The door shut with a small thud, sealing her alone in her new room.
McKenna leaned against the wall, just outside, dragging in a deep breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He still felt the surge of power, the presence of something alive with a bad omen.
He clenched his fist, trying to push the feeling down, but it kept building. A hundred years of dullness, a hundred years without sensation, and now… he felt.
He pushed off the wall, his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed and darkened. Every path he crossed caused the wind to howl and the lamp to flicker.
He descended the stairs, each footstep echoing like thunder in the empty manor, one that could chill a human.
The hearth in the parlor cast long shadows across the room, and the firelight danced against the decanter of wine on the table.
Anthony sat on his favourite mahogany chair, legs crossed like he owned the place. His dark, calm eyes glint faintly in the dark.
"You felt it again," he said.
McKenna took the seat next to him, his face darkened as he stared into the fire. It was Anthony who had suggested he should marry her. Sensing his power for a long time was a good sign, he had said, and now McKenna was beginning to feel the same—except the powers emanating from her were much stronger and different. Not from illness, not from the brink of death, but of a bad omen he couldn't place.
McKenna ignored him and poured himself a drink instead. Bringing the cup to his lips, his hand trembled, but he forced himself to gulp it down his throat.
"The girl," Anthony added, eagerly this time, "You sensed it again."
McKenna's mouth twitched, eyes stayed locked on the dancing flames, "It's different, she reeks of something else. Not death, but not life either."
Anthony rubbed his jaw, "It doesn't matter what she reeks of, you sensed your power, it means you can finally return to your old self."
"Not without my scythe." McKenna's breath dropped like the thought of that day still haunted him, "and not without that damn soul," he hissed, gulping down another round.
Anthony leaned back in the chair, arms crossed, brows knotted. He too had tried to make sense of what happened, but no matter how much he cracked his head, he couldn't think of another possibility on why McKenna's soul got missing, how she dared to face death.
McKenna downed the last of his drink in a single gulp.
"I need to speak with Maxwell," he muttered.
The firewoods crackled and silence followed after.
Anthony blinked slowly, "You think you can cross over?"
"No. But I can summon him"
He glanced at Anthony with a deadbeat stare and Anthony laughed nervously, "No, you are not thinking of…", his voice cracked at the glare McKenna threw at him.
"Yes Anthony, you are going to help summon him." He tilted his head to one side, "Isn't that the reason you are here? So why don't you help me like your damn job states?"
Anthony gulped at how deep and deadly the last words sounded, "You want me to summon the judge of the afterlife? Do you know what that means?"
McKenna sat back on the chair, closing his eyes and crossing his arms like he was done listening to the grim reaper's complaints, "Then you should return and don't come here again."
"Alright, alright," Anthony sighed, rising to his feet with the slow grace of someone who had lived too long among corpses. "Let's go then."
*********
The night was thick with mist as they walked through the wood behind the Manor. Owls hooted from the distance, crickets boomed through. Trees with curled vines clawed at the sky like skeletal figures, and every breeze carried whispers only the dead could understand.
But these two men were dead themselves. McKenna led the way, his black long coat wisping in the wind, his dark hair tousled, some strands falling near his dark eyes. Behind him, Anthony walked, blonde hair pinned back, and each time the wind tousled it, he cursed, patting it down, "Stupid wind scattering my hair."
"You mean your borrowed appearance?", McKenna mocked, because knowing when his time was up, he would likely return to his skeleton self.
Anthony glared at him, "Well, yours is borrowed as well."
McKenna's lips twitched, and then he glanced briefly over his shoulder, "You think so?" His lips curved, knowing the reaper was brooding behind him.
The graveyard sat like a wound on the earth, with rows of headstones, half sunk and withered with time. Grasses grew thick and wide, and vines curled on every part, but with the mist, one could barely see a stone.
In its center, however, a stone archway jutted up from the moss-covered soil. Beneath it, is a circle of ash.
Anthony knelt by the circle, his fingers brushing the symbols etched into the stones around it sat skeleton head sigils of the high court.
"You have to draw your blood," Anthony said without looking up. Suddenly, his face was hard and serious.
McKenna crouched next to him. He placed his hand on one of the sharp objects, on the face of a skeleton with two fangs, then he pushed his hand deep and exhaled sharply… the trickle of blood dropping on the red circle.
"I call on Maxwell," Anthony began, "Judge of the Balance, Keeper of the Afterlife. I call thee not for favor but for the truth."
The mist around them grew heavier, the blood around the circle began to boil like it had a life of its own… then it formed into one group in the middle of the circle and stopped.
Then the circle cracked in two like an earthquake, shaking the whole ground.
A figure stepped out, tall and draped in a black robe that covered his feet. His eyes glowed blue from behind the skeleton face.
McKenna and Anthony bowed their heads in unison.
Maxwell walked towards them, the cloak rolling on the floor with each movement. Then dark smoke wisped around his whole presence, covering his entire form and then cleared, revealing a man with pale skin, transparent blue eyes, and white hair tousling around his face. But no matter how handsome he looked, he commanded a presence that brought cold to the whole graveyard.
"I was not expecting you to call, McKenna," he said, frowning at the grim reaper. Every day he lived with the anger that the one he trusted to fetch him a corrupted soul had failed, a task that would have raised his position to an elder.
"I wasn't expecting to feel anything again," McKenna replied, eyes narrowed at Maxwell.
Of all the reapers, McKenna was the only one who could look him in the eye, who could drink from his cup. "But tonight… I touched her, and it felt like touching the edge of flame. I saw black smoke, I felt death, but it doesn't seem like it's her time."
"You touched her?" Maxwell's voice dipped with tremor, and only Anthony flinched slightly.
"Barely," McKenna said.
"Then you have awakened more than you realize."
McKenna frowned, "Does that mean… my soul and scythe?"
Maxwell didn't answer right away, his blue eyes glinted beneath the hood.
"You lost your soul and your scythe when you broke the code. You were stripped of your name and rank," he sounded vexed. "But your sentence is not eternal, McKenna. Only time-bound — one hundred years in the mortal world."
McKenna stepped forward, voice hitched, "Well, it's a bloody hundred years already, yet it all feels the same."
Maxwell seemed unaffected by his taunt, "But you feel your powers now returning?"
McKenna nodded.
"Then you are close."
"Close to what?" McKenna snapped, because Maxwell wasn't making any sense. He looked at him, really looked, because he wondered if their friendship meant nothing, that he had to punish him this far.
But Maxwell looked the same, face as stoic as stone. Huh, must be the judge for a reason.
"I have served you for so long, Maxwell. You know I don't break code. I never do. Did you ever look into what must have caused this? Surely you have answers."
Maxwell's face darkened, "You will reclaim your place. But only if you find what was lost, the soul you tethered yourself to and the scythe bound to it. Both were taken and hidden."
McKenna's mouth went dry, "You mean in this world?"
"I did not say that."
"Then how do I find them?" he yelled, causing even Anthony to give him a look, like, 'hey, it's the judge you're talking to like that. Maybe if you were more humble, he could help you', but McKenna ignored him.
Maxwell turned away, the shadows of the grave rising around him like smoke.
"Follow the scent of death. Where your power stirs, where she stirs. But beware, some things do not return the way they were taken."
"She?"
Maxwell stopped and glanced back over his shoulder, "I gave you no name. Only a task."
The wind stirred the grass like breath.
"And if I fail?" McKenna asked, breath ragged because he almost knew what came next.
"You will fade. Your years will catch up. And death will take you, not as a Lord of Passage, but as a man without a name."
Silence fell.
Then Maxwell stepped back into the circle. It shimmered once, then the mist swallowed him, and he was gone.
McKenna didn't speak the whole walk back. Anthony didn't either, for once, the reaper didn't know exactly what to say. However, when they reached the house, Anthony finally spoke: "You think she's the soul?"
"I don't know," McKenna hissed and stepped into the house, leaving Anthony to stand before the closed door.
His eyes drew in tight confusion, then his gaze swept to the window above, where faint warm light flashed, where the girl now lay.