The Death Trials by Jonsie (portable ebook reader txt) 📖

grin.
“I’ll catch you later.”
“See ya.”
We hugged each other quick- but hard- and let go, before either one of us could cry.
Elias stayed silent until Caden had left the room, focusing on his meal. I wasn’t even hungry anymore, thinking about how I really was a size six (sometimes even size eight). Or at least I told myself it was for that reason, because honestly? I was too damn, freaking nervous to eat anything. But if Elias knew how I felt he would immediately make me back out of my decision. I mean, he already drunk himself to sleep and almost past up on breakfast. That wasn’t the Yes, let’s! – attitude I was hoping for.
“So, when are going to do this thing?”
“You don’t have to. Mr. Adams will kill you, if you come with me. After all you aren’t on his good side after the Catrion-mission last month.”
My partner frowned. Exactly 57 days ago he screwed up a mission two- one level higher than mine yesterday with the maniac. He had to catch a demon cat. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know the details, but it is said that Elias didn’t only get himself some nice scars but the cat would only quick japing if he… well, did stuff. I could only let my imagination go so far, but apparently it was quite something.
“Yeah, well, Mr. A has a stick in his ass and I don’t give a damn. In school, they tell us to stick with our partner. Always. And that’s exactly what I plan on doin’.”
Too bad plans always went the other direction than you want them to go.

*_*_*_*

10.33 am

School is always never more than two-five hours a day. In the beginning, you have to learn how to capture hell spawns, to use your abilities, stuff like that. Afterwards, you get trained with weapons, knowing the different types of demons and killing them. Of course, I myself aren’t quite ready yet. I’m in my last year of reaperhood and after that, I can get transferred to another head quarter, because I’m slowly getting sick of L.A. In other countries, people don’t have to work Sundays. Like Germany. But not for America. Not for the land of hope and dreams, where you have to work your ass off for nothing. Except being nagged at for falling into your own hole. The good thing, though, about working on Sundays, too, is that it also applies to the teachers. They had to be in the school-section of our… building (?- but was it? I mean I didn’t even know where this thing was, yet alone how freaking big it was. How could I? I don’t run marathons through this thing- jeez. I bet I would get lost sooner or later), sitting around, waiting for questions. Of course, no student sane enough would go here on a Sunday.
I had never been sane.
Not since….
“Good morning, Mrs. Ray.”
A young woman looked up from her book, flashing perfectly white teeth at me. I know, you read it often in novels. The perfect woman with perfect white teeth blah blah blah. To be honest: nobody has really white teeth. None. Not even compared to something really dirty do our teeth look as white as in a tooth paste commercial. Never going to happen. So if I say perfectly white I mean, whiter than the usual teeth.
Her brown, wavy hair was pulled back but some strains still broke free, framing her face. If they caught the light coming from the petroleum lamp on her table, they seemed to shimmer in red and violet. Mrs. Ray was my favorite teacher. Not only because she almost hated Adelaide as much as I did, but also because she was always relaxed and cool about every subject. Even intercourse or other…. Things. (Blowjobs, vibrator, S&M, calories, being fat (or slim) and not wanting to read the classic novel form Jane Austen). Thing was, she was seriously as small as a child at ten. I think, that came hand in hand with her ability to float, because small people weight less than tall beings. She became a reaper 234 years ago. Yeah, we don’t age. Not that fast and sometimes it seems- not at all. But to be frank, we never get a reaper over thirty. I guess, those just… go to heaven. Or hell. Who knew? Maybe I should ask that sometime…
“My lovely Blake. You look awfully tired. Did something bother you, my dear?”
I rubbed over one eye, then yawning. I always did that if somebody tells me I’m looking tired- like I had to proof that yes, in fact, I could fall asleep just standing in front of them.
“Well, yes. I wanted to ask you something.”
She motioned me with her manicured hand to sit, closing her book. As she put it on the table I could read the author and almost had to smile. Shakespeare- The Tempest. I bet, Lyll would love to spy on her sooner or later.
“I…”
Unsure, I stepped towards the chair the shoved towards me with her tiny foot, not sure if I wanted to sit. If I were to sit, I couldn’t get up fast enough to defend myself if you tried to kill me. That happened one time (right before my eyes) and since then, I never really trusted teachers when they asked if they could have a word with you. Of course, that reaper teacher was exterminated(and by that I mean killed. Yes, we kill our own kind around here. Either your sane or you hide your insanity well. Like me).
But because it was Mrs. Ray, and I trusted her more than Mr. Adam, I sat down, crossing my legs nervously.
“I wanted to know…” I swallowed hard, her watchful blue eyes steady on me, “well, because of… hell and stuff. Like, if you visit- as a reaper- h-how long can you stay away, before… like…”
“Blake.”
She said my name as if she was disappointed- or a mother starting a lecture on her child, because it forgot that- yes- if you live at the beach and feed the seagulls of your porch they will come back even more and even quicker.
“Is this about your brother again?”
I looked up from my lap, confused.
“What? No! I just wanted to know…”
But I was as if the petite little woman had to little ears to hear me.
“We talked about his. Cyril is gone. Down there- and he will most likely not show up ever again, Blake… sweat heart, you must understand something, okay? If a reaper goes down to hell and… stays down there for too long, he won’t come back.”
As it seems, Mrs. Ray didn’t know everything. Because as reality wants it, reapers do come back. But changed. I closed my eyes, remembering my brother. Trying to find an image in my head where he didn’t look… so different. I couldn’t. Too long had it been since the time we were together. Always. My twin brother and me. I could feel his heart beating in my hand, his eyes opened, dead. Looking at me, judging. My tears falling on his cheeks, making it look like he were crying too.
“I know,” I said through greeted teeth, opening my eyes real slow. The teacher for hell-o-logie watched me carefully with raised eyebrows.
“How long?”
“Blake-”
“Just tell me: For how long can a reaper stay down there?”
Mrs. Ray hesitated, before sighing in defeat. She covered her face, while talking, as if the muffled words would be any less informative for me.
“Humans can’t last down there- ever. If a human gets down there, demons would rip him in peaces almost immediately. Even human souls would turn into spawns after a day or two. Except if they’re spotted from a soldier and brought to one of the officials. That rarely happens.
But reapers- we’re no humans. We don’t have souls to take, to enslave or torture. We can last a month- tops.”
A month in hell meant a week here- in the real world.
Four weeks.
One month.
She let her hands fall from her face, her eyes filled with desperation. She knew what I was up to. I didn’t know how, but Mrs. Ray knew and she didn’t approve of it at all. Manly, I like to hope so, because she was scared.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Blake. I beg you.”
“Heh, don’t worry, Mrs. Ray. You’ll have your essay about level three demons on your desk by next week.”

12.01 pm

Elias was already waiting for me in front of the ritual room, arms crossed before his chest, eyes closed. He wore his usual stuff, hair more messy. Caden and Adelaide were there too, but only because I begged my best friend to stay on watch and prevent every reaper to enter the room, while Elias and I killed each other. That his partner was there only meant one thing: she was here out of glee.
I put my hand on the shoulder of my partner, looking straight at Caden.
“Thanks.”
He just shrugged. When ever he thought I was doing something stupid (which was often) he gave me the silent treatment. It killed be, especially because I wanted to hear his voice a last time, before I disappeared for seven months.
“We’ll be back at the latest in one months.”
“One …- How do you expect us to keep you covered for so long?”
It was Adelaide talking, while Elias gracefully moved towards the door and opened it with a key he had drawn. So cool to have him as a partner.
“You’re a smart Barbie- think of something.”
“I’ll just say, I choked you into a coma,” the blonde sneered, Caden holding her back by her shoulders- or else I might have scratch marks in my face right now. I peered at him, but his eyes were focused on his partner. I never felt this bad in my whole life.
“Come on- before somebody catches us.”
Elias poked his head out of the darkness of the room then the shadows swallowed his features again. Without looking back, I emerged the room, hands stuffed deep into my pockets. As the door closed behind me, I could feel Caden’s eyes on me.
“Here.”
A gun came flying at me, landing- after slithering on the floor- at my feet. Elias smirked.
“So… got the music?”
I pulled my iPod from my jacket pocked and hold it up, so he could see it. Then I played the play button.
“Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on…”
“I think I’ll just die of ear cancer right now.”
“Hey- the lyrics really say something.”
My face reddened, because he didn’t know I thought about him, when Céline sings: Every night in my dreams, I see you, I feel you. There was a reason I got the song started not in the beginning.
“Yeah… some one understand girls.”
The Elias aimed his gun at my heart. He looked to serious in the dim light of the room, the magical signs covering the walls, ceiling and floor while the smell of typical mystical herbs swayed in