Chapter Sixteen
Neith
E vander looks up at me, and I wince, “The voices don’t like that. They just got really fucking loud, and they sound pissed, not excited.”
“It would tell us if it’s just technology getting in the way or if we really can’t tell Ty what Dimitri is,” River suggests.
I nod.
Evander: Yeah, go ahead.
We wait for a few moments as no more messages come through the chat, and I’m guessing that everyone is waiting to see what Ty is going to say or has gone back to what they were doing.
All three of our phones ring, and I glance down to see that it’s a call from the group chat, and Reed is calling.
“I’ll answer,” Evander says as he does just that.
Within moments, we are all connected, and everyone is looking back at us from the split screen, looking confused, apart from Doc, who is probably absorbed in his work.
“What the fuck is going on?” Reed asks as soon as the phone is connected.
I share a look with the guys.
“Where are you?” River asks.
“I’ve stepped into Doc’s office, which is attached to his lab,” Reed explains. “Why the hell couldn’t I tell Ty what Dimitri is?”
“What do you mean you couldn’t tell him?” Ransom asks.
Reed frowns. “I mean, I opened my mouth to try and tell Ty, and no fucking words came out. I kept trying, and nothing.”
“Neither River nor I could message Ty and tell him either, and Neith said that her voices started acting up too, yet we had no problem telling you guys,” Evander explains.
“That’s really odd,” Raiden replies. “I mean, it obviously means that we aren’t supposed to tell Ty, but what I don’t understand is why we aren’t. Dimitri is dangerous, and he’s in charge of the organization that has caused a lot of fucking shit, so why can’t we divulge what kind of supernatural he is.”
I shrug, “I have absolutely no idea.”
“Well, there isn’t anything that we can do about it, at least not for the moment. While it is monumental news, especially since he is supposed to be extinct, we have other things that we need to focus on for the moment,” Evander replies.
The guys frown, but all nod in agreement.
“I’ll fill Doc in when I get a moment,” Reed replies.
Van nods, “Sounds good. We will see you guys at lunch, and Reed, we’ll see you and Doc at dinner.”
Everyone nods and says goodbye, and we sit in silence for a moment.
“Well, I didn’t think that we were going to make that kind of revelation today,” River grins.
“Out of interest, what did you all think that Dimi was?” I ask, realizing too late that I accidentally called him by his nickname.
Fortunately for me, the guys don’t make a big deal of it, and in fact, they don’t even acknowledge it.
“We thought that he was a very strong warlock,” Evander explains. “There have been absolutely no reports of him being able to shift.”
I nod, “That’s because he doesn’t shift in front of anyone but Kar and me. At least, he never used to. It makes sense that you think that he’s a warlock though. He can do a lot of fairly similar magic, although, like Ransom, he doesn’t need to use words or anything like that, and his strongest magic is in hell fire.”
“Fucking hell,” Van curses, “he can actually use hell fire?”
I nod, “Yeah, why do you think you struggle to find remains?”
“He burns them,” River says as he makes the connection.
I nod, “It leaves nothing behind. As I said, he made sure that the people who knew about what he is were kept to just Kar, Coen, and I, no one else knows.”
“You didn’t tell HID?” Van asks me curiously.
I shake my head, “To be honest, it didn’t even cross my mind to tell them.”
“Huh,” he replies. “There is definitely something else at work here, especially since you haven’t been able to tell anyone else before but can tell us.”
“I haven’t tried to tell anyone else,” I correct him.
“Maybe not, but I still think that there is something else at play,” Van replies.
I nod, “Oh, there absolutely is. I have no doubt about it. I think that we’re probably just going to have to wait and see how it plays out though because there’s not really much else that we can do, and as you said on the phone to the guys, we have bigger things that we need focusing on right now.”
“Exactly,” Van agrees. “Speaking of, why don’t you carry on reading, and we’ll see if we can narrow down what you are.”
I nod and glance back at the list, “After the Hystreea, there’s a supe that’s simply called a Fallen. Apparently, they are a kind of angel that has magic closer to a demon than an angel and different kinds of wings, too. Oh, and the next one is Angel, I thought they never existed?”
“So did I,” River agrees. “Although it doesn’t surprise me that the stories came from somewhere.”
“Me neither, if I’m honest. But angels? Damn,” Evander comments.
“Oh, then there’s Hellhound Shifters, so they’re very extinct then if they’re in here. This is an old book,” I say and then add, “the last is a Gevatrea, it’s a creature that lives in the oceans, of Trieneliea, or it did, and it was responsible for crossing all supernaturals that had a link to water over to the underworld.” I flip to that page out of pure curiosity, “Wow, it kind of looks like a kelpie, but its body is completely shadowed and black, it’s kind of see-through like looking at smoke.”
“It’s eerie looking. What else does it say about it?” River asks.
I carry on reading and then reply, “Oh, it has a human form as well because not all creatures that are connected to the water live only in the water, so it walks on land in a human form, or at least it looks like a human form to me. They’re from Trieneliea so I doubt that they looked completely human, and I’m guessing that was just the word that Winston decided to use so I would understand it. It says that they track down the souls that they need to take over to the spirit realm, and they physically take them, kind of like a reaper does, I guess?”
Van nods, “That could fit, to be honest? You were obviously drawn to it because you looked it up first.”
“It can track things, and it goes to the Spirit Realm,” River adds.
I nod, “I agree that it could fit, but it doesn’t quite feel right and surely I would have some sort of affinity with water if that were the case?”
Evander nods, “Yeah, I imagine you would, actually. But we can’t rule it out. What about a Hellhound?”
I shrug, “Maybe. Let me see what they say about them. Wouldn’t Dimitri have been able to pick up on it? And he wasn’t a late bloomer like me?”
River frowns. “Yeah, he should have been able to, especially since he is a shifter. I don’t think you could rule it out just because you are a late bloomer, we don’t know enough about them. The females of the species could always come into their gifts later or you might just be a late bloomer and not the norm.”
“Yeah. That’s a really good point, okay,” I agree and turn to the page, “it says that they’re excellent trackers, but from what Dimitri said, it doesn’t work like mine. It also says that they take the bad souls to the pit, so the ones that have been so fucking awful and truly evil that their souls are incredibly stained. Hellhounds drag them, literally kicking and screaming to the pit.”
Raiden
T his is so fucking cool. I haven’t felt this free ever. Surprisingly, my mind is staying relatively clear. I can feel the memories on the edges of my thoughts, but they aren’t encroaching. I am beginning to wonder if it’s because I have been allowing myself to think of it more and not immediately shying away. I was five, I was a kid, and not only did I have no idea what I was capable of, but I shouldn’t have been put in that situation.
Who makes their child stand witness to the death of their mother? Not only that but because of what I am capable of, I felt her pain and her distress. I heard her begging as she died. She didn’t want to go. I knew that it wasn’t normal, I shouldn’t have been able to hear her, and I definitely shouldn’t have been able to transport her soul to the spirit realm.
They didn’t know that I did that though, my father claimed that he had taken her soul, but I could see it, it was there, and it followed me around crying and begging just as she did when she was dying. For weeks, her soul followed me, and I still don’t understand why none of the other reapers could hear her. Maybe they did and just decided that I needed some toughening up. Eventually, I broke, my magic ripped from me, and I shifted, something that I shouldn’t have been able to do. I took my mother’s tortured soul to the Spirit Realm. It was so damaged, and I don’t know why. I don’t know if it was because I took so long to get it across, but the guilt has sat heavily on my shoulders for a long time. The spirits came to take her, she didn’t go to the pit, at least I don’t think that she did.
I never wanted to experience anything like that ever again, so I locked that side of me away, and any promise that my father thought I had suddenly disappeared.
People told him that it was because of the trauma of watching my mother die, but he wouldn’t listen and just called me pathetic and useless, using me as a punching bag both physically and magically. His actions cemented my decision to keep a large portion of my magic hidden. As I grew up, it became increasingly clear to me that he would use whatever magic I had for his own gain and that I was much better off being ignored by him.
Even when I finally got free of him, when I went to the academy, I couldn’t let him know that I was as strong as I was, but more than that, I was terrified to release that part of me. I could tell that it had grown and gotten stronger, and honestly, I still think that my magic might have contributed to my mother’s suffering; it had been playing up, and I didn’t know what it meant. I still don’t know.
I have to admit, looking back on what happened, that I don’t actually know how my mother died, reapers don’t die easily, and although she was screaming and begging, her body wasn’t moving. It’s something that has begun to puzzle me and is something that I want to look into if I get called to the Reaper Council. It won’t be a simple meeting, especially when they realize that I’m a tier that is technically above them. They aren’t going to like that, and so they are likely to keep me in the reaper city for a week, maybe longer, while they decide what they’re going to do with me.
Whereas that would have made me panic previously, now I’m kind of hoping for it. I want to poke around and see what I can find out about my mother’s death, and I also want to see what I can find out about the original council. I have to be in the reaper city before I can do any of that. I actually spoke to River about it, and he agreed that there was definitely something fishy about my mother’s death, especially since my father said that he had taken her soul to the spirit realm, and he hadn’t. He also told me that it wasn’t my fault and that I was a kid. I shouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place.
I know that.
It doesn’t change the fact that I still feel like it was my fault, and it’s her screams and cries for help that haunt my nightmares.
Griff clears his throat and pulls me out of my thoughts. He looks at me like he’s concerned that my thoughts have taken me to a dark place, but instead of commenting on it, he starts a different conversation.
“You’re picking this up really quickly,” Griff says, his eyebrows lifted in surprise.
“Thanks,” I reply. “To be honest, it seems pretty natural to me. I’m not struggling to understand what you’re asking me to do, and it’s almost like my body already knows what I’m asking it to do.”
Griff nods, “Yeah, you can see that actually. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that you had been fighting in the air for years, not that this was your first time.”
“Seriously?” I ask. I knew that I was getting it, but I didn’t expect him to say that.
Griff nods, “Yeah. I was going to wait to introduce weapons, but you’re picking it up so easily. Do you want to grab some swords and practice with them?”
I grin, “Hell yeah!”
Neith
W e end up going through all five of the extinct supernaturals listed in Sully’s book, and honestly, from what I have experienced that I can do, I could fit with quite a few of them. But the closest match is the first one that we read about, the Gevatrea. It’s a super cool creature, and I wouldn’t be mad if that’s what it turns out that I am, but something doesn’t quite sit right. I didn’t read about it and immediately think, yes that’s me everything makes sense now. I just thought that’s a really cool supe. Surely, I would know if I read about the creature that I am like my instincts or the voices would let me know?
The guys and I end up agreeing that we’re probably going to have to wait until I show more signs of whatever supernatural creature I am before we can narrow it down further.
When we come back after lunch, we move on to looking through the books that we brought out for the Choosing, but as we suspected we don’t end up finding any information that we didn’t already know, and call time on it after a good few hours of research. I have to admit that while the biographies mentioned the Choosing, it was only in passing, and none of them described it in any detail. Then again, if the Choosing is capable of destroying any recording equipment, then it could easily be changing the words in books or making it so that no one could actually physically write about it.
I do manage to pack my bag like Evander suggested that we do, and I’m glad that I do because I spend far too long trying to decide what I need to put into it, and I know for a fact that I’m going to end up packing and repacking it a few times.
The closer that it got to the evening, the more I began to think about having Raiden and possibly someone else in bed with me, but when it came down to it, Raiden and Doc climbing into bed with me and wrapping themselves around me felt so normal, and before I could overthink anything or my mind could spin itself in circles, I fell asleep.
I’m not going to lie, it was probably one of the best sleeps that I have had for a long time.
∞∞∞
“Morning guys, how did you sleep?” Van asks as we all walk into the kitchen the following morning.
“Great,” I reply and then glance at the other two.
“Best night’s sleep in a while,” Doc agrees, as he leans down and kisses me before going into the kitchen to get coffee. “I think this new sleeping arrangement is going to work out great.”
“Agreed,” Raiden replies. “I didn’t have one nightmare, which might be because I was absolutely fucking exhausted, but in the past, that hasn’t made a blind bit of fucking difference.”
“That’s great,” I reply as I sit down and start to eat. I’m not properly awake yet, so my replies are limited.
Raiden smiles at me and then drops a kiss on the top of my head before he takes a seat.
“How did training go yesterday?” Reed asks Raiden.
“Really good, it was great fun,” Raiden replies. “I’m a lot more confident with flying now. I think I could probably hold my own in a fight in the air too.”
Griff scoffs, “He beat me.”
“What?” Doc questions in his eyes and shock on his face.
Raiden grins, “You let me win.”
Griff shakes his head, smiling proudly, “No, I didn’t. I admit that you caught me by surprise, so that might have contributed to it, but when we were fighting with swords, you beat me.”