I check on Taz on the couch, but he’s still out like a light. I wonder why Strut didn’t move them into beds, but then again, knowing him, he’s probably counting this room as a lost cause and wasn’t going to sully anything else with the battle grime the Nihil and Legion Angel are currently sporting.
“Your mates were just informing me of how the battle ended. I’m glad to see you on your feet and recovered,” Nefta tells me primly.
Iceman and I take a seat across from her. “How are you feeling?” I ask, unsure of where else to start.
“I’m fully recovered, thank you.”
Awkward silence fills the air for a beat, and then Nefta and I both start at the same time. “What the fuck am I?” I ask bluntly as she says, “We should just get to the point. No beating around the bush.”
We both pause, and I can’t help the chuckle that sneaks out of my lips. She smiles, only one side of her mouth lifting up, but it’s something, and I notice her visibly relax. I guess it’s safe to say that this is weird for both of us.
Nefta releases a deep breath, and I can almost feel the bone-deep weariness in it. She looks over at Tazreel to make sure he’s still out, and then her rich purple eyes land back on me. “Do you trust your mates?” she asks carefully.
“Implicitly,” I answer without hesitation.
She pauses for a moment, as if she wants to make sure I really mean it, and then she nods. “I wish this legacy wasn’t yours now too, but as much as I tried to keep all of this from you, it seems fate simply has other plans,” she starts, and I’m taken aback by the depth of regret and sorrow I see in her gaze. I feel like Nefta just let a wall down, and I’m all at once not sure if I’m ready to see what’s on the other side.
“I was supposed to be the last of our line. That’s what I intended anyway, before…” She gestures over to Tazreel. “Every member of my family is dead, and not from lack of trying to stay alive, but because once others become aware of what we are, they kill us. I was hoping to save you from that.”
My heart pounds in my chest as her words settle around me like an ominous fog, nerves making my body tense up. Nefta shakes her head as she looks at her cup, and I can still see that she’s battling within herself about telling me.
“I think we’re past the point of safely keeping me out of it,” I interject, willing to share the burden I can see her struggling with. I suspect I know where this is going, and although I don’t relish the thought of it, there’s nothing that can really be done about it. This is my life, and my time as a human is long over. “Morax knows, and in order for me to try and protect myself, I need to know more than he does.”
Nefta nods hollowly, as if she’s shoring up her resolve, and her eyes flick back to mine as she pushes away her thick braid of purple hair over her shoulder.
“We’re Annuli, Delta,” she tells me bluntly, and I can see that the word is some sort of curse to her.
I go still, waiting for the truth of what I am to come over me like a warm wave, or maybe it would be a cool shock, but nothing happens. Nothing in me recognizes what she just said. I look to the guys, but they appear to be just as confused as I am.
“Okay... Is that a fancy word for Gatekeeper? Am I a Grim somehow? I mean, I’m not ferrying dead people around, so I figured that would be a solid no, but what do I know, right?” I ask on an awkward chuckle, leaning in conspiratorially, because I don’t get what’s going on.
“No, you’re definitely not a Grim or one of the long dead Gatekeepers. An Annulus is very different. We are far rarer and more powerful. It doesn’t surprise me that your mates have never even heard the term. That’s how well the secret of our existence has been protected.”
“But what about the scythes?” I ask, perplexed and maybe a little in denial. I thought for sure all of this was building up to you are a Gatekeeper.
“Not only Gatekeepers use them, Delta,” she tells me, and I have to stop myself from arguing that I was told otherwise.
Shut up, Delta, and listen! So this isn’t going exactly where you thought it was, move on already. I take a deep breath and get my head back in the game. “Okay, an Annulus...what does that mean exactly?”
“Well, the easiest way to explain it is that you can reset souls. Among other things.”
“Reset?” Iceman asks, and I instantly feel better that I’m not the only one struggling to get it.
“When you scythe someone, you aren’t killing them in the mortal sense and moving them on to the next stage of their existence. You are either resetting their spirit back to its genesis—as though they’ve just been created—or you are completely erasing a soul and wiping it from all the realms, never to return again. Though that is much harder to do. It takes several Annuli to execute it, but nevertheless, these abilities were what Annuli were created for.”
I stare at her and simply blink for a moment.
“We were created to be neutral, to be a safety net that could ensure that no matter what, balance between both sides would always exist. If Heaven gained too much
