Death's Apprentice

24

Clearing out the souls didn't take long, about a half hour if the nearby clock could be trusted. It felt like longer. I sat on the ground outside the building rubbing at my smoke burned eyes. Death groaned and sank down beside me. His hair was as soot covered as Luci's, turning the white hair black. Mine probably looked the same way.

"Need a drink? Technically speaking, you're above the drinking age here. Plus I could water it down if you want. Tiny bit of alcohol kept people alive back in the day."

"Do you have a wet cloth?"

"You're arms are soaked. Did you get caught in the sprinklers?"

"Can we not talk about it?" I mumbled, looking at the red dripping onto the pavement. I rubbed at my eyes again.

"Your eyes hurt, kid?" Before I had a chance to respond he placed a wet cloth into my hands. I pressed it to my eyes and sighed in relief. Death eventually took it from me; I whined, looking up at him. He sighed. "We can't sit around all day. We need to go take care of Kai before my sister tries anything."

"I know."

"Then come on."

I stared up at him. "Can I go home?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

The way he looked at me made me wish I hadn't asked. He wasn't mean and he wasn't angry, there was something in his tone that made me feel bad. I don't know what it was, but I didn't like it. Even so, I didn't like what we had to do next. I didn't like what we had done. Reaping souls while living mortals can't see us is one thing, but reaping them while they can is another.

"I don't think I'll be able to handle it today." The words hung in the air around us. They were heavy weights pressing on our shoulders.

"You're a reaper, kid. You're going to see a lot more than this. Be glad I haven't taken you to a battlefield yet. Come on, once we get done with this, we can go home."

"We won't go looking for the next one immediately?" Hope spread through my body. Nothing sounded better than a nice hot shower, but as feeling temperature was near impossible, I'd settle for a nice shower.

"The only way we're going to do anything immediately after is if we get the key from Kai. I promise."

Death helped me to my feet and started walking.  Now without the immediate concern of reaping multiple souls, we found ourselves taking the streets at a fair pace. Someone catcalled me, and Death turned his head to look at me, and then at them.

"Thanks," he yelled. "But you're not my type." He looked down at me. "I reaped his soul earlier. He gets hit by a bus in three hours."

"The whole time travel thing is still so weird. Don't you risk meeting yourself or screwing up the timeline or something?"

"Don't think about it too much. There's only ever one version of me."

"That makes no sense."

"Neither did the Crusades."

"The Crusades didn't involve time travel!"

Death's cloak disappeared. His suit reappeared, as spotless as it had been earlier. He ruffled his hair. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get all of the soot out of it. He waved a hand, and his hair turned almost white; he sighed. Death squared his shoulders before walking through the revolving doors. I followed after him. The interior looked the same, aside from all of the lab animals having been rounded up. Tony stood next to the reception desk like a statue. He scowled when he noticed us.

He started over to us. "I thought I told you guys that-"

Death held up a hand, silencing Tony. "Honestly, I don't care. Look at us. We're covered in soot, ash, and, in the kid's case, blood."