Children of the Apocalypse Complete Trilogy

by A. L. Kessler

  I forced my heavy eyelids open and pushed away from the leather seat. “Sorry, I haven’t been sleeping well since…” I glanced at my mother and shook my head. “Since Kaleb and I went on our adventure.”

  “You shouldn’t hide things from me.” My mother closed her door. We got out and pulled our suitcases out of the trunk. “I can help you.”

  I shook my head. “It’s done and over with.” I rolled my luggage to the door and heard the scraping of wheels behind me and Ruthie’s footsteps following. I pulled my keys out of my pocket and unlocked the front door.

  I motioned for Ruthie to go in first. She went in and my mom stepped in front of me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Really, Sammy, even if it’s just to get things off your chest, you can talk to me. That’s what mothers are for.”

  “I thought you were supposed to raise me.” I walked in and put my suitcase next to the entryway. “Guide me in what I’m supposed to do in order to become a functioning adult.” I stepped into the living room that ran right off the entryway. Ruthie lounged on the couch, throwing one arm over the back and half glancing at us over her shoulder.

  “I am, but I’m also supposed to comfort you. You’ve just never let me do that.” My mother crossed her arms. “You’ve always hidden your fears from me.”

  I turned away before she could see me lock my jaw. “That’s because your solutions were never the best or you didn’t believe what I told you. Now I understand that was because you didn’t want to believe I wasn’t human.” My voice shook and I swallowed the anger that climbed through and tightened my chest. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter. It’s over and I just need to keep moving forward.”

  “Fine.” She pushed past me and walked through the living room to the attached dining area. She disappeared around the corner where the kitchen could hide her. I kicked my shoes off. I walked over to the couch, my feet making no sounds against the white plush carpet. The soft fibers of the carpet tickled my feet until I plopped down on the couch next to Ruthie.

  “Do you want the grand tour?”

  She shook her head. “Nope, I really do intend to watch a bunch of junk TV and relax until we have to help with cooking tomorrow.”

  “My mom doesn’t cook, we’ll either go out or she’ll have food catered. You don’t want to know what happened to the last turkey she tried to cook.” I ran my hand over the fabric of the couch, watching the microfibers change with the directions I rubbed it.

  My mom came back out with big mugs of coffee. “Cooking was never a human skill I was able to pick up. I tried though.”

  “She did try, she gets points for that.” I smiled. “She made memories in attempting to cook dinners for us when I got old enough to start asking about holidays.” The burnt smell from the turkey still clung to the kitchen some days, especially if she turned on the broiler.

  Ruthie took her mug and blew over the top of it. “You tried, that’s more than most fallen angels can say. Most end up working for Lucile or end up trying to play for both sides.”

  The tension shot through my shoulders into my neck. I didn’t want to talk about my mother being a fallen angel. I opened my mouth to say something, but my mother beat me to speaking.

  “I didn’t want a part in either side. I wanted to be human more than anything so I refused all temptation Lucile threw my way until she finally left me alone. That was long before Sammy came along. I felt she would have continued to press if she had known what kind of child I would bear.”

  I tried to imagine my mother and Lucile being friends over the centuries and couldn’t. Though it would have been the Sins that came to tempt her, not the Devil. “Seems like it turned out for the best for me.” I sipped my coffee. “Is there anything new and fun on television? Because I’m over the talk of angels and demons on my holiday vacation.”

  “There is, I’ve put a few of them in the queue for you, some with zombies, some with superheroes and, of course, some with mysteries.” She settled into an overstuffed chair near the couch. “I opted to have a catering company deliver dinner tomorrow so we wouldn’t have to worry about going out.”

  Which meant we could all hang out in our pajamas and catch up on shows Ruthie and I missed by living in the dorms without cable and spending our time fighting off the forces of evil.

  “Don’t forget, we have to take some time to study for finals.” Ruthie set her mug down on an end table. “You don’t want to fail your classes.”

  No, I didn’t. As it was, I was going to have to take college algebra over because of Lucile being my professor, I didn’t want to worry about the other classes as well. “Yes, studying will happen this weekend too. Way to ruin the mood, Ruthie.” I nudged her with my foot.

  “You can worry about that later, for now, we relax.” My mother turned on the flat screen television hanging on the wall. The black screen flickered to life showing all the options we had for streaming. Icons for television shows and movies flipped over the screen while my mom searched for one to watch. “Here.”

  The doorbell rang before she could say anything else. We exchanged glances and my mother put the remotes down on the table with a small click of plastic against wood. She walked to the door and leaned up on her toes to check out the peephole. Lowering herself back down to the floor she put a flat hand against the door. She pressed her lips together and didn’t look up.

  Her hand trailed across the door and wrapped around the doorknob, turning it. She swung the door open and on the step stood a woman.

  The brown tattered clothes hung off her frail frame and over her hunched back. She balanced her weight on a cane that she cupped with two bony and wrinkled hands. Her black beady eyes swept over what she could see from the entryway, landing on Ruthie and I.

  I jumped up and over the couch, landing on my feet as I summoned my scythe. Behind the woman appeared long black wings, and a tail. “Stand down, daughter of Death.” Her words creaked as they came from her throat. “I am not here to hurt you, but to deliver a warning to you and your mother.”

  Ruthie appeared next to me, her staff in her hand, but she placed a hand of warning on my shoulder. It’d become her silent sign to keep me from attacking. “What do you want, hag?”

  “To tell you Lucile has devised a devious plan. That her Sins will no longer be standing down, but they will complete the mission they were all assigned and to let you know that no one can stop the fate that awaits his daughter and keep her life.” She met my gaze. A shiver of fear racked my body and pulled sweat from my skin. I’d seen her before, I couldn’t place where or why, but my mind and body sure remembered.

  My mother turned towards me and then back to the visiting demon. “You’ve delivered your warning, go back to hell, gatekeeper.” She shut the door and I let my scythe disappear.

  “The Sins were sent to kill the retired horsemen. That’s what Greed told us when she killed Pete’s grandfather.” I leaned against the back of the couch. “That’s nothing new.” I made sure to keep my voice even. “There’s no reason to panic about this warning.”

  My mother turned to face me. “Who’s panicking?” She clasped her hands in front of her and stood straight, her chin tilted up slightly. “Your fate is the same as the others, to find the horsemen and put a stop to this apocalypse.”

  I expected her to break down at the idea that someone thought a worse fate was going to befall me, but maybe she’d become comfortable with the idea of what I was now. If she did, that made one of us.

  “The question I have is why is a gatekeeper warning us about that? She works for Lucile and I doubt Lucile would want us warned. Unless she’s trying to get us to slip up and fall into a trap.” Ruthie walked around the couch and sat back down. I joined her, grabbing my coffee off the table.

  “Everyone keeps saying each creature has freewill, doesn’t that mean a demon might choose to switch sides and work with us instead of against us?” I wrapped my hands around the mug and watched the dark liquid ripple with my small movements.

/>   “Demons tend to run evil because they are pulled by the temptations Lucile offers, she is their queen. She can seduce them back to her side to do her bidding because of that. Yes, they have freewill, but just like some humans, they tend to bend easier to the side of evil.” My mother stayed by the door. “Occasionally one breaks the mold, but it’s rare, especially for one she trusts as a gatekeeper.”

  Ruthie sipped her coffee and thought for a moment. “What is the nearest gate?”

  “You can’t seriously be thinking about going there.” My mother snapped. “There’s two of you.”

  “Three,” I interrupted, “because dad will be here and he can go with us. There’s a chance she’s trying to throw us off because we’re here. There might be something in the closest gateway.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not going to let you go to a gateway.”

  “We went to Devil’s Playground and I’m fine.” I tapped my fingernails against the mug. “I’ve taken on demons, I’ve fought Sins, and I’ve seen a family killed by the plague and famine on their farm. Another gateway with Ruthie and Dad at my back won’t be a problem.”

  The color drained from her face. “You’ve been busy.”

  “Did you think I was sitting around idly?” I gave a short laugh. “Did you know my math teacher was Lucile? Yeah, it’s been an interesting semester.”

  Ruthie sucked in a breath and looked down at her coffee.

  “I still don’t want you at the gateway. You wanted a normal vacation.” She stormed past us and disappeared down the hallway.

  I leaned my head back and counted to ten until I could think through the confusion and anger that I felt. “I’ll be right back.” I set the mug on the table and went down the hall.

  I knocked on my mom’s door and waited against the wall. “Mom?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore, Sammy. Nothing you say is going to convince me.” Her muffled voice answered me.

  I rolled my eyes. “There’s obviously something else bothering you. Can I come in and we’ll talk about this alone?”

  The handle clicked and the door swung inwards. I walked in and closed it behind me. “What is going on? You go from being fine with what I am to flipping out about me wanting to do my job.”

  “A job is something you get paid for, you don’t have a job. You have a handed down responsibility that you never asked for and I never wanted for you.” She turned away from me and crossed her arms. The bed dipped as she sat down. She ran her hand over the creases in the comforter. “I didn’t think things would escalate so fast. I don’t like the idea of my daughter in that much danger.”

  I sighed and dropped my arms to my side. “This isn’t what I would have chosen either. Do you know how much I want to just be a normal college student? To have my biggest worry be if I’m going to pass my finals? To go on a date with the guy I’ve been crushing on?”

  “You could have that if you just tell your father you want to be left alone and move away from the others.” She looked up, her eyes begging. “You could run from this and let them handle it all.”

  “I can’t run because it will just follow me and I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if the world fell into a complete apocalypse because I didn’t do this.” I sat next to her on the bed and she wrapped her arm around me. “You always told me I needed to do the right thing and sometimes that was the hardest choice because it wasn’t always what we wanted to do.”

  She squeezed my shoulder. “I didn’t want you to make the same mistakes I did, but I never imagined your situation would be this.”

  “I don’t think ‘Child of the Apocalypse’ would be a situation most parents see their kid ending up in.” I smiled. “The warning, that’s just a scare tactic.”

  “But I can’t imagine what I would do if I had to bury you.” She kissed my head. “You’re my baby girl. A blessing I never thought I would have because of mistakes I made in the past.”

  I closed my eyes. “And what mistake did you make in the past? How did you end up being fallen?”

  Her fingers dug into my shoulder and I opened my eyes to see her staring at the wall. The fingers loosened and she pulled her arm away. “That’s not a story I want to share with you.”

  “Will you ever tell me?”

  She didn’t meet my gaze. “Maybe one day when you understand why I made the choice I did, for now though you’re just going to have to trust me.”

  “But—”

  She put a finger against my lips. “No. You trust me; I’m your mother. Any choice I make is because I have the best intentions for you.”

  I resisted the urge to argue and clenched the bed sheet with my hands. “So what now? Are you going to be this moody all weekend?”

  “No, but I also still won’t be telling you where the gateway is and I’ll make sure your father understands my wishes.”

  The idea that her and Death were going to chat over my well being gave me a smile. Death would listen to her, but it didn’t mean he’d respect her wishes in terms of keeping me and Ruthie away from the gateway. Another part of me said we were getting off easy. We could go back and tell the others we couldn’t go because my mom refused to give us the information we needed in order to find the gateway.

  The easiest path was often the wrong path. I knew that, but the temptation was still there. “I have a question.”

  “Yes?” She looked at me and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, but the short lock did nothing but fall back forward.

  “You said all I would have to do is tell dad that I’m done?”

  She smiled. “Yes, he wouldn’t be able to retire and the archangels would have to find another person to take Death’s spot and start a new cycle for his replacement if he was killed. It’s a process but it could be done. I can’t promise it would take all the demons and Sins away.”

  But there would be a chance at a normal life. “And the consequences?”

  “Those I don’t know, but you wouldn’t be handling them alone.”

  She had mentioned this option during parents’ weekend, but the temptation didn’t lure me as much. Now, if I closed my eyes I could see starting over at a new university with a new schedule…

  But Ruthie, Kaleb, Pete, and Aeron weren’t there and the thought formed a pit in my stomach.

  “Just think about it.” She kissed my cheek. “I think we’ve left Ruthie out there alone long enough, don’t you?”

  I nodded and treaded over the carpet and back out into the living room. Ruthie walked out of the kitchen with a fresh mug of coffee.

  “Are we ready to get back to our vacation? Because I really want to watch this show.” She motioned to the living room and I smiled.

  “Yes, let’s start enjoying our vacation.”

  Pages with notes covered the floor and open books lay within arms-reach, while Ruthie and I leaned over various pages to study. I pulled my study guide close and read over the lists of topics.

  “I don’t think I remember any of these in my class. What the hell do I do in class? I took notes, but the subjects aren’t familiar.” I growled and shuffled through the papers trying to find headings that matched the subjects.

  Ruthie peeked over the novel she had out for her American Lit class. “You have test anxiety. Take a deep breath and try not to focus on the fact that it’s a test you’re studying for, but just look for the information.”

  I wrinkled my nose. Dinner would be here soon and a few minutes later my dad would show up for our first ever family Thanksgiving. That’s what I wanted to think about, food and fun. Not tests and subject points that might or might not have been covered in class. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. My heart stopped pounding rapidly and when I opened my eyes I felt like a fog had been lifted and that I could focus.

  I slowly went through the papers to find the ones that matched the subjects. When I thought about it, I knew the information was all there, I just needed to organize it right. “I really wish open book tests were still a t
hing in college.” I growled.

  “Sadly it’s not, but you’re going to get through it and be fine.” Ruthie patted my hand and turned her gaze back to the novel. “Just think, you decapitated a demon and you’re scared of tests.”

  “It’s not funny, Ruthie.” I shook my head and moved to the next subject line. “I’d rather face Lucile herself than a test I don’t feel prepared for, or any test for that matter.” I rubbed my eyes and put the papers down.

  “Don’t joke about such things.” My mother walked in. “Using her name like that gives her power.”

  “Old myths.” Ruthie waved a hand. “Old paranoia that doesn’t do any good.”

  My mother snorted but didn’t say anything more. “I hope you girls are ready to eat, because I just got a message from the company saying they were on their way.”

  My stomach growled, giving its own answer. “We’ll start cleaning up so that it doesn’t look like a paper tornado went off in the house.”

  “No, no, you girls don’t worry about it. Keep studying and just tidy up when the food gets here. I’m sure Death will understand a few books being left around.” She sat on the couch and folded her hands on her lap. “Besides, it’ll be a nice reminder to him that you’re also trying to be normal college kids.”

  Except Ruthie wasn’t a kid, for her it was all about keeping up the facade. For me it really was about passing the classes, but if mom wanted a little bit of a human element to the dinner, then I’d gladly leave my books sitting around for a couple of hours while we ate.

  I looked back down at the study guide and grumbled. “Now, I know we didn’t actually cover the effects of the plague. Wait, maybe in speech.”

  “Now you don’t need to study that subject, we all know how it’s affecting things. You could use your time in quarantine as an example.”

  “Quarantine?” My mother’s voice shot up a pitch more than normal. “When were you in quarantine?”

  “After I found the dead people on the farm.” I shrugged. “It’s not a big deal, so I spent some time chilling out with Kaleb away from people.”