“You shouldn’t be out of the city without masks on. The plague is still spreading.” As he came closer, the yellow vest with orange reflective stripes down the front became apparent. A white mask covered half his face, leaving only his eyes visible. Crow’s feet wrinkled the corners of the eyes as they narrowed at us. “It’s almost curfew anyways. Are you part of the first group released?”

  None of us really knew how to answer that since we didn’t know what he was talking about.

  He tapped steel-toed boot a few times while he waited for an answer. Kaleb finally nodded. “Yeah, we are. Sorry, honestly we were just looking around. We’ll get out of your hair.”

  “Yeah, you better get back to your assigned housing. I don’t want to deal with a search party that they’d send after you.” He chuckled. “There are still reports of monsters running around, you know, in case you believe in ghost stories.” He started walking back towards the exit, and we all glanced at each other.

  Pete shrugged. “I guess that answers some of our questions, but what was your point about traveling?”

  “We don’t have to now. We can use Death’s Realm as a gateway to where we want to go. Just like Death does. Pop in, pop out where we need to be. The facade isn’t as important now because people will grow less suspicious. Like him, he didn’t even think to question us.” I crossed my arms.

  Aeron smiled. “So, we can just pop over to the walled city and take a peek. We can walk around the city here to see what’s changed and what hasn’t.”

  “And then return to Death’s realm. As long as we don’t make a habit of appearing and disappearing, then it should be fine.” Pete started walking towards the exit. “Then let’s check it out and get back home in time for dinner.”

  Home was a word that had just now started meaning Death’s Realm to me. Death had offered to let me stay there when the apocalypse was over. Now that I didn’t have a roommate and my mother was dead, it seemed like the best choice, though my heart ached to make sure that I was still together with the other Children of the Apocalypse because that’s where I belonged. I assumed they would be staying on earth like before. Maybe I could as well.

  Kaleb walked with Pete, and Aeron hung back with me this time. “Are you sure you’re up to fighting?”

  “I keep telling you guys that I don’t want to be on the field, but you insisted. So you better hope that your push for today is right and that I can handle myself in a fight if it comes down to that.” I didn’t look at him. Our footsteps echoed in the empty garage, bouncing off the walls making it sound like there were many more people than there was.

  Aeron shrugged. “We thought throwing you in would be the best idea, because let’s face it, you weren’t going to leave that realm by yourself.”

  “You’re right. I wasn’t, but no one seemed to realize that’s what I wanted.” I closed my eyes for a moment when we stepped out into the warm sun. “I think that you would have realized that. All of you.”

  Aeron put a heavy hand on my shoulder. “We realized that, but we don’t always get what we want in life. We weren’t going to allow you to drown in your grief.”

  He moved in front of me and left me lagging behind the three of them. I didn’t bother trying to catch up; they wouldn’t leave me behind. I walked in silence for a few minutes behind them.

  We walked out of the garage and onto the street. “The streets have been cleaned up.”

  We looked over the roads that once held a scatter of papers and rubble, discarded things people left behind either when they went to the city or when the stores and houses were looted.

  “It sounds like they are releasing people in batches, which means either the stores are opening back up or the government is still supplying food and other needed items.” Pete put his hands on his hips and looked around. “So, if we were the government, where would we set up first?”

  “Furthest away from the wall, because the risk of infection is still there.” I pointed to the west. “Edge of this city, there used to be government run low-income housing.”

  We all turned and walked towards the flatlands that made up the west of the city.

  Mesa City had always been small enough to walk to everything. The low-income housing wasn’t an exception either. It was close to the businesses at the edge of the city which meant that jobs and grocery stores were nearby

  The big tan low-income housing building towered over the street. The unmarred brick told me that this part of the city hadn’t seen the demons and the same destruction that the main part of the city had.

  “Interesting that it didn’t reach out this far.” Pete took a few determined steps across the road. “Are you guys coming or not? It’ll be nice to see other humans.”

  Apparently, he had cabin fever like the others. They jogged across the street, and I followed at a slower pace. I couldn’t get excited about it. “Seriously guys, we’re talking about people who have probably been exposed to the plague and are probably dirty and grumpy.”

  “And what does that matter?” A familiar female voice had me turning around. “I heard you got kicked out of the city for fighting.” Katie stood there with her hands on her hips and a grin on her face. I hadn’t seen her since we’d left the walled city a few months ago.

  For the first time in months, a small smile crossed my face. “I thought you were never going to leave that house.”

  “Well, the government condemned it and sent me out with the first wave. Everyone else in the house disappeared.” She motioned to us. “And now I find you here, wandering around. Without masks on.”

  “You’re not wearing one either.” I pointed out. I didn’t want to go through why we were all suddenly together. “How are things out here?”

  She motioned around the area. “As you can see there’s very few of us. Why don’t you guys come in for coffee?”

  I looked at the guys, they all nodded except for Aeron who wore his usual grim look when he was analyzing a situation. “Sure, we’d love to.”

  If she could give us some of the information we sought, then we could figure out how to proceed with our plan. If the human world had changed enough, then certain rules had to be applied while we fought. Things like the barrier demons summoned when they appeared or when we summoned our weapons. For the last six months, these rules hadn’t applied. It was like the world forgot what it was supposed to do while the apocalypse happened.

  “Follow me.” She spun around and nearly skipped passed the building. We followed her with a little less pep in our steps.

  On the other side of the building stood brown and orange townhomes. A board covered the occasional window, but other than that it looked just as clean as the warehouse building.

  She took us to the last one in the first row and unlocked her door. “I have the place to myself. They don’t plan on releasing another wave for a few more months. They are testing what the infection rate of the plague is and if wars between cities and countries are still going to play out.”

  “Why is there doubt in that? With the famine over, there should be no other reason to go to war with them.” I walked in with the boys at my back. Our shoes tapped against fake tile in the entryway.

  She led us further into the house, through the narrow hall that opened up into a living room. There were a few big beanbag chairs spread over the floor. “Sorry, furniture is still rare, I found these when they remodeled the store. They were going to shred them and reuse the material, but I offered up a few hours of service for them.” She motioned. “Go ahead and sit, I’ll boil water for coffee.”

  We all sat down, and she disappeared into the kitchen that was only set apart by a breakfast bar. She pulled out a mini gas-powered hot plate and then a glass container and teapot.

  “There’s no communication through the cities, so we don’t know if anyone knows that the famine is over here, just like we don’t know if it’s over in the next city. The countries, they are all out of communication as far as we know too, but there was talk about war because each country was blaming the other for the plague and famine.”

  Aeron crossed his arms. “That’s a huge possibility, people fear without communication. They’ll send scouts first and then full troops depending on what the scouts report back.”

  “How do you know that? It sounds like an old tactic.” Katie came back into the living room as she let the water boil.

  Aeron rubbed his eyes. “It’s a simple military tactic when people are trying to take over lands. You scout them first to see if you can figure out the number of troops, people, villages, and take them out.”

  “Aeron is a bit of a military nut,” I said.

  She plopped herself down in a beanbag. “I remember, he was supposed to be one of the troops for the city.”

  “Until I got kicked out for fighting. Whatever happened with that? The commander wasn’t there when we got to the training areas.” That hadn’t been true, Wrath was in charge of the troops, and we’d sealed him away.

  “They got a new commander, one that wasn’t as great, but I’m sure they’d get through if there was a battle.”

  The shrill noise of the teapot filled the air. She jumped up and went back into the kitchen. “Do you believe how much damage there was when the government started to seize people?”

  “I heard that people thought monsters were causing a lot of the damage.” Aeron stretched his arms out over the beanbag and ran his nail over the seam in the black fabric.

  She laughed. “Where did you hear that from?”

  “A priest and a little girl told us, on our way to the city.” It was as honest an answer I could give her. Both had been the walking dead, people who should have died, but hadn’t had their souls claimed because Death was still locked up in Hell.

  “There were no monsters, just people who resisted the change the government wanted, so the government used large amounts of force.” She pulled out mugs while the hot water steeped in the glass container with coffee grounds. “Do you guys believe in monsters?”

  Pete gave a nervous laugh. “No, of course not. We’re just trying to piece things together. Living outside the wall, we don’t get much information.”

  “We had no idea they were releasing people from the City. We were stomping around the old college grounds hoping to find a working car.” Kaleb looked at me.

  She came out and handed Aeron and Kaleb a mug and then went back to the kitchen. “Really, I think it’s just their way of testing how long it’ll take the plague to infect someone out here.”

  “You said that. Have you seen anyone infected recently?” I reached for the black mug when she came back out of the kitchen and handed it to me. She handed Pete the last one.

  “No, I haven’t, but I also can’t tell you what happens when someone is infected. There’s no facility around here capable of treating it. If someone’s infected, they get taken.” She sat down. “I heard horrible things about the people who had survived the plague, back when no one was dying.”

  I knew what she was referring to. It was one of the reasons we decided Death needed to be the first Horsemen freed. When we first arrived at the walled city, the soldiers dragged us to a quarantine. We had thought that the twenty-four-hour watch was to make sure that we weren’t infected, but in the hut, we found walking dead far past the death point of the plague.

  “I’m glad death seems to have come back around then.” I tried to keep my tone light. “Though I’m sure we lost many wonderful people.”

  “I’m sure. But we’re on our way back to normal. Food is growing again, and people are dying when they are supposed to. Hopefully, the plague eases away.” She sipped her coffee. “Where have you guys been? You look awfully good for wandering the wasteland.”

  I glanced at the others. Aeron stopped picking at the seam. “We’ve been around. There are some camps set up here and there that are willing to take strangers in for a night or two. We just recently came back here.”

  “Must have been quite the adventure then.” She smiled. “Once they open up more housing here, do you plan on staying?”

  My heart fell a little. “I think I’m going to stay with my dad for a bit. He gave me a pretty nice offer, for you know when things calm down.”

  “The university should be open again. They’ll be taking in students. It’s one of the first places they are considering opening up when they finish releasing people. They are opening and starting to supply most of the grocery stores right now too.”

  The human world was picking itself up and moving forward. I couldn’t help but wonder how much of it the government would control, but it didn’t matter. Death was occurring naturally, famine was disappearing. It’d come a long way in the couple months since we’d left.

  Kaleb looked down at his watch. “It’s been great catching up, but we need to get going. We have a couple more things to do before we head back.”

  “I’d offer to let you stay here, but the rules are no outsiders are allowed to house here. They are afraid of other cities planting infected people to stop the release of citizens.”

  Of course they were. I stood and put my cup on the counter. “Thank you for the coffee. I wish you the best of luck.”

  “I’ll see you guys around right?”

  I smiled. “You never know. We might be around from time to time.”

  We said our goodbyes and walked out of the townhome. We crossed the street and stood there for a moment, looking back at the housing.

  “So what does this mean?” Pete motioned to the buildings. “We had expected them to take a little while to recover from the apocalypse.”

  I crossed my arms. “They aren’t recovering. They may be starting to rebuild, but the other wave of humans probably aren’t scheduled to release until these either die off or live for a particular length of time.”

  “And since they can’t treat it…” Kaleb looked at Pete.

  “Then they will either dispose of the bodies or use it for something entirely different. But that’s not our worry. Two more Horsemen to go and the world will start to fall back into balance. It might be a little more of a scary place after all this, but it’ll at least be in balance.”

  “Let’s get back for the night. We’ll check out the city tomorrow.” Aeron looked over his shoulder. “How do you feel about all this?” He met my gaze.

  I let myself consider his words and not fire off the first words I felt like saying. I wanted to tell him that I still needed to stay off the field, but I’d seen what releasing just two Horsemen and sealing four Sins away could do. We were making a difference, with all of our sacrifices, we were making a true difference in the world.

  “I say we check out the city tonight, maybe spar a little bit later to see how rusty I really am. I’d hate to face a demon for my first fight.”

  Pete grinned at me. “My money is on you; I’m betting you can still whoop Aeron.”

  “We’ll see.” Aeron smirked. “Let’s go back.”

  30

  We had sent the others to walk around and scout the area, but Pete and I decided to stay up front.

  “I think the wall looks worse than it did a few months ago.” Pete looked up at the giant wall.

  He was right. The makeshift panels of metal had started to peel at some points, and new pieces had been put on top of some of the rusted pieces. “You would think that with things back up and running they could build a better one.”

  “Do you notice anything missing?” He looked around.

  “The guards. They aren’t at the gate.” I crossed my arms. “Does this mean we can just waltz in?”

  Pete shrugged. “Maybe, want to try? What are they going to do? Kick us out again?”

  “I suppose they could arrest us, but really where are they going to put us?” I smiled and tested the iron gate. It creaked as it swung inwards. I stepped in and looked around.

  They had built the houses out of whatever materials people could find around what little had remained before this became the walled city. The dirt road crunched under our feet as we continued to walk forward.

  “Something isn’t right here.” Pete stopped and looked around. “Can you sense it?”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I took a moment and closed my eyes. I searched for anything that I could find that would tip Pete off, but all I could sense was death. That was it. I opened my eyes and looked at Pete. “Everyone is dead.”

  “Exactly, even the rats in the area are dead.”

  Had Katie lied to us? Was there more to the story other than people being released? She hadn’t said why they condemned her house nor when the next wave of people was going to be released.

  Humming filled the air, and a scuffle sounded. I turned towards the noise to find a teenage girl skipping and humming. Her hands were behind her back, and a black dress covered her from head to toe. She froze the moment that she saw us.

  “Oh, it’s Little Death and Pest’s kid,” she squealed sounding way too excited to see us. “You’re too late, they are all dead, and Death has claimed their souls.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Carrie.” She summoned two serrated blades, and they told me exactly what she was. A trickster demon. I’d killed one not long ago, the one that had killed my mother.

  I summoned my scythe, and Pete called on his bow and arrow. We worked well together as a team because he could attack from a long distance and I from a shorter distance.

  “You want to fight little ‘ol me?” She tossed her white hair behind her shoulders and looked up at me with black eyes. “You are nothing. I can take you with just one of my blades.”

  I shifted my stance so my feet were wider and kept me more balanced. “Try me.” My hands tightened on my scythe, and I waited for her attack.

  Pete wasn’t waiting. He let loose an arrow, and it cut through the air, silently. Carrie dodged the arrow and shot towards me. I shifted and sidestepped her attack. She was too close for me to attack her with the blade of my scythe, but I brought the handle up into her stomach and used the momentum to throw her away from me.