Fear the Reaper [malexmale]

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Simon's information turned out to be true.

After hours upon hours of wandering around the castle, I finally came across a room in the castle that pulsed with magic around it. Turns out, it was in the Knight wing. The door looked like any other door, the lock being just your basic twist and click. The only difference was the feeling of magic surrounding not just the door, but the walls around it, as if to prevent anyone from busting a hole by the door to get in.

And that was just it. There was no way in. I gave the knob a twist, but it didn't even budge, like it was made of concrete. I put my hand on the door, felt the thin filmy layer of magic shocking my fingertips like static electricity. It reminded me of the magic keeping the souls encased in the statues. Which meant I couldn't make a dent in it, at least, not without my magic and thanks to Viviana, somehow, I was magically impaired.

I was practically mortal.

And the thought made me shudder.

It wasn't that I hated mortals. Most of my friends were mortals. It was just how fragile they were that irked me. A single blow to the skull could kill one of them instantly. A shot from a gun and they were down for the count. Hell, if a paper cut got infected with the right virus, it could give one of them sepsis and kill them in just a day. I couldn't count how many mortal friends I'd lost to cancer already.

Ben died three years ago from prostate cancer. James died a hundred years ago when his horse threw him and he landed at an angle that not only broke all of his ribs, but smashed his skull open. Jackson was killed in a civil rights riot when a cop broke his ribs and punctured his lungs. Maurice was hung for being a witch and his neck snapped the moment the board was out from under him. I had quite a few friends from the mortal military as well, all of whom either died in combat or gave up after they returned home.

All of them I'd watched die. All of them I'd been forced to stand there and watch the light leave their eyes.

Mortals died so easily... And yet, as I remembered them, as I remembered Ben and James, Jackson and Maurice, Terry and Don and Richard and Michael, I realized that despite being mortal none of them had ever been afraid.

Ben was diagnosed with cancer just a week after he got married, and instead of laying home curled up in tears, he'd climbed fucking mountains and scaled up buildings and skydived. Jackson was standing up for his rights as a black man in Alabama. He knew the dangers and he stood proudly at the front of that crowd, and even as the cop walked away from his broke body in the streets, he smiled up at me and said he was proud. As Maurice stood on that board, the noose around his neck, he looked across the people watching him die, and he, too, smiled at me with pride. He was not going to hide who he was, he was not going to pretend. Richard went against his commander's orders, saved his entire team, and died from a gunshot wound to the head protecting them.

Mortals may die easily, but they were strong.

I may be mortal now, but I sure as hell was not going down without a fight.

I took a deep breath. Time to stop whining and crying. I'd bitched enough for a lifetime. It was time to figure out what the fuck Viviana was gonna do to the universe, what her plans were, and what was truly behind the making of her shadows. Because it was time for me to stand up. I may not have been able to say any of my friends, but I could do that now. I had that power, as a mortal. It only invigorated me more. I didn't need magic to be Death. I just needed raw power and motivation.

And saving Alaric, protecting the souls of my fallen, saving my reapers, and the innocent, motivated the shit out of me.

I stepped away from the door, glaring at it intently.