The 13th: Destiny Awaits (7 page)

The ringing of the phone drew her out of her pondering and she stared in surprise at the device beside her. Frowning, she picked it up and answered.

“Did you do that on purpose?” Ethan asked.

She could detect irritation in his tone; that was a first, and it should have put a smile on her face, but it didn't. She leaned her elbows on her knees, rubbing her cheek while her eyes slid over the dark wood of the television stand and cabinets. “Could we talk later?”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.” She stood up, grabbed her cup of tea from the coffee table and strolled to the kitchen.

“Kate?”

“Nothing to do with you.” Why was he so persistent anyway? She put the cup into the sink.

“Do you need to talk? I can come over.”

She imagined she could hear concern in his voice. He was being nice again. With his pushy attitude, displays of care and his ‘tributes’ of food, she couldn't maintain as much distance as she liked. “Why would you do that?”

“Well, you know what a nice guy I am and... since I'm already here.”

“What?” She looked through the window, and there he was, leaning on the hood of the sleek black car, with a phone against his ear, looking at her house. “What are you doing here?”

“I was worried something had happened.” He pushed himself from the car and strolled toward the house, a paper bag in his left hand.

“Like what?”

“I don't know.”

When he disappeared from her sight she shifted left, resting her hand against the counter, trying to keep him in her line of sight, but for that she would have to open the window and stick her head out.

“Aren't you going to open the door?”

“Do I have to?” She tiptoed through the door into the hallway to gaze at the outline of a body through the turbid glass framing the entrance door.

“I have food.”

“What?”

“Something I made myself.”

“I'm having dinner at Tyler's later.”

“No, you aren’t, I cancelled it,” Ethan said. “Come on, let me in.”

He was taking too many liberties, she snapped at him as she opened the door.

He pushed his way past her, ignoring her protests, and with a sure step strode into the yellow kitchen he shouldn’t have even known how to get to.

Kate rushed after him. “What do you think you are doing?”

“Feeding you.” Ethan opened the bag and pulled out three rounded lacquer boxes, stacked on top of each other, a plastic frame with a handle holding them.

“I'm not hungry.”

“You are always hungry.” He took off his snugly fitted black jacket and threw it across a stool, one of three around the half-circle counter that they used as a breakfast corner. He opened the frame and pulled the boxes out.

“What if my dad was home?”

“You mean Mr. M? I have enough food for him, too.” He opened the lids of the boxes and then lined them up across the small table.

“That's not what I meant.” Kate felt the need to stomp her feet, but then the aroma drifting out from the boxes tempted her to step closer and look at what was inside. She knew what sushi rolls were, so she recognised the rice with filling rolled into a black ribbon of seaweed, but what were those yellow things with vegetables? And there was broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, some minced meat... Her gaze slid to the last box that contained white dumplings with something brown-red sticking out of them here and there, pieces of pineapple, and strawberries.

“I hope you know how to eat with chopsticks?” Ethan pulled two sets of chopsticks out of the bag and offered her one. “I don't think I need to worry about Mr. M. He's a nice guy, like me.” He grinned at her.

Kate stared at the paper-wrapped chopsticks. She should get rid of him, shove him toward the door and insist that he leave... but instead she accepted the chopsticks. “And how would you know that?”

“Oh, I met him a while ago at Tyler’s, when he stopped by to thank Nan for feeding you.”

“You are at Tyler’s quite a lot lately, aren't you?” She grabbed the yellow thing more clumsily than she intended, deciding that for now she would go with the flow and direct him toward the door at the first opportunity. “What's this, an omelette?” She bit into it.

“There's no flour in it, only eggs. It's called
tamagoyaki
in Japan.” Ethan sat on the chair. “And there's no need for you to be jealous.” He winked her. “I'm all yours, you just have to say the word. No need to be shy.”

Kate swallowed her mouthful, surprised at how good the
ta
-- omelette tasted. “I'm not shy.” And she wasn't. Well... she couldn't look him directly in the eye and her retorts to him still lacked barbs; she just couldn't handle him.

“Then stop avoiding me. I mean, how do expect me to train you? Via text message?”

“I don't need your training. If I wanted to, I could reap souls on my own quite easily, thank you very much.”

“Reaping souls isn’t all that the Soul Reaper does. Haven’t you been listening to me?” Ethan popped a piece of broccoli into his mouth.

Yes, she had heard him the first time, but what else was there? “Well, it should be, according to the name.”

“But it isn't, unfortunately.” Ethan rested his elbows on the table and leaned closer to her. “One of the Soul Reaper's job requirements is to obliterate Soul Eaters, and for that you are far, far from being ready.”

“Soul Eaters?” The wrinkles marring Kate's forehead deepened as she tried to decide if Ethan was trying to trick her and frighten her with the melodramatic name, or if he was telling the truth. “Okay, I'll bite. What are those?”

“Isn't their name obvious enough?” He raised his brows and slightly shook his head as if he was disappointed in her.

She rolled her eyes at him. “They eat souls?”

“That's right. They have to prolong their existence or otherwise they would -- poof -- be gone, or so I was told.” Ethan grabbed a sushi roll and shoved it into his mouth.

“And?”

“And?”

“You drop their name like a bomb, kicking me in the gut with how dangerous they are, and then all you say about them is: 'poof they’re gone.' Shouldn't you be a little more dramatic? Or at least give me more information about them?” Kate said. “Or don't you know any more?”

He frowned, thinking. “Well, I could give you a handbook Nanael gave me, there's a lot of information there, but I don't know where I put it.”

“A handbook? You have to be kidding me.” She scrutinised his face, making the mistake of looking directly into his eyes. Her heart did a flip in her chest and resumed at a faster pace. She combed at a few strands of hair that had escaped from her braid as she leaned over the food, pretending to decide what next to eat.

“I'm serious,” Ethan said.

“Is there something about Awakeners?”

“Yeah. And a short summary on Soul Reapers. Some history and whatnot.” Another sushi roll disappeared into Ethan's mouth.

A handbook? She couldn't believe it. He had a handbook, and not only that, he had a handbook and he hadn't given her one. Not that she was interested.

“Do you want it, the handbook?” Ethan lifted a piece of meat from the bento box with his chopsticks and put it into his mouth.

“No, not really.” Kate leaned against the kitchen counter. It would be nice to learn more about what she was, but since she didn't intend to continue being a Soul Reaper, there was no point. “But if you think I should have it...”

“Playing indifferent, I see.” He chuckled. “I’ll think about it. Now, eat, the food is getting cold.”

“It was cold when you brought it.”

“If you hadn’t been ignoring me as long as you did, it would have still been warm.”

“You’re still insisting on training me?” Kate sighed. “What can I do to make you stop?”

“Why can’t you indulge me?” Ethan leaned closer to her, a cute pout on his lips. “Just for a little while, please.”

Kate stared at his 'kicked puppy' expression. Was that supposed to charm her? Yes, apparently. And it was working. She could feel her resolve melting. “For a little while?”

“Just until I teach you a few basics of self-defence.” He rubbed his neck. “I planned to teach you tai chi first, and then jujitsu, and later maybe we would continue with judo or aikido.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, really.”

“Like you know them all.”

“Actually I do. I'm only a 1st Dan in jujitsu, though, and I only just started to look more into its derivatives.” He stood up and started to clear away the boxes.

“Hey, I was eating.” Kate pulled one of the boxes out of his hands.

“I'm going to put it in the fridge, for later.” Ethan wrestled it out of her hands. “Right now, we have to start working before you change your mind.”

She raised her brows, her eyes on the black boxes he was putting in the refrigerator. “Who said I'm willing?”

“Your face did.” He closed the refrigerator. “Come on.” He seized her hands and hauled her up. “Let's get started.”

Despite knowing that she didn't have a chance against him, not against the sad, begging expression he had worn not a moment ago -- expressions like that should be forbidden by law -- she resisted for appearance’s sake.

He used the puppy expression on her again and convinced her to help him push the furniture against the wall. Then he started to teach her tai chi.

“Stretch your right arm forward, bend it and arch it up and to the right,” he instructed her.

Kate obeyed him. First it was meditation and now it was tai chi. When she heard about Ethan's fights, she expected he used something like judo or karate.

“Your gestures have to be softer, more pliant.” He moved behind her back. His chest touched her back.

She froze.

“Don't cut the air, move with it.” His fingers curled around her wrist and he guided her arm in an arch.

The fragrance of his deodorant enveloped her together with the warmth of his body. She stiffened. He was standing too close. She tried not to think about him, not to think about the way his breath caressed her ear as he leaned over her to direct her movements. “Other dimensions, huh?”

“So Nanael says -- now form your hands in a ball -- I mean, like you are holding a ball. Right leg forward.”

She obeyed him, and at the same time, slid her hand parallel with her torso then away from her body, the palm facing outwards. “Don't you find it strange?”

“Yeah.” He stepped aside.

“Yeah?” She glanced at him. “That's all you're going to say?”

“It is strange, but the world is full of strange things, isn't it? And the truth is, I don't care. Our job is to protect this world, and the existence of other worlds doesn't concern us.” He shifted his right foot by forty-five degrees. “Imitate me.” He added his left foot to it while his arms arched outwards. His left hand stopped in line with his left shoulder and his right arm stretched, with his hand at the level of his waist.

She followed his example. But learning about other dimensions was a big thing, and it made her curious about what they were like, the other worlds. Were they the same or did they have violet grass and pink water? Did they have to abide by the same natural laws as this world did? Why was he so uninterested in them? She knew why she should be, but him... since his training her was so important to him, she thought that everything else connected with soul reaping would be, too.

Ethan repeated the gestures, urging Kate to copy them, which she did. For a while, only their breathing could be heard, then Ethan spoke up. “Lately, a girl has started to follow me around the school. The blonde, Sally or something -- I think it’s the same one we met that time in the shopping centre.”

“Yeah?”

“She knows that I'm the same guy. You wouldn't have anything to do with it, would you?”

“Me?” Over her raised arm she glanced at him.

“How could she recognise me?”

“How should I know that? Maybe she's very perceptive.”

“Of course she is.” He made an arch with his arm.

She imitated his arm's wave. “Why do you dress like a bum for school, anyway? You could be at the top of the food chain in your normal clothes, you know, just an ordinary T-shirt and jeans.” Something similar to the simple green T-shirt he wore now under which she could see the movement of his muscles.

“You just answered your own question.” He stepped forward and made a half-turn.

“You don't want to be at the top of the school hierarchy?” She followed his movement, almost colliding with him.

His hand shot out to steady her. “Like you, I stay on the sidelines because I don't want to fit in, not because I don't know how to fit in.”

“Who says that I don't want to fit it?”

“Your behaviour does.”

She frowned as she stared at his Adam’s apple. “Just because I used to be popular doesn't mean that I know how to fit in.” She sighed. “If you haven't heard, I'm crazy like my mother.”

He stepped closer, and his fingertips brushed her cheek, then his hand cupped it. He scrutinised her face before he spoke up, “You are as crazy as I am, and for your information, I'm quite sane.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. Why was he so nice to her? Well, she knew why, but he didn't have to be. “I...” She lifted her eyes, but not high enough to meet his; they stopped on his mouth. What did she want to say? She cleared her throat. “Sometimes... I don't feel sane.”

His hand slid over her jaw and down her neck. “I don't always feel sane either, but that doesn't mean that I'm crazy.”

His hand was too warm, his touch too gentle, and she needed to slap his hand away before she yielded to the need to close the distance between them and lean her head against his shoulder. He made her feel that it was okay to not always be strong, that it was okay to have weaknesses, and that it was okay to lean on somebody, to trust. But her mother said, “Trusting people will only hurt you.” She was half-right: trusting people didn't hurt, but betrayal of that trust did. Kate had experienced it first-hand, with her mother hurting her the most. She slapped his hand away.

An hour later he forced her to do rolls on the thick carpet. He explained that by doing rolls she would learn how to fall correctly, so she wouldn’t hurt herself, which would come in handy later on when they started jujitsu.

She only did a few before she’d had enough. She told him that as she stood up, stumbling slightly. The rolls made her feel dizzy.

He offered her his hand.

She ignored it and went to the couch, slumping into it. With the back of her hand, she wiped off the perspiration that had gathered on her brow. She hadn't sweated while doing tai chi and she hadn't expected to start while doing rolls.

“We should probably have our next lessons in a dojo.” His eyes slid over the thick brown rug that they used to roll on. “Or are you willing to drag down a few mattresses?”

“Dojo?” She had heard that word somewhere, but she couldn't remember where. “And why would you need mattresses?”

“We can't do throws here, not without involving pain, anyway, and I doubt that you are a masochist. Or are you?” He raised his brow, his blue eyes sparkling with mirth.

“I must be, since I'm hanging out with you.”

“Your words can cut so deeply.” He made a noise that sounded like a half-sob, before an impish smile curved his lips. “If I were more of a sensitive kind, I might even take offence.”

She frowned. “Your skin is too thick for that.”

“How can you say that? I'm such a fragile little snowflake.”

“Of course you are.” She rolled her eyes. “Are we done here now?”

“Almost.”

“Almost?”

“As soon as you reap a few souls.”

“And then you will leave?”

He nodded.

“Fine.” Kate dragged herself off the couch, to the door and then out into the garden with Ethan close behind her. She closed her eyes and with deep breathing dove into the darkness. This was only the second time she was trying to materialize the scythe, and she thought that she might have some problems drawing it forward, but the tool appeared in her hand five seconds into imagining it. She opened her eyes and, concentrating on a sickle, changed it into its smaller version.

“Not bad.” Ethan whistled.

Kate rolled her eyes. She was about to ask where the ghosts were when the colours around her shimmered into shapes. They formed a line before her.

So this is how it was now? They really couldn't sense her without the scythe? She cut through the first ghost, a young man, getting a hushed 'thank you' and an explosion of light green as a result.

Her gaze slid over the group waiting for their turn. In a way she felt sorry for them, but after she got Ethan off her back, they would just have to find a way to cross over on their own.

#

Kate parked the car on the pavement alongside the villa, knowing that nobody would prevent her from visiting her mother outside of her regular schedule. She couldn't wait for Saturday and because of that she had taken a wide detour on her way from school. She had even ditched Ethan for it.

A small smile bloomed on her face. It was a special day. Today she was going to show her mother how beautiful and harmless ghosts really were. Today, she was going to make everything right.

She left the car and went inside with a spring in her step. She climbed up the stairs, the pace of her heartbeat increasing with each step she took. Today, she was going to make everything right.

She pushed the door open and strode into the room. She could see her mother's arm on the armrest of the yellow armchair, standing before the window looking out. That was all her mother did, observe the garden outside and talk about
him
to anybody who was willing to listen.

Kate closed the distance that separated her and the yellow armchair.

“It's not Saturday,” her mother said.

“No, it's not.” Kate's hand fell onto the curve of her mother's shoulder, feeling tense muscles underneath her fingers. “How have you been?”

“Do you have something for me?”

Kate’s gaze fell on her mother's fisted hands, which rested in her lap, and her white knuckles. As long as Kate could remember her mother had always been easily agitated, especially after the incident, but Kate had never seen her trying to suppress her nervousness like she seemed to be doing now. “What's going on?”

Trembling fingers wrapped around Kate's wrist. “You brought the salt and charms?”

“No, I'm afraid not.” She had forgotten, but it didn't matter, not when --

“I need them.”

“I will bring them next time,” Kate said to ease her mother's anxiety.

“I need them now. They took them. They took them all. And I need them.” Kate’s mother tugged her down and her words tumbled out in a whisper, “You have to bring them to me. You have to. I can't be without them.”

“It's okay.” With her free hand, Kate stroked her mother's long silken black hair. “It's okay. Don't worry, nothing will happen to you.”

“I need them now.”

“Everything is fine.”

Kate’s mother drew her closer, her blunt fingernails cutting into Kate's skin, and hissed, “
He
's going to come.”

“Everything is fine,” Kate repeated. “You'll see.”

“But
he
...
He
's going to come.”

“I'm going to show you something.”

Her mother's jaw tensed and her grey eyes glittered with something akin to horror, just like her gaze had been right before she had tried to hurt Kate. “I need them!”

Kate jerked her hand out of her mother's hold, and she would have moved one step backwards, if not for the bony fingers that captured her arm and held onto it like a steel vice.

“I need them, please,” her mother whimpered. She turned sideways in the chair, her eyes looking big on her face as she blankly stared at Kate's face and then at Kate's collar. “Give it to me, the pendant.”

“The pendant?” Kate's hand shot to her neck. She didn't wear it anymore, didn't need it, like she didn't need the help of the charms anymore. She had intended to wear it while visiting her mother, but she had forgotten to put it on. “I... I don't have it.”