A Shade of Vampire 87: A Shade of Mystery

by Forrest, Bella

  Finally, the Soul Crusher and Kelara emerged, accompanied by their ghouls, Stan and Ollie. They appeared out of thin air, like figments of the imagination suddenly coming to life. Soul stood tall, clad in his tightened strips of black and white leather, metal rings jingling around the wide belt that framed his narrow hips. His silvery scythe had a small hook mounted on the bottom of its short handle, allowing the weapon to hang loosely from the belt. His uniform and his scythe had changed since Visio, and he’d never explained why. Kelara had once told us it was an emotional change that had come from within—like the dawn of a new and more balanced era. Apparently, all Reapers could do that, though it wasn’t a frequent occurrence.

  Her uniform had remained the same: black suit, white shirt, red tie. Standard Earth Reaper apparel. Their ghouls had been fitted with leather collars covered in diamonds and featuring small plates at the back with their names and serial numbers inscribed on them. The Reapers had taken the ghoulish population control seriously, and they’d made the world a safer place by doing so.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Soul said. “We were in Herbert’s sanctuary when you reached out.”

  “Oh. How is that old mongrel?” Corrine asked, smiling broadly as she remembered the ghoul that had basically helped change the way we looked at his species. Herbert had been a servant of Ibrahim’s for a long time, until the Hermessi began hurting our people.

  “He’s good. Quite content, actually,” Kelara replied. “We delivered four more ghouls to his sanctuary. They didn’t want to work with Reapers, and they didn’t want to potentially go into the nothingness either, so his sanctuary made sense.”

  “How many is he keeping there?”

  “That’s a tough one, Corrine.” Kelara chuckled. “Herbert is afraid to count them all. Apparently, he’s worried the number itself will overwhelm him. He never thought that place would grow so much, especially after we set our sights on the rogue ghouls across three dimensions. He gets so excited when we bring him more, it’s actually hilarious.”

  “I estimate about six thousand,” Soul interjected. “Based on what I saw in the sanctuary.”

  I couldn’t help but gasp. “That is… a lot. I thought ghouls were a rare phenomenon outside of Visio.”

  “The Reaper population has grown immensely in the past million years or so,” Soul explained. “That allowed some ghouls to spread their influence, to convince newcomers to our realm to eat souls. By the time most of them figure out how wrong that truly is and what it does to their souls, it’s too late.”

  “I was lucky after Corbin cursed me. Not a day goes by that I don’t imagine myself like Stan or Ollie. The thought alone is enough to push me into continuing on our quest to rid the world of rogue ghouls. But enough about that,” Kelara said, looking at Serena and Draven. “I understand Isabelle needs help.”

  Serena nodded, suddenly energized by the Reapers’ arrival. “Yes. She most certainly does.” She told them about the incident, along with all the testing efforts conducted so far. By the time she was finished, both Soul and Kelara were intrigued.

  “This I need to see,” Soul replied, walking over to the door and peeking through the glass panel. “She’s been like this since you brought her in?”

  “Yes. She won’t speak to anybody,” Draven said. “But if I get near her—or Astra, Lumi, or Corrine, for that matter—she tries to attack us. She completely ignores everyone else.”

  “She’s definitely hostile toward sources of magic. That’s weird,” Soul muttered, pushing the door open. He walked in, and Isabelle instantly raised her gaze to meet his. I stayed nearby, my pulse accelerating as Soul closed the distance between him and Isabelle. “Hello, pretty one,” he said, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

  Like lightning, Isabelle jumped out of her chair and tried to attack him, but the cuffs and chains meant the effort was abruptly interrupted.

  “Whoa,” Kelara murmured. Soul chuckled lightly.

  Isabelle sank back into her chair, resuming her usual table stare. Silence settled in the room as Kelara joined Soul, slowly revealing her scythe. “Do your reading first, babe,” Soul told her. “I’ll go deeper if needed.”

  “Sure thing. Your methods are a bit rough. Best not to scare the girl if we can avoid it,” Kelara replied.

  The blade of her scythe lit up blue—the strangest blue I’d ever seen, a shade I couldn’t quite pin down. It was somewhere between turquoise and the color of the sky. It glowed beautifully, filling my soul with an odd sense of peace. She pressed the blade against Isabelle’s shoulder, and the girl squirmed in her seat. Isabelle clearly didn’t like what Kelara was doing, but it didn’t seem like a physical rejection. She just loathed being touched with a Reaper’s weapon.

  “I’m not getting any death magic markers here,” Kelara said, understandably disappointed. It irritated Soul, as well. He brought his own scythe out and performed a similar read on an increasingly annoyed and anxious Isabelle. The closer the two of them got and the more they touched her, the angrier she became.

  “She’s reacting to them,” Astra muttered. “Which is more than I can say for everyone else who got near her.”

  “There’s something about Reapers she doesn’t seem to like,” Serena added, gaze fixed on her daughter. Fear twinkled in her eyes as she held back another round of tears.

  “It has more to do with us poking around,” Soul replied. “I doubt it’s that specific.”

  “What’s wrong, Isabelle?” Kelara asked, eyeing the girl carefully. “What is it about us that you don’t like? Is it us, in particular, or do you simply hate being touched?”

  Isabelle didn’t respond. Instead, she calmed and stopped squirming altogether, as if her earlier reactions had been uncalculated. Soul smirked. “At least we know she’s listening and that she understands us.”

  “Anything on the death magic front, though?” Corrine asked, almost breathless.

  “I’m sorry,” Soul replied, shaking his head. “I can’t sense any death magic on her, either.”

  “That being said, we should still keep her under observation,” Kelara said. “I’m certain we’ll get to the bottom of this. The more of us who get involved, the better our odds of getting to the truth. Besides, I think it’s safer for her and everyone here if she remains in this room.”

  Serena exhaled sharply as Draven took her in his arms. She hid her face in his chest and shuddered. This whole situation was devastating to them, and I wished there was something more I could do to relieve the tension that had gathered in the room.

  “Do you think that shimmering gash had anything to do with this?” I asked Corrine. “I know it’s a long shot, but they’re two weird events. Maybe they’re connected.”

  “Are you talking about what you and Richard saw in the redwood forest the other day?” Voss asked, frowning slightly. I nodded in return. “What do you think, Corrine?”

  “We’re missing something here,” Soul muttered.

  “I’m not sure.” Corrine raised her voice. “But it’s worth looking into again. There is definitely something weird going on in our beloved Shade, and you bet your sweet asses we’re going to find out what it is. I’ve enjoyed the last twenty years of peace and actual retirement too much to let it all slip through my fingers now.”

  Astra closed the door to Isabelle’s room once Soul and Kelara were out. “I think it’s the not knowing part that’s really bugging everybody,” she said.

  I took a moment to watch Isabelle through the glass panel. She looked right into my eyes, and it made me feel like she was digging deep into my soul, sifting through the most hidden parts of me. Shifting my focus back to Corrine and the others, I realized I could still sense Isabelle’s eyes on me. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  “What shimmering gash are you people talking about?” Soul asked, one eyebrow raised critically. Corrine told him what Richard and I had seen in the redwood forest, adding that they’d had no way of investigating the issue further, sin
ce the luminescent slit had vanished.

  “There have been no other anomalies in the area,” she added. “There was no magical residue of any kind. That’s why we didn’t consider it important. There simply wasn’t enough to go on.”

  “Understandable,” Kelara replied, then glanced my way. “What makes you think it’s connected to Isabelle’s behavior?”

  “Nothing in particular. I just don’t want us to leave anything to chance,” I said.

  Serena and Draven looked at each other, saying more with their eyes than anything else. They were worried, and they were scared for Isabelle. They had no one else around who could truly understand what they were going through.

  “If you think I’m going to be stuck in here for much longer, you’ve got another thing coming.” Isabelle’s calm and steady voice startled everyone.

  Corrine pushed the door open, while we gathered behind her. Isabelle was still in her chair, smirking as she slowly raised her cuffed hands.

  “She can talk,” Soul whispered.

  “Rarely,” Astra breathed, clearly astonished. “She’s only spoken to Thayen so far.”

  “Honey, why are you doing this?” Serena asked, her voice breaking. “Why are you acting like this? Please, Isabelle. Talk to us.”

  She scoffed. “You wouldn’t understand. I’ll be out soon, and then I’ll finish what I’ve started. You can’t stop me.”

  “Those charmed cuffs on your wrists would beg to differ,” Kelara shot back.

  Soul brought his scythe back up, nudging her gently. “I think we should keep working on her. It may not be death magic, but we have the power and the knowledge to identify all other existing types of magic. We should dig a little deeper. Scan for everything.”

  “What else is there beyond what we’ve already tested for?” Corrine replied.

  Isabelle laughed. “You people are clueless.”

  She was teasing us now. What a change in demeanor… If there were other types of magic involved, then all we could do was count on Soul and Kelara to reveal them. If there was a new kind of enemy in our midst, one that had flown under the radar this whole time, then it was our duty to do everything within our power to stop them.

  Isabelle was innocent. She was one of us, and she deserved better.

  Thayen

  By the time the psychiatrist was done, we still didn’t know what was wrong with Isabelle. He’d promised to get back to us once he had a conclusion, estimating a delivery of his report for the next morning. Soul and Kelara’s advanced tests didn’t yield anything useful, either. The more we sat on this issue, the more frustrated we all became. I’d gotten sucked into this, and my nerves were stretched beyond the limit as an earlier doubt wormed its way back into my head.

  No one dared say it aloud, but I could hear it in my head, echoing like a damn nightmare on repeat. This was the epitome of a mystery.

  I sat in one of the empty chairs for a while. Voss had returned to his parents to update them on the recent developments—or lack thereof. Chantal and Dafne had been summoned back to the training hall by Rose and Caleb, who were digging through the surveillance footage in hopes of finding anything they might have missed about Isabelle’s behavior. Hazel and Tejus were seated across from me, next to Draven and Serena. Lumi and Corrine were talking in hushed voices by Isabelle’s door, while Richard was exchanging messages with his parents. Soul and Kelara were quiet, still in Isabelle’s room. Their ghouls settled in the corner and watched them with big, curious eyes.

  It didn’t seem like progress at all. On the contrary, the longer I sat here, the more I felt like we were sinking in quicksand, flailing to no effect.

  Kelara shook her head. “Everything Isabelle is doing and saying is of her own volition. We’ve already eliminated spirit-bending, since Thayen tried, and it didn’t even work on her. Any other Reaper involvement would leave slim traces of death magic. We’re pretty much stumped, and I don’t like it.”

  She looked at Isabelle again, as if trying to see right into her core. But Isabelle was an unsolvable enigma, and none of us were ready or willing to accept that she had been, in fact, the one to do evil, uncoerced by anyone or anything. It just didn’t fit her character or our world.

  “Thayen, it’s going to be okay,” Serena told me, smiling gently.

  “To be honest, I would’ve preferred it if you were the one responsible for this. You know, if you’d accidentally glamored her or something. At least we would’ve known something concrete,” Draven said, a dark line drawn between his eyebrows. “Even if you didn’t mean to do it… we would’ve had a cause identified. We could’ve worked toward a solution.”

  “And I would have helped. Gladly, if that were the case,” I replied. “But it’s not the case.”

  He nodded slowly, despair finally sinking in.

  “Nightfall is fast approaching,” Soul interjected. “I suggest you all head to your homes and rest. You’re of no use to Isabelle exhausted, and I’m sure this entire incident has drained the life out of you.”

  “I agree,” Corrine said. “We should all leave Isabelle here on her own. Maybe she needs more time to think about what she’s done. Because there is still the faint possibility that this is really her. That she did this.”

  “Don’t even suggest that!” Serena warned her.

  “I have to consider it,” Corrine insisted. “I’m sorry. You would do the same if you weren’t emotionally involved, and you know it. And if this is the real Isabelle, we need to start talking options. For that, we need rested bodies and clear heads.”

  “Come, my love,” Tejus said to Hazel. “Corrine and Soul have a point. We should head back.”

  “Mm-hm. Harper is due to come in with Caspian, anyway.” Hazel sighed, then hugged Draven and Serena. “You two go home, okay? Lie down. Sleep. Try to relax as much as you can, if only for a while.”

  “Yeah…” Serena didn’t sound like she was eager to leave Isabelle, but Astra was quick to give her another reason not to stay.

  “Richard will watch over Isabelle,” she said. “The door is locked with magic, so Isabelle has no way of getting out. He’ll stand guard, and I’ll relieve him in a couple of hours. I’ll have the whole night shift since I’m a bit of an owl.”

  “I’d be happy to help,” I added.

  “Great. You can handle the morning shift after me,” Astra concluded, then gave Serena and Draven an encouraging smile. “It’s going to be fine. You all need your rest. We young’uns can hold out for a little while longer.”

  Finally, we were all on the same page. No one really wanted to leave Isabelle, especially not her parents and grandparents, but Soul and Corrine had offered good arguments against sticking around. In the end, Isabelle would be better off without everyone hovering nearby, fussing over her behavior and wondering what had gotten into her.

  Perhaps tomorrow would bring us at least one answer to the many questions we were taking with us into the night. Astra patted me on the shoulder. “Come on. I’ll walk you home,” she said. “Mom and Dad are with Derek and Sofia, anyway. We can all catch up at once.”

  I didn’t say no. Astra was one of the few people in my life I never got tired of. I shook Richard’s hand and promised to be back later to check on him. He took his guardianship role seriously, positioning himself next to Isabelle’s door, arms crossed and a deadly look on his face. No one was coming near that room.

  I hated this extended limbo, but I refused to believe it would go on much longer. Nothing stayed hidden from Shadians for too long. Nothing. One way or another, we’d get to the truth. My only concern was whether we’d be pleased with what that truth would hold. Because if this really was just Isabelle revealing a side she’d kept hidden, it meant she’d managed to deceive everyone, including her parents. And deceiving a sentry as capable as Serena was no easy feat.

  Tristan

  When Unending said she had a way of finding Anunit, I had no idea where it would lead us. We left Mortis behind and treaded the streams
of colorful stardust to the farthest corners of the Supernatural Dimension. This was a previously unexplored area, since none of its galaxies seemed familiar. The stars shone brightly at the center of each iridescent swirl, planets of different sizes and colors orbiting the fiery balls.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as we walked along the unseen paths of Reapers, the entire universe at our fingertips. I struggled to take it all in. The occasional asteroid hurtled past us, with uneven and shimmering surfaces. This was a quiet and violent world, subject to rules that most among the living had yet to fully understand.

  “Rothko,” Unending said. “It’s a forgotten world.”

  “Forgotten?”

  “I think it’s best if I tell you something about the fae before I tell you more about Rothko,” Unending replied. Ahead, a peculiar solar system emerged. Two stars orbited one another, their light bursting outward to bathe nearby planets in their warmth. Among them, a green-and-white marble the size of Earth stood out. I could make out more of its continents and sprawling oceans as we approached it.

  “Is that it?” I asked, pointing at the beautiful planet.

  “Yes. Tristan, how many types of fae do you know of?” Unending asked, her hand tightly gripping mine.

  “There are only four. Earth, water, fire, and air.”

  “Each connected to the four respective Hermessi, right? The elementals that gave you all such an excruciating headache not so long ago.”

  I nodded. “That is correct.”

  “There are actually five Hermessi,” Unending replied, and I was compelled to stop so I could gawk at her in disbelief. It made her smile. “The fifth element is not bound to the worlds like the others are. It is deeply embedded within the fabric of the universe. Even Death isn’t sure how to describe it or categorize it, but we know it exists.”