Clear, Kimberly, and Thomas stand outside the morgue as the brunette explains about Tim Carpenter's death and that she tried to follow the signs just as Clear had told her to, but instead of saving Tim, he ran straight into the path of death.
"I just don't understand it, Clear. I saw the pigeons, I followed the signs, but it just made things worse," Kimberly said to the blonde as her tears began to dry, but the guilt was still felt raw.
Clear said nothing as she led the other two into the mortuary; the signs had never been wrong before. Castiel sent them to Alex to help them from being killed by Thana, someone Clear would love to forget, but the redhead would never go away, not until they were dead.
The mind games that Thana had played with her in the hospital was just a little reminder of how dangerous the Demon actually was, and something told Clear that Thana would be gunning for her after what happened last year.
No survivors.
That was Thana's motto, and yet here she was surviving and now hopefully helping another group of people do what she and Alex had tried to do. Clear knew that after this trip, she would have to tell Kimberly all about Thana, and she wasn't looking forward to it.
"How is this guy going to help us anyway?" Thomas questions as he and Kimberly follow Clear, she hadn't told them much about the guy they were meeting, but if he could help them, then he was all for it.
"He seemed to know a hell of a lot more about Death than he ever told us," was all Clear said. Still, she had a suspicion that the mortician knew Thana closer than he was letting on. Even when she and Alex visited him, he hinted a knowing Thana personally.
Clear reached for the door handle as Thomas chimes in, "Shouldn't we knock first?"
The blonde just gives him an emotionless face at his worried tone but then remembered he was a police officer, and being just was his thing while breaking and entering was hers. "He probably already knows we're coming."
The other two share a look before following Clear into the creepy looking mortuary underneath the funeral home owned by the very man they were going to see.
The three survivors walk through the stone hallway until they reach a room, which was connected to a freezer room than was lit in a bright red. Clear couldn't help herself as she began to walk closer to the freezer room only to jump when the furnace flames lick at her.
A familiar feeling rose in her chest as she glanced back towards the room; she knew she had felt it before but couldn't place it. Following her gut, she moved closer to the room again, and this time she jumped back when a pair of pale legs rolled towards her.
"Hello, Clear" The smooth deep voice of William Bludworth greeted as he pushed the dead body into the room they were stood in. "I've been expecting you," he grinned knowingly at the blonde as she just stared at him.
"Oh my God," Kimberly gasped as she looked down at the body on the metal table. She recognized him from the interrogation room and her vision. He was the guy that burned to death. She could still hear his screams when she closes her eyes.
"That's Evan Lewis," Thomas muttered as he too looked down at the dead man.
"Come to pick my brain?" The mortician questions Clear with a sense of familiarity that had the other two wondering how well the two know each other; Bludworth seemed to be at ease around Clear but not so much the other way around.
"Just a simple question, and we'll leave you alone with your new friend," The empath sassed as she nodded towards Evan's slightly purplish body, which was about to be cremated.
Bludworth leaned in close to Kimberly, whose eyes widened at his expression "Dead...yet still fresh," he laughed, sounding peppy as his shoulders jumped up; he must really love his job.
Clear sighed, having already been in the man's presence before, his actions weren't shocking to her. "Look, we drove a long way to get here, so if you happen to know how to stop Her, it would be really great if you told us.".
The smile dropped from the dark-skinned man's face as he gave Clear a look. "You can't cheat Death. You know that" the double meaning wasn't lost on Clear, and now she knew for sure Bludworth knew Thana "There are no escapes."
That familiar saying sent shivers down the woman's spine "Bullshit. You told me Death has a distinct design, But Alex and I cheated Death, not once but dozens of times. The design is flawed, it can be beaten".
For a moment, Clear tensed, almost expecting an angry Thana to pop up at her words, she remembered Alex telling her how offended the Demon had once gotten when he swore at her and mocked the design.
"Such fire in you now," Bludworth grinned as he places a hand on Clear's chin as the blonde backed away in terror disguised as repulsion. "People are always most alive just before they die. Don't you think?".
The three survivors look on in disgust as the mortician pulls out Evan's nipple ring with a pair of pliers without even blinking before pushing the metal table into the incinerator where the flames instantly danced around the deceased man's body.
Bludworth begins to whistle, walking away when Kimberly grabs his arm. "Look, please..." the mortician glances at the young woman expressionless, "if you know of anything that could help us, what harm could it do?"
"Only new life can defeat Death" the vagueness of his answer confused them, but it was more than they had before.
"What the hell does that mean?" Thomas questioned as Bludworth continued to stare a Kimberly as if he could see straight through her and right down into her soul. Maybe he could?
"Some people say there's a balance to everything. For every life, there's a death, and for every death, there is a life. But the introduction of life that was not meant to be, that can invalidate the list, force Death to start anew." His eyes flickered to Clear as if trying to get her to read between the lines.
"Thana is balance Clear, but sometimes balance can be tipped. The world is a diagonal, and she is the balancing point," The blonde frowned, trying to think of what he wasn't saying instead of what he was.
The dark-skinned man reached forward to pick up the necklace pendant from Kimberly's chest as he looks it over. "You have to follow the signs, Kimberly," he tells her while her eyes open wide in fear.
"How do you know my name?" The man just gives a deep baritone laugh before he turns and walks back into his freezer, abruptly ending their talk. Clear motioned for them to leave as they make their way back out to the car.
Kimberly timidly looked towards the blonde as Thomas stood beside her. "Who's Thana, Clear?" The other woman's head shot up at Kimberly's question. She gave a small sigh before stretching out her neck.
It was time to tell them everything.
"This is going to sound strange, but after everything you've seen so far, I think you'll understand," Thomas and Kimberly share a look as Clear continues.
"Thana is Death," pausing for a moment to glance around her, she explained who Thana was to the pair.
"Alex told me she appeared to him one night when the death started happening, she was toying with him. She enjoyed watching him trying to save everyone when she knew it wasn't going to be possible" Clear sniffed, remembering everyone who had died.
"She was furious when we survived our deaths and began stalking each of us. The longer we survived, the angrier she became, and the worse the deaths were except for Alex, she made his so simple, almost mocking him in a way".
Thomas blinked slowly as he tried to take in everything the blonde was saying, but it was so hard to believe even after everything they had been through. "You're telling me that Death, the thing, the entity of the end of life is actually a girl?".
Clear's face changed instantly. "Don't mock her, she's much more than just a girl. We made that mistake too. Thana has a list, Death's list, and she creates the design of our deaths. When we all survived, her list changed, and we were all added to a new list".
Kimberly's eyes flickered around as she also tried to come to terms with what Clear had told them, "So how are you alive?".
The blonde's eyes saddened for a moment.
"I thought locking myself away would keep her from me, but all this time she was just toying around with me, she hates that I stopped her so many times, she's probably planning something extra painful for me," she joked lightly, feeling the tense atmosphere.
"How did you beat her?" Thomas asked, now taking Clear's words more seriously after hearing her talk, and this Thana girl wasn't someone he wanted to meet. They needed to know how to stop her.
"I didn't," Kimberly and Thomas gave her a questioning look. "Thana's brother Castiel is an Angel, he managed to lock her away for a little while, but she came back worse than ever He's the one who sent Alex those visions in the first place, and my guess is he's sending them to you too."
Kimberly had a brief look of hope in her eyes. "Well, where is he? Why can't he lock her away again?".
Clear bit her lip as she glanced around again, habitually looking for clues or dangerous situations as she tried to let the other woman down gently. "We don't know, he disappeared after Thana got free, but if you're still getting visions, then he's still helping us."
Thana watched as Evan's body burned in the incinerator; as Bludworth exited the freezer room with a new body, he didn't seem shocked to see the redheaded Demon in his domain.
The orange from the fire cast an orange tone over Thana, making her hair seem brighter, but that could just be from the merriment of watching one of the survivors burning, the way he was supposed to originally.
"I told them what you wanted," the dark-skinned ferryman expressed without facing the Demon as he removed some debris from the body of the young adult male that Thana had reaped and who soul he had taken.
Thana only glances up at the taller man with a face full of terrifying glee. "See, you can take orders, I thought we were going to have another episode like we did before," the girl smirked as Bludworth remembered the scolding he received after helping Alex.
"Clear seems different this time," The man mentioned as Thana's hackles raised at the sound of the other woman's name. "I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but she had this aura around her too."
"The stench of Death, maybe?" Thana joked as she twirled around to move about the stone room. "Clear Rivers is just a dot on my radar, Charon. She is nothing" the gritting of her teeth spoke more than her blatant lie did.
"I have more things to worry about than Clear. I need to find Castiel – kill him, find all those little seers that he's been making – kill them and be back in time for tea with my Father in Hell." the cheerful tone in Thana's voice was only slightly chilling.
Clapping her hands together, Thana was oddly chipper today, considering all the work she had to do. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a grieving mother to find. Oh, and by the way, nice watch" her grin was the last thing to disappear as she teleports away.
Bludworth watches the spot where the Demon once stood before glancing down at the body of the young male; pulling down his chin to open his mouth, he grinned to find a shiny coin glinting back up at him, "an obol from everyone who makes the downward journey."