Death and the Lady

Lily stared at Helandel as though he’d grown a second set of arms. He saw her chest expand as she drew a slow breath. Then her face cleared and she turned away from him.

“Sorry to tell you this, but your son walked out on us when I was still a kid.”

Helandel nodded slowly. “I know. Needless to say, he knew what I was and he could see that you were also one of us. The power hadn’t manifested within my son, but skipped a generation and became yours.”

“Why did he leave?” Lily asked.

Helandel looked at her. Her voice was calm and devoid of emotion, but he knew about her talent for the stage. He didn’t trust her sudden calm.

“Sadly, after I took his mother away he came to hate me and all the Reapers. I never saw him again after that. He could see what you would become and began to hate you for it too, knowing that someday you would find your way here, to the Master’s side. To my side. At first he tried to turn you to his side, keep you from becoming a Reaper.”

“Does my mom know?”

Helandel shook his head. “Not the whole truth, nothing about the Reapers and about your lineage, but enough to know that your father left in hate. I’ve watched over you all these years, keeping you safe.”

Lily jumped to her feet, her emotions finally getting the better of her training. “Then why didn’t you help me?” she snarled as she paced away from him. “Everything that happened to me! All the ghosts that followed me around! Why didn’t you help me?” She turned to face Helandel, tears dancing in her eyes. “I thought there was something wrong with me! I couldn’t tell anyone! Not even my mom!”

Helandel hung his head sadly. “I cannot leave here,” he said softly.

“What?” Lily snapped and ran a hand over her face, trying to reign in her wild emotions.

“After Mary’s death and Stephen leaving there was nothing left to keep me in that world, so I retired. When a Reaper retires from the Duty they are given a choice. They can either go back to the world with a measure of time or they can stay here for eternity. I chose to stay and by the time you were born it was already too late.”

Lily stared and grasped a question that floated by. “A measure of time?”

“A reward, you may say. Or payment for services rendered. A pension, you could say.”

Lily sat down heavily. “Oh,” she said and stared at the glossy black grass under her feet.

They sat like that for a while, in complete silence. Lily noticed a buzzing noise and looked up to see fat black and white honeybees zipping between the rose bushes that grew a few feet from them. Delicate lilies lined the path on both sides. Lily of the Valley, Lily thought.

The stems and leaves were gloss black like the grass and the blooms were stark white. It felt strange to look down at herself and see bright colour. She felt that she should also have turned black and white.

“Yes, it takes some getting used to.”

“You’re turning white, though.”

Helandel laughed as he sat back. “Ah yes, I have aged in recent years. Taking care of the new Reapers does take a toll on these old bones.”

Lily sat back and looked up at the white sky above. It looked as strange as the black land below. Black stars twinkled at her and she frowned.

“There’s no sun.”

“It’s never dark here.”

“Oh.”

Silence fell again. Lily vaguely remembered her mother’s father. A jolly old fat man with a beard that would have made Santa Clause proud. She smiled as she remembered him dressing up every Christmas. He’d died of a heart attack when she was eleven, and hung around for months afterwards.

“Where’s my dad now?” she asked and looked around in bewilderment when Helandel made a sad little noise.

What he said in those sad tones made her blood freeze over and her eyes widen in shock.

“He became a Cleric.”

Lily stayed in Death’s domain for a few weeks, although it was hard to tell the actual passage of time. Since there was no day or night and no clocks around the place it was hard to tell. The only clock in the whole domain stood in Death’s study and that one was absolutely no help at all. It had no hands.

In between training with the Soul Sword and lectures from Helandel, Lily found time to do some reading. Death had a massive library that was filled with every book ever written, all first editions and many of them signed. She’d laughed at this when she realised it. Death was an avid bibliophile.

It was in the library that Lily met Claire, another young woman with brown hair and hazel eyes. They’d bumped into each other while looking for the same book. Claire was an energetic young woman, but tended to be reserved around Lily. She was studying law somewhere in France. Apparently she’d become a Reaper by drowning over a vacation and had passed the test of Intellect.

It had come as a surprise that the tests had sections. There were so many different ways to challenge Death that they were subdivided into different categories. Lily had chuckled at the thought, Helandel was right, humans liked making things very complicated.

Today they sat in the library reading a few books they’d uncovered. Lily was reading Pride and Prejudice and was yawning so often that she was scared that she would dislocate her jaw. It was a little disconcerting that the book still looked brand new, even though it was a first edition with the author’s signature on the cover. Claire was reading something by Dickens, but she looked just as bored with the book as Lily felt.

“We all have nicknames, you know,” Claire suddenly said without looking up.

Lily looked up in surprise. “Really? What’s yours?”

“Bells,” Claire said shyly and Lily laughed.

“Why on earth do they call you Bells?”

Claire lifted her thick hair and showed Lily her earrings. The delicate golden hoops held a tiny fairy bell each.

“Marian says if you want to find me, listen for the bells.”

Lily laughed and shook her head; Marian was Claire’s benefactor and had a strange sense of humour. A woman with a large personality, large hair and overall largeness.

“Do I have a nickname?”

Claire looked down quickly. “Yes,” she said softly and Lily frowned.

“It’s not a nasty one, is it?”

Claire shook her head. “No, nothing like that.”

“Then what is it?”

“Lily of the Valley,” Claire muttered.

Lily stared at her mutely. She thought of the delicate white lilies that grew on either side of the chalk white path outside in the garden. The tiny flowers lined the path all the way to the bench where she’d met her grandfather.

“Death’s favourite flowers,” she said and Claire nodded. Lily grinned. “They’ve always put me in mind of bells,” she said, “whenever I see them moving in the wind I expect them to tinkle.”

Claire gave her a funny look and then shook her head. “You are a strange one,” she said and Lily shrugged.

“My mom used to have a pot in the kitchen, until she found out that they are poisonous.”

After a while Claire looked up from the book she was paging through and shifted uncomfortably.

“Ask what you want to ask, I won’t bite your head off.”

“Why are you so good at fighting?” Claire asked timidly and Lily turned a page slowly and carefully, trying not to damage the old, stiff pages.

“My dad was really strict about knowing how to handle a sword. I had kendo lessons while I was still at school and I reached 5th dan there. After that I had to take stage fighting when I started studying, but mostly it’s just instinctive. It helps that my sword weighs next to nothing.”

“Oh, you’re lucky.”

“Why?”

“I had to learn to fight from scratch here. It wasn’t easy.”

“I believe you.”

As they were leaving, each holding a book, Claire bumped into someone. Both of them staggered a few steps back and Lily stared at the two boys that stood in the doorway.

“Hells, Bells, you really-”

“-should look where you’re going.”

It was the twins Lily had seen a few weeks ago. She’d glimpsed them from time to time in the hallways, always chattering and laughing loudly. They didn’t seem to understand the logic of volume control. Again she had that unbalanced feeling she got when they finished each other’s sentences.

“Sorry,” Claire muttered and rubbed at the red spot on her brow where their heads had connected.

“You’re Ash and Clay, right?” Lily asked and both of them stared at her with wide eyes. She suppressed a groan and tried to smile at them. “I bumped into you a few weeks ago.”

“Yeah,” one of them said and glanced at his brother.

“We remember,” the other one muttered and Claire gave them a radiant smile.

“Oh, you’ve met? These are the Ton-twins.”

“Ton-twins?” Lily asked, putting her head to one side. “Like the London high society?”

Claire laughed at the twins’ frowns and shook her head. “No, their names are Ashton and Clayton. You see? Ton and ton, the Ton-twins.”

Lily smiled at them. “We’ve never been introduced, I’m Lily.”

The twins still just stared inquisitively at her with slight frowns on their faces. Then they glanced at each other and shrugged in unison, it was strange to see. Lily grew uncomfortable and rubbed the back of her hand and looked imploringly at Claire.

“What are you two staring at? Didn’t your mom ever tell you that its rude?” Claire snapped and the twins glanced at one another.

“We were trying to figure out-”

“-why all the older Reapers are so hyped up about her.”

Lily tried to suppress another groan. “And?” she asked.

“You don’t look-”

“-all that. You just look-”

“-like one of us.”

“Stop talking like that! It’s creepy!” Claire exclaimed and the twins grinned at her.

“Well, we heard that she has the Soul Sword.”

“Yeah, but we also heard that she can’t fight with it for too long.”

“Yeah, she’ll get creamed if she has to go up against the Clerics.”

“What would you know about it?” Lily asked.

Any mention of the Clerics made her blood boil. She knew that she probably shouldn’t be angry at the twins for bringing it up, but the whole issue about her dad always riled her up, especially now that she knew that he was a Cleric.

“Is it true that your dad became a Cleric because the Master didn’t choose him to become a Reaper?”

“Yes,” she said and Claire looked worried.

“And that old man Helandel is your granddad?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. Helandel is the last Master Reaper since forever. Do you have any idea how old he is?”

Lily shrugged. “About sixty something.”

Claire shook her head. “Helandel is over three hundred years old. He spent so much time here in his younger years that time moved on without him. You’re the first Master Reaper in over three hundred years. That’s why everyone’s making such a big fuss.”

Lily sighed. “Great, yay.”

“Show us the Soul Sword!” one of the twins urged and Lily looked closely at him.

“You’re Ash, right?”

By the stunned look on his face she knew that she’d guessed right. Claire grinned widely at their discomfort.

“You know, no one’s ever been able to tell them apart. They’re like two peas in a pod, these two.”

“Well, I can’t show it to you here in front of the library, now can I? Let’s go to the training room, we need to be at practice soon anyway.”

Together the four of the walked along the winding hallways towards the training room. There were already a few people in there swinging their reaper weapons and giving soft grunts. Once there Claire and Lily placed their books on a bench against the wall and walked back to the twins.

Without a word Lily drew the sword hilt from the special pocket on her belt, it’s diamond glittered fiery in the light as she turned it over. She held the hilt facing towards the floor and slammed the palm of her hand onto the diamond set on the end. The blade flickered to life and gave their shadows a strange blueish tint.

It was true that she couldn’t wield the blade for a long time. Ten minutes seemed about the extent of it. It drained her energy, made it hard to concentrate and made her extremely tired. It was like moving through thick syrup when she was fighting. She could do it for a while but then she became drained.

Helandel said that it sucked at her soul. He, too, wielded a Death Weapon. It was a scythe. He’d wielded it like a dancer with a baton, swinging it around his body and in graceful arcs. Since she usually trained against him she knew exactly how hard it was to find an opening. This would be the first time she would be training with anyone else.

She watched the twins’ and Claire’s awed expressions as they stared at the glittering blade that was formed from her very soul. Clay looked up at her with shining eyes, and she saw him go pale.

That was another thing about the sword. It brought out her Resonance, the image she saw in the mirror sometimes. Helandel’s wasn’t so bad. His robe went black and his lined face became less lined. Hers, on the other hand, was terrifying.

Black streaks ran from her eyes and over her cheeks like run mascara, but no matter how hard she rubbed they wouldn’t come off. Her lips were black, as were her eyes. Her skin seemed almost white against the black of the streaks. She was always clothed in a ragged and tattered black robe that completely hid her body, much like the one Death wore.

Ash also looked up and she heard Claire’s gasp. One thing she also knew is that very few of the other Reapers changed in appearance. It was the effect of the Death Weapons, Helandel had told her. Since they were Death’s own weapons they carried something of him inside. That something was carried through to the Master Reaper when their soul amplified the weapon.

“Yeah,” Lily muttered as she moved her hand over the diamond again. The flickering blade vanished and she changed back to normal. It was like looking at a card being flipped over. One moment she was terrifying and the next she was just Lily again. “I should probably have warned you about that.”

“What was that?”

“I’ve heard of it. Some of the older Reapers talk about it. If you become really powerful you look different when you go out on the Duty, they said. They called it Resonance.”

“Ryo said that to me when I first came here. He said I looked like a Resonant Reaper.”

“That’s when you become really strong and your soul starts to resonate with the Master’s.”

“Well, Helandel also changes a bit when he works with Zeis,” Lily said and they blinked at her. She tried not to sigh. “All Death Weapons have names. His scythe’s name is Zeis.”

“Cool!” Ash exclaimed.

“What’s your sword’s name?” Clay asked.

“Inoue.”

“That’s a strange name,” Claire said and Lily shook her head.

“Its Japanese. It’s written here on the hilt, look.”

She lifted the hilt so that they could look at where it was supposed to meet with the blade. Ash and Clay frowned down at the strange symbols and Claire reached out a finger to trace the slashing lines.

“I can’t read that,” she admitted and the twins nodded.

Lily laughed. “That’s because it’s written in Kanji. Japanese alphabet, you know.”

“What does it mean?”

“’Above the well’, as far as I’ve been able to figure out.”

“That’s so cool. Our weapons don’t have names,” Clay said sadly and Ash perked up.

“We should give our weapons names too! That way they might become Death Weapons someday.”

Lily laughed, but didn’t tell them that Death Weapons were forged with a piece of Death’s own soul inside them.

“Yeah, that’s a great idea,” Claire thrilled and pulled out her weapon, or weapons, in her case, and pulled them on.

She flexed her wrists and the blades slid out silently, glinting in the light. Lily stared, she’d never seen weapons like those before. Her weapons looked like claws on the front, but there was a blade that ran down parallel with her arm all the way to her elbow. There was a tinkling sound as Claire moved and Lily laughed. There were bells on them. Every movement Claire made was accompanied with the merry jingle of fairy bells.

The twins stared. “Hells, Bells, you’ve got Claws?”

Claire smiled proudly as she lifted her hands like a boxer and hopped a bit one leg. They fitted her perfectly, but terrifyingly. When Lily turned back to the twins she did burst out laughing. They’d drawn their weapons too. Fierce through they were, they were completely suited to the twins.

Light glinted along of each of the Twin Hook Blades. Both twins each held a single blade, but she could imagine them fighting with them. The Hook Blades were meant to be wielded together, one to each hand, and she could see the twins fighting as a single entity.

Ash glared at her. “Don’t laugh,” he snapped and she shook her head.

“Sorry, it’s just; your weapons are perfect for you.”

They brightened up. “Really? You really think so?” Clay asked and Lily nodded, wiping at her eyes. “So, what are you going to name them?”

“Well, I’m going to call mine Fairy Bells,” Claire said and the twins laughed at her.

“I like it, it matches their bells,” Lily said as she flicked a bell on one of the claws. It tinkled merrily and there was a spark of soul blue. Lily hurriedly pulled her hand away, but it didn’t look as though any of the others noticed.

“Well, we’re gonna call ours the Brothers.”

The twins spoke in perfect unison, as though they shared more than just a thought. It caught Lily off balance, but she saw Claire clap her hands together, making her bells ring, but also causing a sharp metallic clang at the same time.

“I think it’s perfect!”

“Naming your weapons?” a voice asked and they all swung around. “That’s good, it makes them truly yours.”

Helandel was walking towards them with his hands clasped behind his back and a smile on his wrinkled face. To Lily’s shock the three others bowed deeply to him and then looked at him in awe.

“Helandel, good to see you,” she said happily and the old man’s smile widened.

“Good to see you too, Lily. Good afternoon Bells, Tons.”

Claire blinked in surprise. “You already know our nicknames?” she asked and Helandel nodded.

“Your benefactors let everyone know that you’d finally gotten your nicknames. Keep them close. They are as important as your weapons, they will keep you safe from the Clerics.”

“How?” Ash asked and Lily frowned at him.

“Didn’t you know? They keep your identity hidden.”

Claire gaped at her. “But I thought you didn’t know about the nicknames.”

Lily chuckled. “No, I just didn’t know I had one yet. Ryo was supposed to tell me when he’d chosen one.”

Helandel laughed. “Young Ryo didn’t choose your nickname.”

They all stared at him in shock. Clay spoke first. “He didn’t? But isn’t it the benefactor’s privilege to choose his ward’s name?”

“Usually, but the rules are bent a bit for us,” Helandel said gently.

“So who chose my name?” Lily asked.

“I did.”

Lily gaped at him. “You did? Why?”

“A grandfather’s honour. Ryo agreed that it was the perfect name for you.”

“Well, um, thank you, I guess…” Lily muttered and turned to the other three. “Well, we’d better get started.”

“Hold on,” Helandel said, holding up a hand. “Death sent me to find you. He wants to talk to you for a bit.”

“Couldn’t he just summon me?” Lily asked, remembering a lecture from a few weeks ago.

Death could summon his Reapers from anywhere in the world if he wanted to talk to them. It sounded a more than a little uncomfortable, but she had a feeling that the lecturer hadn’t explained it clearly enough.

Helandel looked amused. “Yes, he could, but he asked me to fetch you instead. We’ve not spent much time together and I’m glad for the exercise. These old bones are creaking on me now.”

“Nonsense! You’re not a day over sixty,” she said with a smile and turned to the others, “see you around.”

Claire pulled her closer and whispered to her. “Is it a Master Reaper thing to call the Master by his name?” she hissed and Lily looked blank.

“I don’t really think so,” she admitted with a grin, “I think it’s a family thing.”

Lily left the others staring after her as she walked away with her grandfather. The old man was restful company, like he’d done his rushing around hundreds of years ago. Which he probably had, Lily reflected thoughtfully.

“Well, I finally know why the Templar lineage is so strong,” she said and Helandel glanced at her.

“Really? Why is that?”

“You’re older than three hundred. It’s not like there was much watering down to do between you and me, is there.”

Helandel shook his head. “Not much, no. How did you find out?”

Lily chuckled. “My secret.”

“One of the other young Reapers told you, right? Bells, I’m guessing.” He chuckled, “I don’t mind though. I’m glad to see that you’ve made friends here. Reapers tend to avoid us most of the time.”

“I’ve noticed, but Claire is a nice girl and I don’t think the twins care much about what people think or are.”

“That’s good.”

“So, what does Death want to talk to me about?”

“We think that you’ve completed your training and that it’s time for you to return to the world.”

Lily stopped. “Wait, people are gonna notice that I don’t walk with crutches anymore.”

Helandel shook his head. “Death will see to that. No one will make a comment, they won’t even notice.”

“What about the Clerics? There’s one hanging around me, remember?”

Helandel’s expression sobered instantly. “That will be a problem. He might notice.”