Chapter 24: betrayal

I woke up suddenly, like I had a nightmare. Of course, that was impossible, but it was the same sense of fear. I had no idea why. The sky was clear today. It seemed like a wonderful day. Suddenly, I wasn't so happy I had a day off today. I had earned a day off today because I had worked a full day extra of overtime. It didn't seem like such a good thing now. Something bad was lurking in the corners, just waiting to happen. I felt like a small animal cornered by death, knowing it was about to happen with no way of escaping it.

I got up slowly. Grell had a day off today as well, thankfully. One less person I had to worry about today. I turned on my computer. It held barely more than 4 GB, but it was enough to hack the system. I quickly rewired the computer to hide the signal and typed into the hack code to break into the files. The files had all the information about every shinigami alive, including marriage records and children counts. I'd never tried to hack into something this powerful, but I had to do it. The screen lit up.

Hacking… ten percent complete.

I knew it was going to take a while, so I went downstairs and ate breakfast. I walked around my house, picking up spare pieces of paper off the floor that I had left while doing my research. Yeah… my house had seriously gotten messy in a very short time. I'd have to clean soon.

When I walked upstairs, the hack had been completed. I quickly sat down to browse through the files. I couldn't believe my luck at how easily it had loaded. I quickly went to Cheryl's profile. I read it over as fast as I could, copied her file into my computer and quickly shut off the hacking system before the higher authorities could get wind of what I was doing. I looked at the copied file. I couldn't believe my eyes.

I was slowly starting to piece this together. Cheryl wasn't married. Nor did she have any children. Her parents were both only children and were both dead, along with her grandparents and everyone else. She had left in such a hurry yesterday that I wasn't sure if she had even given back her death scythe. It was necessary to give back one's death scythe once they permanently retired from becoming a grim reaper. I hurriedly picked up my phone and called William, only to realize that he was at work and that his cell phone would be turned off. Shit… I had a feeling that something really bad was going to happen soon. I didn't even bother to change into my working clothes. I just ran out in my black army pants, black t-shirt and black combat boots, not caring if my students saw me or not.

I made it to the library as quickly as I could. I ran to the front desk.

"Oh, Miss Hayes. How may I be of service?" The grim reaper woman asked pleasantly.

"One of the management team's members, Cheryl Black retired from being a grim reaper yesterday. Could you check if she gave back her death scythe?"

"Just one minute please…" The woman looked through the huge stack of folders on her desk. Her pleasant smile changed into a confused frown faster than someone had wiped a slate. "It's strange… No, I don't see it anywhere. You don't think she didn't give it back?"

"I don't know what I think at the moment. Thank you for your help."

I wandered into the classroom, thinking that I'd wait for William and tell him what was going on later. I heard a loud crash come from the arena. I thought nothing of it, thinking that it was probably just a student who set off a landmine by accident. But pretty soon, I heard more bangs. I could vaguely hear William telling everyone to get to the exits. I ripped open the door and ran into the arena.

The outside wall had been completely broken in. In the rubble stood a figure in a white cloak; the same woman the golden oracle had shown me. Her face was covered by a white porcelain mask with intricate red and gold detail.

"I don't know what you think you're doing." William said. "This is a private training ground. If you will not leave by yourself, I will make you leave."

"Suit yourself." The woman said. "You will die before I leave." She walked towards William, who stood his ground, not looking the least bit worried. I ran down to the arena and jumped off the roof. I landed a few meters away from William, a rocket launcher twice my height forming from my death scythe.

"I don't think so. Take one more step towards him and I'll make sure you're full of holes. You'll be Swiss cheese by the time I'm done with you." I said, swinging the barrel of my rocket launcher on my shoulder and aiming the scope straight at the woman.

"Leah? What are you doing here?"

"I had a bad feeling." I said to William. "I'll explain after we kick her out of here."

Both of us got ready to fight. I had to admit the woman was an amazing fighter. She alone could hold off two grim reapers, not to mention two powerful grim reapers. She fought us on entirely equal terms. She dodged expertly while fighting. Her death scythe was a sword. I had never seen Cheryl's death scythe before, so I couldn't say whether or not it was hers. A sword was a pretty common death scythe.

She caught me by surprise and stabbed me. I managed to block the lunge with the barrel of my death scythe, but the blow knocked the wind out of me and sent me flying into the wall. My death scythe flew away from me and landed in an entirely different corner of the arena. I tried to use telekinesis to make it come back to me, but the woman uttered a spell and it got chained to the wall. I wasn't strong enough to rip the chains from the wall. I began to panic. I wasn't hurt, but William would be.

If we fought her on equal terms two on one, she would kill William in a one on one duel. He was losing quickly. He hadn't gotten hurt yet, but it was only a matter of time. I felt in my pockets, hoping that this was the right set of pants. Yes it was! My pocketknife was still in my pocket. I gripped it. I had only one shot.

I waited until I had a perfect profile shot of her mask. Her attention was entirely riveted on William. She didn't see me move as I threw the knife like a dart. It shattered her mask and made a long gash across her nose. She shrieked and turned away, but not before I got a good look at her face. So did William.

It was Cheryl Black.