“Father, they seem sincere.” Sissa tried to intervene. We’d managed to hide significant parts of the truth, but they seemed to have bought it—or so I thought, until Loren raised a hand to silence her.
“Indeed. But they didn’t come here with Joy’s approval. They snuck in,” the king said, giving us both a grave look. “What does that say about you?”
“We’re desperate,” I replied. Okay, so he’d bought it, but he was still cautious. A good king, I thought.
The temperature suddenly changed. A cold wind blew through the village, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. A figure emerged from inside Loren’s royal residence. She was a Reaper. The Reaper. Joy. As ancient and as powerful as the First Tenners. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said from beneath the black mask covering the bottom half of her face. The Reaper uniform she wore was strange, mostly white and so tight on her body that it looked more like a second skin.
She was tall and slender, with bony shoulders and long legs. Her scythe was huge compared to Unending’s—a half-moon-shaped disk that reached my height, plus the long black handle. I wondered how heavy it was, considering the ease with which she held it in just one hand. Her hair was short and spiky and bright red, shaved on the sides, and fiery galaxies exploded within those almond-shaped eyes. Symbols had been carved into her scythe—some I recognized, others, not so much. But Unending knew them all, and she didn’t look too happy.
“That blade is fully authorized to kill and destroy anything it touches,” Unending murmured. “No additional approval from Death required.”
“And I will use it on you unless you tell me what the hell you’re doing here,” Joy retorted, her expression firm and cold. She was the no-nonsense type who wouldn’t hesitate to strike unless we answered her questions. It wasn’t difficult to understand why Death had chosen her to watch over the soul fae. Heck, she’d been given authority to kill any living creature that dared come near the village—every death that the First Tenners, Seeley, and Sidyan had caused on Visio had been previously and telepathically sanctioned by their maker.
Joy had absolute freedom in this place.
The concept of danger had been more or less abstract to me since Unending and I survived the Spirit Bender twenty years ago. Everything else had been manageable. But as I looked at Joy and acknowledged the lengths to which she was willing to go in order to protect the soul fae, I began to feel the kind of fear I’d hoped I would never experience again. No one was safe with this Reaper, unless Death stopped her in time. Not Unending. Not me.
Thayen
There was no one at the terrace, like Soul and Kelara had said. The entire alley of shops and restaurants had been abandoned. Chairs had been knocked over. Tables were upside down. Glasses and plates had been broken and scattered across the cobblestones. People had been in the middle of their meals and conversations when some kind of hell had broken loose.
The Reapers were right about the flashbang effect of the explosions, as well. There was some physical damage visible, but nothing to level the whole place. Whatever the clones were using, it was some hi-tech weird magic combo that was insanely effective, since it had knocked out a First Tenner and two ghouls. I did wonder what had spurred people to run off and leave Kelara, Stan and Ollie behind. This must’ve been wildly violent.
I needed a moment to take it all in.
The obliterated windows, glass spreading like sugar frosting over the stone. The torn linen curtains were reduced to uneven shreds. Small fires still burned here and there, likely the remnants of a fire fae’s wrath. Blood had been smeared across the outer walls, but I couldn’t see any bodies. Jericho and Dafne did a quick tour of the terrace’s restaurants, then came back shaking their heads.
“No casualties,” the ice dragon said. “Nothing. No one. Zilch.”
“This is weird,” I muttered as we made our way farther down the alley. Every single establishment had been hit in a similar fashion. Property damage, interrupted brunches, blood streaked across the cobblestone, mingling with the dropped food. It made me sick to my stomach, and I began fearing the worst. It felt infinitely more pressing than the black spray the clones had used on Astra and me. This kind of dread was impossible to overcome.
“Deep breaths,” Astra told me, one hand resting on my shoulder.
I’d been panting, and I wasn’t even aware of it.
“What… what is wrong with me?” I managed, breaking into a cold sweat as the horror of it all set in and anchored me into this new reality. I’d been hoping for the best, and that was my biggest mistake.
“I think you’re having a panic attack,” Astra replied.
Soph came closer, eyeing me carefully. “Slow breaths in and out, Thayen. In and out. One second at a time. As long as there are no bodies, it means no one died, okay? Whoever was here, members of our family or otherwise… they’re gone. They fled. They’re alive.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Yeah, but nothing,” she said, cutting me off. “That is the mindset you need. You’re leading this group, Thayen, and we’re following you because we trust your instincts and your decision-making skills. Do not let these bastard clones tell you otherwise. But we need you to stay strong and conscious.”
I nodded once, immediately internalizing her message. I’d given in to the worst side of me. The trauma of what I’d suffered on Visio had come back in an uglier form, sneaking into my consciousness, hell-bent on sabotaging all the progress I’d made over the years. I was a vampire, damn it. I was a Novak and a Nasani, and I had The Shade to protect. Flinching at the first sign of large-scale trouble would be a sign of weakness, and Soph was absolutely right. I was leading this group. I had to pull through, not only for myself but for them, too.
A few deep inhalations later, my surroundings had come back into focus. “What are we looking at here?” I asked, glancing in Astra’s direction. “Any odd sensations? Anything out of the ordinary? You’re our main weirdness scanner right now.”
Astra chuckled softly, then crouched and touched a spatter of blood. It hadn’t fully congealed yet. “Nothing particularly supernatural,” she said. “Merely a bad vibe. People got hurt here, but they ran away.”
“Do we know who was here?” Dafne asked. “Friends of yours? Family?”
“Draven and Serena. Lumi. Kailani and Hunter. Jovi and Anjani. Phoenix and Viola. Rose and Caleb. Kelara and the ghouls had come with them,” I said, frowning, then tried the comms channel again. Nothing but empty static. “The tech is definitely off. The comms are completely disconnected now.”
Soph cursed under her breath. “If they’re not here anymore, they must have gone to safety. Where are the three key spots we can look? They obviously didn’t pass by the hospital.”
“The Vale is out of the question, since it’s mostly human, with civilian structures,” I said. “The Great Dome is one possibility. The command center farther north is another. The armory and the training halls would be the third, just off the top of my head.”
“Without any way of reaching out to them, we’re going to have to check each of those locations,” Astra concluded, her gaze darting from the terrace to the other restaurants and shops, taking in all the destruction that had been left behind.
“That was more or less the plan all along,” Soph replied, crossing her arms. “Though I would’ve expected to find more people in this area.”
“Come on,” I said, unable to stand still for another second. “This place is a bust. Let’s hit the Great Dome first. We’ll have to cross the redwood forest, and chances are we’ll run into a clone or ten.”
Jericho and Dafne flanked Astra, while Soph and I led the way straight into the woods, steering clear of the better-known paths. It was time to act as if we really were in a war zone—until we knew exactly what had happened at the terrace and to our communications systems, and until we found our people safe and sound, we had to assume the worst.
“I’m still miffed that Voss lost my clothes,”
Jericho muttered.
“For what it’s worth, I can imagine what that whole incident was like. Falling, getting up, tumbling around and fighting the clones… your clothes were literally the last thing on their minds,” I said.
“And just my two cents here, that robe doesn’t look bad on you,” Dafne giggled. “You’ve got legs for days. You can totally get away with this fresh-out-of-the-flaming-shower look.” It made Jericho laugh, and it was a sound I didn’t even realized I’d missed.
The trek through the wilderness was mostly uneventful. We only caught glimpses of people running as far away from our location as possible. We tried to go after them, but they vanished pretty quickly, and we still had the Great Dome to get to. It was as if the Shadians were fleeing from something or someone, but I couldn’t for the life of me understand what. How many clones were out here, and how had they managed to cause such fright in the span of a single hour? It didn’t make any sense.
We headed northeast toward the Great Dome, occasionally trying the comms channels again. Telluris was still down, and Astra and I couldn’t establish new connections between us, either. “Someone is going to a hell of a lot of trouble to keep us from talking to each other across the island,” Soph said.
The darkness of the night reigned supreme, as we only saw glimpses of the starry sky above. It was also chillier than usual, though that wasn’t exactly unheard of. The woods were always colder, especially out here, where the northern winds blew uninterrupted. We didn’t come to these parts often. The sooner we reached the Great Dome, the better I’d feel.
We walked for another twenty minutes in heavy silence, our minds obviously crowded with all kinds of scenarios. Suddenly Astra stopped, pale as a sheet of paper. “Don’t move,” she hissed, looking around.
“What is it?” I asked, trying to follow her gaze. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“Remember that tingly sense you mentioned?” she croaked. “I think it’s finally kicking in. We need to hide.”
“Why?” Soph asked, not yet convinced.
Astra grabbed her by the wrist, and we all followed her behind a cluster of massive bushes thick enough to conceal us. “I think it’s a portal. I’m feeling the same energy, only much stronger,” she said.
“Stronger?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“When Richard’s clone slipped out of this world, I tried to get a better feel for the portal energy, but I couldn’t because it was quickly fading. Once it was closed, poof, buh-bye. But this time it’s different. My whole body is buzzing.”
As soon as she said that, a blinding light emerged on the other side of a nearby clearing. We slowly raised our heads to look and were left speechless by what we saw. For the first time since this nightmare had begun, we’d inadvertently brought Astra close to an opening portal. At least one of Lumi’s theories was coming true, it seemed, considering how hypersensitive to this stuff the young Daughter was.
A shimmering gash slit the air, nearly blinding us for a moment. A portal. “Holy moly…” I heard Jericho mumble. They could see it, too. At least I hadn’t lost my mind or anything.
Out of the portal came Richard, Hazel, Tejus, Jovi, and Anjani’s clones. They looked so calm and casual, as if they’d just gotten out of the car and were about to hit the beach or something. Their GASP uniforms were a searing insult, considering they were frauds. The sight made my blood boil, but it soon froze when I noticed each of them carrying a metal disk. They likely had black spray on them, as well.
I knew Soul and Kelara would want to be here for this, so I reached into my pocket and took out the charmed coin. “Are you sure you want to use it now?” Astra whispered.
“If not now, when?” I replied.
They stopped in the middle of the clearing, and the portal closed behind them. Richard’s clone seemed to be leading the pack. I wasn’t sure if he was a second doppelganger or the same one we’d fought before. Nothing was what it seemed, and everything was different—no wonder my head was a mess. I could barely grab hold of one clone with my glamoring ability, and even that was limited and physically draining without years of practice. There was no way I could handle all of them, especially if they used that black spray on us again. I gave Astra a brief nod, putting the coin back. “We wait until they leave so we can move again. You’re right about using the coin. It might be too soon.”
“Agreed. And even if we bring Soul and Kelara over here, there’s no telling what these monsters will use against us,” Dafne whispered.
“We’ll use everything we’ve got,” Hazel’s clone said from afar, looking right at us. They already knew we were here. Either they’d detected us upon their arrival, or they’d been previously informed of our location, I couldn’t tell which. But one thing was painfully clear at this point.
Five clones had set their sights on us, and I wasn’t sure we’d be able to get past them in order to reach the Great Dome. Not without a gruesome fight, anyway. We’d seen what they could do, and we had little to no understanding of the foreign magic they were using against us. Every other option we’d had prior to Hazel-clone’s remark was now off the table.
“Changed my mind,” I mumbled, then snapped the coin, hoping to see Kelara and Soul soon enough. But as the seconds passed, nothing happened. “Ugh…”
“It’s not working?” Jericho asked, his voice barely a scratch.
It didn’t seem like it. Had something happened to Kelara? There was no time to wonder about this, or any other option to reach out to the Reapers. Our only choice now was to battle these monsters and defend our home. I braced myself for a living hell, determined to get out on the other side of this river of trouble. My parents needed me. My brother and sister. Every single member of the Novak family relied on me and my friends to defeat the insurgents and secure everyone’s safety.
Maybe hiding would’ve been better, but with war knocking on our door, I had to step up.
Astra
(Daughter of Phoenix and Viola)
There was no sight of Kelara or Soul. Either the coin had not worked, or the Reapers were unable to get to our location. Every second that passed made it clear, however, that we couldn’t rely on their assistance.
“I think we can shorten this encounter,” Jericho said as the clones strutted toward us. The sheer arrogance that had settled on their faces made me furious. They’d come prepared—I could tell by their abundantly confident attitudes.
The clearing was small, yet wide enough to be used as a battleground. My muscles were tight and hard, tension gripping every inch of me as I prepared myself for the worst. But Jericho’s suggestion sounded better than how I’d originally envisioned this scene unfolding.
“What, like go dragon and scorch their asses?” Dafne asked, gaze fixed on the clones.
“It’s our quickest way out of here, don’t you think? It’s not like we can fly away and let them do who knows what they’ve come here to do. I mean, we could fly away, but what does that say about us?” Jericho replied, a smile testing his lips as he straightened his back and pushed his chest out, a move I doubted he was even aware of as he moved to assert himself before the enemy. He’d picked it up from his father, Blaze—little things like these made me love my Shadian people even more. We’d come out fundamentally different from our parents, but we’d still managed to adopt some of their gestures and personality traits without even realizing it.
“I agree. It’s worth a shot,” Thayen said. “Just be careful. We don’t know what other tricks they’ve got up their sleeves. The more they fight us, the better prepared they become.”
“Say no more,” Dafne hissed and slipped out of my jacket. It took Jericho a couple of seconds to take his eyes off her as she turned into a majestic ice dragon with black scales and bluish iridescent streaks down her back. Dafne wasn’t big for her kind, but she was fierce.
Jericho removed his robe and shifted, joining her in a full-frontal attack on the clones. Richard’s double was the first to get past the dr
agons and come right at us, grinning like the devil. Thayen bolted toward him, claws and fangs out, but I couldn’t let him get close to the bastard. The last thing he or I needed was more black spray in our faces.
I threw out a barrier, and it hit Richard’s clone in the side with enough force to knock him over. “Thayen, keep away from him!” I shouted. “We need to stick together and get out of here!”
Thayen started to heed my advice, but Richard’s copy bounced back up. Before I could do anything else, they were tangled in a physical fight, growling and throwing punches and kicks in a struggle for survival.
Jericho and Dafne used their respective fire and ice to hold the other clones at bay. Hazel’s clone was fast, and she dodged the dragon flames with remarkable agility. Tejus’s doppelganger threw barriers that were stronger than my grandpa’s real ones. He hurled them at Dafne with enhanced precision, and they hit her like real punches, knocking the air from her lungs. Every time she tried to bite him, he threw another barrier, flinging her head back.
Jovi and Anjani’s clones were the first to fall as Jericho’s inferno spread out indiscriminately. The fires caught up and swallowed them whole, and they screamed. Thayen fell and cried out in pain, and I could see a dagger in his side. Richard’s clone was about to rip into his throat, but Soph darted in his direction.
Before he could finish Thayen off, Soph rammed into him. They landed in a nearby bush, and I rushed to get to Thayen. He needed faster healing than his vampire nature could provide him. In an instant, I was kneeling beside him, my hand pressed against his wound and glowing pink as I allowed my Daughter energy to seep into the damaged flesh and heal it.
A Shade of Vampire 88: An Isle of Mirrors Page 9
