A Shade of Vampire 90: A Ruler of Clones

by Forrest, Bella

  She was the guiding light I’d follow through to the end. She’d come to us in this deadly darkness, and she would help us return to the brightness of our normal lives. “Will you go with us and Brandon to see for ourselves if Hrista is, in fact, responsible?” I asked, determined to find the truth as quickly as possible.

  “I will. And so will Regine,” Myst said.

  In that moment, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that our turn had come. We would take the fight to HQ this time, whether we were ready for it or not. It had to be done. The truth could no longer be left in the dangerous hands of shadows.

  Unending

  As soon as we set foot inside the Temple of Roses, I knew we were in the right place. Obviously, that had already been confirmed, but every fiber in my undead form vibrated with confirmation. Tension trickled through my veins, thick as blood but cold as ice. The World Crusher was here, and she was furious. She had been furious for so long, time itself had lost track of the years and the ages.

  The white walls of the temple were covered in black and gold images of the past—but not Biriane’s past, I realized upon a closer inspection. The Ghoul Reapers scampered across the smooth floor, spreading out before they gathered around a massive black marble lectern that hovered a few inches aboveground. I took a moment to study the walls, as Tristan did the same.

  We recognized the death magic spells inscribed on the painted stone plaques. Charms to provide protection and preservation to the temple and everything inside it. Spells to stop the darkness from getting out. These were powerful inscriptions, but none strong enough to stop the rage from infecting the world beyond these beautifully painted walls.

  “Look at this,” Tristan whispered, nodding at a large scene depicting Death and her true first Reaper like they were mother and daughter. It made my stomach hard as a rock, knowing the lie I’d been told from the moment I’d been made.

  The World Crusher looked pretty in this painting. Not at all like Death, though. Her skin was white, made with mother of pearl inlays, and black enamel for her eyes and lips. But her hair was light and long, waves of amber mounted against a lapis-lazuli background that served as the sky. Death’s hair was sparkling obsidian, her lips a pair of finely crafted rubies. Both wore ivory folds of white and held each other close beneath a glittering gold sun.

  A bitter taste persisted in my mouth as I beheld the truth depicted there. The beautiful and gut-wrenching truth. I had allowed my first place in this world to define me on so many levels. I’d considered myself precious enough to set an example for others, to establish new trends among the Reapers, and to prove that I was on another level altogether—at least in my earlier years. It stung to see it had all been a lie. There had been another before me, and I wasn’t sure I would ever forgive Death for this slight.

  It wasn’t something she would’ve removed from her memories, like she’d done with Thezin. She couldn’t use that excuse twice. No, Death had known all along…

  Next to the scene of the embrace, there was another. It showed the World Crusher wandering through the stars. The cosmos was black enamel with tiny pearls representing the many stars. Clusters of rubies and sapphires and emeralds were mounted together to play the roles of various planets. In the middle, the World Crusher’s amber hair poured down, her bare feet stepping over entire galaxies.

  Everything in this place was an ode to this Reaper, I realized. These weren’t real stories being told here. These were homages crafted from gemstones and delicate artistry devoted to the World Crusher. “Who made all this?” I asked, as the Ghoul Reapers waited for us by the hovering lectern.

  “We did,” Eneas said. “We’ve had a lot of time on our hands.”

  “They’re beautiful,” Tristan replied.

  Hadras had been left outside in the fading light of dusk to begin his recovery. We didn’t know how long it would take for him to be fused back together, but it wasn’t happening quickly. I had more questions for Death regarding Tristan’s uncanny scythe abilities, but given we’d decided to lie low and pretend we were somewhere else, I saved them for later. I wanted my mental energy focused on this place and on the World Crusher.

  “How do you know what she looks like?” I asked.

  “Come see for yourself,” the apparent leader of the Ghoul Reapers shot back with a cold grin. He pointed at the black marble lectern, upon which an ancient tome rested. From where I stood, its black leather binding was visible, along with thick, white, paper pages.

  I walked over to the Ghoul Reapers, wary of the hungry looks on their drawn faces. Tristan kept to my side, our minds and souls connected and in strict agreement: we desired the truth more than anything, and that book had it all. Everything that Death had kept from me over the ages was right there, waiting.

  Once I reached the lectern, Eneas motioned for me to climb up. “Why are you all keeping your distance from it, though?” I asked, noticing how the Ghoul Reapers stayed back—they were close, just not close enough. There was something in their body language and general distance from the tome that bothered me. They stood close enough to it to make me want to join them, yet far enough away to pique my curiosity.

  “Don’t you feel it?” Fileas replied, pursing his lips.

  “Her anger? Absolutely,” I said. “That fire must have been burning for ages.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe you’re stronger as a First Tenner or something, but for us, it’s sickening and toxic to touch the damn thing,” Fileas explained. “It didn’t feel like this at first. We used to be able to flip the pages and read the stories. These days it’s hard to even be around it.”

  I looked at Tristan, and he gave me a small nod. I believe in you, he said through our telepathic bond. This must be done. I’d take your place, but…

  No, this is my burden to bear, I replied. It’ll be okay.

  That wasn’t a certainty, but rather a hope I was clinging to. I couldn’t turn us back now. We had come too far, and there was too much depending on this moment for me to call it quits. Tristan had fought valiantly to get us into this temple. Anunit had dragged us through two other trials and had revealed startling truths about Death. This third one was the worst. I couldn’t even fathom stopping now. Not without more information.

  The tome was a beautiful work of art, not just a crafty seal serving as the eternal prison of Death’s first Reaper. Its leather binding was smooth and seamless, silver threads swirling across the cover in leafy embroidery patterns. I followed the central stem with my index finger, noticing how it formed the infinity symbol, the delicate leaves making it harder to observe. Beneath this elegant formation, ornate letters had been sewn in a cursive fashion. “Tales from the Crusher of Worlds,” I read aloud.

  “It’s a compelling read,” Deas chuckled.

  Filicore scoffed. “You need a hard stomach to go through it.”

  “I’ve earned that right, thanks to my champion,” I replied. “Make yourselves comfortable. I think we’ll be here a while.”

  Malin put an arm around Tristan’s shoulder. “We can watch over him, if you’d like.”

  “My husband is not to be touched.” It was a statement. Not a warning, and they all knew it. Tristan came to stand beside me, as the lectern was fortunately wide enough to fit us both. “We will both read the World Crusher’s story.”

  “How did she do it, anyway?” Tristan asked Eneas. “I get that the book is her seal, but is that how the spell is supposed to work? Did it allow her to write in its pages from the inside?”

  Eneas shook his head once. “It’s not how it’s supposed to work, but it’s how she has made it work. That rage of hers has a certain effect on its immediate surroundings, the seal included. She can’t break the damn thing, but she’s been able to put her thoughts down on paper. It’s how she’s passed the time since Death locked her down here.”

  “And you used to be able to read her stories,” I said.

  “Yes. Until we started turning into… this,” Filicore sighed, pointing two t
humbs at himself in bitter disappointment. I felt sorry for him and his brothers. None of them had chosen this. They weren’t told that it would happen. They’d come here, proud and noble and eager to serve Death, only to have their souls poisoned and gradually incinerated by the World Crusher’s timeless fury. It broke me to see them devolved into these creatures, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I could only read the World Crusher’s story and maybe find a way to set the Ghoul Reapers free. I owed them that much on behalf of my cold-hearted maker.

  “It will hurt,” Eneas said, his black eyes fixed on the first page. “Everything she felt, you will feel it, too. I’m only warning you so you know what’s coming.”

  “Thank you,” I replied, my focus shifting to the text.

  It was the World Crusher’s handwriting. I hadn’t seen it before, but I knew it was hers because of how the elegant swirls were fractured, growing crooked toward the end of each line. Every sentence started with willingness and patience then became broken in the end. As I began to read aloud, my spirit grew cold, as if a window had been left open somewhere, the draft stabbing my back.

  “I never asked to be made. I never asked to be brought into existence,” the World Crusher wrote. “I remember the darkened silence from which she plucked me—mercilessly, some might say. But I welcomed the light and the feeling of an entire world against my skin. I had not known anything else before. Death shoved her hands into the nothingness and pulled me out, giving me a shape and a sense and a purpose.”

  I paused, giving Tristan, then the Ghoul Reapers, an alarmed look.

  Eneas knew exactly what had startled me. “She didn’t use a soul for the World Crusher.”

  “Goodness,” I murmured.

  “I didn’t think that was even possible,” Tristan replied, one arm settled around my waist. I’d opened myself up to him telepathically. He felt what I felt. He saw what I saw. And I witnessed the spread of outrage across his features as we both understood what these words meant. “I get Anunit being able to make a body from scratch and then populate it with a Reaper’s soul, though that’s nothing compared to this.”

  “She’s been lying to us. This whole time,” I said. “It obviously is possible. She did it with the World Crusher. Though I dread to imagine what a Reaper without a soul must be like.”

  Filicore scoffed, choosing to sit down and cross his legs. “You should keep reading.”

  I did, and the words gradually came to life before my eyes, images bursting and spreading across my field of vision until Tristan and the Ghoul Reapers and the tome disappeared into the memory of the World Crusher. I only heard my voice as I read.

  “Those were early days of the universe. Realms were young and developing, with emerald fields and sapphire waters. I walked them all by Death’s side. She was all I knew and everything I needed. Nothing more and nothing less than an eternity in her company awaited, and I looked forward to every second.”

  Before me, our world unraveled. Hills rolled beneath my bare feet, and I looked down to see my toes wiggle—not mine but hers. The World Crusher’s. This was the first time she’d felt the blades of grass against her skin, moist with morning’s first dew. The wind whispered in my ears and danced through my amber hair. The sun kissed both my cheeks and spread warmth through my physical form. I’d never felt anything like it.

  I, much like my brothers and sisters, had been made as copies of preexisting souls. We’d come into this world with a faint memory of every sensation that had made life extraordinary. We understood it. For the World Crusher, however, it was new and unknown. Distant in every way, yet beautiful and impossible to look away from.

  I kept reading. “I walked all these worlds with her. Death, my mother. There were beings living here and there. Tall creatures with long limbs and sharp claws.” I saw them walking past us, giants with three fingers, each ending in a dark claw, sharp enough to split open a redwood. “Short creatures covered in fur, their beady eyes the color of amethysts.” I saw them too, scuttling across the plains, chirping and barking at one another. These were extraordinary times I was witnessing. Forms of life that were undiscovered. Histories that no one had known to write of, except for the World Crusher. It was an incredible sight to behold, and it filled me with a heavy sense of wonder.

  “Death loved me like a mother loves her daughter. She had explained what it meant and how it was supposed to feel. I was always certain I’d understood that emotion. That I had experienced it for myself. I loved Death like a daughter loves her mother. I sought her advice and her care, her touch and her smile. We were different. My hair was the color of tree-blood. Hers was the color of the starless night. Our eyes were the same, though—entire galaxies hidden within, swirling and glowing. My nature, however… that, I never understood.”

  Ahead, a valley opened up, surrounded by massive limestone mountains with sharp ridges and rich green woods. A river flowed from it and cut through the middle of the tall grass plain. Horse-like animals trotted alongside the water, their long manes black and silver. I was hypnotized by their beauty, muscles twitching beneath milky white skin as they burst into a gallop and fled from Death and the World Crusher’s presence.

  “She showed me everything. Every world that had been made. Every mountain and every cave. Every body of water. The woods. The deserts. The endless beaches of gold or white or black sand. Some beaches had pink sands. I saw the jungles and the flowering orchards. The sweet water streams and coppery fishes jumping and swimming against their currents. It was so beautiful. Everything around me was beautiful, and I did not wish for it to end. An ending meant the return to nothingness, and I knew I would never go back there,” I read, feeling the fear of such a finale.

  “Death promised she would never send me away from this realm. We walked a fine line between life and the physical demise of things. Beyond our world, Purgatory and the Afterlife awaited, each governed by their own forces and elements of pure power. Aside from our world, the Word’s domain had captured my attention. The land of the living. The home of beating hearts and wandering souls. Yes, I loved it all.”

  I sucked in a breath and forced myself to look away, desperately searching for the feel of paper against my fingertips. “Tristan,” I called out and felt his arm tightening around my waist, his body against mine. I could not see him, but I knew he was there.

  “Tristan,” I breathed, thankful to have something to hold on to.

  Closing my eyes, I gave everything a minute to just… fade away.

  Once I was ready, I opened them and found myself on the hovering lectern with its black marble finish, the black leather tome splayed beneath my palms, the World Crusher’s writing etched across the white pages.

  The Ghoul Reapers were breathless and staring at me, but I had returned from whatever haze I’d stumbled into, my husband beside me. “Are you okay?” he asked, and I nodded slowly, tearing up as I realized how much I had already experienced through only a few pages of the World Crusher’s life.

  “She has lied so much,” I managed, resting my head on his shoulder as I allowed myself to cry for a few moments. “I’m tired of it, Tristan. I want to know everything the World Crusher went through. I want truth and light. No more darkness and misery. No more.”

  “And you’ll get that and more, I promise,” Tristan said, stroking my hair. “Just… just take it easy, my love. I feel it, too, remember? You’ve connected us both to the World Crusher’s tome.”

  I let out a heavy sigh. “I can’t stop now. You realize that, right?” I asked. “Now that I’ve started reading… I must see this through to the end.”

  “I’ll be right here with you.”

  Eneas cleared his throat. I looked at him and found the Ghoul Reapers lounging on white marble chaises against the eastern wall of the temple, the nocturnal winds blowing through the wide-open doors. Outside, the moon’s milky white light covered everything in pearl dust. “Unlike us, you’re fortunate to be a First Tenner. You’re strong enough to resis
t her fury. We weren’t as lucky,” the Ghoul Reapers’ leader said.

  “I’m truly sorry you suffered like this,” I said.

  The faint smile that fluttered across his lips told me he knew I’d meant it. The World Crusher had been locked down here for too long. I needed to understand why. I hoped Death had been justified in making such a difficult decision. My five million years on Visio had been raw hell, yet I only had an inkling of how it must have felt for her here, doomed to an eternity between the pages of an old book, where her only solace was writing the tales of her existence.

  Death’s secrecy and dishonesty had angered me beyond repair. But even now, I struggled to find reason in her endeavors. This had to make sense. It had to.

  Unending

  The more I read through the World Crusher’s pages, the stranger reality felt, like a foreign dimension I no longer belonged to. This Reaper’s emotions were intensely conflicted as she existed alongside Death, learning the values of a beginning and an end, of all the realms that made up the vast universe, and of the forces that governed each plane.

  Because she had not even had the impression of a life before, the World Crusher didn’t understand some aspects of existence. There was no empathy for the living in her mind, and so the loss of someone’s beloved left her cold and uncaring. It ultimately affected how she engaged with the living. She was also developing a problem with authority, increasingly displeased with how she was told to handle certain things in her developing job as a Reaper. As the years went by, she stayed by Death’s side, watching souls being reaped and sent to Purgatory for judgment and the eventual Afterlife. Time did not exist beyond this realm. It was the one thing that made sense to World, because there was no time where she’d come from, either.

  “I listened carefully to every word that Death said to me,” the World Crusher wrote in her sigil book. “I learned from her actions, and I worshipped her like a mother and a goddess. I didn’t always agree with her, and at times I went against her. But in the end, she prevailed, one way or another, though usually through thoughtful argument, not force. She was my supreme entity, the end to everything and the beginning, too… But nothing truly ended with death, did it?” I found myself seeing the world through her eyes once more, her emotions coursing through me like wildfire and ice combined. “Death was omnipresent, so she could easily be in more places at once to reap souls and send them into the beyond. But even Death had her limits, as the universe developed, and more people were born so far away from one another. In a distant galaxy with a single sun and eight planets, I watched the fourth planet’s atmosphere crumble, turning it into a red waste.”