Katie's Hellion

"I'm a four-hundred-thousand-year-old angel. I'm a baby in my world. More marshmallows!"

Just when she thought things were weird enough, Toby had started to talk to her. She refused to send him to school or to go to work, determined to figure out what insanity was going on under her roof. His eyes glowed as small marshmallows tumbled into his cup. He held out his hands. She ignored them and placed the cup on the table before him, then set down her own.

"You're a four-hundred-thousand-year-old baby," she repeated. "Then you're not my kid."

"I am!" he replied. "I have to have a human mother."

"You get a new one every eighty years or something?"

"I'm kinda reborn every once in awhile to a new mom."

She pinched her arm. She was still awake.

"And the death dealer is…what?"

"He's Death's hit man."

"Of course, why not." She poured whiskey into her cocoa.

Toby chewed on the crackers she'd placed before him, crumbs and chunks going all over his pj's. He didn't look like a four-hundred-thousand-year-old angel trapped in a five-year-old's body.

"His name is Gabriel. He's way older than me. I see him every few dozen years, usually when he's coming to kill my mama. He's cool."

She gripped her head.

"Gabriel, fairies!" Toby exclaimed.

She turned and gasped, heart leaping to see the death dealer lingering like the shadow he was in the middle of her living room. His eyes glowed darker than night, two black holes in his otherwise indistinguishable face. She groped for the nearest light and flipped it on, unsettled by the man even in the warm lamplight.

"Toby says you're going to kill me," she said, heart hammering.

"Not yet."

"Not yet?" she echoed. "You have a date in mind you'd like to share?"

"No."

"Soon, not soon?"

"No."

"Look, I get that no one survives life, but I'd like to know when you plan on taking me out so I can plan a few things, say farewell to my sister, maybe prepay for my burial!"

"There won't be a body to bury."

Her mouth dropped open.

"Gabriel takes people to the underworld, body and all," Toby explained as he grasped the large man's gloved hand. "Fairies!"

The death dealer went obediently to the kitchen. Katie's hands shook. She followed them and set her cocoa down on the counter, grabbing the whiskey and retreating with the intent of drinking herself to sleep. Gabriel's hand snaked out as she passed, and he yanked the bottle neatly from her hand. She snatched at it, and he pushed her away.