice comes from the shadowy corner of the dark room. His face is always obscured by shadows.

            “Where are we?” I ask.

            “We’re in our house by the creek. Don’t you remember? I showed it to you once when we were on my boat.”

            A tear rolls into my hairline. Not wanting him to see, I turn my head from him.

            “You must be hungry. It’s almost morning.”

            I jump as much as my restraints allow when his hand brushes the clumped, sweat-drench strands of my hair away from my forehead.

            “I brought you some broth. I’ve noticed you’ve put on a little weight. I want you to look good in your wedding dress.”