Death's Apprentice

15

Textbooks were never my favorite thing, all of those words staring up at you, telling you to study. Of course, I'd put the book aside until the last minute and then read three chapters in one night, desperately trying to get a good grade so I could get into a good college.

Luckily, there are no colleges when you're dead. Textbooks though, they were piled so high on the table I thought they'd either fall or that the table would fall apart like a branch left on the ground for a month then swung around by a ten year old.

Death looked through each book's table of contents. There was supposed to be two piles, but all of the books had something that he wanted to look at. Occasionally, he would pause and flip to one of the chapters before deciding he wanted to look through it further.

Meanwhile, I sat next to Uriel. I was in the midst of fighting him, hitting him repeatedly with a pot.

"You know, I'm disappointed that you don't main Pit," I said, watching as Little Mac fell off the screen. Again. The results screen came up, revealing an excited Isabelle.

"I'm disappointed in myself for losing to a mortal. You want to play, Michael?"

"I'm helping Death."

"You're hanging from the chandelier," Death said.

"No, I'm helping."

I sighed and stood up. Tossing the controller gently onto the couch, not wanting it to use the cushion as a trampoline and go through a window, I walked over to Death's pile of books.

Not one of them was written in English and I could feel a headache building as the words on the covers instantly translated. It was like having Google Translate in my head, reading everything out loud in that weird, stilted voice.

I grabbed the top book and flipped open the cover. As I scanned the table of contents, I asked the angels a question. "Why do you guys have so many books on this?"

"Got to give scientists something to study. One time they tried to get our dad to let them dissect us." Michael dropped from the crystal chandelier, landing on top of the stack of books. My nonexistent heart stopped and I stared up at him.

"What do you mean tried?" Ribbons wrapped around Michael and lowered him to the floor. I looked at Uriel as the light disappeared back into him. "As I remember, I was dissected. Not fun when you're dead and doubly so when you're alive."

"How would you know? You've never been dead." A small grin appeared on Death's face.

"Same way I know that more mortals can use Heaven's Grace. Divine intuition."

"Wait. I thought Michael said only angels and saints can use it?" My eyebrows drew together. The angels were contradicting each other, and. as far as I was aware, they couldn't lie.

Uriel tilted his hand from side to side. "Sorta. It has to do with the final battle between us and the others. Remember being dead just means life gets more confusing."

"Wow, that was helpful," I sighed. "Death, did you find anything that's more useful than these two?"

"Probably not going to. Those two have been around longer than I have. And all of these books are generally functions and tactics. I'm not going to stop you if you want to read them, but I'm not doing that. Nope. I had enough studying during the Renaissance."

"You're just upset all the good literature was religious." Michael grinned. "I enjoyed the Renaissance. Especially Michaelangelo's work. Never thought a guy named after me would have the guts to do half the stuff he did."

The conversation turned, and they started talking about art and statues and the 'super hot' depictions of Luci. The thing that concerned me the most wasn't that I knew which statues they were talking about and it wasn't that those statues were pretty accurate. No, what concerned me the most was that it was Uriel who said that.