Not Really A "Mourning" Person...

                Carahya had managed to navigate her way through the city, exhausted though she was, with little trouble. It may have been quite the walk back to her apartment, but she finally returned, and used the unlocked window off of the fire escape to get back inside. She had dedicated herself to resting and planning, and finally decided that she needed Mr. McBride’s help. With no license or other ID, no wallet, no money readily available to her, and no key to her apartment, she had to be very careful with everything that she was doing. Thank goodness she hadn’t taken her bike to Spinetap with her, or she’d have needed to go on foot everywhere. It would take her a few days’ recovery from the whole incident to regain her strength enough to shift again.

                A few days after the Spinetap incident, Carahya finally decided to brave the outside world again and make a visit to Meath Olc. She parked her bike outside the shop and cautiously walked inside. The cozy shop was just as she had left it, and Richard McBride was leaning against the shop till, sipping tea from a ceramic mug and reading the newspaper. He was staring intently on the page in front of him, far to the back of the paper. There was a soft jingle of bells as the door closed behind Carahya. McBride looked up at the noise and gestured to her.

                “Come in, Carahya, come in…it’s another slow day today.” He folded the paper back to save his page and put it down on the counter as he spoke. “Are you feeling better than you were the last time I saw you?”

                Carahya walked to the counter and nodded, taking a look at the page he had been reading. It didn’t seem to be anything particularly interesting, just community events, until she spotted the bottom left-hand corner that typically got overlooked.

                “What were you reading?”she asked McBride, curious. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion and tilted her head to see the page better. There was a small article with the title “Remembering the Reaper” stationed above it.  The article was only about two to three inches square on the large newspaper page, with a small photograph next to it.

                “One of the three reapers was killed in an incident at the Western National Bank, here in Boston. That and some details about the funeral are all that the Council would allow in the paper, and they never make supernatural news easy to access. It’s a chore, really, to have to go through an entire mundane newspaper to find such a small snippet of information.” He patted the newspaper with a smile and a small chuckle. Carahya rolled her eyes at him before looking back down to the paper. Something about the photograph caught her eye, and as soon as she looked closer, she could see what. There in the photo, obviously addressing the funeral party, was one of the people she had seen in the Spinetap incident – the one that they had called Tibias.

                “Um, Mr. McBride? Do you know who this man is?” Carahya was cautious about asking him, worried for what the answer might be.

                He took another look at the photograph and responded, “The caption here says that this is Tibias Sharpe. If what I remember about the council is correct, he is one of the Grim Reaper’s assistants. Why do you ask?”

                “Well…” Carahya began nervously, “I might have gone looking for some answers, and gotten myself into his office...there were others there, too. There was one named Royal, I remember that, and one called Kole, and Keera. They may or may not have your demon defense book and my wallet and keys back at the office with them…” She looked to the ground, wincing, expecting to be chastised by the wiser man.

                “Did I not tell you to stay away from doing anything that would get the council’s attention, girl?” McBride startled her with the intensity of his voice, but he was not yelling. She was happy about that, at least. “Carayha, do you know what you’ve gotten yourself into?”

                “Not exactly,” Carahya mused. “I don’t know who they are, but I do know that I need my license, my ATM card and my keys back pronto! All I’ve got is my bike and the food that’s already in my apartment. That…Tibias…said that they had office hours on Sunday. Can we go back then?”

                McBride put his face in his hands. “You have no idea of the kind of trouble you’ve gotten yourself into, do you, Miss Faroth?” He sighed and said, “If you made any of them – especially Kole – angry, you could incur the wrath of the entire Council of Draelin…no mere 'office hours' visit could fix that.”

                Carahya’s face blanched as she realized that Kole was the one she had turned the gun on in her escape. “Oh, shit…he’s a Reaper, isn’t he?”

                “Yes. Yes, he is. The Grim Reaper is what they call him.”

                “Oh…f-“ She caught herself, not wanting to excessively swear in front of the older man. “Mr. McBride? I may or may not have…shot at the Grim Reaper…”