Chapter 17

I walked into Thanatos' office and set a large stack of files on his desk. A smug smile was firmly planted on my face, and I crossed my arms over my chest as he looked up at me from his computer.

"What's this?" He asked, grabbing the top file skimming through it.

"The research you assigned me to do on The Ferrymen. Also, some research I did in my spare time on The Memitim."

"When did you have time to do all of this research?" He asked in amazement.

"There are plenty of hours in the day when you have insomnia," I chuckled.

Thanatos set the file down and looked at me in shock. "Andy, you need to get your sleep. You can still die from sleep deprivation."

"I'll be fine. Have you seen Charon? I haven't spoken to her since last week."

"She's been busy with research of her own. She's been looking into The Memitim for me. I guess I can call her back in now, though. She can help me go over these files. Which ones are the research on us?" He began counting folders.

"The first 24 files."

"Jesus, Andy. You did that much research in a week?! Go home and get some rest. Now."

"I'm fine, Thanatos. I promise."

The dark-haired man hesitated a moment then nodded his head. "Fine." Turning his attention from me, he picked up his cell phone and made a call. He frowned and ended the call before making another call. "That's odd."

"What?" I asked, taking a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk.

"Charon's phone is going directly to voicemail."

"Maybe it's dead. Or, she's busy."

"No matter how busy she is, she always answers her phone. And she never lets it die." Getting up, Thanatos walked around his desk and headed for his office door. "I'm going o go check on her."

"Want me to go with you?"

"You can if you want."

I nodded and got up, followed him out to the garage, and to his car.

* * *

We arrived at Charon's place a little over half an hour after leaving the office. We would've gotten there sooner, but traffic wasn't the best.

Thanatos rang the doorbell and waited for an answer, frowning when he didn't get one. He pulled out his keys, unlocked the main door, let us both into the building, and led me up to Charon's apartment on the third floor. He knocked on the door and still received no answer. After about five minutes of knocking and calling out Charon's name, he finally put the key into the lock to let us in the apartment, but he froze after turning the key.

"What's wrong?"

"The door's unlocked." He hesitated a moment before opening the apartment door.

We walked into the apartment, not expecting the sight that awaited us. A choked sob escaped me, and Thanatos cursed when we set eyes upon the scene. There, lying on the floor of the living room, was Charon. We didn't have to get close to the body to tell she was dead. It was the clouded over, lifeless eyes staring at us that told us.

"Andy, go wait in the car. I'm going to call this in to the police."

"Thanatos…"

"Just go."

I nodded and went down to the car.

It wasn't long before the police and paramedics arrived and only about half an hour before Thanatos returned to the car.

"She's dead. How is that even possible? I thought once a Reaper got a scythe, they couldn't be killed."

"It was another Reaper. One with a scythe. That's the only way they could have killed her. They had to reap her soul."

"So, they severed her bond with her scythe?"

Thanatos nodded and pulled away from the curb, driving back to the office.