Gina Grant: Scythe Does Matter

I was kind of enthusiastic myself. I enjoyed the Reaper Academy a lot more than I’d ever liked school previously. Whereas in high school I’d skipped classes and ducked study hall, now I read the notes, studied the handouts and even picked up a few of the additional resources they always list but never refer to. Aunt Carey had sacrificed so much for me; the least I could do was graduate from Reaper school, gain access to the Coil and save her from Conrad.

So I studied hard. Love and lifesaving are great motivators.

The texts were surprisingly interesting, delineating, among other things, the differences between hauntings, poltergeists and demonic possession. The main course material had been ghost-written, and the ghost had been kind enough to visit our class and autograph our texts.

The more I studied, the more questions I had. Back on the Coil, I’d just turned to Google and Wikipedia for all my answers. Hell’s techies were still trying to get the UnderWorld Wide Web up and running. I heard there was too much downtime and they were trying to find a work-around. I hoped we’d get a reasonably priced ISP soon so I could look up things like where M’Kimbi’s country was. Maybe find a copy of that poem Dante had written. Surely after seven centuries it would be in the public domain. I would have ordered a copy, but there wasn’t an amazon.hel yet.

I also wondered why Dante had said not to touch someone else’s scythe that first day when I’d grabbed his on the road to Hell. Nothing had happened then, right?

Although Dante and I lived together, now that I was in school, we didn’t do much together socially. Who had time? I was busy studying while Dante took his teacher’s aide job as seriously as he’d taken reaping and he had way too much integrity to play favorites in class. Most beings in Hell played favorites the way I’d played hockey—that is to say, early and often. But not Dante, damn it!

But we did share the best things in afterlife: the bathroom, the TV remote and a bed. Since we usually ended up arguing over the first two, the third gave us a nice way to make up. And Dante was really good at making up.

Sometimes I picked stupid little fights just so we could make up. Although he usually saw through me, that didn’t mean he would say no. Sometimes he did say, “Kirsty, you should be studying.” Then I sulked. Oh, I studied at the same time but I can multitask.

When it was time to put the books away for another day and crawl into his huge Arabian Nights –style bed (first putting little Jenni the gargoyle out in the living room. She looked far too much like a person for me to allow her to watch), we proved to each other how much we cared. Sex before slumber was my favorite. I liked to think of it as being laid to rest. Our future wasn’t certain, but we had right here, right now and it felt so right. I didn’t want to be left.

One time we, uh, laid to rest again the next morning. Except there was no rest involved. Just lazy sex as good as it can be without kissing—mourning breath. Ewww! Afterward Dante glanced at the bedside clock. “Oh, skeg!”

No matter how off time was we were going to be late. We fast-forwarded our morning routine, skipped breakfast and practically flew into class, faces red, Dante’s robe on inside out. The cowgirls giggled knowingly, the jock rolled his eyes, while Kali high-fifteened me on my way by. I ducked my head, but I couldn’t wipe the stupid got-some grin off my face. My smile only widened when I looked at Dante and saw the same idiot-in-love grin mirrored on his face.

Another student joined the class after I did, which took some of the hater heat off me. There was a lot of secrecy around him but Kali had a great sense of rumor and was able to find out that he was a fallen angel who had joined the Witless Protection Program. His cherubic face, the halo-shaped tan line across his forehead and the occasional bit of white fluff stuck to his clothing all confirmed the rumor to the careful observer. Once his right horn fell off, revealing that it was only stuck on with Velcro, we accepted the rumor as fact. Talk about your dead giveaway. His name was Ira and we liked him immediately, even if he was a bit straight-laced. He played a mean harp.

Professor Schotz was indeed your stereotypical kindly professor, handing out guidance and encouragement in equal parts, right up until finals. I anticipated being given a written exam and when I say “anticipated,” I mean “dreaded.” At least Sergeant Schotz kept himself under wraps. I can’t say I missed him. I was more than a little leery about the fieldwork portion under the sergeant’s command.

We were given three days off to study for exams all day and I usually went out with friends in the evenings. Why not? If things went well in this portion of the curriculum, I’d be halfway to getting my scythe and hightailing it outta there.

Not that I had a tail.

Nothing could stop me from reaping Conrad’s sorry ass and dragging his soul to Hell.

Then I’d lock it in a cell and throw away the cell!

ON THE DAYof the final exam, I arrived at the classroom about an hour early. Shockingly, I was the last to show up. Time had grown increasingly weird and nobody wanted to be late for the final. M’Kimbi had tried to spend the night in the classroom until campus security kicked him out.

My entire future hung on this test. Anyone who didn’t pass would have to repeat the semester. I couldn’t afford the delay. Even if everything went perfectly, graduation day would be dangerously close to the end of my appeals window. I had to pass and get promoted to the final segment, the fieldwork part, or the judge would rule that my body should die and my aunt would be at Conrad’s mercy. That sure put the dead in deadline !

The other students and I talked among ourselves quietly while we waited for the exam to start. At least for the day, we put aside all our old rivalries and resentments except for one: Rod still hated me for the crime of being alive, which still made no sense. Really, all he had to do was wait.

Right on the bell, Professor Schotz arrived with Dante in tow. Crystal, one of the Death Valley girls (I had learned to tell them apart by now and discovered they had dyed their hair after they got here) had explained to us all that since Dante was proctoring our exam, that made him a proctologist. Between that and my “coma toes,” I really hoped she hadn’t been a medical professional in her past life. Or would be in any future one, for that matter.

Professor Schotz opened his briefcase and pulled out a single sheet of paper covered in scrawled handwriting. One by one, each of us found a reason to go up to his desk to try to read it. Even Ira. For a former angel, he was a bit of a bad boy.

“Attention, class. If I may have your attention.” Professor Schotz removed his glasses and polished them on the hem of his robe treating us to more skinny white leg than I cared to see.

Replacing the glasses on his nose, he cleared his throat. “Very good, then. Let’s get started, shall we? Reaper Alighieri will be coming around with a skull full of items, the selection of which will indicate whom you’re teamed up with for this exam.”

Teams? Just what I needed: added pressure. I hoped I wouldn’t be matched with Rod or Horace. I would have prayed, but I hadn’t yet figured out to who.

Or even whom.

Dante moved among the desks, walking up to each student and holding out the bowl-like upside-down skull. We each drew out a small object. At first I thought the hard, round object I’d selected was a marble but then I squawked and nearly dropped the petrified eyeball . Kali held hers at arm’s length, eyeing the eyeball suspiciously. We exchanged a worried glance and then checked again. “Green,” I told her, rolling the eyeball around my palm. “Hazel with flecks of gold,” Kali responded, turning hers this way and that to reflect the dull torchlight that lit the room. Behind us, Ira tossed his in the air, catching it before it hit the floor, then tossing it up again. “Mine’s purple, with horizontal slits,” he informed us. We all sighed. So it wasn’t the sergeant’s missing blue eye. Somehow that would have made the whole thing that much ickier.