Saving Year Three (Grim Reaper Academy 3)

“Deal.” It took her another minute to say the words. “Mila, I’m sorry for what I did to you.”

I nodded. “Apology accepted.”

And just like that, Lorna and I were… allies.

* * *

“There’s a flesh-eating monster under the Academy, and you’re concerned about Morningstar?”

We’d just told Lorna about the Great Old One, and she was freaking out. Understandably.

“Morningstar is a direct threat to us, the Academy, and the Council,” I explained. “First things first. Once he’s gone, we’ll figure out what to do with the ancient god.”

She huffed, shook her head, and started pacing the cavern frantically, her eyes never leaving the well. After we’d made our deal, Lorna and I teleported into my old room, and from there we sneaked around, found the hidden staircase, and went down into the caves. I needed to show her the place first, so she’d be able to teleport in and out of there. It was all pretty easy after that. The twenty-two Grim Reapers could teleport other people with them. I hadn’t learned how to do that yet, because Morningstar thought I was way ahead already, but Lorna knew. If there was one thing to be truly admired about her was that she was one hundred percent dedicated to her craft. So, she teleported everyone in. Except for Patricia and Joel, who could roam around as much as they wanted and didn’t need our assistance. Corri was with us too, but I still didn’t let her do too many illegal stuff. Better safe than sorry. She’d already done a week in the Blank for nothing.

Francis told Lorna about Yig, about the history of his family, and about the blood sacrifices. If she was going to be part of our little army, then she had to know everything we knew. To my surprise, she didn’t take it quite as well as the others had. For how cruel she could be, I’d have expected her to shrug it off. Instead, she wanted to know details.

“How many women have you fed the monster so far? And why women? Doesn’t it like men?”

Francis sighed. “I don’t know how many… It has to eat every three months, or so. My father fed it, my grandfather fed it… Impossible to count, and I never wanted to, either

. I don’t want to know their number, their names… It’s better this way.”

“I’m not asking about how many women your family sacrificed. I’m asking about how many you’ve sacrificed. Who were they? Human? Supernatural?”

“Both. I try…” He swallowed heavily. He knew that whatever he said, it was bad and would never paint him in a good light. “I try to find people who don’t want to live anymore, or who have a horrible life and… do horrible things. Most of the women who ended up at the bottom of the well were thieves, mothers who’d killed their babies, prostitutes, criminals…”

“Being a prostitute is not a sin,” I said weakly, thinking of my own mother.

“No, of course not. They did bad things…”

“Katia Angelov did bad things,” I insisted. “She was a sex worker, and she abandoned me. Would your family have sacrificed her to your god? Would you, Francis?”

“N-no. Of course not.”

“Oh my God, this is insane!” Lorna yelled. The echo of her voice bounced off the walls. “Okay, stop. Forget I asked anything. Just stop.” She looked at Sariel, GC, and Pazuzu. “And you all knew about this? You knew, and you didn’t do anything?” She turned to Klaus, Patty, and Joel. “Seriously, guys? I honestly thought you three were better than any of us. I thought you were the sane ones. Turns out I was wrong…”

“Mila’s right,” Klaus said. “Headmaster Morningstar is our priority. This monster, or god, or whatever it is, has been here, sleeping, dreaming, eating, pooping for ages! As long as it’s fed, it plays nice and keeps Francis’s family alive. It keeps him alive. And we want him alive, right?”

I nodded. “I tried to find a way to kill him,” I said. “I read books, asked around… The only expert in this type of being that I found told me gods like Yig can’t be killed. They came to our universe from somewhere else, from a world where beings just are. They’re not born, they don’t have a beginning, so they don’t have an end, either. No birth, no death.”

“That’s crazy,” Lorna said. “I can’t even wrap my head around it, and I’m a pretty smart person.”

“I don’t understand it either, Lorna. It’s frustrating, and overwhelming, and just… too much. But we can’t do shit about it for now, and with my father acting as Headmaster and messing everything up for the students and the professors, it’s even harder to find solutions. We can’t even leave the Academy grounds to investigate. I searched the entire library and couldn’t find a thing about the Great Old Ones. The only one who knows they even exist is Mr. Lovecraft, the Literature professor, and he’s already told me everything about his research, which wasn’t a lot, mind you. We’re stuck. Once we get rid of my father, though, we can teleport wherever the fuck we want, search the libraries of the world, talk to the tribes that worship other Great Old Ones. Without Morningstar suffocating us with his stupid rules, maybe we stand a chance. So, now you know why I have to retire him. Why we have to work together to retire him. It’s not because I won’t get to take his place and be a Grim Reaper if he doesn’t get out of the picture, but because he’s literally hurting the supernatural world right now. And the whole world.”

“Why do you say that?”

I looked at them, surprised they hadn’t figured it out by now.

“You’ve never asked yourself what his end goal might be? He took Mason Colin’s place, he locked us all at Grim Reaper Academy, he cut all connections with the outside world, and he’s teaching us how to fight instead of how to teleport. This isn’t just about survival. He isn’t doing all this because he wants to be a Reaper for another two hundred years.”

“Why is he doing it, then?”

I spread my arms wide, in defeat. “I don’t have the slightest idea. But I’m sure it’s bigger than we thought, because he’s going to great lengths to acquire as much power as possible. For what? I don’t know. That’s why we have to put our heads together and find a way to stop him before he accomplishes whatever he’s after.”

Finally, Lorna nodded in agreement. She stopped pacing, threw one last glance at the stone well, then walked toward where we were all standing, completing the circle we’d unintentionally formed.

“What do you want to do first?”