Midmorning the next day, the bonfire was out, ashes had been cleaned up with the beach, tables were gone, and the students had vanished. Peter Griffin was back at his family's manor, idly flipping through the blank pages of the black notebook he had dropped in the bed of his pickup truck. His hair was a mess, and he still had a slight headache from last night's hangover. Raven had said that Peter wasn't even in Cody's league, but how could that be possible? Cody was just some motherless trash.
"DEATH NOTE," Peter repeated the words written on the front cover and flipped back to the first page with the rules.
What was this bizarre thing? Even though it sounded like the way Kira killed, it was completely blank inside. Only the cover and rule page were interesting, and Peter wondered if some Kira fanatic hadn't just dropped it accidently half-finished. That seemed like the most plausible explanation.
"What a waste of my time," Peter muttered and tossed it over his shoulder to the floor of his room.
"I would handle it a little more carefully," a voice warned him.
Peter tensed as he sat in chair by his desk, holding his breathe. That wasn't the voice of his parents or any of the servants. So then, who was it?
Peter curled his hand into a fist and turned around in his chair. "Says who?"
His voice choked after he spat his question when he saw the intruder. It was someone who might have once been human, but no longer was. The intruder's giant white dragon wings shifted as the intruder knelt and picked up the notebook titled DEATH NOTE in a taloned, four-finger hand. Then the intruder straightened, revealing his features to be a horrid combination of dragon and human with random patches of skin, scale, and bone.
The intruder held out the DEATH NOTE to Peter Griffin, but Peter just stared at it. Slowly he looked from the notebook up to the dragon intruder holding it out to him, and then fainted. Drake looked in hesitant surprise as Peter Griffin slumped and fell out of his chair to the floor, soundly unconscious. Well, Drake sighed to himself, at least he hadn't screamed.
About an hour later, Peter Griffin was sitting in one of the empty rooms in his family's manor looking at the DEATH NOTE in his lap. His hangover had vanished with the appearance of the dragon intruder that he had learned was a Shinigami named Drake. After Peter had regained consciousness, Drake had told him a few basic facts and they had spoken briefly. Peter had agreed to help him, and Drake had left to return with the infamous Near himself.
"So this is the source of Kira's power," Peter mused to himself as he flipped to the page with the five rules.
"Yes it is," Drake repeated what he had said earlier.
Peter brushed some of his messy bangs out of his face, and looked back up at Drake and Near. He was half-convinced he was still asleep. The whole "death god" thing sounded fictional, and Near was present. Near, the "Lucifer" of the Kira religion who could fly and who had been recorded doing so in dozens of videos during the raid on SPK headquarters.
Near sat in a chair quietly, wearing a set of Peter's old clothes he had given to him, lost in thought about the current situation. Drake was next to him, one hand hovering over Near's chest as the Shinigami finished healing the damage done by the bullets. The Shinigami lowered his palm to his lap, and Peter hmphed quietly in thought.
"You're saying that I can kill anyone I want just be writing their names down in this," Peter repeated.
"Anyone except for Raven Grayson," Drake agreed. "A holder of a DEATH NOTE cannot be killed by a DEATH NOTE."
"I see," Peter closed the cover of the notebook and looked at the title of white letters.
Drake didn't bother mentioning the Shinigami Eye Deal to Peter Griffin as there was no way someone with Shinigami eyes could see through the king's veil. For certain, Drake couldn't and he didn't even know when Peter Griffin's lifespan expired. He also didn't know what Near's death date had changed to after Drake had rescued him from the raid. Hopefully it would be sometime after Moon was dealt with.
"I would love to say that this is an impressive prank, but," Peter looked up at the Shinigami sitting across from him, "it's obviously not. Can I test this?"
Drake nodded, and Peter stood to track down a pen in the empty room. Near glanced sideways at Drake as Peter picked up a pen and turned to the first page. He was wondering why Drake hadn't just made Near the owner of his DEATH NOTE. Did Mello simply not want him to be changed into a Shinigami? That sounded like Mello, doing everything his own way.
Drake leaned back in the chair, looking out at nothing, lost in his memories of his human life. It would not be long before his human memories faded, and he wanted to savor them while they lasted. He heard the sound of Peter writing a name in the DEATH NTOE, and he must have written in details of the death from how long it took him before he put the pencil he had found down and picked the notebook up again.
"Well," Peter said and held the notebook casually in one hand. "I'll know soon enough if this worked. No one's using this room, so you can stay here for now. Wash up and I'll get some food for you without the servants finding out you're here."
A shower and hot meal sounded wonderful to Near.
"I take it you really are human then?" Peter asked Near.
"Drake was carrying me," Near assured him. "I cannot fly under my own power."
"Right," Peter mused and held the notebook to his chest protectively.
He left to return to his own room with the DEATH NOTE, and Near watched him leave. It was a little surprising that Drake didn't follow him. Weren't Shinigami supposed to "haunt" their humans?
"Thank you for healing me Mello," Near addressed Drake once Peter had gone.
"Mello is a human name," Drake sighed, repeating himself. "I am not human anymore."
Near didn't say anything else as he stood and walked to the bathroom to take a nice warm shower. Drake let Near leave unchallenged and looked out the window of the Griffin manor. It was a large gated estate with a four-story manor that overlooked the city beneath, far enough away from the heart of the town to not be overwhelmed by noise or tourists.
Drake watched the humans move like ants, swarming the beaches or driving in their cars. They seemed so miniscule and short-lived it was almost sad. He wondered to himself if he should have given the DEATH NOTE to Near after all instead of to this arrogant Peter Griffin. Near was a being who would make use of immortality after his death, but was Peter?
He hadn't had a choice. The power of the DEATH NOTE ensured Peter's allegiance, and right now it was the only thing that was doing so. Drake wondered absentmindedly whose name Peter Griffin had written down, but doubted it was of anyone of immediate concern.
Raven smiled, and slurped up a mouthful of noodles with the chopsticks that had come with the Chinese food she had ordered. The house phone sat to her left contently, now turned off. She had ordered the tickets needed to go to Jungle Island. Although they would still have to pay some at the gate, they had a discount and reservations so they could skip the line.
Moon was thinking on the roof again, and Raven picked up the phone to dial Cody and tell him they were on for tomorrow. Although he didn't have a cellphone, he should have a home phone unless the line had gotten cut again. She dialed their number and held the phone to her ear as she took a bite out of her eggroll.
It rang several times, a sign that the line was live, but no one answered. Raven sighed and set the phone back down. She finished off her eggroll and picked up another mouthful of noodles with her chopsticks. Cody spent as little time with his father at their apartment as possible, so it was likely he was out at the skate park or beach. No doubt his father had used the money Cody earned from his part-time jobs to buy some more beer and was now passed out drunk.
She sighed and finished up her meal. Oh well, Cody had agreed to come over to her house at 8am tomorrow. With a smile as she thought about how much fun she was going to have tomorrow with Cody she went back to her dinner she had ordered.
"Cody," Mr. Sharp, Cody's father slurred as he stumbled towards Cody's room with a half-empty beer bottle in his hand.
He banged into the door to Cody's room and it fell open. Through blurred sight he saw that Cody's room was empty. His son's skateboard was leaning against the wall near the door, and above it was a coatrack. Two of the hooks were taken up by his helmet and fingerless gloves he wore when he was skating, and with it was his black denim jacket he wore when it was colder out. Cody had to be here somewhere.
"Cody," his father slurred again and slammed a hand against the wall loudly. "Come out sue brat!"
That was normally enough to make Cody come out, but this time he didn't. His father scowled and stalked around, looking for his worthless son. Where had he gone this time? The keys to Mr. Sharp's blue truck that Cody sometimes stole were still hanging in the kitchen.
He stumbled around, bumping into the chair in the living room as he looked for Cody. As he was walking, he stepped sideways and fell into the bathroom door. It wasn't latched, and fell open. Cody's father fell after it and landed on the floor. His beer bottle fell from his hand and rolled across the tile floor to the bathtub.
There was someone sitting in front of the bathtub with his left wrist hanging into the bathtub. Blood stained the wrist that had been sliced open and the floor of the bathtub. The victim's eyes were half-open and glazed over in death, and the knife from the kitchen that had sliced open his wrist was in his other hand.
Cody's father looked at the body dazedly, and then sat up. Forgetting about his bottle, he stood, and caught sight of the mirror over the sink. A sentence had been scrawled on its surface in black sharpie that read: "I don't deserve her."
He looked from the message to the suicide victim had left and then at the body of the teenager at the bathtub.
"Cody?" Cody' father whispered.
Cody didn't answer, nor would he ever speak again thanks to the wrist he had slit. He was dead.
DEATH NOTE entry:
Cody Sharp Suicide Leaves a suicide note reading "I don't deserve her"
Needless to say, it wasn't Raven who wrote that in her DEATH NOTE. Were you wondering what Peter wrote in his DEATH NOTE?
What will tomorrow bring when Raven learns that Cody is dead, and what will happen when she realizes who killed him?
*The DEATH NOTE is Peter Griffin's. Originally i mentioned it being Cody's, but that is an error. Cody does not have a DEATH NOTE. Sorry for any confusion.