Rosario unrolled The Third Tome of Immortals and muttered, "Death."
For a while, we both watched the golden scroll as it unrolled itself, spreading an endless tangle of ancient parchment all over the massive table. The dry, musty air in the Archives made it a little harder to breathe but I didn't complain. The scroll stopped unfurling and dropped down the table.
"Display," she said and the scroll jerked to life before floating in the air about a few yards away from us.
A faint light emanated from it, flashing to us. After that, moving pictures started to appear like holograms. First was a bright light that took a human form with no face or other features-merely a blindingly vivid silhouette. The next image was the shadows of thirteen people peeking from a giant crimson goblet.
A pleasant sounding voice of a man came from the scroll in a story-telling tone as a moving picture of an incredibly handsome man with russet skin, high cheek-bones and a pair of striking silvery-gray eyes projected in front of us. "Death is the youngest of the Thirteen Immortals; dubbed as such because of the eternal punishment given to him when he was banished from the Immortal Realm we now know as Nirvana. For eternity, Pilgrim Reaper, the gatherer of spirits-as he had named himself-was given the punishment to collect all expired souls from the mortal realm."
Who needs a TV when you have that? I thought.
Tiredly, Rosario turned to me. "The Grand Master Reaper is as old as earth itself. It has been a rumor among familiars and Sons alike that he fathered to thirteen boys in an attempt to escape from his punishment. But as it turns out, having thirteen sons only relieved part of his burden. They do his bidding, clean up his mess and carry out his job, but he's still banned from Nirvana or any Gate for that matter. That's why he desperately wanted Master Vincent to swear full allegiance to him, until now. He wanted to test the young master's ability and use it to try to crossover."
"But Vincent became a Reaper eventually, didn't he? And since Pilgrim Reaper is his dad, wouldn't that automatically mean they're allies?"
"Weren't you listening?" she retorted derisively. "As far as I could tell, Master Vincent doesn't want to have anything to do with his father. That's why the Sinclairs are considered free-lancers. They do the job without constant orders from the Grand Master. When Adrianna died, he blamed himself. He thought if only he was able to defend himself, she wouldn't have died. That was why he submitted himself to be immortalized. But he made a vow to not take any familiars so as not to repeat what happened to Adrianna."
There was a mixture of wistfulness and wariness in her hazel eyes when she flipped the scroll. "But here you are."
"He was planning on dumping me back to hell anyway so no worries," I replied with a humorless chuckle.
"You know what your problem is?" she said quietly. "You're blind. You never see how lucky you are to be his familiar. He resurrected you. Doesn't that count for anything? I'm telling you all of this to make you see. You have to realize how precarious Master Vincent's position is."
"W-what do you mean?" I asked taken aback.
Rosario's eyes bored into mine. "You're an illegal possession, Aramis. You're immortal, yet you still have your own soul inside you. You didn't go through the appropriate process to become a familiar. If the Grand Master knows of your existence, Master Vincent would have to face the highest form of punishment for immortals. That is... death."
It was barely a whisper but her words racked me to the core. I just stared emptily at her for a while, wanting to laugh at the joke, wanting to cry when I realized how serious her words were.
"Can't we... do something about it? Vincent is his son, for Christ sake! He wouldn't actually kill him, would he?"
She shook her head reluctantly. "Maybe yes. Maybe no. But it's the Law of Immortals of immortals we're talking about. It has always been the absolute law. It has never been broken by any of the brothers as far as I could remember. But those familiars who did... received merciless punishments."
My heart was racing for the first time in months and I had to put some effort to not let the panic show on my face. "Then, what do you want me to do?"
"Decide." There was a grim look on her face. "If you make up your mind, I'll be at the training room," said she before leaving me alone to wallow in my thoughts.
Even though how much I wanted to deny it, Rosario was right. I had to choose now. No plan A, plan B. I wasn't merely competing with Adrianna or trying to prove Vincent wrong. It was time for me to take charge of my own life whether I would be ready to die again during the Purge or stay a familiar and risk my life every day of eternity to serve and protect Vincent.
When I came back to the training room where Rosario waited for me, I tried not to drag my feet. There were floating black pebbles everywhere and a hole in the wall. When she looked up to me, I cleared my throat.
"I've made my decision. So I came here to train."
In a matter of days, I felt like I had changed a lot. If my death had taught me one good lesson, it would be that it would come and get you no matter how hard you try to resist. If it's time, it's time. Today, I decided to be a good familiar; one who would do my master's wishes. Now if Vincent would still insist in letting me go during the Purge, I would go without a fight. I would be a hypocrite if I said I wasn't dead scared to die, but when death comes again, I would be ready to face it.
"Again!" Rosario barked sternly as I staggered backward in exhaustion.
A few hours had passed without results. Without any complaint, I steadied my feet and searched for the Bind inside me. It was easy to find. The difficult part was trying to harness its power and control it.
Slowly, I reached for the Bind-a dim flickering light deep within me-and willed it to take form in my hand. Without breaking my concentration, I touched the marking on my neck and felt the cold surge all over me. Slowly, the icy feeling crept and accumulated to the tips of my right hand, the coldness biting into my flesh.
The air shimmered and fogged with the cold. I didn't like this feeling, like something horrible was bound to happen. For once, something started to form in my hand. It was a slender cylindrical object that slowly elongated down to the ground.
"Use your imagination, Aramis! Picture a scythe. A blade. Any kind of blade. Just do something! Anything!"
With that, my concentration broke. Indignantly, I marched fuming to Rosario.
"I was so close! So close!" I shouted pointing angrily at her. "It's hard enough without you always yelling at me!"
"Fine! You think you're that good? Then let me see you try on your own!" she retorted, folding her arms across her chest.
After giving her a scowl, I focused on harnessing my Bind again. Once I got the hang of it, I was a little bit more confident though it almost took all my remaining strength trying to converge it into my right hand. The frozen mist that lingered in the air made me shiver but I clenched my teeth to prevent them from rattling. Then a long rod that looked like it was made of black glass appeared in my hand. It was about five feet long. For a while, I expected a blade of some sort to spring out from the tip of the rod but nothing happened.
I stared at it for a while, my jaw dropping a notch. My fingers were shaking around the cold fragile-looking weapon.
"A stick?!" I gaped at it incredulously. "All that hard work and I got a stick?!"
Behind me, Rosario sniggered. "It's a staff actually. Though it's a little too long for an average staff. Not bad. That's some imagination you got there."
"Very funny. But seriously. Is this it? Is this my scythe? This can't be it!" I still couldn't believe it. My scythe turned out to be a long useless garbage picker. Yay!
She was actually trying not to laugh at me, which was sweet even for Rosario. "Looks like it. Sucks for you. Wanna try how your giant skewer works?" she teased.
"Yeah..." I rolled my eyes sighing. "We'll need a giant marshmallow."
I balanced the staff on both my hands. It was light and cold to the touch like ice crystal. Instinctively, I spun it around my wrist once, then twice and flicked my hand up to catch it. Next I tried spinning it with two hands, using my fingers to throw it in the air like helicopter blades before catching it behind my back without even looking up.
"Whoa! That was way too easy," I raved, breathless with excitement. "Now how did I-"
"Like Cataclysts," Rosario cut me off. "Reaper scythes are unique and based on the character of the person using it. So obviously, your body would know how to use it right away. The Cataclyst works to give the wraith a tangible physical body. So when you grab a wraith with it, your hand doesn't just pass through them. And since you temporarily solidified a wraith, you can smash it against a wall or the ground... kick it or throw it to a tree," she gestured her hands as if she was actually crushing a wraith against the floor. "And destroy it."
She touched the number twelve in her neck, bright orange flames erupting from her right hand. Before I could blink, a long magnificent bronze spear with a cross-blade tip was already in her right hand.
"The scythe, on the other hand, isn't that much of a rocket science. You just kill with it. Looks like your scythe is as simple as your brain, huh?" she scoffed with a leer.
"We'll see about that... After I report you to the principal for verbal abuse." I grinned lowering my stance, twirling my staff with two hands, very much like drawing a horizontal eight on the air.
Rosario charged to my direction, her spear-tip pointing at me. I braced myself, grabbing my staff with both hands, mumbling, "Okay, let's see what this baby can do."
The cross of her spear collided with the middle of my staff and for a second, I was afraid my weapon would shatter into pieces of black crystal. Luckily, it wasn't as breakable as it looked.
I pushed her spear with my staff as far away from me as possible. Shrieking, Rosario pushed back and nudged my stomach with the rod of her spear, turning it on her hand to aim the blade at my throat. With my stomach doing a flip at the pain, I loosened my grip on my staff, let it slip down from my hands and caught it at the very end, using all my force to strike like I would with a baseball bat. It clashed hard with a dull clangor against the handgrip of her spear, the vibration from my weapon travelling to every part of my body, pounding on my head, making my teeth ache.
For a few seconds, both of us were stunned. Then she retaliated by kicking me on the stomach again before aiming a throw at me. I dodged and thrust the end of my staff to the side of her head but she was quick enough to block me.
We sparred for an hour like this until we were both dog-tired and pushed to our limits, barely unable to get up on our feet.
"Still think I'm a weakling now?" I muttered in between the gasping as I hauled my feet from the ground.
I hurt everywhere. My fingers were bruised and cut from trying to block all her blows. There was a little scratch just above my brow. A little blood trickled from the side of my mouth and my stomach felt like I was having an internal bleeding. She didn't look so good either though she only got nearly half my injuries. She fought like a demon-witch, really-kicking and nudging and tripping me at every opportunity possible.
"Yes," she replied smugly, leaning casually on the wall for support. "But if this was an exam, maybe I'll give you a C... minus."
I just snorted quietly. Rio, Rio, Rio... Typically annoying yet surprisingly tolerable.
Just then Vincent's dark head protruded from the narrow gap between the huge set of double doors. He had already changed clothes-a long sleeved blue button-up shirt over a plain black tee paired with cargo shorts and hi-cut sneakers. He looked a lot younger without the tux on. As he stepped to us, it got me thinking that I was somehow glad that he was immortalized. If not, I wouldn't have had the chance to know him.
"Anything new?" he asked, pocketing his hands as he eyed on me.
"Uh... I got my scythe," I replied hesitantly. "So maybe now, you can complete my resurrection and-"
His brows furrowed slightly, looking all uninterested before interrupting me. "It's a stick."
"Ugh! It's a staff, Vincent. It's a staff!" I blurted out heatedly, wishing that I could just give him a nice whack on the head. Just one. Please?
"Looks like a stick to me," he said with a nonchalant shrug while Rosario sniggered behind him.
Fantastic! And now they were conniving against me! They really knew how to boost my self-esteem.
Vincent sighed tiredly and headed for the door. "No matter. Get some shut-eye. We'll head out before midnight."