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I woke spooning Julia and I gasped at the sight of sunlight streaming through the window. “Jules,” I whispered and shook her. She rolled toward me and then her eyes shot to the window and the bright blue sky.
She moved quickly, jumping out of bed in an all out sprint, and before I could say anything else, she was out in the hallway and out of sight.
I flopped back on the bed and glanced at the clock. Thank God it was Sunday and not a weekday, because my mother slept in on Sundays. If it had been during the week, we would have been so busted.
I had another hour before I expected my mother to pop into my room and wake me for church. As much as I grumbled at getting up at seven-thirty, my religious duties were over by ten and I had the rest of the day to do whatever I wanted.
I rolled toward the window and stared at the cloud-free sky, and the deception of a calm spring day, when I knew the storm of the century was just around the bend. A scraping noise filled the room and I sat up, my eyes darting from corner to corner and then they fell to the floor and my eyes widened.
A reaper half crawled, half dragged itself toward me and I scrambled to the headboard, unable to make a sound. The thing was missing a leg and one arm was bent at an unnatural angle, held together by splinters of bone. Its good arm reached for me and I heard the familiar voice in my head.
“Nicholas...”
I moved on instinct, reaching for Isabel’s skeletal hand and the moment my flesh touched her, the information flowed in a flurry of facts and visions, none of which settled my unease. “What happened?” I asked because I didn’t trust what I saw in my head.
“Leviathan,” she gasped.
“You went to Purgatory?” I already knew the answer, but I just couldn’t believe she’d do something so stupid.
“Had to try, but I couldn’t get to your father.”
Once I had her settled on the bed, I sat next to her and rested my hand on her shoulder. The chill I felt from her yesterday was gone, it was replaced by a dull sense of pain aching in my chest and I couldn’t place why. “So, did he have the knife?”
“No, he doesn’t have it,” she said, her voice getting weaker with every word and I knew.
Sadness filled me and I knew Isabel was dying.
“I thought only the knife could kill reapers,” I said trying to make sense of this.
“Leviathan. Can kill. Us,” Isabel said, and each word captured the pain and desperation filling both of us.
“I’m sorry, Izzy.” Tears stung my eyes and burned my throat and I pressed my lips together in protest against the devastation welling in my throat.
She reached her bony hand to my cheek, wiping the tear away before her arm fell to the bed. “Your. Father. Hid. The...” The last word came as an exhale and then nothing else.
“Isabel!” I yelled.
Nothing but a hiss of wind against my window broke the silence and I stared at the form on my bed, watching helplessly as her bones turned to a fine powder that swirled away in the turbulent dust tornado.
I turned toward the door in time to see both Julia and my mother slide to a stop in the entrance.
“What’s wrong?” they asked in unison.
“Isabel is dead.”
Both of them blinked in confusion, trading a glance before looking back at me.
“She’s a reaper,” my mother started.
“-Yes, and she got really hurt going after my father. She came back,” I stopped and swallowed, trying to figure out the right words to articulate the shape she was in. “Broken,” I added.
“What do you mean broken?” Julia asked, stepping inside the room, her eyes darting around expecting to see the glamour Isabel wore for her benefit. The empty room greeted her every glance.
“Her leg was torn off, her arm was broken and it looked like a few ribs were crushed. She said Leviathan did it.”
My mom reached for the desk chair and sat down hard. “Did she say anything about your father?”
“Dad’s alive,” I said to her devastated face. “Well, as alive as Death can be.”
“Did Isabel find what she was looking for?” Julia asked, trying to keep our conversation regarding the magical knife under wraps, but needing some answer that would revive her hope.
“She found my dad, but she couldn’t get him away from the Leviathan,” I said, conveying the no in so many words and her shoulders slumped.
My mother glanced between us and cocked her head. “What exactly was Isabel looking for?” I swear, the woman could read minds as easily as I would be able to when I stepped into my father’s job.
“She was looking for my father,” I answered and looked at the floorboards. I hated lying to my mother, and like a search and rescue dog – she ferreted out the lie.
“Dylan Nicholas Ramsay,” she started and I met her gaze.
“Mom, leave it alone.”
“I will do no such thing,” she said and stood, putting her hands on her hips in that exasperated manner that always made me want to laugh.
I crossed my arms and stared her down, unwilling to share this little tidbit of information.
“You’re not leaving this room until you tell me what Isabel was looking for.”
“She was looking for Death’s dagger,” Julia said and my jaw dropped.
“It’s not a dagger,” I corrected and sent a just shut up now look in her direction.
“Why?”
“Because Isabel told Nick it can kill the reapers,” Julia answered.
My mother’s eyebrows rose and she glanced at Julia for a moment before returning her eagle eyed glare in my direction. “And you thought if you found this weapon, you could stop this?”
I nodded. “I have to stop them, Mom.”
“Don’t be stupid, Nick, you’re not equipped to take on a reaper, never mind two, hell bent on killing all of us.”
“If that knife gets into the wrong hands, it won’t matter,” I said.
My mother’s arms slowly lowered and she sat in the chair again.
“Isabel said my father hid it somewhere. I have to find it before they do.” I studied her reaction, or lack of one and my intuition prickled. “Did you ever see my father with a knife?”
She glanced out the window and nodded.
“When?”
Her gaze met mine and I shivered. He had it the last time he was here.
“You know where it is?”
Her gaze was the tell, and I felt both cold and hot flush over me. I slid off the bed and stuck my hands between the mattresses, sliding it along the length of my bed.
“Nick, don’t,” my mother pleaded, but I ignored her.
When my fingers hit cool leather, I felt along the sheath until the smooth hilt caressed my fingertips. Carefully, I wrapped my hand around the handle and pulled. The minute the knife hit the air of my room, a cold wind filled the space and I glanced at my mother’s wide eyes.
Power radiated through the sheath, producing a glow that flowed out over the handle. I unsnapped the clasps holding the knife in place, freeing the blade from the leather holder. The room lit up as if I was holding Excalibur instead of a fifteen inch spiked bowie knife. It pulsed in my hand, sending warm radiating waves up my arms and filling me with a sense of invincibility.
I yanked my gaze from the blade and met Julia’s. Her mouth formed a perfect O and I smiled. I’m sure I must look like an idiot holding the knife like a revered object, but I didn’t care. With this, I could do anything. Even defeat the rogue reapers.
I slid the knife back in the sheath and clipped it onto my pajama bottoms. It pulled at the fabric, lowering the flannel below my belly button and I clutched the waistband with a shrug. “I guess pajama bottoms aren’t the best thing to clip this on. Do you mind giving me a minute so I can get dressed?”
They both nodded and slipped out of the room. On instinct, I didn’t put the sheath down, instead, I slipped it between my teeth and once I had a clean pair of jeans on, I clipped the sheath to my belt. Warmth radiated through the leather and into my hip, creating a dull ache, like it wanted to be freed from its bondage to wield justice. I patted the holder, calming the instinctual need for vengeance.
A flannel shirt took the chill from my skin, even though I left it unbuttoned, and I made my way downstairs into the kitchen. When I stepped across the threshold, Julia slid into a seat at the kitchen table with two bowls and the box of Captain Crunch from the cupboard.
“Want to grab the milk and some spoons?”
“Sure, where’s my mom?”
“She said she needed to get ready for church.”
“Did you want to come to church with us?”
Julia shook her head, and I couldn’t blame her.
“Do you want me to stay here with you?” I asked and she hesitated with the cereal box half tilted and without saying a word, she nodded and continued to fill both our bowls. I sat down next to her and handed her one of the spoons before drowning both bowls in milk.
We ate in silence, but I picked up more than a hint of her thoughts and I wondered if the knife had something to do with my heightened senses. She waffled on whether to check her house or not. The police might have left a message or some sort of notice to contact them assuming they had some way to identify bodies this quickly, or at least identify license plates in the charred wreckage.
With the onset of those morbid thoughts, my appetite vanished. I pushed the bowl away half-eaten and wiped my face with my hands before glancing sideways at her. It didn’t seem to spoil her appetite and she even went for more. I stood, clearing my dish and dumping and stashing it in the dishwasher before I turned.
“I can go with you to your house to get your school books and clothes for tomorrow if you want.”
She raised her head and her gaze fell on the knife attached to my hip and she nodded, dropping her gaze again. The fact that she didn’t say anything beyond two sentences since I found the knife worried me. “Is everything okay?”
This time she looked directly at me and raised an eyebrow. “Have you looked in the mirror since you got a hold of that thing?”
A bite of shock traversed over my skin and for a moment I wasn’t looking at her, but looking through her eyes and what I saw sent me running to the bathroom. I stared at my reflection. My normal reflection with my hair in bed-head mode, my shirt still hanging unbuttoned and none of what I saw through her eyes.
Even Halloween wouldn’t explain the red and black face painting that looked like tiger stripes and add the bizarre ninja suit and you could mistake me as an extra from The Phantom Menace. The only thing remotely familiar was the sheath on my hip.
I started laughing and my mother pushed open the door. She did a double take and her lips pressed together. “Why are you dressed like Superman?”
“I’m not.”
She huffed at me and then blinked, the crease between her eyes becoming more pronounced as she studied me. She did a quick shake of her head and then laughed. “I could have sworn...”
“Yeah, well you should have seen me through Julia’s eyes,” I said and took another quick look in the mirror. I was still the same me I expected to see and I shrugged, offering my mother a smile as I squeaked by her.
“You need to get ready for church,” she said as I stepped away.
I stopped and turned toward her. “Julia doesn’t want to go and I don’t want to leave her alone.”
She scowled and looked toward the kitchen. I could tell she was weighing her options, leaving us alone in the house together wasn’t something she was used to doing, but she needed to go to the church and talk with Father Michael about funeral arrangements. I could see the decision coming and I headed her off.
“Julia doesn’t want to go to her house alone. I told her I’d go with her while she checks the answering machine and gets her school stuff.” I knew it was a slim chance, but I had to try.
“I don’t know, Nick.”
“I promise, we’ll be good. We’ll just go to her house and come back, okay?”
She sighed and closed her eyes. Not usually a good sign but this time, she just nodded and walked away.
“Mom?”
She turned and waited.
“Are you okay?”
She sent me a smile, but the sudden gloss over her eyes told me more than words could. I crossed and gave her a hug and she held me tight, giving me one final squeeze before she turned and slipped into her room, closing the door. The wood barrier didn’t silence that first sob, but the rest remained unvoiced and I turned away before the tears burning my throat surfaced.