Chapter Eighteen
I tried to ignore what I had heard from Thanos' study. Some matters simply had nothing to do with me. If it affected me or my job then I had to believe that Thanos would tell me. For now I needed to walk away and concentrate on my job. But a part of me had to wonder what game Adrienne was playing with us. Clearly she had wanted me to overhear her conversation with Thanos, but why? Did she expect me to simply burst in as I had in the past?
She obviously had not noticed how much I had changed, though the others had all basically commented on it. It was the changes in me that had Thanos keeping his distance; I was sure of that. The question was when he would seek me out again.
Some of the time I felt like a ghost. If it wasn't for my skills on the job, I felt as if I would just disappear into the background. The Reapers were all improving, even now, and it made it seem as if I was not needed nearly as much. Yes, Thanos had told me that they were only capable of Reaping souls but still, we did not need to handle much of the healing anymore. The Resurrectors had been working steadily on rebuilding their numbers and had recently graduated a number of people who were certain to be capable at their job.
I did not worry too much about them. In fact now I was trying to ignore them. Especially after my encounter with Damir, I had no interest in interacting with the Resurrectors. They had made it clear that we were enemies. My time as a Resurrector was nothing more than a memory. It was better off that way. I did not have time to worry about them or how they were feeling.
Now more than ever I felt a tug towards my work. Without the regular interactions with Thanos I had nothing but work to really focus on. Going out and reaping souls or occasionally saving them when a Resurrector wasn't around was the only thing that made me feel as if I had a purpose.
As I checked my list and then vanished to the scene of a house fire, I found myself once more thinking back to the conversation I had overheard between Adrienne and Thanos. One thing about the whole thing made me think that there were some pieces of information I really needed to have Thanos tell me. It bothered me that the tone of Adrienne's voice had changed, almost as if she was a completely different person in that moment.
Then I had to consider how Thanos had spoken to her; he had called her Addie and I had never heard him use the shortened version of a name with anyone but me and that was because I insisted. There had been something in his tone, almost as if he had a close kinship with her.
For the moment I was fine with overlooking his past but no matter how I tried I could not get this matter out of my mind. I desperately wanted to know the nature of his relationship with Adrienne. When I wasn't working it filled my thoughts.
I worked quickly at the house fire, taking the soul of a man who had been asleep when the fire started. When he had woken up, it had been too late and the flames had surrounded him. I tried to push aside the glimpses of his life I got as I sent his soul on to the next existence but it was one part of the job that I could not really block out. No matter what I saw pieces of their life and the factors that led up to their death.
Those glimpses used to matter to me and I tried to use what I learned to help the soul move on. In the past I had also listened to the occasional person beg for their life and I used to search for a loophole, as I had done with the brain-dead pregnant woman, but that was a chapter of my past, one I was trying to move past. I had been incredibly soft then.
I shook my head. No, I hadn't been soft; I had been compassionate and caring. My duties had been more than just a job and I had recognized how important my role in the universe was. That time had passed and I had no idea how to move on to the next chapter of my life. Logically I could work more efficiently now but if I looked back at my record-both as a Resurrector and as the Angel of Death-I always performed better when I was invested in my job, when I was determined to do well and when I truly cared about the people I met to either save or help pass on. My compassion had not been a weakness in the slightest and now I was struggling without it.
How did I get that back? It seemed clear that it had left when I had died saving Thanos and a number of the Resurrectors. Even if he had been against it, Thanos had gone through with his duties by killing the person who was supposed to be the Angel of Death. He had said it before that he was supposed to kill me but he hadn't been able to because of how he felt. What did that mean now? Did he feel differently because I had had to die for his sake?
That had to mean something because he had cared for the person I was before I had died. I was different, not the girl he had developed feelings for and it made sense that he no longer felt the same. It would explain why he avoided me now.
I couldn't help myself as I stood outside the house that had burned down. I allowed myself to collapse to the ground and just sit there, staring at the still smoldering building. A part of me was gone and now that I realized that, I desperately wanted it back without having any idea of how to go about that. Things needed to go back to how they were before, to the time before the Reapers were created. Though there was less work to be done and sometimes that was nice, I had no use for free time any more.
My life had changed significantly in the past few months and even in the past couple of weeks. I had lost those most important to me, the people I thought would stick with me no matter what happened around us. Now they looked at me as if they could not believe they had ever been polite to me at all. Considering everything going on, I sincerely wished that I could have a conversation with Alaula and Sitara. They would be able to help me with my issues with Thanos and Adrienne.
I watched the wisps of smoke rising from the remains of the house. The fire department had managed to put out the fire before it did any damage to the houses around the destroyed structure. None of them saw me sitting there and for once I found myself wishing that they could see me. Pathetic as it sounded it would have been nice for the attention, though I'm sure they would be asking me if I had been inside and if I needed to go to the hospital.
So maybe it was for the best that they couldn't see me sitting there in the middle of everything. This right here seemed to describe my life perfectly: in the middle of almost everything that happens yet separate from everyone.
I needed to get out of here. I needed to do something normal. Standing up I visualized the last mall I had been to before my life had changed. There were so many malls I had been to right before a significant change, but the first one had been the day of my very first heal outside of Resurrector school, the mall where I had run into Thanos and the former Angel of Death.
I still remembered every detail of the day as if it had happened yesterday and not almost six years ago. From then to now I still found myself thinking about it and dreaming about it. Would anything have happened between Thanos and I if I had never become the Angel of Death? Or did he kill all of those Resurrectors and set me up so I would end up joining him at the facility of Death? As much as I missed my old life, I could not get angry with him for doing what he needed to for the Balance. He had realized I would make a good Angel of Death and so he had done what was necessary to get the Leaders to get rid of me.
Looking around the mall, I tried to figure out what I wanted to do but nothing sounded all that exciting without others to hang out with. Instead I simply started walking around and looking through all the store windows. This was close to being nice and normal. If I pushed all other thoughts aside I could almost believe that I was waiting here for my friends so we could relax at the end of a Resurrector shift.
I lost myself in my time walking around and looking in store windows and it took a considerable amount of time before I realized that something didn't feel right. The hairs on the back of my neck had started to stand up and I couldn't not get rid of the feeling that someone was staring at me. I froze and started to look around, knowing it had to be a Resurrector, a Reaper, or Thanos. For just a second I felt a euphoric rush, thinking that it could be one of my old friends coming to release steam and shop with me. But it turned o
ut to be Thanos walking up towards me.
"Tamesis," he said as he stopped a couple feet from me. "It is time. The pregnant woman is in labor. As soon as that baby is born it is time to reap her."
I nodded. "Thanks for letting me know." Because of the nature of the situation she wouldn't show up on our lists. In essence she was already dead; only her body and the piece of her soul holding on to the life of her child remained. It was good that Thanos had kept his sources monitoring the position, even if I had no idea who his sources were.
I didn't wait to see if he had anything else to say to me. We were both playing the parts of business associates and nothing more. For now that was what we needed to do. He was immortal and I was going to be incredibly long-lived; we had plenty of time to discuss other topics.
I still felt a connection to the pregnant woman because of how I had healed her for the sake of her baby, like a cord leading me to her. It was not difficult to use that to travel to her side. As it turned out I was not the only one there. Both Sitara and Alaula were there and I imagined that Samuel and the other Leaders had sent both of them to try and keep me from taking the mother. This was what happened when the other side knew how you worked. They tried to find a way to stop you because they knew your weaknesses. Sending two of my old friends could have worked in the past, when I had the ability to actually care.
I still could understand what it felt like to care and I could think of actions that would seem caring, but deep inside I simply felt as if I was being consumed by a dark gaping void. "It's no surprise that you two are here."
"You can't take them, Tamesis," Sitara said. "We won't let you."
"As I said before, I'm not here for the baby. But honestly, look at the mother; she is dead already. There is nothing either of you could do to save her."
"Her soul is still in her body and that means there is still a chance," Sitara replied.
"Please, Tam...give us a chance. Let us try to save her." Alaula was quiet, reserved. She had run into the Angel of Death enough times to know that she wouldn't win. They had resorted to begging, playing on the fact that at one time we had all been close.
"Begging really doesn't change the fact that neither of you could do anything to change her fate. Her brain has been dead for months. I doubt even I could do anything to save her. There really is no point in trying. The baby will be fine and healthy. Her father will take care of her and life will go on as it is meant to."
"Damir was right. You are not at all the girl we knew." Sitara practically spat the words at me.
"If you want to look at people changing, maybe you should look in the mirror, Sitara. When did you become this bitter and spiteful?" I asked. I had noticed it a few months before I had left the Resurrectors. She was more interested in herself and it seemed as if she had become overly judgmental of other people. I had not changed as much as she had.
"Just go away, Tamesis. You are not wanted around here."
I could not keep back the chuckle that bubbled up and escaped my lips. "No, I'm not, but I am certainly needed around here." I did not give either of them a chance. As soon as the doctors had performed a successful C-section, I waved my left hand towards the mother's body and watched as her soul was ripped from her body. Even without the thoughts from the brain telling her to fight for the sake of her baby, her body still did so. It was a natural reaction and I had to wonder if it was that way for all mothers. Had mine fought for me?
I saw Alaula's shocked and sad expression as well as Sitara's rage-filled one and I only shook my head. "I'm sorry, but there are some things that have to happen. She had to die. Everyone has a time and hers was months ago. It was only because of the baby that she held on this long." Then I turned and left in the mist, leaving both of the Resurrectors behind.
Project Death: Resurrection Page 41