Just a Little Death (Children of the Apocalypse Book 1) (4 page)

“What is it?” He asked, his voice even.

I tried to think about how I wanted to word it. “Where the hell have you been for the last eighteen years?”

His eyes widened slightly. “I didn’t know you existed.”

“Yet, at least four other people thought to come find me, and you sat here, not even curious as to why you couldn’t knock up another angel?” I growled through my locked jaw.

He raised a brow. “I assumed it wasn’t my time to have a child and I thought that War and Pest had lost it and were on a wild goose chase.”

“This is too much.” I turned away from him. “Demons, horsemen, fallen angels, and a long lost father.” I shook my head. “No.”

“No?” Death asked.

“No. I’m not doing this. Send me back home.” I snapped.

Ruthie stepped up and put a hand on my shoulder. I pulled away. “Sammy, we can’t do that. We need to figure out what is going on and the first step is here, with your dad.”

“A dad isn’t someone who just pops into your life. This isn’t about reconciling with family, it’s about all the crazy stuff that I’ve been dragged into in the course of two days.”

“I know,” Ruthie kept her voice even and faced me. “But you’re not going to face this alone. You’re not going in alone. We are here to help. All of us. For now, let’s just focus on the here and now.”

I took a deep breath and tried to push all the anger and confusion out of the way. I could get used to Death being my father, I could handle demons and crazy things…maybe.

“So…now what?” I asked after a moment of silence.

“Now we start training you on your job. The boys can be called back now that we know you exist.” He came to a stop in front of me. He let the scythe fall from his hand, and like Aeron’s sword it disappeared. He wrapped his arms around me and held me close.

I didn’t know what I expected, but he was warm against me and wrapped in his arms I had the feeling of being home. I belonged there, with him, and some of my anger melted away. I wrapped my arms around him and took comfort in his embrace. For a moment, I forgot about the demon and the crazy math teacher.

He let go and looked down at me. “Had I known, I would have come for you sooner. Your mother never even tried to contact me.”

“I have a feeling she’s going to be as shocked as you are.” I glanced at Ruthie. “Though there’s a reason we were going to contact you.”

He turned to the angel. “Yes?”

“Famine is missing, and judging by the plague that’s about to wipe out a fourth of the United States, Pest is missing as well.”

Death’s eyes snapped back to me and I held my hands up. “I swear I have nothing to do with that part.”

He gave a bob of his head. “I’ve noticed their presences were weak. They are still alive, but not on this plane of existence. It’s why I called you here. I wanted a status on what was going on. Them disappearing from both planes means one thing…”

“They’ve been sealed away again.” Ruthie snarled. “I was worried about that. There’s been more demon activity lately, we had a demon show up at the school.”

He paced back and forth for a moment. “You and Sammy work with the boys to figure out what is going on. I’ll do what I can from my realm, here. If need be, I’ll come help you fight, but once you figure out where the seals are you let me know. I’ll be the one to release them.”

“Sammy is going to need to learn to fight and control her abilities when she gets them.”

He glanced at me and a small smile crossed his lips. “We have her come here to work with me. After classes and when her mother’s not around. I don’t want to involve her.”

“That won’t be a problem, I chose the college farthest away from home that I could get in state.” I shrugged. “I wanted to make sure she didn’t go all mama bear and visit every weekend.”

They both laughed. Death put a pale hand on my shoulder. “Then you’ll come here and I’ll teach you. Like I should have been since you were a child.”

“I guess it’s time I decide that this isn’t a dream.”

“Far from it. We’ll start tomorrow.”  He looked to Ruthie. “Keep her safe until then. Keep an eye out for the Sins.”

“The Sins?” I asked.

Ruthie nodded. “How much do you know about the Seven Deadly Sins?”

“If you’re lucky, I might be able to name them.”

Ruthie put the palm of her hand to her head. Death sighed. “The Seven Deadly Sins are high level demons. They work closely with the Devil in causing havoc. I can promise you if the other three horsemen disappeared, they have something to do with it.”

Wasn’t that a pleasant thought. “Lust, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, Pride, Wrath and Greed.” I muttered.

“If all seven of them get together in the same place…” Ruthie whistled. “Chaos, think about it like a frat party gone nuclear.”

I didn’t want to think about it, I was still trying to wrap my head around everything. “So how do we stop them?”

“We fight against them.” She said easily.

Sure, like the demon from yesterday. She made it sound so simple. “I’m going to need a lot of training.”

“Don’t worry, some of it comes naturally. Like the ability to know the number of souls that will be reaped. You can do that without really thinking about it, can’t you?”

“Especially if it’s a low number. But I thought everyone had freewill…how can I predict death if causes and external influences can be a factor?”

He smiled. “The number is ever changing and ever flowing. I’m sure you’ll see that when Pestilence is released again. The number of deaths from the plague will change because of that one action. Freewill makes sure that nothing is certain and that nothing is written in stone.”

I filed away the information for later. “So, let’s make a plan for finding Pestilence and make sure we can save mankind?”

“Sounds about right.” Ruthie laughed. “Let’s get back and meet up with the boys, we’ll let them know what we’ve learned.”

I glanced back at Death and he nodded. “I’ll see you soon.” He turned away from us and looked back over the wasteland. He held his hand out and his scythe appeared, then he disappeared, fading into the air.

“He must have some work to do.” Ruthie put an arm around my shoulder. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“I traveled by lightning bolt.” I glanced up as the sky grew dark and crackled with electricity. “And it looks like that’s how we’ll be getting home.”

She nodded and held tight to me. The lightning cracked, but this time I had enough warning to close my eyes.

#

We reappeared in the courtyard with rain pouring around us. I welcomed the cold droplets as we ran across the area and to the main building where the cafeteria and café were. We walked into the cafeteria and handed the attendee our IDs to swipe. Unlike the café, the cafeteria had several stations to order food from, anything from salads to pizza. It was a little less private than the café, but the hours were better and it used up fewer points on the meal card. I went to the salad bar and didn’t pay attention to where Ruthie went. My guess was as an angel, she didn’t have to worry about what she ate, but for me, on top of monsters, scary algebra teachers, and hot guys, I worried about the freshman fifteen.

“Hey, a bit late for lunch, isn’t it?” Jared’s voice came from behind me. I spun and tried not to drop my tray.

“Had a meeting I couldn’t miss.” I said easily. “What about you?”

“Just got out of class,” He glanced at Ruthie who had her back turned to us. “I’m having a party tonight, off campus out in the desert. Do you want to come?”

I smiled. “I can’t tonight, we have our RA meeting and then a study group for one of my classes.”

“It’s the first day of class, how do you already have a study group?” He leaned forward and met my gaze.

My heart did a flip-flop thing as it pounded against my chest. My mind spun with him so close. I’d liked boys before, but this feeling was…almost out of this world. “They are old friends.” I couldn’t figure out how else to describe the boys. “They are taking the same level math class at a different time.”

He backed up a bit. “Next time?”

“Yeah, next time I’ll take you up on your offer.” And make sure to take someone with me. The parties in the deserts were whispers around the campus, the stories could be found on social media pages of students, and there were warning signs in the dorms about partying safe. I wouldn’t be going alone and there was no way I’d get shit faced. “Rain check?”

“I’ll hold you to that.” He winked and walked out towards the tables and then exited the cafeteria without food. I went back to making my salad, then to the dining area, waiting for Ruthie.

She came out with her plate piled with pizza and a bowl of ice cream. “Furthest corner.” She motioned to the back of the dining area. We both walked over there and sat down in the booth, she pulled a chair from another table over. “I texted the guys. They should be here in a few minutes.”

I picked at my salad, then leaned back in the booth. “So if the other three horsemen are missing, why isn’t Death?” I was still trying to wrap my mind around meeting my father for the first time. Even to me, my voice sounded half interested.

“My guess? He’s the oldest of this generation; he’s probably harder to pin down. Assuming that they are gone.”

“They are.” Kaleb slammed his hand on the table before he sat down next to me. I found it odd since he had blamed me earlier for the apocalypse happening. “None of us can get a hold of our parents. Not in any plane that we can access.”

“What does that mean? That you can access?”

Aeron sat next to Ruthie and another guy took the seat at the end of the table. His black hair was pulled back at the base of his neck and his skin was a sickly white. “There’s one realm that we can’t get to alone, and that’s Hell.” He glanced at me. “I’m Pete, you must be Sammy.”

I nodded. I couldn’t get to any realm alone, but I wasn’t going to point it out. “Death hasn’t disappeared. We saw him not a half hour ago.”

“Your dad is a bit more elusive than the others. He deals with souls while the others deal with physical humans. They tend to spend more time in this realm making them easier to be found.” Aeron shrugged. “What we need to figure out is where our dads are and if they are trapped where the seals are. They aren’t dead or we would have come into our powers and we could stop the apocalypse from happening.”

“Death said he’d work with Sammy to help her come into her powers and she’ll be able to help us fight what we can. That’s the only thing we can do right now. Our facade in the human world is important.” Ruthie swirled her spoon in her ice cream. “We get her into her powers and we’ll be a full team.”

I leaned back and popped a baby tomato in my mouth. All I could do was sit back and watch how they worked. I closed my eyes and concentrated. How many souls would be reaped if the apocalypse happened…I frowned as zero showed up. Impossible.

“Sammy?” Kaleb asked.

“How can zero souls be reaped if the apocalypse happens?” My brows drew together. “It’s impossible, right?”

They all looked at me with wide eyes. Ruthie put her spoon down. “Are you sure that is the number?”

“Well, no more sure than I was about the number dying of the Black Death, but you know, I’m new to all this.” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

She nodded and sighed. “If Death is locked away the reaping of souls stops. Which means that death doesn’t exist. A deadly blow falls, you live, most likely with the damage and the pain that happened.”

My mind went to the demon. “Decapitation?”

“You remain conscious of the fact that you’re severed from your body. Let’s all hope it doesn’t come to that.” Pete said. “Let’s just hope the Black Death and some war is all we have to deal with.”

“So how do we want to handle this?” Ruthie asked.

Aeron glanced at me. “We give Sammy some time to learn and train. We research what we can, fight the demons that come up and hold them for information. Thanksgiving break, we go on a trip and find Pestilence.”

It sounded simple enough. “I feel like you guys have dealt with this before.”

“This isn’t a new threat. It’s something we’ve had to make sure we are prepared for.” Kaleb nudged me. “Like Ruthie said, we’re a complete team now. The Devil herself couldn’t stop us.”

I blinked. “The Devil is a woman?”

“Yeah, the Bible got that one wrong.” Ruthie mused. “I hear she’s very pretty.”

The boys chuckled. “That’s what we hear too, and that she has a harem of high class demons at her beck and call.” Pete said. “She’s failed before though, on locking the horsemen away. This time won’t be any different.”

“Were you around when that happened?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, it’s the time that’s talked about in the book of Revelations. The translations are just all wrong.”

It explained why my mother never put too much faith in the Bible. “My mom always said the Bible translated differently for everyone. That it’s meant for everyone to get something a little different each time.”

They all nodded. “That’s one of the reasons that people turn to the Bible in a time of need and why they find what they are looking for.” Ruthie smiled. “It’s a wonderful book, just sometimes people forget that it was translated by humans.”