Keeper vs. Reaper (Graveyard Guardians Book 1) (2 page)

“Yes, Mother.”

“Goodbye, Jackson.” Camille hung up the phone without waiting for Jack to bid her goodbye as well.

Jack clicked off his phone and chucked it onto the bed. “Fuck
,” he muttered to himself. Stupid fucking orders. The Reaper Council had plenty of Reapers out there to do jobs like this, but no, it had to be him because he was Camille and Ephraim Walker’s son. He couldn’t even count how many times in his life he had wished that he wasn’t their son.

The
Reaper society came with a hierarchy, and his parents were at the top of that chain. Only the High Elder of The Reaper Council sat above his parents, which left him next in the line of Walkers to take his father’s place, and that looked like it was going to be sooner rather than later if his father’s health kept deteriorating. 

He had no interest in killing the Estmond Keeper
, or even going into her graveyard. He would have been happy just to hang out in Summer Hollow for a month or so and then go back home, or find another place to chill for a while. But, apparently, the orders were something that the Council was not going to ignore and he was going to have to get the job done.

He sat on the edge of the bed, grabbed his boots and shoved his feet into them. He would have to wait until nightfall to head over to the graveyard, so first things first. Time to chase the lingering hangover with some caffeine and a nice greasy breakfast at the diner.

Jack headed out the door, not bothering to lock it behind him, and headed straight for his black Ford truck parked in the gravel driveway. Once behind the wheel, he started the engine and looked through the windshield at the scenery surrounding his rented place. Oak trees were gathered around the house, with a few pines stuck in between them. A crescent shaped pond lay at the bottom of the slope on the west side of the house. On that same side of the house was a porch with an expanse of lawn, a fire pit, and a few pieces of outdoor furniture.

This was a nice place
, cozy and peaceful. Nothing like the cold, harsh home and décor he had grown up with. This was exactly the kind of place he could actually think about settling down for a while.

Although, after killing the Keeper, he would have to disappear and let
the Reaper Council do what they do best and cover it up. Settling down any time soon simply was not in the cards for Jack Walker.

Inch by painstaking inch, the casket sank lower into the freshly churned earth.

The scent of lilacs floated on the breeze
, along with the heavy stench of perfume and cologne, reminding Lucy of the fragrance aisle in a department store.

Lucy stood beside the grave, dressed in
a modest royal blue sundress. She had chosen it specifically because her father always said the color looked the best against her hair, which was a mix of reddish brown that shone burgundy in the sunlight.

Tilting her head up, Lucy looked through the canopy of the aging oak trees that were scattered throughout the cemetery. The breeze shifted the branches, causing a few of the leaves to pull free and flutter off into the wind. There were almost no clouds in sky,
allowing the sun to shine down over the funeral.

Her brothers and sisters surrounded the open grave opposite of her
. All six of them also wore something fitting for a funeral, but nothing depressing enough to send their father into a rage in his afterlife.

Smiling, Lucy remembered the argument she and her father had during his last moments.
“Lucy!” he had shouted at her. “Don’t you dare let them bury me in a suit. I am not going to spend eternity in a stuffy ass business suit. Make sure I’m wearing my khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt because I’m going on the vacation of a lifetime.”

That was toward the end, when the cancer was so bad that her dad spent most of his time in bed, moaning about how he should be up and about doing something. They both knew that the end was near, but Lucy had cried only in private. Her father wanted her to be happy he was moving on to the next life, but she couldn’t understand in what way, shape
, or form that his dying was a good thing.

So she
shed her tears alone in her room until there were no more left to cry.

The fog of the memory lifted from Lucy’s mind and she looked across the grave at her brothers and sisters. The entire brood of Estmond siblings
had the same color hair that Lucy had been blessed with. Each of them, as well as Lucy and Ethan, held a white rose in one hand. Later, before the grave was sealed, they would each take a turn throwing one down onto the casket, as a symbol of their wish for their father’s peaceful journey into the afterlife.

Just behind her brothers and sisters stood the mourners who came to pay their last respects. Most of them were town’s people whom they had grown up with, except for one group who stood close together, most of them around her father’s age. These were the Keepers whom her family had been closest to over the years. She could see Gloria and Edward White, the Keepers from one of the Napa Valley graveyards
, standing solemnly beside Ellen and Stanly Evans, who worked in the hospital in Santa Rosa. There were several other Keepers surrounding them who she recognized and made a note to speak to them later.

Beyond them, further out into the trees, the spirits began to show themselves. They appeared in the form of their human bodies, a bit transparent, but solid for the most part. It was harder to see in the daylight, but their misty blue auras swirled around them, helping form the solidity of their bodies.

The spirits were fascinated by funerals. When Lucy was little, she used to think that they wanted to say goodbye to someone, but really it was because there wasn’t much else to do in a graveyard except talk to each other and attend burials.

Pastor Brown spoke solemnly, saying kind words and telling her father’s life story. Inwardly, Lucy cursed her father for choosing Pastor Brown, a man who had not known her father
, and she was sure he didn’t give a flying fuck about him either. Her father hadn’t set foot in church since he was a child. Not because he didn’t believe in God, he just didn’t believe in organized religion.

Sensing her tension, Ethan squeezed her hand reassuringly. Turning to her left
, she looked up and met her best friend’s eyes through the tint of his sunglasses. Even through the dark lenses she could see the sorrow in his eyes. He had loved her father too, just as much as any one of the Estmond clan. In response, she squeezed his hand back and then turned back to stare at the grave again.

“And now, Lucy Mae, Gregory’s youngest child
, will say a few words about her father.”  The preacher cleared his throat, signaling to Lucy that it was time.

Lucy had no tears staining her face. She had cried all those tears long before the day of the funeral. Again, Ethan gave her hand a gentle squeeze and then released her so that she could reach down and withdraw the folded piece of yellow legal paper out of her miniscule handbag.

As Lucy unfolded the paper she felt like it was taking an eternity.

This day is never going to end.

Finally, the paper was open in front of her and she began.

“I know that this speech is going to sound
like the speeches given for so many others who have passed on. But, when someone we love dies, we all feel pretty much the same way … so here it goes. My father, Gregory Estmond, was the best person I’ve ever known. Today, we stand here, not to mourn him, but to celebrate him. He didn’t want any one of us to be sad that he was gone. Because … he isn’t gone. He will always be with us. For those of us who spent each day with him, his teachings and his love will always be with us. He taught us love, he taught us respect, he taught us of our family heritage, and he taught us how to
live
.

“
For those who are acquaintances of my father, you may have met him only once and you are here because he impacted you in some way.”

A few nods came from the crowd.

Lucy continued. “He had that effect on people because he had a genuine love and respect for human life. Which is not something all of us can say we have. He treated everyone the same, with kindness. 

“Because my father had cancer, he knew that this day was coming and he had time to prepare for it. We had many discussions and the one thing he
consistently told me was to embrace life. He didn’t say this because he was dying, it was his mantra. This man lived every day of his life like it may be his last. He didn’t wait until he was dying to find the beauty in this world or the people in it. He was always this way.

“
Remember my father, not with sadness, but with the memories he left behind. Remember him with love, with laughter, and knowing that he is exactly where he wants to be.”

Lucy stepped back, reaching out for Ethan to grasp her hand once again. She eyed her siblings
. None of them were crying either. Daniel, the second oldest son, reached into his gray trench coat and pulled out a silver flask. Lucy sighed and watched as her brother didn’t even try to hide it as he took a long pull of the whiskey she knew was inside.

Sadly, as inappropriate as her brother was being, she couldn’t help but wish she could take a giant swig off that flask too.

It’s almost over
.

“Would anyone else like to say a few words?” Pastor Brown offered.

Sheriff Davis stepped forward, he had his Stetson clutched in one hand and hitched up his gun belt with the other. As always he was wearing his uniform. The Sheriff and her father had been pretty close … well, as close as a Keeper can get to someone without that someone thinking that they are out of their mind.

“I’d like to, if that’s all right.”
The Sheriff looked down into the grave before his eyes swept across the crowd of mourners. Finally his eyes met Lucy’s and she flashed him a smile meant to encourage him to proceed.

“Greg was my friend … and an old grump like me doesn’t have many friends. Greg knew a lot of people in this town, but I feel damn sorry for anyone who lives here and never had the chance to meet him. No one, aside from my own wife, Darcy, could make me laugh like Greg could. He was loyal and respectful, even if he was a bullshitter. Good grief that man liked to tell stories. Also, any man who can raise a brood of children by himself and manage to keep them all out of jail is a good man in my book.
”

Lucy could have sworn that she heard
Principal Robertson blow air between his lips like he was blowing a raspberry. A few people looked his way and then back at Sheriff Davis.

“That is all I got.” Sheriff Davis stepped back into the crowd.

Evelynn Andrews, the librarian at the Summer Hollow library, raised her hand slightly. She was about seventy years old, but didn’t look a day over fifty-five. Lucy hoped she would age that well as the years progressed.

Evelynn pushed her glasses up her nose and closed her eyes for a moment before she began to speak. “I don’t think I can say much more about how wonderful Gregory was, but I wanted to make sure to pay my respects by voicing
them. I’ve known the Estmond family all the way back to when Kathleen was still alive, as far back as when she and Greg were high school sweethearts. No one could have been a better father to these children. Sure, they have caused a fair amount of ruckus over the years, but he did it all on his own and they are educated, mostly well-behaved.”

She paused to glance at Daniel
, who had decided that moment would be appropriate for another pull from his flask. “And above all, Greg gave these children a sense of loyalty. Anyone who knows these kids knows that if you mess with one, you get the whole bunch of them.”

A few people giggled, even Lucy, knowing how true that statement really was.

“This may not seem like a good thing in retrospect, but a family who stays together so closely is a rare thing these days. It is to be cherished. Greg gave them this sense of family and that is something to be proud of.” As she finished, she closed her eyes again and then looked to Pastor Brown.

“Would anyone else like to speak?” Pastor Brown addressed the crowd of mourners.

Unexpectedly, Ethan released Lucy’s hand and raised it up a little bit. “I need to say something.”

Pastor Brown nodded and held his hand out beside him. Ethan moved over to the other side of Lucy beside the pastor. “There are very few people here who don’t know who I am
,” Ethan began. “Gregory Estmond took me under his wing a long time ago, when Lucy and I were both very little. My parents, who have moved away now…”

He paused and took a breath, pondering if he should let out the deep
, dark family secrets. Well, secrets that the whole town knew anyway. That was how small towns worked.

“They were
drug addicts and alcoholics who barely took care of me. Greg came by the house one day to see my parents for some reason, and what he found was a little boy locked in his room with no food or water, his parents passed out in their bedroom surrounded by drugs and trash. The story is a long one, a long sad story. But it ended with Greg and the rest of the Estmonds making sure I always had a place to go, that I always had food. Greg even went so far as to pay me for making good grades, just to give me incentive to do well in school.”

Lucy grimaced as he told the story, hating Ethan’s parents for what they did to him. Ethan had conveniently left out the part about how her father had beat the ever living snot out of Ethan’s dad that day he found him locked up in his room half
-starved. It was hard to believe Ethan’s parents came from a Keeper line, but sadly, not all Keepers were immune to addiction. Keepers were human, just like everyone else.

Ethan scanned the crowd through his glasses. “No one, except for maybe the Estmond kids, owes more
, or loves that man, more than I do. He saved me and I will
never
forget that. I hope that none of you ever forget that either.”

Ethan lowered his head and hurried back to Lucy. She immediately took his hand again, knowing how hard it must have been for him to say
all that in front of everyone. He
never
spoke about his parents. They moved away when he was fourteen and left him alone in the house. After that he came to live with the Estmonds for good. She and Ethan were friends long before the incident at Ethan’s house, but after he came to live with them, they were inseparable.

Pastor Brown closed up the ceremony with a prayer and then the bagpipes started on Amazing Grace. Lucy stepped forward with Ethan’s hand firmly in her grasp and looked down into the dark, deep hole where her father’s body
would spend eternity. Luckily, she knew better than most that his soul would not remain in that body.