Author's Note:

Hello All! I don't have much to say except thank you for your patience. I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. I have a couple of weeks before school starts, so let's see how far ahead I can work so that I can make regular updates every week. This chapter is very short, but things will pick up again soon. Plus, I'm posting another tomorrow.

Chapter 42

Obedience

Anna walked down an alley she hadn't traveled before, frustrated. How useless was this exactly? She didn't know how to track a human, though she completely believed she had the physical aptitudes to do so. She long noticed her sense of smell was stronger, as was her hearing and sight despite her lack of facial features.

"Light."

Anna slapped a hand over her mouth with a sharp "clack" and spun to look at the Reaper.

"Chakis?" Annalise said, eyes wide and slightly terrified. She glanced in the direction of the tower where her brother was with a frantic concern in her eyes.

"He survives, Light," Chakis said softly, standing against the wall of the alley. She seemed, duller in color than possible, if that made sense. Tired. Somehow.

"…Thank you," Annalise said softly.

Chakis didn't react. She stared at Annalise with a stiff expression. With barely any extra movement, Chakis sat down on a rotted wood crate. She leaned against the wall behind her as the skeleton looked on in utter confusion.

"Sit," the angel of death said.

"Why?"

"You'll be ill in a few moments from the drink and the stress if you don't."

Annalise hesitated before coming near, sitting next to the reaper who she didn't even really know. When it didn't seem Chakis was going to say something, Annalise turned to look in front of them at the opposite wall, noting a poster announcing a bake sale next week. Briefly distracted by the idea of a monster bake sale, she chuckled before she could stop herself. She glanced at Chakis.

The angel still didn't react and just watched her.

"What does the name Chakis mean?" Anna asked.

If the reaper was surprised by the random question, she didn't reveal so.

Annalise didn't think Chakis was completely emotionless though. She just knew the woman wasn't human, or even alive like creatures bourne out of Earth, so to Anna, it made sense creatures like Chakis may struggle to act as an individual.

"It has no meaning except that which you can attach. God gave me my name, so in the simplest term, it means 'me' in the most literal sense of the word."

"Ah…" It was an interesting explanation. "Why are you here?"

"I'm considering something. A decision I must make."

A decision a reaper must make didn't sound like good news. "No offense," Anna said cautiously. "But you don't really have free will, do you?" Annalise said with a small curious frown, "Everything you do, God decides right? What could you be considering?"

Chakis cracked a smile. "You confuse free will with obedience. Everything I do, I must do in obedience to my Creator and within my nature as I was made, but all of the heavenly hosts maintain free will. We are simply not created with forgiveness possible, like you that He created in His image."

"What does in His image even mean? I always asked my pastor that, but he never said in such a way I could understand."

Chakis chuckled, and Anna wondered if that was the first laugh she had heard from the being.

"I've never needed to have this conversation with a monster," she said with a tinge of thoughtful amusement. "In all my years."

Anna bristled slightly. "Are you changing the subject?"

"Yes and no, because I have less time to speak to you than you wish. Consider what you understand the word 'image' to mean, then ask again when you next see me."

Anna stared for a moment before submitting. "…Can other monsters see you?"

"If I wish."

Anna leaned against the wall next to Chakis, crossing her long legs. "What are you considering?"

"When you're going to ask the question you want to, and how much to tell you."

Annalise was very quiet. When she spoke, her voice was softer, as if afraid of being overheard. She glanced down the alley and up at the nearby roofs. She didn't sense anyone else, but she didn't trust the amateur abilities that she didn't even entirely understand.

"What did I do…to that demon?"

That was the question that had sunk into her soul and twisted it around her spine like a snake. Lit on fire like that…she didn't feel like herself. It was like she was possessed just the same as James in her arms. She hadn't blacked out. She was aware of every moment. It terrified her. How was she supposed to respond to something like that? She didn't understand what happened, only that it was strange and dangerous.

"Hastened his death."

Anna looked at the woman. "You say, 'hastened.' Not that I killed him, which I clearly did."

Chakis looked at the girl with a sympathetic expression that seemed very strange on her. "Demons are already dead. They are slowly dying, fading away to nothingness in their damnation. They only desire to take as much of Creation down with them as they can."

Anna blinked, mildly surprised. "Huh." She frowned and shook her skull. "I still killed him."

"I suppose you did. If you wish to say so."

"I don't! I killed someone…" Annalise's voice cracked. "A creature that was a sentient feeling being." She put her hands to her chest, crossing them while curling her hands and her spine slightly. "I could feel his pain. I drew it out. I didn't enjoy it, but at the same time, I wanted him to suffer. He screamed," she raised one hand to gesture at the grey sky. "He screamed so loud I felt like the moon was screaming and the planet was going to crack. It bounced around inside my skull, and it hurt. It hurt s-so…" she almost covered her face but forced her hands down and clenched them. "I felt all the pain. But it…didn't harm me. I wasn't even bothered." That seemed to disturb her the most.

"You shouldn't be as guilty as you are," Chakis said calmly. "Demons do not deserve the value that human life has."

"But then what value do monster souls have? You speak as if there are only humans and not humans, and anything not human is inherently worthless. We are worthless." Maybe Annalise wanted to cry. "I don't want to attach worth to a demon. I've grown up in a church. I completely understand that. But…" she looked down. "If there's only human and not human, I don't want to…"

"We are dipping into secrets you shouldn't know yet," Chakis warned. "Be still and calm, Light. Do not fret over the reasonings of a church. Human arrogance often masquerades as enlightenment. Be cautious. Very few humans are wise enough to have answers they claim."

"Yet, you do."

"Yes. I'm not human. But I can't tell you."

Anna scoffed and pulled her knees to her chest. "What am I?"

"You are Annalise."

"I know who I am. At least, I think I do. I mean how. How did I…destroy a demon like that?"

Chakis was quiet.

"Is that something else you can't tell me?"

"I will, but now's not the time. I need your complete focus then, and with what will happen next with your sister, you won't be stable for several days."

"You're a lot of help, aren't you?" Annalise said, glancing to her side when she felt a ripple in the air. She jumped, startled to find no one there. Angrily, she swiped at the air, hoping to catch an invisible sleeve.

Muttering to herself at the wasted time, she got up to keep looking for Jillian. Her eyes looked up in thought for a moment before she stepped up on the crate she was sitting on, then a barrel and climbed up on the roof of the building.

Annalise did find Jillian.

However, Jillian's memories were erased by a particularly powerful spell, so it's pointless to share all that happened. For now.

All you, dear reader, need to understand for now is that it broke Annalise. She sat on the fountain in the middle of town and waited quietly for Jack and Nevermore to return from taking James and Jillian, both unconscious, back to the human world.

She turned her words with Jillian over in her head.

Jillian had cried herself to sleep as the spell took effect, falling against the blood-stained skeleton who claimed to be her sister as she lost feeling in her legs. She dropped the stick she had picked up as a weapon as her hand weakened.

Annalise ignored the doubt and fear falling off her little sister in waves as she took her in her arms.

Fear of her.

"I love you, Jelly Bean. Don't worry. Goodbyes are not forever."

"You're not her! You can't be!" Jillian wailed in desperation, the frightened little girl's words slurring. "You can't… y-you…"

"I know. I know…Sleep now. You'll wake up, and none of this ever happened," Annalise assured, ignoring the monsters who looked on in confusion and fear. "James is fine. You're fine. Is was all a bad dream."

"You're dead. Why can't that be part of the dream…"

Annalise didn't answer as Jillian lost consciousness.

She ignored Jack standing there. She ignored the unwanted pity in his eyes.

Goodbyes are not forever.

Chakis watched from a distance as Annalise wondered how she had said that without dying a second time.

It was a promise she couldn't keep. And the skeleton knew it.